The Beginning Of After Part 32

His eyes changed shape as he started to get it, and he dropped his head. It reminded me a bit of what Masher did when he knew he'd done something wrong.

"I'm sorry, Laurel. You're right. Let's just go somewhere and talk about it."

"I can't," I said weakly, forcing it out before my throat clapped shut again.

I looked toward the road again, and this time Joe followed my gaze. And I could see him get this other thing. David. His face scanned the house and the driveway uncomfortably, like a stranger in a foreign country, hopelessly lost.

"Joe, you-you are-" What? Wonderful. Delicious. Something that was doomed before it even began.

"Stop," he said. Then he took off his hat, pulling it by the pom-pom, and shook his hair out a bit. "It's all good." Now he caught my eyes and held them. "I'll see you."

He pulled his keys out of his jacket pocket and loped toward the truck. I walked parallel to him, aiming for the front door, and stood there long enough to watch him drive away. Unlike David's Jaguar, Joe's truck moved slowly, but quietly. Maybe he was hoping I'd stop him.

When he was gone, I took a step and felt my foot knock something over. I looked down. It was a wrapped gift that had been leaning against the house, shaped like something framed. I picked it up and slowly tore it open.

On a sheet of notebook paper, in pencil, Joe had drawn a figure in jeans and a plain T-shirt, wearing sneakers. Her hair down and her arms hanging simply, confidently, by her sides. Me.

There was no cape or helmet or anything on my shirt. But Joe had written a name on a slant in the corner: SURVIVORGIRL.

Was that what made me so amazing to Joe? I never wanted him to see me as someone with superpowers. Even Superman wanted Lois Lane to love him as Clark Kent, not as the Man of Steel.

I stared at the drawing until my hands were too numb to hold it. Finally, I went inside where Nana waited for me, knowing better than to ask any questions.

An hour went by. No David. Two more hours. Then Nana and I ate frozen lasagna on TV trays while watching an old movie. The final credits rolled and still, no David. I saw Nana checking her watch, and I got even more p.i.s.sed at him, for making her worry, this grandmother he had no official claims on.

Finally, Nana said, "It's late. Go to bed. He'll come when he comes."

So I did as she told me, not wanting to cause her another ounce of stress. I changed and brushed my teeth, trying to shake off the pain of Joe's Oh, I get it expression. Then I got into bed with Elliot and Selina and tried to read Persuasion for AP English like we were supposed to over break.

When in doubt, Laurel, do what you're supposed to.

And somewhere in there I managed to fall asleep.

The first thing I felt was a hand on my cheek. Not really a full hand, just a good part of four fingers, pressing lightly.

"What?" I said, startled out of a dream where Joe and Meg and I were fishing off a boat on a river.

"Shhh. It's me. Sorry, I didn't mean to freak you out."

I felt something settle on my bed, and I propped myself up to see David's silhouette, growing more and more 3-D as my eyes adjusted to the dark.

"David. Where have you been?"

"At the park. And then, driving around."

I smelled something weird on his breath. "Have you been drinking?"

"Uh, yeah . . . coffee?"

"Oh."

"I'm about as sober as I've ever been right now."

"Okay." I was still trying to shake the sleep from my head, to be sure that this wasn't a dream.

"I talked to my grandmother. She said my dad's fine." His voice sounded gentle, airy, but I still felt overcome with shame as he mentioned his father.

"I'm so sorry, David. I really messed up there."

"It's okay. I'm sure I would have done the same thing, if it were me. Plus, you kind of did us a favor, because I think me and Etta were both too chicken to tell him."

We were silent, but I could feel something different in the shadows between us, the tension gone.

"I needed to see what it might be like, to be back here," said David after a few seconds. "Every inch of every road has some kind of memory for me." He paused. "Not all of them are good. . . . Although it's the good ones that hurt the most now. You probably know that too."

I had to be able to see his face as he said these things, so I reached out and turned on my bedside lamp. We both flinched from the light, and then David scanned my nightshirt. It was a new one for Christmas, with frogs and candy canes all over it. Extremely dorky.

"Nice outfit," he said.

