The Female of the Species (7 page)

I'm in bed with Branley again.

She dragged me upstairs even though I was so drunk I didn't think it would be worth her effort. But the girl knows me, and while the party music from downstairs pumps so loud I can feel it vibrating the floor in Park's bedroom, Branley climbs on top and does what she wants. She's over-the-top with a push-up bra and her hair a wild mess while she makes noises straight out of low-budget porn.

I'm man enough to know I shouldn't let her do this shit to me, but enough of a boy to be completely turned on.

She shrieks dramatically and falls forward, heavy and panting onto my chest. I let my eyes slide closed as her breathing evens out, and the dark clouds of
unconsciousness gather in my brain. I'm fading, but I know that my mouth is hanging open and I might have just snored a little when Branley starts drawing little circles on my chest with her finger.

“Tickles,” I mutter, shoving her hand away.

“Fine.” She rolls onto the other pillow. I don't need to look to know she's pouting.

I'm supposed to do something now. Reach out. Tell her I'm sorry. Touch her hair. Instead I ask her where her boyfriend is.

“What?” She sits up, her necklace pooling in her cleavage. “Why?”

I shake my head, and can't pinpoint exactly when it stops moving.

“I said, WHY?” Branley shoves me.

Jesus Christ.

“Because maybe we shouldn't be doing this, okay?” The words smell like everything I've drunk, mixed with stomach acid. “How do you not get that?”

An easy smile—a Branley smile—slides across her face. “But this is what we do.”

“Maybe not anymore.”

She leans in, the necklace swinging away from her chest and slipping down to touch mine. “As long as there's a
maybe
,” she whispers, and then her mouth isn't talking anymore, and all I can think is
Why'd you say maybe, dumbass?

But I know why. It's because I'm addicted to her and have been ever since we discovered things together in junior high, all sloppy and confused in the backseat of her brother's car. She's gotten a lot better since then, and I'm still a drunk idiot fumbling in the dark.

And it is dark. And I am drunk.

It's so dark that Branley's hair isn't catching much light when her face hovers near me. It could be any color as it cascades around us. Not the blond I'm so used to seeing splayed across the pillow, but dark, like the strands that were left behind on my passenger seat. I'm so drunk that when I touch skin all I have to do is imagine freckles and they might as well be there.

And then they are. They just are. And I pull her down to me and roll onto her, wishing the smell of rain and cold air into the room with the misfiring of a synapse. We're skin to skin, and I'm into this with an urgency that didn't exist before and she's making noises I've never heard. Never heard because they've always been practiced and perfect, and I've taken her by surprise. She's loving it and I am too. But I'm not just in it for the fuck right now. I want this. I want her. I want to see the smile that flashed ever so briefly at me in the hall the other day. I want—

“Alex.” Her name slips through my teeth as I collapse, utterly spent and crushing her.

Crushing
Branley
.

“What. The. Fuck.”

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Bran. I'm so, so, sorry.”

And I am, because that was shitty as hell. Branley shoves me away and rips through the covers looking for her clothes. How could it be so dark in here a few minutes ago I could let
that
happen, but now be damningly light? Light enough to see that she's crying.

“Branley, wait,” I say, reaching for her hands, trying to stop her as she struggles into her jeans.

But she's saying only one word, over and over. “No, no, no, no, NO. You don't do that to me. I'm
Branley Jacobs
! Do you understand that?
Branley Jacobs!
” She says her own name the way most of the guys do, a mix of How the Hell Can That Even Exist and Can I Make It Mine?

“Guys fuck other girls and think of me,” she says. “
Not
the other way around. You're an asshole, Jack Fisher. A real fucking asshole.”

She slams the door so hard I feel the reverberations in my spine. I collapse back onto the bed, and for the first time in a long time, Branley has my undivided attention.

Because I think she might be right.

I never thought it would be Jack Fisher.

In third grade, our class went on a field trip to the state park. We were at the end of a hike, the last hundred feet or so impossibly angled and difficult. Most of the kids and all the teachers were taking the stairs, gripping on to the rails, holding hands and saying encouraging things to one another about almost being there. I left the trail, not wanting to move at their pace. I climbed the hill on my own, reaching for tree branches and pulling myself forward, feeling a deep burn in my calves and loving the half second of panic every time I slipped a little.

I passed Jack and Branley as they picked their way up the stairs, him carrying her little plastic bag of whatever
she'd bought for herself at the gift shop. I remember the slightest trace of impatience on his face as he offered Branley an arm, pulling her up where a step had been washed out. Our gazes met as I moved past them, ripped hands and filthy knees making my own way, and I saw a flash of envy, quickly stifled. And I knew that he'd rather be off the path with me, moving quickly, tearing his clothes.

But he stayed where he was, and I heard another boy's voice behind me. “It ain't easy but it sure is faster,” he said, just as he lost his foothold. My arm shot out and he grabbed for me instinctively, and I steadied him until he got a firm grip on a tree trunk. We climbed up together, passing our classmates and ignoring the adults who yelled at us that we were going to break our necks. Sweat dripped off our foreheads, cutting clean tracks through the dirt on our faces, but we beat everyone to the top, breaking out of the shade and into the light.

