Fragmented (18 page)

Gay or straight, Public Displays of Affection had always been difficult for me. Maybe a small part of me worried that it might cause a confrontation, but my mom was the main reason for my current discomfort. Memphis was a decent sized city, but there were things about it that made it feel much smaller. After my mother had been hospitalized it seemed like everyone knew about my family history. I had been through enough gossip and discussion growing up. Now as an adult, I didn’t want to give anyone another reason to talk about me behind my back.

I was surprised my brain was able to function for the next fifty minutes because of the hand resting on my knee. Raleigh’s hand was hidden by the tall lab table, but I was sure Professor Berry was going to call us out any minute. At one point I tried to unobtrusively wiggle out from beneath Raleigh’s light grip, but the moment I’d moved, her fingers had clamped tighter around my kneecap. I wasn’t going to escape without her permission.

It took little convincing on Raleigh’s part to get me to come over after babysitting Sasha that night. Her aunt had let me into the house under the guise that we had a big test to study for. She must have thought Raleigh and I were the most dedicated college students on the planet.

Being next to Raleigh on her twin bed was quickly becoming one of my favorite pastimes. Away from the city, away from my responsibilities at school and with the Henderson’s, no one knew where I was. It was about the only time when I could get my brain to quiet down. Only my cell phone, which I now routinely kept on silent, connected me to the outside world.

Raleigh turned the page of her anatomy textbook. “The human body is really amazing, don’t you think? So many nerves and systems working in harmony to get things done.”

“But there’s so many body parts to memorize.” I threw down my pen in frustration. It bounced off of my notebook and rolled onto the carpeted floor. “It’s not like I’m going to be a doctor,” I complained. “When am I ever going to use this in real life?”

“I have an idea.” Raleigh shrugged out of her cardigan and it fell to bunch at her waist.

My eyes were immediately drawn to her newly revealed, rounded shoulders. It was only a little bit more of her skin than I was used to seeing, but it still made my heart pound faster. “What are you doing?”

“Anatomy lesson.”

My eyebrows scrunched together until I saw her reach for the back zipper of her dress.

“The human spine is made of a stack of twenty-nine individual bones—or vertebrae—attached by ligaments and muscles,” Raleigh recited. Hidden from my direct view, she continued to pull the zipper lower.

I’d never heard a zipper so loud in my life.

She made a face and her shoulders wiggled and her breasts thrust out farther. “I think I’m stuck.”

“Oh, I, uh.” I flexed the fingers on my right hand. “I can help.”

I got up from the bed and repositioned myself directly behind her. I bit down hard on my lower lip to repress a telltale groan. Raleigh had been able to unzip the dress down between her shoulder blades, but the stubborn fastening refused to budge any farther. I gently coaxed the cotton material out of the metal teeth and the zipper moved steadily down, now unencumbered, into the small of her back. A delicate white lace bra bisected the swatch of pale, exposed skin.

Raleigh took my hand in hers, breaking the spell her exposed back had put me under. “The spine is composed of four sections,” she continued. She moved her hair over one shoulder and placed my hand against the back of her neck. “What’s the top section called?”

“The top seven vertebrae compose the cervical section,” I recalled from my notes.

She moved my hand lower. “And the next?”

“The next twelve make up the waist and ribs. It’s called the thoracic.” Her hand dropped away. I moved my hand lower without hers to guide me, and my fingertips trailed down the rigid bumps of her spine. “Next is the lumbar.” My fingers trembled.

“And the final five vertebrae?” she asked.

My fingers touched against the top of her underwear. My fingertips lightly slid an inch horizontally across the lace waistband. “I don’t … I don’t remember.”

“Sacral,” she supplied. “And below that is the
cauda equina
which controls the bowel, bladder, and sexual functions, and the motor and sensor control of some leg muscles.”

My hand fell away from her soft skin. “Where’s your injury?”

“The sacral. It’s too low for you to see right now. I’d have to get completely naked for that.”

I felt myself blushing furiously at the suggestion.

“Can you even, um …” I didn’t know how to ask the question without it coming out stupidly and invasive. “Do you like sex?”

I heard her swallow. “Since my spinal cord wasn’t completely severed in the accident, some motor functions can get past the damaged area. But I haven’t really been, um…
physical
, with anyone since the accident.”

I coughed. I’d been the one to bring up the topic, but that didn’t mean it was comfortable for me.

She twisted at the waist to regard me. “I’m one of the lucky ones, I guess. I heard that it’s more difficult for paraplegic guys to have sex, but because mine wasn’t a complete spinal cord injury, I still have residual pelvic innervations.”

“Residual what?”

Raleigh licked her lips. “I can, uh, still feel things down
there
.”

“Oh.
”

She laughed, sounding self-conscious. “Yeah. You can’t imagine how embarrassing it was talking about this stuff with my doctor in front of my parents. But my doctor in Boston was really thorough, and she wanted to make sure I was prepared. ‘Sexuality does not disappear with paralysis,’ she told me.”

I hardly had a traditional family, but even I could imagine the embarrassment of talking about things like that with them in the same room.

Raleigh dropped her eyes to her lap and shook her head with a rueful laugh. “I’m sorry. This is probably completely inappropriate.”

“No, I’m-I’m interested. And we’re adults; we can talk about the human body objectively,” I said in earnest.

“Does that mean you’re ready to continue your anatomy lesson?”

