-1-
He’s not shy about going for he wants with me.
And I fucking love that.
I shriek when cold hands graze my midriff and he kisses my neck. The mattress threatens to come off it’s box when he wrestles my shirt over my head and we are touching skin to skin. My body tingles.
He’s actually excited and I need that excitement, I love that excitement.
I feed off of it.
He turns his head to look in his drawer for condoms and stringy black hair falls into his face. I duck under his hair and catch him in a quick kiss. That almost gets me a smile. When he reaches for the drawer for the second time I sneak kiss him again and I get a frustrated half-smile before his arms are around me and he is pinning me on the bed.
I’m laughing and avoiding the kisses he tries to land on me.
My stomach hurts from laughing.
Then my heart sinks.
We hear it at the same time and our heads snap nearly in unison as the car pulls up to the curb.
The bed squeaks maddeningly again as we rush to find the discarded shirts, hoodies and shoes.
We’re sitting silently side by side on the bed by the time the front door creaks open and shuts. I let the back of my fingers drum against the small of his back. I hear his mother get on the couch and under her blankets as the news comes on.
We both know she’d never walk in on us. She never ventures up here when it’s still light out, but you have to keep it safe.
My heart drops when I hear the faint sound of a choked sob or something close to it. I look at him to see if we should go down to say hi, but he is scrolling through his docked iPod and letting The Killers fill in all the silence and unsaid words.
I personally believe their music is music you have to dance to, but he doesn’t dance anymore. My hand strokes his smooth pale chin and we kiss, I feel his muscles constrict against my touch as he gets closer to me.
We
makeout through the first half of his
Best Of playlist.
It’s possibly better than dancing.
“Are you hungry ?,” Phillip finally asks me, putting the hood of his sweatshirt over his head.
“So hungry,” I admit.
All I’d
had to eat today were the leftover whole wheat cranberry-raisin bagels.
He opens the drawer with the condoms and takes out a couple of prescription bottles. I don’t even look to see if his own name is on the bottle, but I’m guessing it’s not.
“You should try taking your own god damn pills,” I suggest with a smile, trying to keep it light.
He just walks out the door and I follow him downstairs to the tiny kitchen where he slices up an apple and pulls out a jar of peanut butter. He’s naturally uncomfortable, but he looks especially uncomfortable navigating the kitchen. He hands me the paper plate and I go sit in the rocking chair across from his mom while he cleans up.
Jillian is stretched out on the couch, still in the stylish gold sweater dress she wore to work. She’s an associate at a preppy women’s clothing store and they give her an insane discount to keep up appearances. I now own 4 ‘sensible blouses’ I never wear because of this discount.
From the neckline of the dress I can make out the plum birthmark that curves and spots over her throat. I think I won the good girlfriend stamp of approval when I gave her tips on cheap concealers to cover it up. Covering up my own birthmark was the bane of my existence in middle school.
It doesn’t look like she’s been crying and I’m grateful.
“Did you want to watch something ?,” she asks me pointing to the television. Her voice is always so faint, like it’s an effort for her to speak for everyone to hear.
“This is cool,” I lie.
She’s watching the local Waverly Eyewitness News, which I kind of hate. But Jillian is hospitable and stupidly kind so I don't say that. And somehow I don’t think she’d understand why she needs The Simpsons in her life.
Even though she totally does. Everyone does.
I don’t know much, but I really think it’s a bad idea for depressed people to watch the news. It seems like all the news channels are in a competition to scare the shit out of you.
I’d had this idea this that Waverly local news would be all breaking news about birthday festivals for dead explorers and hour long features on who won the best clam chowder competition .
But it’s the same old robbery, child missing and murder I’d happily left New York for.
“Are you staying for dinner ?,” Jillian asks.
“Oh, no.” I say, “Actually I need to get going. I need to hit up the pharmacy before it closes and I have to go to bed early. You know I work those early mornings.”’
“Don’t work too hard.”
“I’ll walk you to your car.” Phillip says, lurking into the room.
My burgundy BMW Crossover is always out of place in this neighborhood and Philip gets pissed when I drive it here because the neighbors always stare and gossip about me when I leave. But it’s my fuck you car, so it’s doing it’s job.
