So We Can Glow - Stories - Leesa Cross-Smith Page 0,24

I didn’t know how many people he’d told about this. I didn’t know how many other girls he’d told about this. I hoped none. I hoped he was telling me first and telling me only. I wanted this to be something we shared, something we bonded over. His secrets were better than sex.

Rafa met my eyes again and it felt like we were alone in the house together. Like everyone else had been raptured up. The heat, the perfume, the steam, all of it—hypnotizing us. I gently tugged on his shirt so he’d come all the way into the bathroom and I closed the door. The Tom Petty seemed to get louder and my eyes were tearing up. My hair was cold on my neck. I sat on the lid of the toilet. Rafa sat on the floor with his back against the door and told me everything.

* * *

He told me his parents were going through a catastrophically messy divorce and how his dad hadn’t been violent with his mom or him and his brothers growing up, but in the last couple years he seemed to lose…something. Or gain…something. Rafa didn’t know which one it was. And when Rafa was home for spring break his mom and dad got in a huge fight and his dad grabbed his mom’s arm and he slapped her hard across the face. His mom called the police and Rafa and his brothers jumped on his dad and beat him up. The cops who came knew his mom well from working security at the grocery store where she was manager and the cops wouldn’t press charges against Rafa or his brothers. They threw his dad in jail. And the cops needed Rafa and his brothers to come down and make some more statements about what happened that night, so Rafa and his brothers did it. His dad was going to have to do some real jail time. Like, six months or maybe even a year. Which didn’t seem like enough to me after hearing Rafa describe it, after seeing Rafa’s face as he told the story.

He didn’t cry, telling me, but I kind of wanted him to. I’d never known him to be overly emotional and wanted a peek. I felt dirty for it, using some tragic thing that was hurting him in an attempt to get to know him better, but he trusted me enough to tell me, to come over, to tell me everything. The Tom Petty, the hammering, the heaven-smelling bathroom and the intimacy of Rafa sharing his secrets with me—all of that sounded and smelled and felt like something important enough to let in. To remember. To file away for later, when I needed it. Like a first-aid kit or something, just in case.

I went to Rafa and sat in his lap, kissed him, let him pet my hair like I was a cat.

“It does smell really good in here,” I said.

“It does,” he said.

* * *

Rafa hung out for a while, even played a round with my brothers. Afterward, I told the boys it was time to take a video game break and they disappeared outside with their shorts and ratty sneakers and their friends from next door and across the street and down the street. I told them to be back in like, two hours. I told them to remember to take their water bottles. I told them to be careful.

Rafa and I usually had crackly-electric sexual tension, but now it was kind of sad too because of the stuff with his mom and dad and because we weren’t in the bathroom anymore. The powerful pleasant smell had gone away, but the perfume was in my hair, on my wrists. We were sitting in the living room, staring at the TV, neither of us paying too much attention. He finally kissed me and I was relieved. The guys out back were working and listening to music and Rafa and I were on the couch, not even hot-and-heavy making out, but kissing and being close and quiet together. Everything was quiet and peaceful and good-smelling inside, but it got loud out front as the guys started loading up their things. The clang-slip of metal, the clap-smack of wood. I heard a woman’s voice too. I was jealous; it was probably Jordan’s girlfriend and there I was jealous of Jordan’s girlfriend while I was underneath Rafa on the couch and I loved him. Probably.

I sat up and went to the