“That’s good.”
He smiles. “It’s not like it’s a hardship. You want me to get you some water?”
“No, thanks. I’m good.”
He lifts his own glass and clinks it into mine. “To your first game of rugby. Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
“Wait, whose first game?” one of the Carson players asks.
Scott points at me. “Carrie’s. She never played before today.”
“Ladies, we’ve got a virgin in the house!”
Before I know what’s even going on, I’m standing on top of a table, and forty women are singing to me.
Oh, rugby women are the biggest and the best
And we never give it up
And we never give it a rest
And we build a better ruck
And we give a better fuck
And no matter who we play, we can never get enough
Out in the field! Down in the scrum! Rugby women will make you come!
My throat is so hot, but I’m smiling.
It is impossible not to smile. I feel strong and fast, bruised and shaken, surrounded by affectionate solidarity.
I feel normal again, like I used to, before everything went off the rails.
In Massachusetts, there’s an office building where it’s someone’s job to erase Caroline Piasecki’s vulva from the Internet. If it works, in a year, that girl won’t exist anymore. She’ll be dead, and part of me will be dead along with her.
Maybe in the meantime what I’m supposed to do is grow into someone new. Find something green in me, feed it, watch it shoot up toward the sun. Turn into a girl who plays rugby and dances at parties and flirts with boys who are sunny and open and who don’t deal drugs or avoid discussing even the smallest details of their personal lives.
Rugby is awesome.
I’m so flipping hard-core, I can’t even stand it.
The first time I see the inside of West’s apartment, he’s not home.
I feel weird about it, but it’s not as though I snuck in. Me and Bridget ran into Krishna at the student center, and he invited us over with him and Quinn to watch bad TV and drink “even worse” alcohol. None of us could resist the allure of the mysterious “even worse.”
So here we are, sprawled out on a big leather sectional couch, sharing a bottle of butterscotch schnapps that Krishna produced from the depths of the coat closet, and watching reruns of What Not To Wear, which Krish has stored up on his DVR in numbers that kind of frighten me.
West is working at the library, but he should be done soon. I text him, Are you off yet?
Yeah, he replies. I’m walking home. You?
I’m in ur apartment, poking all ur things.
This isn’t true, but it gets his attention. DID YOU BREAK IN?
Yes. I keep a set of lock picks in my cheek.
Houdini used to do that. I find the idea repulsive, but I also sort of love it.
Very tricky. Are you really there?
Yes, K invited me. I like what you’ve done with the decor.
This is a joke, of course. It’s obvious what happened here: Krishna bought all the stuff he thought was important—the couch, the TV, the alcohol, a king-size bed I can see through the open door to his bedroom—and then he and West purchased everything else in the place for two bucks at a rummage sale. Probably they got their dishes in big paper bags marked 25 cents, because I’m drinking butterscotch schnapps out of a Flintstones jelly glass. I’ve propped up my sock-clad feet on a coffee table made of plywood and cinder blocks.
I put a lot of creative effort into it, West says.
I can see that.
If you find my collection of Pound Puppies, DON’T MOVE ANY.
Are they in the bedroom?
You could go in & find out. Look up.
Why?
I keep my stuffies in a hammock.
Smiling, I glance at the closed door to his room.
I could go in. I could sit on West’s bed. Touch the bedspread, whatever color it is. See what he’s put on his walls, what books are on his shelves, how much laundry there is in the basket.
I want to.
Are you in my room, Caro?
The question makes my throat hot—as hot as if he’d asked me what I’m wearing. As hot as if we’re cybering, which we’re not. Not even close. So why is it that when I take a sip from my jelly glass, the schnapps goes down wrong and I start to cough uncontrollably?
“What are you doing over there?” Quinn asks.
“Texting West,” Bridget says. “You can tell because she’s biting her lip and kind of hunching over the phone, like possibly Skittles are going to come out of it, or a rainbow, and—”
“I know that,” Quinn interrupts. “I just want to know what he said to make her choke.”
“Nothing,” I croak.
“Ooh, what?” Bridget asks.
“You two need to fuck and get it over with,” Krishna says.
“Shut up.” I am a genius with the witty retorts.
The door opens, and West walks in. Seeing me on the couch, he smiles. “Thought I was going to find you in my bed.”
I burst into flame.
Not really, but I might as well. It would be a better way to dispel heat than sitting here, flaming red.
“Not with those ears,” I say.
West snorts and drops his bag by the door. “Hey, Quinnie. Bridget. What’s Krish got you drinking?”
“Butterscotch schnapps,” Quinn says.
“Gross.”
“It is some broke-ass shit,” she agrees.
“I was just saying to Caroline about how the two of you need to fuck,” Krishna says.
“Again? You’re way too obsessed with who I’m fucking.”
“I’m not obsessed. I’m concerned. You’re a twenty-year-old guy with too many jobs and a permanent James Dean loner frown. If you don’t start using it to get laid, you’ll probably die of repression. And here’s Caroline—”
“Could you guys maybe stop talking about me like I’m not in the room?”