I climb in the driver’s seat and turn my body so I am facing him, he stands between my dangling legs and pokes at my knock off fuchsia Converses. We’re just staring at each other. Phillip’s one of those boys unknowingly cursed with the kind of eyelashes girls spend hundreds on mascara and eyeliner
I hate how sometimes it seems like we’ve run out of things to say. I lift a little bit out of my seat and give him a goodbye kiss.
He reaches in to the back pockets of his jeans and gives me a credit card with his Dad's name on it.
“No,” I say swatting away. “C’mon.”
“You come on. Get yourself a full tank for this big ass car.”
“Hey, my big ass car is full of gas.” I remind him.
“C’mon don’t be this way--”
“ I should be saying that to you.”
“Corrine-”
I stop him with another kiss on the cheek.
“I gotta go,” I wave before getting in the car.
-2-
I shake off out little disagreement, but he knows I can’t become like his mom. When Phillip’s father just up and walked out on them last year she refused to move on. Her only job had ever been wife and all of her life and love revolved around Phillip’s dad and his selfish heart. She couldn’t function without him.
Phillip hadn’t exactly taken it well either and started taking prescription pills, that were not his prescribed happy pills. But Phillip would be fine, he had me to babysit him so he didn’t do anything too stupid.
I liked Phillip. A lot. He looked past the port wine birthmark on my face--which felt like a miracle when we first met. Still, if he ever left me I didn’t want my existence to be wrapped into his. Especially not in a financial way.
I stop by Walgreens for birth control and an ice cream sandwich to eat in the car. Traffic is backed up on the highway, so I wind my way through the scenic route and hope there in no traffic on Strauss Bridge. The local radio stations are so boring so, I play Phillip’s playlist on the pink first gen iPod he bought me for my18th birthday last year. I listen from where we left off, I like that he picks the kind of music you can’t ignore.
Heaven ain't close in a place like this
Heaven ain't close in a place like this
Phillip told me a few months ago he wanted that lyric on his grave. My heart stopped when he said it, I considered telling Jillian but I let the moment go. He never mentioned it again.
My favorite part about having tinted windows is how I can dance in the car. My body has no immunity to a good beat. When I get into campus I’m so into it I don’t notice the Eastham College Police flashing lights at me.
“Fuck.”
I’m part
way across from the bridge and he keeps honking like he wants me to pull over
right on the bridge even though there is no room. I flash my lights at him and
when I cross the bridge I pull over by the old music building that looks like a church.
The officer is young, like all the cops forced to patrol the college and looks overly confident when he walks up to my window. This is probably the biggest moment of his career since he told an Environmental Science major to stop littering.
He pauses for a moment after noticing my birthmark and then quickly recovers.
“Is this your car ?,” he asks.
“Yes.” I respond, offended. People always assume I don’t own my own car, but fuck you, because I do.
“Hey, lose the attitude.”
I fight not to roll my eyes. I really can’t afford a ticket.
“You know what the speed limit is ?”
“25. ” I say in the even-est voice possible.
“Yes, but it’s 15 on the bridge. Want to tell me why you were going 25 ?”
Shit.Shit.Shit.
I want to respond with ‘Well, have you ever heard just a really great song and started a car dance party of one ?’ but I don’t.
I get the spiel on speeding and safety and how I need to learn responsibility before being gifted with a 40 dollar ticket for my troubles.
My face is hot from frustration as I drive the last few blocks to Cushing House and I consider ripping the ticket up when I get into my parking space. It makes me seriously think about taking some of Phillip’s money. And his pills.
But I know I can’t. The money thing anyway. If his Dad (wherever the hell he is) ever finds out Phillip opened a credit card under his name, I don’t want to get caught in the wrath
Shit like that is why I’m glad I never had a family.
Grabbing my bag out the car I head inside the dorm and stick my key into the room at the end of the hall. I just want to pass out and deal with all this shit in the morning.
“Leyla ?, Finally! ” I hear Sev call out.
“Sorry, it’s just me,” I say walking in to the suite.
An MTV show is blaring in the background and Sev is sitting around the kitchen table with two honor level girls she routinely invites to our suite, but I haven’t committed their names to memory.
As college roommates go, Leyla Baz and Sevin Candemir have greatly disappointed my college expectations by being two of the most interesting, nicest and neatest people I’ve ever met. Sev is stuck with me most of the time, since Leyla is one of those girls who practically lives with her boyfriend who has an apartment off campus.
