Please Don't Tell - Laura Tims Page 0,49
One for me.
Cassius hunches on the carpet near us. I want to break him open. Like I broke open. Show him it’s possible to be more. It’s so much better this way. Everyone’s playing the game except him.
“Drink!” Joy shouts.
“My sister really likes you,” I tell Cassius, the stupid words spilling out of me. “Give her a chance. She’s really, really great. She’s really, really, really great.”
Things fade out. Back in.
I’m tired of being this drunk.
“Really, really, really, really great,” Adam mimics.
The walls blur and Joy is whispering in Cassius’s ear and his brows are knitting together, he’s determinedly talking back, determinedly smiling back. Her hair’s loose, a huge shape. Adam turns the TV off.
Joy’s crawling over Cassius hungrily. He’s taking off her shirt. Kissing her neck. She runs her hands all over his back. He’s looking at me over her shoulder, his eyes a mixture of confusion, desire, and resentment. I don’t know if those things are for her or me. For a second, I think he’s going to call out to me, but then Joy swings in front of him, her hair a pendulum, and says something that dissolves into laughter. She’s so happy. I want Cassius to make her happy. But not so happy she leaves me behind.
Adam’s warm breath in my ear: “Let’s give them some privacy.”
I start to say “Joy—” but Adam guides me to the stairs. I can’t do stairs, so he carries me up them.
His bedroom’s full of musician stuff. Posters: Bob Dylan. Jim Morrison. Guitars, sound equipment. One window, facing away from the trees, away from the quarry.
He puts on some music.
Time rolls in and out, like the tide. I’m on his bed. His face is close. No one has ever been this close to me. His chin’s stubbly. He didn’t shave for tonight.
“Are you okay?” I say it so badly. I ruin it.
“Of course I’m okay.” He’s kissing me. It’s wet, slimy, I can’t catch up with what’s happening. This is supposed to feel different. Anxiety crawls all over my body.
I push him away. “I just mean . . . you seem sad, sometimes.”
“I think about a lot of things.” He trails his fingers down the side of my neck.
“You can talk to me about the things.” My voice shivers in the dark. “I think about things, too.”
“You see, Grace? You understand me.” He slides his hands under the hem of my shirt. No. He’ll feel how fat I am. “That’s why I like you. Because you’re smart. Not like other girls. Not like your sister.”
My shirt’s off. I hold it to my body.
“Why not? You’re so pretty.”
“No.” I can’t arrange myself the way I did for Cassius. He’s not giving me the chance.
“Yes. You are.” He peels my shirt away. Peels my hands away. “You’re way hotter than your sister. You’re so beautiful.”
He says it like the end of a story. I want him to feel like he makes me feel beautiful.
“You inspire me. I’m going to write a song about you,” he says. “Just relax. Your sister’s relaxed.”
I just have to enjoy it.
A normal girl would enjoy it.
“You said I was ‘fucking attractive,’ remember?”
I don’t feel right. This is a mistake.
“I really need this, Grace. Come on. Just do what your sister’s doing downstairs.”
I’m not her. I’m me. I’m trapped in being me.
“You’re not gonna get this chance again.”
Come upstairs, Joy. Look at me, please, look over here. See me for once. You never see me. You never look past what’s in front of you.
He turns up the music.
I don’t want to be in this skin anymore, I don’t want to be anywhere anymore. I am disappearing. Everything is slapping together in waves. I can’t breathe. Where’s my sister?
Him: holding me down.
He keeps talking, saying it: “This isn’t so bad, is it? I knew you’d like it. I knew you needed this, too.”
THIRTEEN
October 20
Joy
ALL I CAN DO IS SIT ON THE EDGE OF PRESTON’S bed while he puts the DVD in his computer. My muscles feel atrophied, like I’ll never be able to lift anything heavier than a paper clip.
“Did you watch it last night after we got off the phone?” he asks.
I shake my head. “My laptop doesn’t have a DVD drive.”
A grainy black-and-white video starts, text in the corner dating it years ago. It looks like it’s from a security camera. At first, the street it shows is empty. Then a police car pulls a Toyota over to the curb. A man gets out.
“That’s Officer Roseby,” says