You and Everything After

We go to his room first, and I wait outside. Nate took Rowe home early; she was pretty blitzed. Ty whispers to me that she’s passed out. He slips in and out quickly without waking them, his sweatpants and T-shirt in his lap when he exits. Once we get to my room, he changes, and I’m glad to have my non-tutu boyfriend back.

“Wow, I’ve never seen someone look so turned on by sweatpants,” he teases.

“I was just getting worried that I’d never get that out of my head,” I say, waving my hand over the pile of sparkling pink mesh on the floor.

“Yeah, you and about a hundred dudes whose day I ruined in that outfit,” he laughs, picking the tutu up and straightening it out like he actually might save it to wear again. He finally tosses it back to the floor, and I’m relieved.

He’s lying on my bed, his neck bent against my rolled pillow stuffed in the corner by the wall. He pats the space next to him, and I crawl up, folding my legs so I can sit and face him. I play with his fingers in my hand, pretending they’re keys of a piano. I wish I knew how to play the piano. I wish for a lot of things.

“So…I think I should probably start with Kyle Loftman,” I say, keeping my focus on his fingers, my pretend piano. I play Mary Had a Little Lamb, or at least, what I think is that song. He lets me play, tilting his head to one side and looking up at me, my glance shifts from his fingers to his eyes and back again.

“Is this story going to piss me off?” he asks.

That’s a loaded question. I pause and cup his hand in both of mine, then lean forward to kiss it and press it on the side of my face while I look at him.

“Yes. No. Maybe,” I say, through a truly pathetic smile.

“Okay, that sounds fair. Bases are covered,” he says, wiggling his fingers again to let me play. I like that he does this, let’s me have an outlet for my nerves. Or maybe he just likes it when I rub his hands. Either way.

“Kyle Loftman was a student teacher at my high school. He was about to graduate. Your age, really.” I can feel his fingers grow stiff, but they loosen again quickly. I keep going, keep playing my song. “I was sort of…I don’t know…one of those easy girls in high school.”

His hand grabs mine, and he tugs for my attention. “Hey, don’t do that. Don’t ever apologize for things in your past. Not to me,” he says. I nod, and my breath comes sharp and fast. I would cry if I weren’t so nervous. I hate crying. “Go on. I won’t judge you. Not ever.”

I spread his fingers, weaving mine in and out while I talk. “Kyle was helping out our soccer team, and one night, he found his way to one of our parties. He was young, just a little older. Liking him was dangerous, but a safe kind of dangerous. So I slipped into one of the rooms with him at the house we were at, and we made out. That was it. Nothing heavy. No sex. Some…touching,” I admit, my face feeling the burn of humiliation saying this to Ty—to anyone.

“Don’t,” he reminds me, and I swallow hard, trying to gain courage from him.

“The next day, there was a knock at my parent’s door. My dad answered, and it was a young woman—short, brunette…pregnant. She asked for me, so my dad called me downstairs. He stood behind me when I cracked open the door the rest of the way. He stood there while she told me to stop sleeping with her husband. She spit on the screen door, cried, and told me I should be ashamed of myself. She called me a slut…and then she walked away.”

Ty’s hands wrap around mine, and I look at him. His face is exactly as I hoped—he’s angry, but on my side. He’s angry that I was accused, that I was spit at, that my father just stood by and watched it all happen.

“What did your dad do?” he asks.

“He told me I was being careless, that she could make this an issue with the school—which she did,” I say, remembering the hell that was the end of my senior year. “He kept the details from my mom and from Paige. Or at least, I thought he did. My mom brought it up the other day, so somehow, the story got out. My dad’s law firm worked with the district, kept things hushed. Kyle wasn’t punished, because I never accused him of anything. He didn’t do anything wrong, other than not let me know he was married. That…that was wrong,” I say, letting out a huge breath, the weight of everything.

“That dick owes you an apology,” Ty says, and I laugh.

“Which one?” I say, not sure who he was referring to—Kyle or my dad.

“Exactly,” he says, and I kiss his hand and move to lie on his arm. “So, what does this have to do with Paul whatshisname? Whatever it was that Chandra chick said.”