“How’s Phillip ?,” Sev asks with a teasing grin.
“The usual,” I respond grabbing a Diet Coke out of the fridge. I notice she bought three new magnets from the school store.
“We’re planning out a team name. There’s still room if you want to join,” she adds quickly.
“Still a
no,” I say and head to my room, leaving the door ajar so I don't seem like a total recluse.
Sev came to college with a plan to to fully live out an The Eastham College Experience. Complete with competing in the 12-Hour- S.E.X Pop Trivia contest-- a lame ass l trivia contest between Salem University, Easthman College and The Exeter Military Institute.
Sev is a film studies major and only came to Eastham because some of her favorite independent directors went here. Her walls are covered in photographs of her favorite American actors and she is convinced she will find a boyfriend while she is here. Blonde hair is non-negotiable.
Not half an hour later there’s a soft knock on my door and I can see Sev’s black high-heeled boots peeking through the crack.
I was with her when she bought the boots off a guy on the street in New York City. She’d found me on Facebook before school started and was delighted to hear I lived so close to New York City, so we spent the day before Eastham move-in day together in the city.
Of
course what she didn’t know is I was living in my car at the time.
“We’re going down to Whitman’s for dinner. Want to come ?,” she asks.
“No, I’ve kind of had enough of that stupid bridge for the day. I got a fucking ticket on it just now!”
“That’s bullshit.” She says, even though she doesn’t know what I did. I decide at that point that if I’m ever in jail, she will be my first phone call.
“Go without me. But, thanks.”
She gives me a sympathetic smile before getting off the bed and walking to the door.
***
-3-
“I will never understand the milk,” Sev says to me as she stocks the fridge with gallons of skim milk for the lunch crowd.
“I don’t know…people are on diets and shit,” I guess.
I’m
probably the most unqualified shift supervisor in at my job, but no one seems
to have caught on.
I think the people who drink at a place called the Thinking Cup would be insulted by just how dumb most of our employees are. The only reason I even got promoted was because when the registers went off grid my first week, I could make change quickly without a calculator.
Still, I used my one bit of push get Sev a job with me. She comes from money and has a hefty weekly allowance from her parents back in Turkey, but explained to me she needed a job for things she didn’t need her parents keeping tabs on, like her weekly trips to film festivals.
Which was reason enough for me because I’m not a morning person and I’m definitely not a 5:00 AM in the morning person, so I needed someone I could half way stand to open with me in the mornings.
Our day is pretty predictable; the first customers comes in at 7:00AM and usually consists of tired students up from the night before and professors. The second wave is white collar workers, a few construction workers, then the tourists. It peters out by mid-morning to all the writer/artists and my shift ends right before the lunch rush.
It’s quiet and I’m splitting our tips before the next shift gets in ( 50 cent tip for Sev, 50 cent tip for me) when the little bell rings and I look up to see Jonah Morrow enter the shop. I was first introduced to him at the reading Sev dragged Leyla, Phillip and I to during freshman orientation because she didn’t want to go alone.
Jonah's father wrote the book we were supposed to have read, My Own Eternity, but I’d abandoned it pretty early. I already loved the idea of going to Eastham College, I didn’t need 300 pages of someone telling me how kickass the place was in the 80’s.
I didn’t talk to Jonah that night, but the Thinking Cup manager told me he and his family had been regulars at the shop for a few years now so I had started to recognize him.
He doesn’t talk on his phone while ordering or make stupid jokes in line and that was all I really needed to give someone my stamp of approval.
“Hey, I’m out of The Revolution Blend. Can you wait like 5 minutes while I make some?” I ask when he steps up.
He seems startled that I would remember his favorite coffee blend.
“Uh, no, the dark roast is fine. Also a vanilla latte with cinnamon on top.”
Sev is
in the back, trying to get her English essay to print before her class starts,
so I go ahead and make the order. He
takes the cups with shakey hands and doesn’t even look at me. He is out the
door before I can think anything of his behavior.
“I’m on my way out,” I call to Sev.
She drags herself out the backroom, retying her ridiculously long copper hair into a bun. Her boots clack angrily against the tile floor.
“Fucking printers. Hey, if you’re going where is Morris ?,” she asks
“He’s always late. You’ll be fine for an hour.” I say grabbing my coat. I have to get to a Biology lecture that is across the bridge and if I’m late I lose my spot in the front of the lecture hall.
