Firsts (20 page)

He pulls on his shirt. I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood. I cannot let Rafe know how unsettled I feel.

“I know you think you have a flawless system,” Rafe says, crossing his arms. “But if it was flawless, I wouldn’t be here. I’m here because I’m banking on it being flawed. I’m here because someday, hopefully not too far down the line, the virgins at Milton won’t be the only ones who know about you.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say, Rafe. Can you imagine how many relationships that would ruin?”

He shrugs. “Not my problem. I’m an actor, not a fucking philanderer. I’m looking out for number one here.”

I point at the door. “You’re welcome to leave now. And I think you mean you aren’t a fucking philanthropist, not philanderer. Because you are the exact definition of a fucking philanderer. And number one? You don’t even rank in the top ten.”

He gives me a sweet smile on the way out, making me wish I were close enough to slap him in the face.

“Mercedes. I hope you don’t hold any ill will toward me, because I’m forever grateful to you. I’ll probably mention you in my wedding speech, once I find the right girl. But the right girl sure as hell isn’t Caroline.”

When he’s gone, I leap out of bed and wash my sheets immediately, wanting to disinfect myself from anything that has been in contact with Rafe. I almost can’t believe that his dick was inside me, and I can’t believe I wasted number fourteen on such a complete loser. And at this moment, I don’t care about numbers at all. I’m done paying it forward.
Really
done this time. It’s sad that Rafe took the last spot, but this is getting too weird for me. The virgins were supposed to make me feel in control, but I feel the complete opposite, like control has gone careening away from me. I should have just stopped at Evan Brown like I planned to, because that was when things started going downhill fast.

I shut out the lights and try to fall asleep. Kim still isn’t home, and the fact that it’s after ten thirty means there’s a good chance she’s pulling an all-nighter somewhere, with someone. Rafe’s words echo in my mind.
These things always get out, sooner or later.

I pick up my cell phone. No new messages. I should have spent tonight helping Zach with his chemistry homework. That’s what a real friend would have done. I wonder what he would think if he knew what I was actually doing tonight.

Pressure is building behind my eyes, but I refuse to cry over somebody as stupid as Rafe Lawrence. So I pull out my notebook and press down as hard as I can with my pen, so hard that it makes an indent on the next page. Not that it matters, since Rafe’s entry is the last one I’ll ever write. Rafe Lawrence, number fourteen. I don’t bother to rate him, because he doesn’t even deserve a zero. Instead, he gets a rant.

CREEPY LYING ASSHOLE. Of all of them, I wish I could take this one back.

My eyes burn. The tears want to come, but I won’t let them. Then I write down the worst thing of all, something I didn’t even know was true until I stare at it on the paper.

He made me feel like nothing. Like I was the most pathetic person in the whole universe. Maybe I am.

A lone tear falls onto the page. I scratch it out furiously with my pen, creating a big black blob. Then I scrawl a name for Rafe across the bottom of the page.

The Bad Actor.

25

On Wednesday, I drive to school hoping Zach still wants a lunch date. We haven’t broken a Wednesday in as long as I can remember. I
need
this lunch date to happen. Zach is honest and thoughtful and has no ulterior motives. He is everything Rafe Lawrence is not, and I hate that Rafe Lawrence is the last person I had sex with.

But when I enter the chemistry lab, I realize it’s not going to happen. Zach got to class early—and Zach never gets to class early. He’s always the last one to waltz in, usually right after the bell rings. Today, he is sitting in my spot, and he certainly isn’t catching up on homework. He’s whispering in Faye’s ear, with his hand sneaking up her thigh, inching toward the crease in her jeans. I know this move on Zach. This is the move Zach pulls out when he really wants to get laid.

I stand at the door, unsure if I should make my presence known or turn around and come back later. Zach is moving one hand through Faye’s hair, pushing it behind the nape of her neck. That move is one Zach doesn’t make very often. That is the move he makes when he actually likes a girl. I remember the first time he did that to me. It was one of our first times having sex. I avoided making eye contact and made a joke, something about keeping his hands where I could see them. Faye doesn’t do that. She smiles, a megawatt smile I can see from across the room. Up close, it must render Zach powerless.

