end, after two hours, we were so damn proud of ourselves, we toasted apple juice to our brilliance. And to Jetson’s speedy recovery.
The cat died the next day. But Michael and I became friends. I never even considered him a real guy at first, because I knew he was so much older. He was also too “plain” and conservative. Normally I would have never looked twice at him. He had boring short brown hair, boring clothes, and, with the exception of some faded freckles, a sort of nondescript face. He was average height, average build, and maybe even had a bit of a gut. But almost a year later, a bit before summer, it all just happened: Michael became sort of beautiful to me. And just over three months ago was the beginning and the end of me.
“Michael is going to want to take them all home,” I say to Rachel, putting back one of the puppies. I try to say his name as much as I can at work, just to feel the shape of it in my mouth.
“For sure,” she affirms, and I glance to see if there’s any suspicion about our secret relationship. None. It’s hard to keep love a secret. In some ways, I’m dying to tell someone about our relationship. For the longest time I’ve just been waiting for Rachel to ask that exact question—“Are you and Michael together?”— so that I don’t have to really answer, so that just my look will give it away.
With the exception of Jess and Ally, no one knows about Michael. Why complicate the situation by involving judgment from those who can’t possibly understand? My mother will get protective. My guidance counsellor will get concerned. My other friends will get grossed out. And what’s worse is I’ll start to believe them. Yeah, maybe he did use me. Yeah, maybe I am seeking a father figure. Yeah, maybe he is a loser who can’t get girls his own age.
And I’d start to put the fence back up around my heart and believe that I was taken advantage of. And what good would that do? It was Michael who took the fence down. Opened me raw. Made me feel … something. Anything. He gave me that gift. And even if our relationship is wrong, even if his love turns out to be a lie, I want to keep it. I don’t want to close up again.
Eight
I had a feeling something was wrong. Extra wrong. Michael had been acting strange the past few days. And tonight, he’s real cranky and distant. I get a feeling he’s about to break up with me or something. After about an hour of watching TV together on the couch, he finally says it.“I’ve been wanting to talk to you …”
I know instantly what he’s going to say. During the entire three months we’ve been together, I’ve been a secret to Michael’s friends. He said they would kill him if they knew what he was up to. Sometimes our age difference really gets to him and he gets all distant with me for a couple of days, but then it’s like he can’t help his feelings and he gets close again. He told me once he was ashamed about the whole thing. It was just wrong for a twenty-eight-year-old man to be with a sixteen-year-old girl, even if he was young at heart. Even if we didn’t have sex. Even if we were mostly friends.
“First, I want to say that …” he goes on, “it’s not you. It’s society. And that’s a whole lot bigger than two people in a room.” He raises his hand to push the hair off my face and kisses my forehead, like he is my father or something.
“Fuck society.” I flick his hand and move away from him toward the corner of the couch.
“I can’t. You can’t. We live in it. I made that decision a long time ago, probably about your age. Either you live in it, or you complain about it your whole life, or you deceive yourself into believing you’re going against it.”
“Then fuck me,” I whisper, moving back toward him and putting my hands firmly on his thighs.
“Hah!” He pushes away my grip. “I can’t do that either.”
I kick at the coffee table in front of us. “Then fuck this.”
I am pissed off at his bullshit. He’s a man. He should do what he feels like, not what society tells him. But I can tell by the look