place I’ve ever been, and of course all I think about is Michael. I want him here so, so badly. But being at this resort with Scott makes me realize that Michael was more than just a good boyfriend. He was about the life I wanted to have, the one I always dreamed of. A normal life. A house. A family. A career. And so losing Michael is more than just losing someone I love. It’s like losing hope.
I reach up my hand to my mouth, close my eyes, and give it sloppy kisses. It’s a pathetic replacement, but I can almost convince myself I feel him … his warm mouth pulling at my bottom lip, then the top, then both. I want to disappear right into that mouth, first my lips, then my face, then my neck, then all of me. We used to kiss for hours. Sometimes that was all we’d do. Then sometimes his hand would reach down to my belly and up into my shirt. And the next morning my boobs would be full of purple and red hickeys. And I loved those bruised kisses that lingered for days. So all I’d have to do when I missed him was lift open the top of my shirt and look down.
Now I wish he had stained all of me. I wish every kiss he ever gave had left a mark on me forever.
Twenty-Three
I’m lying on a towel on the small beach beside the lake, eating my picnic sandwich and watching my mom and Scott, who are lying on a big towel a few feet away. There are no other guests around. Maybe they think it’s crazy to be on a beach at the end of fall, but it’s a really hot day, warm enough to wear just a long-sleeve shirt. In the morning, my mom joked that it was so hot she wanted to wear her pink bikini. She paraded around the living room in it, saying she’d get her last tan in before the winter comes. I knew she was only doing it to show off her wicked body. She’s thin and curvy in all the right places, while my body is just one fleshy flat line all around the perimeter, like a big rectangle.
I’m relaxed because I just smoked a joint behind the shack where they keep the canoes. I feel like a whole different person, no worries, just loving the heat of the sun on my face. It’s like I’m not even myself, like I’m being filmed for a movie or something. And I’m totally happy, mostly because my mom is happy. It works that way. I wish it didn’t. But I’ve lived long enough to know it’s true.
If I were honest with myself (which is what happens when I’m high), I’d say I really want my mom to marry Scott. It’s selfish, but if it happened, all our problems would go away. We wouldn’t have to worry about money and I wouldn’t have to worry about my mom all the time. Then I could just be a kid and do normal kid things. I think of myself in a bedroom with pink walls. I’d take figure skating lessons. We’d have a family dinner each night and someone would ask me if my homework was done. I’d have real dessert with whipped cream, and a curfew, and I’d study for exams.
I know that if this actually happened, I’d probably hate my life. I’d find it totally boring and fuck it all up, because it’s like it’s too late for me now. But who knows? Maybe after some time I’d get into it.
Some kind of bug lands on my neck and stings me. “Agghhh!” I shout, and slap my hand down hard. “Bitch!” I shout some more, really annoyed now, and then look back to my mom and Scott, who don’t even turn to see what the problem is.
Then it’s as if reality settles in, and I sober up. I shake my head, pissed off at the dumb fairy tale I was constructing. It was a stupid thought and I am an idiot for even letting myself get so far into the idea.
“I’m cold, I’m going,” I announce, standing up and shaking the sand off my ass. I friggin’ hate sand.
“Yeah. Okay.” My mom waves absent-mindedly and goes back to her deep conversation with Scott. With nothing else to do, I decide to head back to the room and drink a beer. I don’t even