Taken by Storm (23 page)
Authors: Angela Morrison
Tags: #Social Issues, #Dating & Sex, #Christian, #Friendship, #Juvenile Fiction, #Sports & Recreation, #General, #Religious, #Water Sports, #Death & Dying
Sex didn’t ever used to make me feel like this. Evil—like i cheated. Leesie’s worse than real ghosts. Tendrils of her wind around my insides. Not guts. Deeper. No matter how hopeless it seems, how much i try to hate her, how angry i am, it’s still all her. Messing with DeeDee isn’t going to change that. Makes it worse. And my mom and her respect mantra—i betrayed that, too. She’s dead, and i can’t even be loyal to what she taught me.
Life’s never this freaked underwater. You just breathe in and out. Watch the fish. Float. Kick into the clear Caribbean blue that’s so full of sunshine it glows. Nothing like the stormy blue, dark and dangerous, that tugs at me tonight. i get kind of desperate. Try to make-believe i’m still broken like that first day DeeDee came on to me. Then i make-believe i liked it. Make-believe i want to do it again. Until i get home and find Leesie’s shampoo sitting on the nightstand in my dad’s old room.
i fish the mangled condom wrapper out of my pocket, flatten the foil the best i can, try to fit together the rips, and lay it gently beside the slender bottle of Leesie. Damn.
i descend into my bed, curl away from the wall and its comforting crack, stare at that empty wrapper. i lie there choked on the verge, dying for salt water even if it’s my own tears, wanting to dissolve into nothing, disgusted with the disease i’ve become, hating myself, hating DeeDee, hating my parents for leaving me alone like this. Desperately needing Leesie. i don’t believe in her heaven, but hell meets me smack in the face.
i get creeped out, can’t stand myself or the stink of DeeDee clinging to me. No salt water comes to wash it away. i can’t even cry. Leesie always said i needed to. i believe her now. Maybe i could with her hand back in mine. But she’s gone. She’ll never come back.
i pick up her shampoo, cradle it to my chest, ease open the lid, and hold it to my nose. Not enough. i pour a small puddle of pearly white liquid into my hand, rub it all over my face, my neck, my chest.
i rush to the shower, shrug off my clothes, turn the water on hot. i dump Sweet Banana Mango Leesie on my head, work it up into a huge lather that foams down my face and body. The aroma is strong in the steamy heat. i twist the water off and stand there dripping with Leesie-scented lather. i start venting. Inhale. Exhale. Gut. Chest. Throat. Head. Pack. i repeat the cycles until my fingers tingle, hold my breath. Two minutes. Three. Four.
Nobody comes to me. Not my mom. Not my dad. Not Leesie. Nothing.
The soap seeps into my closed eyes and stings. i fumble with the faucet, turn it on. Hot water swirls my last hope of Leesie down the drain. Isadore steps in, holds me tight. i ride her waves all night.
chapter 31
FEELINGS
MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #8
This morning i’m grogged out, moving slow. Last night, i finally swallowed another two sleeping pills to get Isadore off my case. They didn’t knock me out, so i took two more.
My alarm goes off. Gram gets me out of bed, pushes me out the door to school, and before my brain checks in, i’m at my locker with my hands full of DeeDee.
i scrape her off me. “That’s enough.”
She puts her arms around my waist and slips her hands in my back pockets. “You were awesome.”
“You know, DeeDee”—i peel her off me again—“last night was fun, but—”
“Tonight will be even better.” She kisses me, and i almost gag.
i shove her away. “Back off.” My head hurts, and my mouth tastes gross. i stare over DeeDee’s head at the books on my locker shelf, trying to remember what class i have first.
“What’s going on?” Her shrill voice drills into my aching brain.
“Can you keep it down? i’m not really awake yet.” Before Isadore left, she hurled a chunk of driftwood right through my forehead, i keeled over off the
Festiva
’s deck, and then i was back in my scuba-diving dream with the dead bodies. Instead of Leesie pulling me out, the angry dudes in buckskin riding giant salmon chased me over the edge of Niagara Falls. i’m still falling.
Festiva
’s deck, and then i was back in my scuba-diving dream with the dead bodies. Instead of Leesie pulling me out, the angry dudes in buckskin riding giant salmon chased me over the edge of Niagara Falls. i’m still falling.
“I wore you out? Thought you could take a lot more than that.”
“Listen, DeeDee.” i put up my hands to fend hers off. “We had a good time. Enough. Now leave me alone.”
She almost sneers. “You’re dumping me?”
“We weren’t together. It was just one night. How can i be dumping you?”
“It’s her, isn’t it?” DeeDee pushes me hard in the chest.
i stumble back, bang my elbow on the locker next to mine.
“She got to you again.”
i register something in DeeDee’s over-mascaraed eyes, and somewhere in my hazed-up brain i figure i’ve been a major jerk. i need to be nicer to her. “It’s me. i’m a mess. i’m sorry.”
“I can help fix that.” She squirms in between me and my open locker.
