“Jump with me.” She holds out her hand. Her delicate hand grasps for me. We stare at each other. I don’t take her hand. She sighs, letting it drop to her side, and she takes off running.
I panic, and run after her, I mean to grab her hand and pull her back. Our hands connect and I am falling. Time slows down, and I look over at Barbie. Her teal blue eyes match the sky around us, drinking in our surroundings as we free fall. She looks like she is flying, the sun behind her make her glow. She reminds me of the angel charm my grandmother used to wear. She is an angel. She is beautiful. We cut through the cold water and the air is pressed out of my lungs. I am disoriented, not sure which way is up or down. I am lost in a watery world of green. I will be the one to die today. She is my angel of death, and I am going to die. She brought me to meet my death. As if she heard me, she swims next to me, her hair swimming wildly around her. She smiles at me. Swimming over to me; she cups my face in her hands and kisses me on the mouth. I am stunned as I watch her kiss me. My body floats limply in the green world around me. She is pulling me down. She releases me, breaking the kiss and kicks up toward the surface, not once looking back. I follow her. Cheers and hoots are heard as we break the surface. She is floating on her back, looking up at our near-death experience we just shared.
“That was amazing! It was like we were flying.” I think she says, but I cannot be sure.
***
Monday morning and the rumors of her stunt have begun to spread like wild fire. I try to dodge the looks I am getting as I walk in to school. A group of girls point and go back to whispering in a huddle. “Dude! That was an epic move on her part. Everyone is talking about it,” Third walks with a limp next to me.
“I don’t know why you are tripping over it.” I wonder if his new swagger walk is him trying to portray that he jumped as well.
“No, it was not epic. That little stunt she pulled, taking off her clothes.” I shove my bag in to my locker. “Was freaking hot! The girl’s got a banging body,” he announces like he’s made some sort of discovery.
The memories of the way she looked come back to me. Her tanned skin glowing against the Sun. the way her long hair brushed the small of her back… the curve to her hips, the way the purple strap…
“She made us look like freaks.” I shake my head, clearing it of the images.
“We went from losers to freaks. Great.”
“Bro, trust me. That move she pulled made every guy wish they were you. Think about it. If you saw Katie jumping off the falls with some guy in her under wear, you would think that they were going to do it after, right?” I sigh. Third has a demented view on life. It always seems to come back to sex with him. Funny, because he is more of a virgin than me. The only girl he has kissed is his mother.
“Can you leave Katie out of your demented philosophy?”
“You need to just ride this thing out, relax. Barbie is manipulating you into some sex god or something. You went from being a virgin loser to the guy with the hot girl who can’t help but strip down into her skivvies in front of him.” I slam my locker shut. “I think you need to up your antics. You have her tiptoeing around you at school. If you want people to buy this, son, then you need to let that sex stallion loose.” He holds his fist out for me to bump it. I leave him hanging. Maybe in some messed up way, Third is right.
Barbie is waiting for me when I leave English, Katie brushes past us and the smell of jasmine lingers behind her. “Could she possibly wear any more perfume?” Barbie coughs and waves her hand in front of her face.
“I think she smells nice.”
She rolls her eyes. “Whatever.” A wicked grin spreads across her lips. “So, people are talking,” she says proud of herself.
“I heard.” She slips her hand into mine. This is comfortable her holding my hand at a safe distance. If Third was here right now, he would tell me to push her up against the locker and start making out like animals. That would really have people talking.
I wonder what she would feel like pressed under me. Would she let me kiss her? I stop walking. I need to do something drastic, not safe. Barbie stops and looks confused, “What’s wrong? You are going to be late to Bio.” Why does she sound concerned? She doesn’t care.
