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“Maybe you’re right,” I say, and then add: “Thanks.”
She yawns. “It’s past my bedtime. God, I’m old.”
I whack her with a pillow. “Go to sleep, Grandma.”
After she leaves, I lift up my shirt and trace the jagged scar on my abdomen. It will fade, maybe one day even disappear, but I’ll always know what happened beneath my skin. I wonder how long I’ll be nervous about changing in front of other people. Peter is the only one who would understand how I’m feeling, but I can’t burden him with this, too.
I mull over what Tabby said, imagining all the different ways I could tell him how I feel. If I could hug him and have him not only hug me back, but bury his lips in my neck and tell me I’m beautiful, amazing, his. We could belong to each other, tied together in the most intimate pas de deux.
I have been imagining us together for a long, long time. Sometimes we are sweet and gentle. Sometimes we are wildly acrobatic. Sometimes we reenact scenes from movies I’ve seen. I don’t know exactly what sex is supposed to look like, but it’s probably much messier than it is in my mind. Still, it is my fantasy: We can be as skilled as I want.
I slink over to my dresser. I keep the vibrator in the back of a drawer, wrapped inside a too-small sweater with dreidels on it. I bought it at a sex toy shop in Capitol Hill when I turned eighteen in March, one of those places owned by women, with a focus on women. Most of all, I was curious. Maybe it’s the dancer in me that wanted to know everything m
y body could do. And tonight I want to prove I control my body, that I can still make myself feel good.
Once I wear out the batteries, I lie in bed for a while, staring up at the ceiling.
Hiding my feelings for Peter kills me sometimes, and the vibrator takes the edge off for only a little while. This time of night is when my feelings are most dangerous. When I ask myself questions like, if he loved me, wouldn’t something have happened between us by now? Or is he as scared as I am? Is he in bed across the street thinking of me?
Maybe my sister is right: It’s time to take the leap and finally tell him. Not for the first time, I wish I were more in real life like my onstage self. My body has the courage my mind and mouth never seem to have.
I message Peter good night when what I really want to say is I’m in love with you and I want you and Is there any chance you want me the same way?
The pain dulls but never quite goes away.
CHAPTER 10
PETER
TWO WEEKS INTO THE SEMESTER, I still haven’t gotten a chance to play piano in band. Eleanor Kang’s bound to catch an autumn cold sometime soon, though. I’m hopeful.
I’m in the school library, getting a head start on my homework before tonight’s football game. Sophie’s performing at halftime, and we’re going to a party afterward. I’m sure it has nothing in common with the two-person parties Sophie and I used to have on Friday nights. Movies and records and early bedtimes. For me, at least.
I’m not sure I even know the rules of football. My parents aren’t interested in sports, and I’ve never seen it played. I click out of my Word document and google it—but someone in the carrel across from me is humming. Loudly. Too loudly for a library, and yes, I’m going to be That Person and say something about it. I push out my chair and peer around.
“Excuse me—” I start.
“Hey,” says Chase Cabrera from my English class. The hummer. “You’re in the Friday-night nerd club too?”
“I—uh—what?”
He leans back in his chair. Flexes his arms above his head. “We’re doing homework in the library on a Friday because we’re both extremely cool?”
“Yes. That’s exactly right.”
He taps his laptop. “This Dante essay is slowly sucking the life out of me. Have you finished it yet?”
“Yeah. I actually read the book last year. For, uh—for fun. So you’re going to have to let me be president of the Friday-night nerd club.”
“I could settle for VP. Seriously, though, you read Dante for fun?”
“I . . . had a lot of free time,” I say. “No offense, but why’d you take the class?”
He groans, then rubs at his eyes, jostling his old-man glasses. “My mom wanted me to take as many APs as possible so I have a chance at scholarships. My sister basically got a full ride—thanks, Carlie—so it’s a lot of pressure sometimes.” He stretches out his legs. “I can’t remember the last book I read that wasn’t for school. In my family, it’s like, get into a good college or else.” He runs his hands over his face, like it’s all too much.
“I’m sorry,” I say, wishing I could understand, even a little, what it feels like for people to want too much from you.
He shrugs. “Nah. It’s fine.”