“Mercy!” Angela comes up behind me and makes me jump about half a foot. Zach removes his hand from behind Faye’s ear and they both look at me. Faye bites her lip and looks down. Zach avoids eye contact and vacates my spot.

“Oh,” Angela says, looking at them with wide eyes. “Sorry—didn’t mean to interrupt you guys.” She starts talking about the last assignment, how she still doesn’t understand how iodine plus ammonia is supposed to create nitrogen triiodide. I’m not really listening.

I’m grateful that most of the class consists of Mr. Sellers rattling on and on. We’re supposed to be taking notes, but I can’t seem to focus on anything except Zach and Faye. Faye and Zach. I don’t love Zach. I had so many chances to be his girlfriend, and I never took him up on it. He has every right to whisper in Faye’s ear or even stick his tongue down her throat. I just got too comfortable with our arrangement. I never really gave much thought to what would happen if something—or somebody—got in the way of it. And just because Faye invited me to her house and maybe almost kissed me in a bathroom stall, that doesn’t mean she likes me as anything more than a friend. She’s obviously into guys, just like I am.

I don’t know what to do once chemistry is over. I don’t want to go to my other classes, or sit in the cafeteria at lunch and possibly have to see Faye and Zach there together. I don’t want to make small talk with Angela or avoid the weirdness that bubbles up in my stomach when Charlie is around. I don’t have an appetite, and I’m suddenly very aware of the gnawing sensation in my gut.

Loneliness.

I’m about to blow off the rest of the day, to skip a class for the first time ever, even though the thought fills me with anxiety. I haven’t gotten my acceptance letter from MIT yet, and while the dean of admissions won’t know that I blew off a day of classes, I still don’t feel right about doing it. I walk down the hall slowly, like I’m afraid I’ll get caught.

My breath catches in my throat when I see Faye standing at her locker. I’m hoping she hasn’t seen me, and I speed up my pace a bit, until we make eye contact in the little magnetized mirror she has on her locker door. Even without seeing her mouth I know she’s smiling.

“Mercy,” she says, beckoning me over. “I wanted to talk to you.”

I lean up beside her, letting my eyes shift to the contents of her locker. She hasn’t even been at Milton High very long, but her locker is already a mess of books and papers and about a thousand lip glosses. Tacked under her mirror is a bright pink Post-it note with a familiar phone number and address written on it. Mine. Zach’s is nowhere to be seen.

Faye presses the palms of her hands together. She’s uncomfortable. “Look, nothing is going on,” she says. “We’re just friends. Zach told me you guys used to see each other a bit. I wouldn’t want to come between anything.” I sense some hesitation in her voice, something she’s not saying.

I shift my backpack from one shoulder to the other. Faye used the past tense.
You guys used to see each other
. Implying used to but don’t anymore. I guess I expected too much of Zach to tell me himself. But that’s Zach. He never finishes what he starts, being the type to have a new hobby every week and a slew of unfinished projects in his wake.

But none of this is Faye’s fault. “It’s perfectly fine,” I say, plastering on a big smile. “I’m not interested in Zach at all. There’s nothing to come between.”

Faye shuts her locker door. “This is none of my business, but I’m not sure if I believe you. Besides, I don’t know if I’d be that into him. He’s not my usual type.”

I know what she means. When I first met Zach, before I even started with the first-timers, I never thought he was the type of guy I would sleep with. I had only ever slept with one guy when Zach was assigned as my lab partner, and Zach was nothing like Luke. But that was ultimately what made Zach attractive to me. He was
nothing
like Luke. He was goofy and clumsy and passive and said sorry all of the time, even when things weren’t his fault. I didn’t know guys like him existed.

So I thought I would conduct my own experiment outside of the classroom. I asked him to have lunch with me and brought him back to my house and waited for him to follow me up to my bedroom. He was so timid that I thought I had made a mistake, until I pressed him against the wall and kissed him and he kissed me back. He was so good at kissing that I knew he had done it before. And since he was that good at kissing, I couldn’t help but wonder what else he was good at.