“I…I…” I stutter. The words are stuck in my throat, with a nervousness that holds them down. I grab her face in my hands and kiss her. At first she is stiff, but then she relaxes and her mouth parts. I have kissed girls before, not a lot, but I know how to do this. This is awkward, why did I let Third, of all people, get in to my head? Barbie senses my hesitation and brings her hand to cup my cheeks in her soft hand. Her tongue slips into my mouth. I am not expecting it, but it feels like fireworks are going off inside my chest. People push past us as somewhere a bell rings. The world fades away in muted colors. I deepen the kiss. She tastes sweet like vanilla and electricity travels through me. She lets out a soft moan that vibrates against my lips. I back her up into the lockers, pressing into her. She feels amazing under me. She wraps her arms around me, pulling me into her, wanting more. Damn if I don’t want to give her more. I want to keep feeling these fireworks that are exploding in my chest. She stops me, one hand on my chest. She leans her forehead against mine.
“If you kiss Katie like that…” she says breathless.
Katie. That’s right. I want this with Katie. Not with her.
I am late to Bio, but I don’t give a shit. I do not pay attention in Bio, a first for me. I sit at the very back of the room and lay my head on my desk. What’s wrong with me? Why did I feel like that when I kissed her? My head is still foggy from kissing her. I bounce my knee nervously up and down. I am fighting the urge to run out here and find her and kiss her again. I want to know if I’ll feel fireworks again, and see if she really tasted like vanilla or that was all in my head. I can’t feel this way for her. I do not want her. Then why is my skin craving to touch her?
***
“So, today, when I picked Barbie up, she slipped coming off the steps. I almost peed, I was laughing so hard. I guess you had to be there.” Third wipes at a tear in the corner of his eyes, reliving a moment he shared with Barbie.
“You picked her up?” I ask, loosening a screw on the lawn mower that his momma asked me to fix.
“Yeah, and you know how she loves those ridiculous heels.” Third continues.
“Heels?” I wipe the grease off my hands onto my pants.
“Yeah, you know her favorite ones, the black ones with the hot pink toe,” he shrugs as if knowing her favorite pair of shoes was common knowledge.
No I didn’t know she had favorite shoes that she slipped in when walking down the stairs. “How long have you been picking her up?” Jealousy drips off me as I pull the blade off the mower.
“I dunno, a couple of weeks. Want a Coke?” He walks over to the fridge in the garage. “It doesn’t bother you man, does it?” He hands me a red and white can.
“No, why should I care? She is not my girl.” I open the can and drink.
“Are you sure? Because if it bothers you, I will stop.” He says in an unsure tone.
“No way, man. Why would I care? She is not my girl.” I repeat, confirming it more for myself. She is not my girl. So why should it bother me if she spends all her time with Third? Hell, they can do ‘it’ for all I care! Why should I care? Why should I care if he knows what her favorite colored shoes are! Or that she is funny and makes him laugh. I swallow back my resentment. But it pisses me off that Third now thinks he is the shit because he’s hanging out with her. He will not shut up about her, he keeps yapping about how funny she is and what funny thing she did or said. “Cool, she is a real chill girl.”
I get back to fixing the mower so we can go see Zombie Slayer in 3-D. I need to clear my head and stop thinking about Barbie. What better way to not think about a girl than to be surrounded by zombies reaching out of a big screen trying to eat your brains.
***
“Popcorn?” Third asks. We a
re at the arcade in the movie and Third just handed Barbie a handful of quarters.
“Extra butter, and will you grab some junior mints?” she smiles at him.
“Sure thing,” Third gives her two thumbs up before jogging up to the candy counter. I exhale an annoyed breath out of my nose. Tonight was supposed to be a guys’ night. We have been talking about seeing this movie since last summer. I wanted to forget the feeling I had when I kissed Barbie. I wanted not to feel this possessiveness over what is not mine. I wanted to stop wanting to punch Third in the face every time he mentioned Barbie’s name.
Barbie leans her hip against the game she is playing. She looks freaking ridiculous, like a bag lady. She has on a pair of distressed jeans under a loose fitting, flowered print dress. She wears a large mood ring on her index finger that has been swirling between green and black. Her hair is in two messy braids like when we were kids. Black ballerina-looking shoes peak out of the bottom of her jeans that she taps in time to the music coming out of the game.
“Nice hair,” I pull on one of her braids, daring her to punch me or chase me.
She looks up from the game, “Thanks.” She goes back to shooting the alien spaceships. I have been avoiding her the last few days, but now that she is in front of me I want her to pay attention to me.