“No.” i step away from her pawing hands. “It doesn’t help.”
“But she did? I actually sleep with you, but I’m not good enough?”
“Shhh. Please.” i drop my head into my hands and press on my throbbing temples.
“Don’t shush me. You creep.” She shoves me again.
i take her wrist so she can’t jab me. “Look, we both got some, right? No hurt feelings, okay?”
“Feelings?” She spits the word right in my face. “What would a guy like you know about feelings?” She rips her arm away from me. “There’s always hurt feelings. What do you think I am?”
Even grogged out from sleeping pills, i know enough not to answer that one.
“Well, I’m not. I liked you a lot.” She storms away. Wish i could get Isadore to do that.
i stare at the books in my locker, trying to get my eyes to focus, feeling like a mound of steaming crap. Had the chicks i messed with at parties and then didn’t call felt like DeeDee? Did they all have feelings? They acted so cool. She’d acted so cool. Was it all a big lie? Did they feel just as whacked as i did when Carolina dumped me? How could DeeDee possibly think what we did last night was making love? It felt like love with Carolina—made her more and more precious, until i couldn’t go a day without holding her. That’s love. i hate to admit it, but Mandy made me feel like that, too. That’s the oneness i wanted with Leesie. Does DeeDee feel like that about me now? Am i hurting her, just like Mandy hurt me?
After class, DeeDee shadows me back to my locker. “Please, Michael. We make such a good couple. You owe me, Michael.”
All day it’s like that. i can’t shake her. i stop caring if i hurt her or not. She asked for it, practically forced me into it. She can take what she gets. Besides, because of her, i have no hope of getting Leesie back. Ever. Last night didn’t mean anything to me. Even though DeeDee’s putting on a huge drama-queen-guilt-me-out-of-my-socks-make-me-feel-like-a-creep-so-i’ll-be-her-steady stage show, it didn’t mean anything to her, either. But to Leesie it’ll mean loads. She’ll detest me—already does, now more than ever. i can’t even tell her it was a lie anymore. And here’s DeeDee all over me all day—making it truer and truer. i don’t look in Leesie’s direction, can’t take seeing how much she hates me staring straight in my face.
DeeDee even follows me down to Gram’s. i let the door swing shut on her.
i collapse on dad’s old bed, sleep off the pills. It’s dark out when i wake up. i wander into the living room, sit on the couch, zone out the window at the snow. Thick. Cold. White. Reflecting Gram’s colored Christmas lights. The sun comes up. Gram tries to get me to go to school—last day before break. No way. Another day with DeeDee in my face. Forget it. And Leesie, if i saw her right now, looking at me with plastic, made-up eyes, it’d kill me. So i spend the day with my old friend Isadore, clinging to my mangrove buddy, helpless to my mom screaming, “Michael, Michael, Michael.”
chapter 32
MESSED UP
LEESIE’S MOST PRIVATE CHAPBOOK
POEM #40, PHONE Call
I should not have picked
it up the third
time it rang,
should not have held it to my ear,
should not have listened as she bragged
how good he
is in her
bed
with her
body,
while I cry and pray and try to
repent,
sitting in the branch president’s
red-floored furnace room office
confessing how badly I wanted to
sin,
listening to healing words speak
calm and love and forgiveness,
while I fight the desire his body seared onto mine
and make my promises anew with a tiny cup of
water
and a crumble of
bread,
while I strain to feel a tremble of the
spirit . . .
it up the third
time it rang,
should not have held it to my ear,
should not have listened as she bragged
how good he
is in her
bed
with her
body,
while I cry and pray and try to
repent,
sitting in the branch president’s
red-floored furnace room office
confessing how badly I wanted to
sin,
listening to healing words speak
calm and love and forgiveness,
while I fight the desire his body seared onto mine
and make my promises anew with a tiny cup of
water
and a crumble of
bread,
while I strain to feel a tremble of the
spirit . . .
my michael, my boy, my
love
lay with her.
love
lay with her.
I hang up the phone, but it rings again.
I pick up the receiver
and slam it down over and over
and over, but it doesn’t splinter,
so I search for something heavy to
smash it.
How many tons is the pickup?
dad’s grain truck?
the combine?
I’m panting wild to run over the
plastic box that houses her sultry voice,
splinter the wires and filaments
that carry her to my ear,
ram the poles, tear down the wires—
hijack the tractor and go digging for bundles
of white high-speed cables
that put her too real too solid
flesh in between him and me
forever.
I pick up the receiver
and slam it down over and over
and over, but it doesn’t splinter,
so I search for something heavy to
smash it.
How many tons is the pickup?
dad’s grain truck?
the combine?
I’m panting wild to run over the
plastic box that houses her sultry voice,
splinter the wires and filaments
that carry her to my ear,
ram the poles, tear down the wires—
hijack the tractor and go digging for bundles
of white high-speed cables
that put her too real too solid
flesh in between him and me
forever.
LEESIE HUNT / CHATSPOT LOG / 12/22 11:41 P.M.
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