"Thanks." I smiled, and then he smiled. I sat up and then, as an invitation, offered one of my pillows to him. He propped it against the wall and took off his shoes and scooted back to lean on it, sitting cross-legged on my bed. His getting all comfy made me a little brave. "What if you got a place near your dad?" I asked.

David nodded thoughtfully. "I've considered that. I'm not sure a strange town where I don't know anyone would help. For months I've been in nothing but strange towns where I don't know anyone, and it's not making me feel better." He looked at me. "You would stay. You would do the right thing."

I started to protest, but knew it was true. "Yeah, I probably would. What I'm confused about is who decides what the right thing is."

"I think it's a panel of hundred-year-old white guys in a room in a tall building somewhere."

"Eating pork rinds and smoking cigars."

"And getting lap dances, because that would be the perfect kind of hypocritical."

I chuckled, and then stopped, and blurted out, "I still haven't decided whether or not I want to go to Yale."

"Why not?" he asked flatly. There was no reaction there, no judgment. He was the only person in the world who could do it like that.

"I feel like I need to be here. For them. This was their life, and now I'm the only one living it anymore. If I'm not, then am I betraying them?"

"And anyone else would tell you, oh, but your parents would want you to move on and get an education and fulfill all the dreams they had for you."

"Yeah," I said.

"I don't know, Laurel," said David, and I loved how he said my name, like he enjoyed it. He looked up at the ceiling. "Maybe instead, your folks would have wanted you to dedicate your days to remembering them. Maybe it makes them feel better, wherever they are, to see you give up your life so you can be closer to them, since they don't have one anymore."

"I wouldn't be giving up my life," I whispered.

"Of course you would be. What the h.e.l.l else are you going to do here?"

"A lot. My work at the animal hospital, for instance."

He tilted his head into a Come on! slant. "There are animal hospitals in New Haven, if it's that important to you."

"Nana wants me to go. She wants to spend the winters in Hilton Head. So I feel like for them, I should stay but for her, I should go."

David paused, then said, "Aren't you talking to your therapist about all this?" like it had just occurred to him.

"I'm sorry. Am I boring you?"

"I'm just thinking maybe I'm not the best source of advice here. Look at me. You said it yourself. Everything I'm doing is completely and totally all about myself and what I want."

"You've given me good advice before," I said, prodding him.

He paused, then looked at me squarely and said, "Just forget about the for thing. Don't do anything for anyone else but you. You can be a little selfish." Then he smiled crookedly. "Come on. You know you want to."

I remembered all the things I'd silently screamed to myself back in the chapel at the Palisades Oaks. He was right.

"Thanks, David," I said, trying to make his name sound like I, too, enjoyed saying it. But the end curled up into a strange ball of sound, high and tight. And before I knew it, I was crying again.

Within a few seconds I heard the short, sharp breaths coming from David that meant he was crying too. And then I felt his hands on my shoulders, and a shifting of weight on the bed, and now he had me in his arms.

I wiped my face with the palm of my hand and raised it up, and kissed him. I don't think he was expecting it, because he jerked his face away for a half second. But then he kissed me back. Fast, with energy. He moved his hands to either side of my face and I felt like I was falling, not into a place or a hole, but into colors. Red and orange and purple. Deep and rich.

David took one hand off my face and pressed it against my chest, pushing me down into the bed. Then one of his legs was on one of mine and the feeling of weight there, of being covered, was suddenly the best thing in the world.

You s.l.u.t! said a teasing Meg in my head, as we kept kissing. David ventured away from my mouth and onto my neck, my ear. I giggled.

"Is this okay?" he whispered, and I just nodded, not sure what he meant. Was anything okay? Did it matter?

And now David's hand was slipping under my nightshirt collar, reaching for what pa.s.sed for my right breast. Practiced, experienced. I wondered for a second how much s.e.x he'd had when he was out in the David Zone, and whether it was with anyone really pretty.

Is this it? Is this going to be where I actually do it for the first time?

It was an intellectual question, like I was sitting at my vanity table a few feet away, watching myself on the bed. Then David's other hand slipped down to the bottom of my frogs-with-candy-canes nightshirt, and started to push it up.

I felt my body get tense, like it was fighting him off, but forced my mind to override that. Now both of David's hands slid smoothly from my waist to my head, taking my nightshirt with them. Before I knew it, it was off, and all that was left was my underwear. I couldn't remember which pair I was wearing and could only hope it was one of the new ones.

