Authors: Isobel Irons
She’s shaking her head. “Do you realize how insane that sounds?”
“Yeah, I do.” I say. Then, I take a deep breath, and I tell her my greatest fear: “Maybe I am crazy.” Another breath. “Would you still like me if I was?”
Finally, the tears spill over. She pulls me toward her and presses her lips to mine, the only way she knows how to do anything—hard. I wrap my arms around her, and she breaks our kiss to tuck her face under my chin. She sobs into my shirt.
“I fucking love you too, Grant Blue.”
I don’t know why, but that makes me laugh. I hold her tighter, as a wave of euphoria washes over me. My chest feels like it’s going to explode. I pull back, wiping her tears away with my thumbs.
“I thought you said you only cry when you’re mad.”
“I know!” She laughs, shaking her head. “What the fuck is
that
about?”
We look at each other, and there’s a long moment of quiet. Her eyes clear, and my body slowly awakens to the fact that she’s pressed up against me. The girl that I love. The girl who
loves me
back.
What are the odds of that happening?
Slowly, I bend to press a kiss to her forehead. Then, her cheekbone. Then her jaw. Then her neck.
Finally, I kiss her lips, but one more kiss just isn’t enough. So I kiss her again, and again. Each time, each kiss is deeper, warmer, longer. But I want more.
My skin feels like it’s on fire, but in a good way. I push her up against the kitchen counter, running my hands down her back, pulling against her and leaning into her at the same time. No matter how I move, I can’t seem to get close enough.
Tash doesn’t seem to mind. Her hands slide up under my shirt, feathering across my skin. It feels so good I don’t want her to stop. And she doesn’t. Instead, she pulls me down the hall to her bedroom. Our lips somehow stay connected, even when we crash through the door and run into her dresser.
The frenzy of skin on skin is intoxicating, like too many uppers. Like the rain. Her tongue tangles with mine, and I feel a thrill go through me, even stronger than before.
We’re in a race now, trying to see who can take off each other’s clothes the fastest. It’s not about thinking anymore, or counting, or worrying. I’ve lost count of the kisses, along with any good reason for being cautious, or waiting. It’s time for doing now, for being alive and just feeling.
For the first time in as long as I can remember, my brain climbs into the back seat, and stays there.
Before I know it, I’m sitting on the edge of her bed and she’s in my lap, riding me. My hands are tangled in her hair, clutching her back, holding on for dear life. It’s a wild abandon like nothing I’ve ever felt. Not chaos, but freedom.
I want it to go on forever, never stopping, but I’m not strong enough to resist the pull of gravity. I bury my face in her neck and clench my jaw, as everything I ever thought I knew about life shatters into a thousand pieces.
I never lived before this moment, not really.
When I finally come back down to earth, we’re both shaking. I reach up and take her face in my hands. Her smile is timid, almost shy.
“I love you,” I tell her. I’ve never meant anything more. “I love you so much.”
I kiss her again and again, soft and hard, fast and slow.
For the rest of the night, my mind stays quiet, at peace. It’s more than a perfect moment. It’s a perfect
everything
.
CHAPTER TEN
JULY
You know it’s too early when you can see your breath in the middle of the summer.
City Hall is closed for the Fourth, but Melody volunteered me to help get the parade floats in order, so here I am, clutching a clip board and shivering in the parking lot of my old high school at the crack of dawn.
All around me, flatbed trucks covered in chicken wire shapes and crepe paper flowers idle exhaust into the chilly morning air. Little kids wearing face paint and patriotic t-shirts chase each other around, and I stress about one of them getting run over by a four-wheeler or an out of control horse. I see and feel everything in high-definition now, without any kind of barrier between me and the rest of the world. Colors are brighter, smells are stronger. Good moods are better, bad moods are worse. But somehow, I manage. That’s what I am now: a manager.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve managed to bury the panic I feel under layer after layer of self-control, until the only ritual I have left is
no rituals
. With every breath, instead of counting, I fill my thoughts with passing observations of things that don’t upset me.
The Carter’s Print Shoppe float is really cool looking; they must have worked on it for months. Miss Guthrie’s dress is a really nice shade of purple. The deejay from 104.9 AM looks like he’s nursing a hangover. The little girls from Miss McLane’s gymnastics class are really cute, but also very loud and shrill. They’re probably going to scare the horses.