I didn’t know what she was asking, and I was too afraid to have her clarify herself. “I, uh, okay.”

Raleigh grabbed my hand again and placed it on her upper thigh. Her dress had inched its way up her leg enough that half of my palm touched bare skin while the other half pressed against the soft cotton skirt. “Squeeze.”

I obeyed her command and gave her flesh a light squeeze.

“I can see your fingers flex, but it doesn’t register in my leg.”

She dragged my hand higher up her leg until my fingers touched her hipbone. The movement caused the material of her skirt to dangerously drag up as well.

“What about this?” My voice had perceptibly lowered of its own fruition.

“Tingles.” Her breathing had become shallower. “It’s kind of a blessing and a curse, but the accident gave me new erogenous zones.”

“Really?” I absently stroked her hipbone over the cotton material of her skirt.

Her breath came out in low, staccato bursts of air. “Yes. Right there,” she gasped.

I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to lean down and kiss her god damn beautiful mouth.

I was too long in thinking. Lips, softer and more pliable than I could have ever imagined, were now pressed against mine. Hands, strong and determined, were fisting the front of my shirt and tugging me closer. I had no choice but to close my eyes and give in to the feeling of her confident mouth.

When Raleigh broke off the kiss, I felt acutely the loss of pressure and mounting desire. But I was gasping, breathless, and thankful for the self-regulating break as I would have refused to reward myself with the same. I was certain my body would have deprived itself of all oxygen rather than cut short our first kiss.

“Maybe … maybe we should stop,” she quietly stated.

“I'm sorry.” I instantly recoiled. “Was that too much? I don’t even know if you’re gay, and here I am attacking you with my mouth.”

“I’m pretty sure I was the one who kissed you.”

“I know, but—” I was about to launch into another apologetic soliloquy, but my words died on my lips with a second kiss, this one leaving me more breathless than before.

Raleigh pulled back again and I reigned in my disappointment. “I…I only suggested we should stop because it’s getting late,” she explained. “We have school tomorrow.” She laid her hands flat on her lap and smoothed down the pleats of her skirt. “Besides, I’m not the kind of girl who puts out so easily.”

“Oh, I wasn’t trying to .… No, no, I would never, um.” I was rarely rendered speechless, but I was finding it difficult to form a complete sentence.

“Relax, Harper. I was kidding.”

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that,” I admitted to my hands, unable to look her in the eyes. “But I didn’t know if you…”

“Liked kissing girls?” she supplied for me.

The corners of my mouth quirked up. “Yeah. That.”

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to make the first move; turns out all I had to do was take off my clothes,” she smirked. “Speaking of which, will you help me zip up my dress? My hyper-Christian aunt probably would have a fit if she caught us like this.”

My eyes widened. I’d completely forgotten about her aunt just down the hallway in the living room. It made me feel like a teenager again, secretly fumbling under clothes while disapproving adults were in the next room.

I zipped her back up despite wanting to remove the dress completely. But the reminder of her aunt in the next room had killed the mood.

I showed myself out the front door like usual. It was too much of a hassle for Raleigh to get back into her chair and go down the long, carpeted hallway only to see me to the front door, so I always insisted I was fine.

I paused in the front doorway to pull my boots on and zip them over my jeans. Raleigh’s aunt was watching
Jeopardy
in the living room. I could hear the click-clack of her knitting needles over the monotonous drone of the game’s three contestants.

Alex Trebek was reading off the answer for the final question of the night as I finished pulling on my boots: “This author and illustrator has said, ‘Max is like my demented son and he’s taking care of his father for life.’”

“Who is Maurice Sendak?”

Raleigh’s aunt whipped her head in my direction, and I grimaced when I realized I’d spoken out loud.

She stared at me from behind her reading glasses. “I think it’s Roald Dahl.”

“Max is the main character in
Where the Wild Things Are
. He wears a wolf suit and chases his dog around with a fork. I think that’s pretty demented.”

Her lips pressed together. “Good night, dear. Drive safe.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

I bounded down the stairs of my apartment complex, too impatient to wait for the elevator. I was meeting up with Raleigh at her aunt’s house after babysitting, and I was eager to see her outside of the classroom again. The sun hadn’t yet set, so I slipped my sunglasses on when I got outside and looked both ways down the street, trying to remember where I’d last parked my car. I didn’t often drive because mass transportation was so convenient, but I liked knowing I had a car if I ever needed to leave the city.

I began walking in the direction of my parked car and dug around in the bottom of my purse to make sure I had everything I needed: phone, wallet, keys, two chlorzipan that had become dirty after years of being at the bottom of my bag.

A familiar sound tugged my attention away from the contents of my purse. The rumble of the candy red muscle car vibrated in my ears and rattled my teeth. Even the ground felt like it was shaking. Like before, the car idled in place in the middle of the street, refusing to pass me. It was a one-way street with little traffic, so there were no cars behind the stalled vehicle waiting impatiently or honking for traffic to move.

I continued to walk towards my car, but I lengthened my stride to hasten my step. I flicked glances over my shoulder now and again to keep tabs on the car. Its driver kept just far enough away that I couldn’t make out any faces or even see if the driver was alone. I knew what Jenn would have done in this situation. She would have turned around and walked toward the car instead of away from it. But I was nowhere as foolish as my ex-girlfriend, so I continued walking at a brisk pace, and I found my key ring to put individual keys between the gaps of my fingers like they’d taught us to do in self-defense class during my freshman year.