“So what, you go from one extreme to another.” I lean up against the game.
She stops playing. The game plays the music, signaling the death of her star fighter. “What do you mean?” she asks.
“You know one moment you are hardly dressed, and now you are dressed like a bag lady.” I put my hand against the game screen. Being around her brings out the douche side of me, but hell she crashed our movie and is now ignoring me. Wasn’t she into kissing me the other day, too? I think about that moan that escaped her mouth and I want to see if I can get her to produce another one. I want to feel her pressed under my body. I want to feel the explosion she causes deep in my chest.
“Oh I am sorry, I didn’t know that you wanted your fake girlfriend to dress a certain way. I will make sure I show more skin for you next time.” Venom laces her voice, and her teal eyes turn a deep shade of blue.
I want to apologize. I want to know what other emotion makes her eyes change color. Third comes back with his hands full of popcorn that spills onto the floor. “I got you a Coke, Dylan.” Great.
She sits in the middle of Third and I, but her body leans closer to him than me. Why doesn’t she just climb into his lap? A group of kids from Central sit right behind us, laughing. If she is not careful, she is going to blow our whole facade.
“Milk Dud?” I shake the yellow box under her nose.
“I am good,” she says, not even looking at me.
“I’ll take some.” Third reaches his big meaty hand across her. I shake some in his hand. Barbie smiles and takes one when he holds his hand out in front of her.
Okay, so she is pissed at me again. Ignoring her the past few days was a mistake, but I needed time to sort through my feelings. I am still not sure what is going on. When I am with her, it is a hurricane of emotions swirling around inside me. And I still want Katie just as much as I did before Barbie came into my life.
I should have kept my mouth shut about her clothes. My mother would be horrified. She raised a better man than that. I am about to apologize to her, but the lights dim and the screen comes to life with previews. I sink down in my seat. Resting my foot on the back of the chair in front of me. One minute Barbie makes me want to kiss her, the next I want to rip my hair out because she is infuriating me so. I try to focus on the movie and not on who is sitting next to me. I look at the screen and try to pay attention as the main character chops off the head of a hot zombie chick. But the screen starts to blur and the words float around me, meaningless. My knee bounces up and down. I run my hands through my hair. There is no point in pretending to watch the movie. I steal another glance over at Barbie. She grips Third’s arm, burying her face in his shirt. Jealousy sits heavily on my chest. There is no denying it. I’m jealous of the attention she is paying to Third and not me. This is ludicrous. I don’t like her. I like Katie, perfect Katie, I remind myself. Not a girl who plays video games in a dress that looks like it came from her grandmother’s closest. Not a girl who wears her hair in little kid braids. I can’t take it anymore. I stand up ignoring, the shouts behind me, and walk out.
Chapter 10.
Ordinary
I walk out to the red carpeted hallways of the theater, searching for him. I should have stayed in the theater, watched the movie, and ignored him. Hell, he kissed me, and then ignored me the past few days. Then he insults me. I am so mad at him. What right had he to say anything about how I dress? I don’t comment on the vintage video game T-shirts he loves to wear or his dirty Converses that have seen better days. Or make comments about his stupid hair that most always needs a haircut. How it falls into his eyes covering them up, driving me crazy. Or how he gives me those stupid cocky smiles, like he is so much smarter than I am. I promised myself that I would not care anymore. This was supposed to be only a job and I would not let my delusional fantasies get the better of me. He had my head spinning from that kiss, but not again, I would keep my head about me. I reach up, touching my lips. I can still feel the electricity that dances on them.
I find Dylan sitting on a bench. He is leaning his head is against a poster the new vampire teen romance flick. “You didn’t have to follow me,” he says with his eyes closed.
“Well, what kind of fake girlfriend would I be if I didn’t check on you?” I say watching the rise and fall of his chest.
“A pretty shitty one,” a smile tugs on his lips.
“We couldn’t have people talking.” I sit down next to him, ignoring the spark that travels up my leg where his brushes against mine.