“And stop saying ‘fucking,’” Bridget suggests. “It’s degrading. And I think—”
“See, that’s your whole problem,” Krishna tells her. “You think fucking is degrading.”
“Like I’m the one with the problem. This from the campus manwhore who—”
“You are the one with the problem! You never have any fun.”
“I’m here, aren’t I? This is fun, right?”
Quinn groans. “Only for you two.”
West comes up behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders. I tip my head back to look at him upside down, worried how he’s taking this, but his mouth is soft, his eyes amused. “Caro and I aren’t like that.”
I smile at him, because his denial sounds like a confirmation, and because his hands on my shoulders are smoothing back and forth. His thumbs find a spot to rest and press on the back of my neck, which makes my breasts feel full and heavy and the pit of my stomach go molten.
I’m ridiculously pleased with Krishna’s implication that West is in the middle of what sounds like a long dry spell. Although, considering the source, Krishna could just mean West hasn’t had sex in a week.
I don’t like thinking about West having sex. At all.
“So what are you two like?” Krishna asks.
“They’re friends,” Bridget says.
“No, we’re not,” West says.
Bridget looks confused.
I understand. It’s kind of confusing. “Can we not talk about this?”
But Krishna is way too invested now. “No, I need to figure this out. Every time I go to the bakery the past few weeks, there you are. Seems like West’s always texting you all of a sudden. He just came through the door smiling at you like the sun rises and sets on your ass, and now he’s got his hands all over you.”
Quinn chimes in, “He’s always got his hands all over you.”
“That’s not true.”
But, actually, is it? His hands on my shoulders are familiar. At the bakery, he often touches me like this. Casually—tapping my kneecap on the way past, dropping a hand on top of my head when I’m about to leave, rubbing my shoulders in an idle moment when we’re both chatting with Krishna.
He’s a physical person. It doesn’t mean anything to him.
I’m the one whose heart stops, every time.
“It’s nobody’s business but ours,” West says.
Any normal person would be dissuaded by how forbidding West looks right now, but Krishna isn’t normal. “If you’re not going to fuck, we should start thinking about hooking Caroline up. It’s about time she got back in the game, don’t you think?”
Bridget punches him in the arm. “It’s not a game.”
Krishna pitches his voice in a spot-on imitation of Bridget. “It’s not a game, it’s not fun, she’s not a piece of ass.” Then, in his normal voice, “Swear to God, woman, it’s like you’re allergic to everything in the world that might accidentally make you feel good.”
“Don’t be a dick.”
“Don’t be a prude.”
She sticks her tongue out at him, and Quinn mutters something that sounds like “Talk about two people who need to fuck.”
“What?” Bridget screeches. “What are you implying?! Because if you’re trying to say—”
“Never mind.”
I expect Krishna to be all over that comment, but he surprises me by getting up off the couch and disappearing into the kitchen. He comes back with a beer, even though he already has a drink. He pops the top and takes a long swallow. He doesn’t look at Bridget at all, and we just watch him, fascinated.
Or, I have to confine myself to glances, actually, because West has dug his thumbs deeper into my neck muscles, forcing my head forward. My hair hangs down in my face. His thumbs are branding irons, blunt and hot, searing parallel lines into my skin from my hairline to the low-dipping collar of my shirt. Again. Again. His fingers wrap around my shoulders, gripping like he owns me, and I’m melting.
I’m liquid.
I’m his.
“Let’s not get distracted from the point,” Krishna says. “The point is, Caroline needs a rebound lay.”
“Oh, do I?”
I sound drugged.
I am drugged.
Bridget protests for me. “She does not.”
“Seriously, Krish, you’re being a jackass,” Quinn says.
“We’ve got to find her a hookup. After Thanksgiving, I’m going to make it my personal goal in life to get Caroline some action.”
“Caroline can get her own action,” Bridget says. “I mean, if she even wanted to, which—”
“Which I don’t.”
“Because you’re traumatized,” Quinn says.
“I’m not traumatized.”
I’m flustered and hot. I’m hoping, rather desperately, that the prickling in my nipples doesn’t mean the headlights are on and everyone in the room can see what West is doing to me, right in front of them.
“It’s all right,” Quinn says. “Nobody’s judging you. This is your safe zone.”
“Caroline doesn’t need a safe zone,” Bridget says. “She’s doing great. Tell them about—”
She sees my face and stops, but it’s too late.
“What?” Krishna asks.
“Nothing.”
“Doesn’t sound like nothing.”
“It’s nothing. Really.” I reach forward for my drink, breaking contact with West because things are about to turn ugly. I can feel it. The air has gotten heavy. My arousal has fled like a rabbit startled back into its hole.
I knock back a big gulp of butterscotch schnapps and start to choke again, which is a tactical error, because while I’m debilitated, Krishna goes after Bridget.