No problem. I’ll just put them further away from each other in the lineup. Maybe
… I go down the list, looking for a gap.
Next to the Shriners. Perfect. Most of those guys are hard of hearing, anyway.
Tash is almost a half hour late. I try not to let that bother me, even as I check my cell phone for the however-many-number time I’ve checked it. No missed calls.
I’ve taken to carrying my cell phone around in my hand, not just so I’ll hear it when Tash calls or texts me, but also because about a half hour ago, one of the ‘scoopers’—the very unfortunate parade staff members who dress up as clowns every year and follow the horses around with a dustpan and broom—tried to shake my hand. I had to pretend like I was getting a call, so I wouldn’t have to do that whole awkward ‘yeah, there’s no way in hell I’m touching you man’ dance.
“Hey Parade Boy,” Melody comes up behind me, startling me, like she always does. “Where are we on the list? My dad wants to know if we’re going to be able to start on time.”
She puts her hand on my arm, looking over my shoulder at the clip board. She’s close enough for me to smell her hair and look down the front of her shirt, which is clearly what she intended. I really, really wish I could go back to when she was just really rude and bossy all the time.
“Here, see for yourself.” I hand her the clipboard and start to walk away, but she pulls on my shirt. I close my eyes against images of her getting kicked by a horse. Technically, that wouldn’t be something I did, so I don’t feel quite as guilty about picturing it.
It’s been almost a month since I secretly went off my meds, and I haven’t killed anyone yet. Maybe Jeanne is right. Maybe people with OCD really are the least likely to become serial killers—because we’re afraid of the unknown. So as long as I never start killing, I’m good, I guess. The secret is in indulging the impulses, refusing to let myself be horrified by what I see, and reminding myself that I lack the initiative to follow through on any of them.
“Wait a second,” Melody’s hand tugs against my shirt. “You put our convertible next to the Guthrie High Cheer Squad? What happened to Saint Mary’s marching band? I don’t want to be stuck listening to their stupid cheers for two and a half hours. You need to change it!”
I sigh. Then again, maybe I will eventually snap and kill her. Maybe I’ll even enjoy it. Maybe I’ll become a serial killer.
Maybe it would be worth it.
“Saint Mary’s wasn’t here on time, so they got moved to the end. If you want to talk your dad into driving at the back of the parade so you can be serenaded by a bunch of kids with tubas, that’s fine with me. But I’m not changing it, Melody.”
She scoffs, flipping her hair. “It’s not about the band, it’s about being true to my alma mater. Plus, Guthrie’s color scheme is disgusting. Brown and orange? Their uniforms will clash with my outfit.”
I look at her again. “You’re wearing blue. It’s Fourth of July. Everyone is going to clash with Guthrie’s uniforms.”
“You’ve got a point there.” She smiles, putting her hand on my arm again, switching to a new kind of manipulation. “But come on, Grant. Can’t you just change it again…for me?”
“No.”
“Not to interrupt, but do you guys know where the Teen Anarchists of America float is? We have some pipe bombs we need to drop off.”
Melody and I turn. I smile. She scowls.
Tash is standing next to the mayor’s car, holding a box of donuts and a cup of iced coffee with a lid and a straw condom. She’s got my little sister with her. Gen is wearing pigtail braids with red ribbons, and scowling at Melody. Tash just looks kind of unimpressed.
“Oh, sorry Melody, I didn’t see you there.” She looks down at her hands. “I would’ve brought you a coffee too, but then at the last minute I remembered how I really don’t like you.”
My smile quadruples. I grab my awesome girlfriend and kiss the ever-loving crap out of her, ignoring the waves of annoyance coming off Melody and the grossed out little sister sounds Gen is making. Let people stare. I’ve spent every waking minute of my life caring what everyone thinks, about everything, all the time.
In terms of facing my fears, it’s kind of risky—I’m basically taking on the world, without any kind of safety net. If I fail, I could ruin a national holiday, and lost my job. And probably piss off a whole bunch of clowns. But somehow, with Tash standing next to me, it doesn’t seem so hard. Today, I will take a page out of her book, and I will ‘give zero fucks.’ Because damn it, it’s Independence Day.