“I am sorry. I shouldn’t have said that about your dress… It is a very…nice dress,” he opens one eye and glances down at me.
“Thanks. It was my grandmother’s,” I lie. It came from some church ladies that drop off clothes to people in our neighborhood along with a bag of food. What clothes I don’t get from the church ladies come from my mother’s dancer friends.
“I know I have been a dick…it’s just I am not used to having a fake girlfriend and I am not sure how to act,” he confesses.
“Just be yourself. If you have something to say, just be honest with me. I will be honest with you,” I lie again. “We will figure this out.”
“I like it when you wear your hair like this.” He picks up one of my braids and gently tugs on it. “It reminds me of when we were kids.”
A flutter of excitement starts low in my stomach, “Yeah?” I whisper, my voice barely there.
“Yeah,” he slips his fingers into mine. I try to ignore the tingling sensation. I have never been on a rollercoaster before, but I bet this is what it feels like. Being this close to him, my stomach does a little dance, and my legs feel weak, my breathing comes out in shallow gasps.
“So shall we show off our fake relationship some more? I think a group of Katie’s friends are sitting behind us.” He asks, the fluttering turns into a heavy weight.
“Let’s…” I let him pull me to my feet.
I play the part of a good fake girlfriend, leaning my head on his shoulder and hiding my face in his shirt that smells faintly of laundry soap. I even feed him pieces of popcorn. I try my hardest not to notice the warmth that spreads down my legs when he sucked the butter off my finger.
I stand next to Dylan’s truck. “Are you sure I can’t give you a ride home?” he asks for the fifth time. Our hands are still laced. He leans against the rusty green door. We have an unspoken agreement between us.
“No, it is okay. I have a ride coming.” I gesture toward the entrance. I know I said I would be honest. But how do I say no one is coming for me? That no one cares. He grabs my free hand in his. My skin is alive with the electricity that is flowing from him into me. He pulls me clos
er to him, his warmth enclosing around me. My eyes flutter trying to close.
“Can I try something?” His voice is a husky whisper. I nod, unable to speak. He lets go of my hand. I have to fight the need to pull it back into mine. He runs his thumb across my jawline, stopping on my bottom lip. “Beautiful.” My eyes close and his lips find mine, gentle, teasing me, before parting slightly. Our breathing entwines as I wait in anticipation of his next move. He hesitates, teasing, I feel like I am going to scream. Then he pulls me to him and I sigh, finding what I was looking for. He kisses me but not letting it become the hungry kisses we once shared. No, these are carefully planned out. He is slowly killing me, slowly memorizing me with each kiss. Each kiss unties a carefully placed knot I tied myself, knots that hold me in place so tightly. He is single-handedly untying each and every one.
***
“So what do you think of Ronnie?” My mother comes up next to me and bumps her hip with mine.
He gives me the creeps. “Umm… he is okay, I guess.” I dump the laundry soap in to the machine, not bothering to measure it out and slam the lid shut.
She frowns and pulls a cigarette out of her back pocket. Lighting it, she inhales deeply. “I really like him,” she says through an exhaled breath of smoke that travels up to the ever-yellowing ceiling. She leans against the dryer. Just because she likes him doesn’t mean he is good for her. I think how Dylan makes me feel. Just because I like him does not mean I am right for him. I sigh, picking up the laundry basket of clean clothes and go over to the kitchen table and begin folding the contents of the basket. She comes over next to me, lifting a shirt up, and begins to fold it. She looks thinner than usual. Her clothes hang off her small figure. Her dark, thin hair is pulled back, exposing the dark hollows of her check. I wonder if she has been eating. Sometimes she will go days without eating while drinking deeply into a stupor. “He makes me laugh,” she says, folding a shirt before placing it onto my pile.
I give her a forced smile. “That’s good.”
She takes that as enthusiasm and smiles. “He treats me real good. Last night he even let me keep all my tips. I didn’t have to pay out the ten percent.” What a gentleman. “So what about this boy you been hanging out with? The one that you are deep in thought about.” She has this uncanny way of reading me. Maybe we are more alike than I like to admit. She takes a deep drag from her cigarette, folding abandoned.