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My family. Alex. Pauly. And Brent, whenever he came back home.
The Fender Alex had gifted me was collecting dust in the corner of my room. It stared at me accusingly every time I entered said room. Especially whenever I was watching The O.C.
“Don’t look at me like that, asshole,” I’d mutter, getting comfortable with a bag of freshly made popcorn in front of my TV. “No one asked you to come here.”
The only time the guitar had been used was when my brother and his friends borrowed it, not to play it, but to chase and hit each other with it.
I couldn’t touch the dang thing. Not only because I lacked the basic desire to learn how to play (if you remember, my drumming skills alone should’ve taught Alex to keep me away from musical instruments) but also because it symbolized something I didn’t want to think about. A thread of insincerity between me and my boyfriend. The idea that Alex knew so little about me that he didn’t pick up on the fact that I didn’t want to play bothered me, but I shoved it into a drawer in my brain, where I kept all my math knowledge.
Alex’s tattoo healed, and I kissed it all the time. It was my favorite part of him. The inner forearm. I cherished it the most, out of all the gifts he’d given me, because I knew he was going to have to explain this tattoo to future girlfriends, and to the wife he would one day have, and maybe even to his kids.
And Alex wasn’t a liar. He would tell them the truth.
The idea that I wasn’t going to be the only girlfriend, the future wife, and the mother of his kids was something I wasn’t eager to explore, but I had to at least acknowledge its existence. Alex no longer spoke of moving to Sweden, but that was also because I did not ask him about it.
Mid-year, Alex’s band decided to break up. There wasn’t a huge drama behind it. Everyone just wanted to go their separate ways and do different things.
Tom, for instance, wanted to do Jadie. All. Day. Long.
Daniel wanted to smoke himself to death and be with Ainsley.
And Alex? Well, Alex was losing interest in making music and gaining interest in getting into my pants.
We were doing most things by now. Grown-up things. But we still hadn’t gone all the way. Admittedly, I was drunk on the power I had over him by keeping this one special thing from him. And I suspect he enjoyed it, too. After all, every predator liked a good chase.
“I have an idea,” Alex said one day, in his basement, while I was doing my homework and he was rearranging his drum kit at a new spot for the millionth time.
“Hit me with it.” I popped a bubblegum.
“Why don’t we take a trip somewhere? Maybe to another town? Spend the night in a hotel to celebrate our year and a half anniversary.”
“What a strange thing to celebrate.” I grinned, closing the textbook, but not before creating a dog ear so I didn’t lose my place. “Is this code for wanting to bone me?”
“Everything I say is code for wanting to bone you.” Alex chuckled, running a hand through his hair. The Mohawk was definitely in need of a trim, and I wondered if he was going to keep it or grow it long. He seemed to have grown out of a lot of things recently. I just hoped I wasn’t one of them.
“To your question, no, we don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. I just want a change of scenery.”
There were cracks in Alex’s theories and principles.
Like how he was all for anarcho-communism-something-something, but didn’t, you know, hold onto a job or anything. Even though he could. This trip, I was guessing, was going to be paid for by his parents.
“I’ll need to ask my parents. I’ve never slept out of my house excluding sleepovers at friends’. I’m going to be honest, I’m not sure they’ll love it.”
“Tell them you’re at Pauly’s.” Alex shrugged.
My eyes widened. “Alex, that’s lying.”
“You lie to them all the time.”
That was half-true. I did. I lied about where I was sometimes. But for short periods of time. Like, an hour or two. Definitely not a whole weekend. I didn’t think I had it in me. Then again…an entire weekend with Alex sounded like a dream.
“Let me think about what to tell them,” I amended.
He kissed my forehead. “Game on.”
And so, I told my parents Pauly and a bunch of other girls were going camping. This was my first mistake, of course. Because Mom and Dad wanted specifics. Where, when, how, which friends, how we were going to get there, what kind of snacks we needed, did we have an EpiPen? (“people should always have an EpiPen, just in case”—Mom) and, of course, they insisted on giving us a ride. So I gave them specifics, talking out of my ass. The most horrifying part was when my dad volunteered to come with us to help us set up the tents.