He didn’t want to go all the way that day. He wanted to take me on a real date, get to know me first. But I didn’t let him. I started taking my clothes off and watched his eyes go as wide as dinner plates and I knew I had him. He followed my lead, made me feel wanted, made me feel good. He never asked for more than I wanted to give him.

We never did eat lunch that day, but our Wednesday lunchtime dates were solidified.

I remember thinking,
I could get used to this
. And I did.

“Well, maybe you should give him a chance.” I start walking down the hall, and she follows. I don’t know why I said it. I don’t like the idea of Faye and Zach together, and she has given me every chance to be honest with her. But maybe it’s for the best. Faye is sweet and pretty and nice and thoughtful. Everything I’m not. She would probably make Zach happy. She would be able to give him what I can’t.

I’m deep in thought when we turn a corner and I smack right into Charlie, hard enough for my purse to fall off my shoulder and hit the ground. The impact sends its contents spewing out. Pens, tampons, my planner, keys. And of course, three condoms. A Ribbed, an Ultra Thin, and a Magnum, which Charlie picks up first, stifling a smile.

Faye and I crouch down to collect my stuff. Of all the people I didn’t want to see the contents of my purse, Charlie would be vying for number one. I don’t want Charlie to know I carry condoms around, even though I don’t think he would say anything to Angela.
We’re all allowed to have one little secret.
That was what he said in the backyard. He has been over since then, clipping and pruning and digging up the garden, but I have stayed out of the backyard and watched him from my bedroom instead. I don’t want him to keep digging into my life, because he might find something he doesn’t want to know.

Charlie hands me the condom. “Somebody’s prepared,” he says, but he’s not smiling anymore.

Faye isn’t so subtle. “What were you planning to do today?” she says.

“Those have just been in there forever,” I say, snatching my purse back from her. I nod at Charlie and give him a tight-lipped smile.

“I texted you,” he says as Faye and I keep walking. “It’s, you know, important.” He smiles again before turning the other way.

When we’re in the home economics classroom, Faye looks at me with a furrowed brow. “Look, this is kind of a weird thing to say, but Angela’s boyfriend totally looked down your shirt when you bent over. I think he has a thing for you. And he’s texting you now?”

I narrow my eyes. First Zach, now Faye. Just like after the dance, the text message exchange.
Honestly, I’m worried about her
.

They shouldn’t be.

“Charlie did not look down my shirt,” I snap. “And he’s texting me about something to do with Angela. Something that’s really none of your business.”

Faye takes off her cardigan and hangs it off the back of the chair. Without it, her cleavage is on full display. If Charlie was looking at anyone, it would be her, and I really couldn’t blame him.

“
Meow
,” she says, but I can tell she’s hurt. “Somebody has serious PMS. Guess I won’t ask you to borrow one of those condoms.”

“Take them all,” I say, plucking the foil wrappers from my purse and tossing them on her binder. “Although, I’m sure Mrs. Hill has plenty she would happily give you.”

Faye laughs. A normal person would probably shove them out of sight, but she just leaves them there, prompting some strange looks from our classmates.

“Oh, and Faye? The correct question would have been to ask me to give one to you. Borrowing implies that you’ll give it back. Please don’t.”

She bursts out laughing. “You’re a bitch. But I like that about you.” But the air between us bristles with things unsaid. I don’t want to think about Faye putting one of those condoms on Zach, but it’s not like I can say that, because I would sound completely nuts.

I move into my seat beside Angela, but Angela doesn’t show up. I check my cell phone for missed messages but only see a new one from Charlie.

I want to move up the date. Planning something special for Angela for next weekend. Meet at your place after school?

I text back before I can say no or make him meet me somewhere at school instead. He probably wants to make sure Angela won’t run into us. Maybe she talked to him by now and he knows sex is off the agenda. Maybe he took back the lingerie.

Sure. See you there.

He texts back a winking smiley face, which I always thought was the flirtatious smiley—I recognize it from Zach’s side of our pre- and posthookup text message conversations, which generally veered into very graphic territory.

Somebody plunks down beside me, but it’s not Angela. It’s Zach.

“Shouldn’t you be sitting beside your girlfriend?” I say before I can stop myself.