Page 140 of You Know Why

Beep . . .

Beep . . . beep hiss . . .

Beep . . .

There is a song that plays in my head on a loop every time I go to the parties, every time I look at him, every time I think of him. It’s one of my parents’ old favorites, a boppy song from the sixties by a band called the Crystals. I walk through the crowded basement, and each word punctuates a step: Then he kissed me, then he kissed me, then he kissed me.

In the before, the sublime moments when he was mine and I was his, I fantasized about the moment Andrew would touch me, kiss me. Love me.

Andrew is kissing Chloe that way now.

There is no way I can make my little sister understand what a mistake she’s making.

There is no way I can explain what happened.

Admit what happened.

The dumb games we all used to play. Truth or dare. Spin the bottle. Seven minutes in heaven. Light as a feather, stiff as a board. “I’m stiff as a board.” “You know it—ha!”

They are all too cool for it now. They have real alcohol, real drugs. Real consequences.

There is no room for dark closets and fumbled hugs. No room for promises, for those sweet moments to return.

He remembers. I know he does. That’s why he hates me so much. He may want to forget, but he can’t. I won’t let him. I will haunt him forever with my love.

I memorized everything.

How softly our lips touched. His surprised gasp when our tongues moved together. Tensing up when his palm touched my shoulder and slid down to my breast. His little laugh, the one that he only gave in private, that intimate sound that told me the truth about how he really felt. The silken feel of him, soft and hard together, when he shoved my hand down the front of his jeans.

His tensing, then wet warmth, and a guttural moan, a sound that sparked a fire in places I was only vaguely aware of until that moment. The gentle, searching kiss that followed, our tongues swirling, his hands twined in my hair, our breath coming short, and his whispered “You are so beautiful.”

Then the knock at the door, and the startled look that moved into a smirk on his face when he stood up. I remember him saying, “Guess time’s up. Thanks.” And my desperate plea of a reply: “This means we’re together now, right?” Remember him laughing. Remember him saying, “You and me? Are you joking? That was a dare.”

Remember him flinging open the closet door.

Remember all his friends, tumbling backward, laughing.

Remember my clothes askew, pants down, shirt unbuttoned, one breast spilling from my bra.

Remember the heat, flooding me with shame and fury and tears.

Oh, that shame, like a viper’s fangs in my throat, choking off my air.

The embarrassment.

The hollers and hoots and jeers.

The way he looked at me the next day in school, with a half-cocked eyebrow and a shake of his head. The way he does now, disdainfully pulling Chloe to his side with a possessive leer.

And then he kissed me then he kissed me then he kissed me.

He killed me dead in that moment of mockery. To tell me I was beautiful while my hands worked their magic on his young body, and to then expose me, laugh at me?

He deserves every bad thing that’s happened.

So did she.

So do they all.