When I finally let her go, Melody has already stormed off. “Sorry I’m late,” she says. “I didn’t sleep very well last night, and I missed my alarm. It’s a good thing the Gremlin called and woke me up. She said your parents forgot about her, and she needed a ride to the parade.”
I laugh, looking at Gen. “Mom left you a note on the kitchen counter, dummy. You were still asleep when we left, so she said she’d come back and get you after she finished setting up the firemen’s pancake thing.”
“Oh.” Gen doesn’t look the least bit sorry. “Whoops.”
“It’s okay, I think I’m almost done here. Let me just double check with the volunteer coordinator that everything’s ready, and we’ll all walk down to the fire station together.”
I hurry to track down the lady who’s taking over once the parade starts, and give her my clip board and my cell phone number, just in case anything goes wrong. Then, I go back to find Tash and Gen sitting in the backseat of the mayor’s mint-condition ‘62 Cadillac, pretending to wave like beauty queens.
“Nope, still too nice. Take it from a former, fake prom queen: you’ve got to sneer, like everyone who looks at you is beneath you, then wave like you’re doing them a favor. Like this.” Tash adopts a facial expression that’s a cross between a bank hostage and the Queen of England, then raises her hand and moves it robotically from side to side.
“How about if I pretend like I’m constipated?” Gen mimics Tash’s movement, but with a lot more grimacing and better posture.
“Dude, you’re a natural!” They high-five.
“Are you teaching my sister how to troll people?”
“Maybe I am.” Tash shrugs. “What? She’s going to be a freshman soon. It’s a valuable skill.”
I shake my head, opening the car door. “Alright, anarchists, let’s go before the Mayor’s Spawn gets back and yells at me for letting you touch her dad’s car.”
Giggling, they climb out and follow me.
As Gen books it toward the horses at the far end of the parking lot, Tash grabs my hand. We link our fingers together and walk along through the growing crowd. A few minutes go by before I realize that she’s fallen quiet. Or, at least, quiet for her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she nudges my arm with her shoulder. “Look at you, going straight into damage control mode,
Parade Boy
.”
“You heard that whole thing?” I cringe. “Great, I bet you’re wondering why I just stood there and took it, right?”
“Not at all.” She shakes her head. “I’m actually kind of impressed. If I were you, I definitely would’ve cut a bitch by now.”
I laugh. “It’s not that I haven’t thought about it. But hey, this girl I know, she told me that high school counts for less than ten percent of a person’s life span. So if I think about it that way, this internship is only three months out of approximately nine-hundred months in an average human life span, which means I only have to put up with Melody for 0.003 percent of my life. Ish.”
Now, it’s Tash’s turn to cringe. “Was that actual math you were doing? Because that sounded like math, and I’m pretty sure we agreed to leave that shit behind after graduation. Or, at least I did.”
“Sorry.” I smile, pausing next to a trash can to throw away my straw condom. “So, you’re sure nothing else is bothering you?”
“I don’t know,” she sighs, and we watch my sister inch closer to one of the horses, trying to get up the courage to touch it. “I guess Gen kind of reminds me of Margot a little bit. I’ve been missing her a lot lately, wondering how she’s doing. And I haven’t heard from her in a while. There’s just so much I want to tell her. Plus, we always had this tradition on the Fourth, where we’d sneak up to the rooftop of that apartment complex on 5
th
and drink hot chocolate laced with Nana’s Peppermint Schnapps.”
I let the coffee straw fall out of mouth, eyes wide. “You didn’t….”
I’m joking, of course. But she shoots me a dirty look and flips me off, anyway. Unfortunately, that’s when my mom shows up.
“Grant, have you seen your sister?” I can tell from her face she’s in worried mom mode, otherwise she would’ve said hello first, like any polite person would. “I just went by the house and she’s gone. I was hoping maybe you came home and got her, but you didn’t leave a note. And I know you would have left a note if you changed the plan, so then I thought—”
“Mom, it’s okay,” I hold my hand up to interrupt her. “Tash picked her up a little bit ago. Gen was so freaked out about missing the parade, I guess she didn’t bother to read your note.”
I look at Tash, expecting her to make a joke, like she normally would. But her face is white, eyes wide.
What the
…?