David stopped and looked me up and down, his face full of wonder, as if seeing a sculpture unveiled. I looked back at him, this boy so beautiful all of a sudden-or maybe always-and knew I should be doing something. It's my turn, right? I wanted to but was still frightened to make that first reach.

With a deep breath I did it anyway, reaching my hands under his T-shirt and laying them on his stomach, which still felt cool from being outside. I ran my fingers across it, the soft hair, what felt like an exceptionally deep belly b.u.t.ton. David sighed, and I felt brave enough to keep going, lifting his shirt and kissing him where his skin met the top of his jeans.

In another quick, expert motion, David pulled his shirt over his head and pressed his chest to mine. I was falling into colors again, but this time a little too steeply. It made me dizzy, and the beginning of terrified.

David reached one hand down toward my underwear, lifting the elastic away from my skin.

That's when I stopped him and said, "No."

As David pulled his head away from mine, I noticed we had matching sweaty patches of hair where they'd been connected. "Please don't tell me to stop," he said breathlessly.

"I have to tell you to stop," I said.

"Laurel . . . please."

"David . . ." The dizziness ebbed. It was like stepping off a merry-go-round.

He rolled over onto his back, still panting. "I thought you wanted this."

"I don't know," I said, then after a horrible silent moment, "I'm the girl who's not sure what she wants for herself, remember?" I tried to make my voice sound normal again, and not like I'd just been teetering on the edge of losing my virginity.

David threw his arm over his face now. Was he embarra.s.sed to look at me, or for me to look at him?

"Can I want some of it, just not all of it?" I asked.

He nodded from behind his own arm. "Yes," he said softly. "Of course you can." He pulled his arm away and looked at me now with regret. "I'm sorry if I pushed you too far."

"I pushed too. It's been a weird day."

"A very weird day." He paused. "I should go, and leave you alone."

David climbed over me out of the bed, grabbed his shirt, and walked slowly out of the room, leaving the door open. I listened to his padded footsteps travel downstairs, the jingle of Masher's collar as the dog jumped off the couch to greet him. I got up and found my nightshirt, slipped it on along with a pair of sweats and slippers, and then followed. Not because I didn't want David to be upset, or because I wanted to explain some more, but because I really just needed to be with him.

Downstairs, David stood in the living room, staring at the Christmas tree all lit up. Nana and I had forgotten to unplug it before we went to bed. Now I was glad we had, because it was lovely.

David didn't turn around, but I could tell from the hunch of his shoulders that he knew I was there. "Your Christmas tree is very small," he said.

"That's because it's alive," I said, and stepped up beside him. I fought the urge to touch his arm. "I don't want you to leave me alone."

We were silent for a moment, and then David asked, "Have you ever been there? You know . . . the place, where it happened?"

The spot right before the second light on Route 12. Which I hadn't driven on since April. "No," I said. I'd wanted to. Nana had gone twice, but I couldn't scare up the courage to go with her. The guilt of that tugged at me sometimes, like a debt I had yet to pay back.

"Neither have I."

We watched the tree for a moment, blinking red, green, and white across the wall. Then David turned to me, the hair around his ears still a little sweaty, which made me feel like in some way, we were still connected there.

He asked, "Feel like taking a ride?"

Chapter Thirty-eight.

S omehow she managed to look good in this, I thought, looking at the zigzag st.i.tches of my mother's long, wine-colored down coat-one that Nana had inexplicably decided to keep. I'd grabbed it out of the closet because it seemed like it would keep me warm over my nightshirt and sweats, and pulled on a pair of my father's old duck boots. It was one of those outfits where normally you'd think, I hope I don't get into an accident looking like this. But I didn't, because there wasn't much room for me to think about anything else but where we were going, and besides, the whole topic of accidents was complicated at that particular moment.

The brakes on the Jaguar screeched a bit as David turned onto Route 12, and he grimaced. "I'm going to have to get those looked at," he said. It was the first time he'd spoken since we rushed down the frigid driveway and into the car. "It's a good thing I kept this baby in nice shape. I had no idea my dad would ever see it again."