“Uh, Corrine ?” Sev calls after me.
I turn around to see her holding a pair of twenties up to me.
“What
are you doing ?,” I ask a familiar rage going through me. Sometime Sev feels guilty she is rich and pretends like she owes me money as an excuse to pay for my meal or movie ticket
or something.
But trying to pay for my parking ticket was low. Even for her. I hated being Sev’s charity, I wasn't here to make her feel good about herself. I had enough of that my whole life.
“Honest to God.” She says like she can read my mind “This was left as tips.”
“That wasn’t in there before. I just counted.”
I wasn’t accusing her of anything, but she takes it that way.
“You really think I did this ? You think I’m that unimaginative ? Maybe you have a customer who likes you.”
We’d only had one customer since I last counted the tips.
It couldn’t be him. Why would he do that ?
I take the money and hand her a twenty, but she refuses. I’m ready to fight her and she knows it.
“Just pay your damn ticket and take it as a sign.”
“I don’t believe in signs.” I remind her.
****
-4-
A few days later I’m eyeing the expensive looking coffee maker in the Eastham campus police station with suspicion as the nonplussed front desk sergeant writes my receipt for paying the speeding ticket. I make a show of crumbling the receipt and stuffing it into my pocket as I head to the elevators.
Phillip is on campus today, and I’ve made him promise to come to the dining hall and eat lunch with me. Phillip isn’t a people person and I know that I’m not supposed to push him, but eating together in that stupid dining hall means a lot to me.
A hand pushed through the elevator doors making them halt just before closing and none other than Jonah Morrow is standing on the other side. Knowing how tied up his family is in the college, I can’t imagine what he could have done to be making a pit stop at campus police.
“Hi,” I greet him.
“Hi.” he replies.
He’s looking down in a green moleskine notebook and I take the moment to observe him. Everything about him is just so so. The messy but stylish blondish-bronze hair, his absurdly long lashed hazel eyes, his stiff double breasted pea coat and the way his Eastham t-shirt looks like it’s been ironed.
I mean he’s not brochure college guy handsome , but he’s cute. My eyes snap away as he closes the notebook and smiles at me, not at all bothered by the silence.
But the silence weighs on me and makes me feel uncomfortable. He gave me that big tip and I feel like I owe him something.
“Look….um, thank you,” I say
His face falter into an unsure expression.
“For what ?”
“For the tip. A few days ago.”
Recognition flashes in his eyes.
“Oh. Yeah. No problem--”
“No, I mean it. I got this stupid ticket and I was afraid it was going to be the ticket or gas for my car. So, believe me when I say…thank you."
“You’re welcome,” he smiles. It’s so genuine. “I kind of…. happened into that money in a weird way.”
The elevator lands and the doors opens.
“Well, thanks.” I say. “See you around.”
“Uh-huh.” .
We get
off the elevator and we share an uncomfortable laugh as we start walking in the
same direction.
“Listen, I work the mornings most weekdays and Sunday afternoons at The Thinking Cup...so if you ever want my shift drink, you got it.” I say to fill space.
“Really ?,” he asks skeptical.
“Yeah and I’ll even up the size of the vanilla lattes for your girlfriend too.” I add.
“What?,”
he says
I want to punch myself.
I’d seen him with this girl in the shop lately. I’d just kind of assumed.
“Oh, the girl who reads the book with you. Sorry, I—“
He puts his arm on my shoulder as we get to the bridge and I stop mid step. Is he really touching me right now ?
“You can see her ?,” he asks me.
“I mean, yeah….why wouldn’t I be able to ?”
“Because she’s dead.”
___
What, you thought this was going to be realistic fiction ?
---
You: Hey Shawna, why does Corrine have the same name as Rin in Blessed Hearts ?
SV: Hmm, yeah okay about that....I guess you want to know why Corrine's birthmark (a port wine stain) matches the blood Rin had on her face when she died.
You: Wait..what?
SV: So, I don't have an easy answer to this right now. Basically this story started out as the BH characters in alternate lives, but I couldn't make it work. So, when I decided to abandon trying to match everyone up to a BH characters I got a plot going...I just couldn't think of a name for my girl character, (which is why her name isn't in the first few chapters a lot...she didn't have one) she was always Rin to me. So, I just kept her name in the end. I will probably blog more about this.