We looked at each other and he said, “I have a tree frog in my pocket; don't tell anyone.” I promised I wouldn't and we huddled together in the back of the bus on the way home, marveling over the little creature.

We fell into the habit of meeting each other outside at recess, climbing trees and wading in mud puddles, not worried about getting dirty. His name was Mike and he came to school dirty anyway. Mike was gone the
next year. I stood on the playground on the first day of fourth grade, looking for the only person I called my friend, and he wasn't there.

I think he was the first boy I ever noticed.

And now Jack Fisher has my attention. Jack, who I always thought was like everyone else, loud and boring. Jack, who is more intelligent than I gave him credit for. Jack, who looks like he has something he desperately wants to say to me, and doesn't know how. Jack, who wouldn't leave the trail to follow me when we were little.

Maybe now he will.

It's like Adam and Branley got married over the weekend and now we all get to watch the honeymoon.

“She'll be pregnant by fourth period at this rate,” Sara says, tossing her books onto the desk. “I mean, I don't know if you saw, but he had her pressed up against—”

“I saw,” I say a little too sharply. Everyone in the room looks at me, and I realize how nasty I must have sounded, because I even have Alex's attention.

I lower my voice. “Sorry,” I tell Sara. “It's just not cool.”

She nods and touches my hand, but I hardly feel it. I might as well still be out in the hallway, watching Branley drape herself all over my boyfriend (
ex-boyfriend, dammit
). Adam was always casual with me. Some hand-holding at
lunch, a peck on the cheek in between classes, a tossed “See you, babe” as we walked out of school.

Branley he can't get enough of. Branley he touches constantly. Branley he won't be separated from. Branley—

—walks into the classroom reapplying her lipstick because it's all been kissed off by my boyfriend.

And I'm going for her. There's no logic involved, no weighing of pros and cons or thought of consequences. I smack the lipstick out of her hand just as it reaches her lips and she yelps in surprise.

Violence in real life is not the streamlined performance art of movies. It's not sexy. It's awkward and confusing. Branley just looks at me, like maybe there's been some kind of mistake, some weird blip in physics that made my hand hit hers and makeup fly across the room.

“What was that?” she asks, and I see a smear of glittery pink across her front teeth where the lipstick dug in a little. Her eyes are wide, totally clueless. She's waiting for me to say something, and the entire class is listening. But I don't have the words, and Branley's glance shifts over my shoulder to someone else.

Alex's voice is in my ear. “You should stop now,” she says quietly.

“I don't want to,” I say, eyes still on Branley, who looks concerned.

“What did I do?” she asks, and now Jack Fisher is with her, one hand on her elbow. Park immediately joins them, loyal as hell.

“Leave it alone, Bran,” Jack says, and tries to pull her away, but she's still locked on me.

“What did I do to you?”

“You took my boyfriend,” I say, hating the childishness of the words the second they leave my mouth, the fact that the word
boyfriend
makes tears come to my eyes.

Branley's face changes then, the honest confusion replaced with a smug mask, the one she wears so well. “No, sweetie,” she says. “I didn't take him. He left you.”

I swing. It's so simple I don't understand why I never did it before. My fist is on an arc that will break her perfect nose when it's stopped in midair, my elbow locked with Alex's, her strength so superior to mine that her arm is like a steel pipe and mine the pipe cleaner.

“Get your shit under control, Preacher's Kid,” Park says, and I lunge at him before the last syllable is out of his mouth. Alex spins me into the wall, the knuckles of her fist in my spine pinning me in place like a butterfly.

“You need to calm down, Claire.” It's the same voice she uses on the cats at the shelter, the one that makes them melt a little bit. I kind of get their reaction, because I understand that if I'm unable to do it on my own, she will make me.

I take a shaky breath. “Okay,” I say. “Okay.”

Alex relaxes her grip and I turn to see Branley nestled behind Jack, her boobs pushed up against his back. Sara rustles around in the corner and picks up Branley's lipstick. “Here,” she says, handing it over as if restoring it makes everything better. Branley takes it as Miss Hendricks walks into the room, the bustle of the hall dying behind her.

“What's going on?” she asks, eyes narrowing at the sight of the tears that finally spill over onto my cheeks.

“Peekay lost her shit,” Park says.

“
Parker Castle
,” she screeches at him, but he only shrugs. She narrows in on me. “What happened?”

“Nothing, it's fine,” Branley says suddenly. “Don't worry about it.”

“I'm the one who decides what's worth worrying about,” Miss Hendricks snaps back, but Branley walks away, leaning into Jack more than necessary.

My breaths are coming deep and heavy now, the tears running down my cheeks freely. Sara has one hand on my shoulder, and Alex stands on my other side in what feels like support, but I'm pretty sure she'd gladly face-plant me right into the tiles if I flipped again.

“I think I need to go to the guidance office,” I say.

Hendricks nods. “One of you go with her.”

“I will,” Alex volunteers, and I swear there's the tiniest
bit of relief on Sara's face when she does.

We're halfway to Miss Reynolds's office before I get my breath to stop hitching in my chest and it occurs to me to wipe my face. “Bathroom,” I say, ducking in because a cold sink and some running water sounds a hell of a lot more comforting than trying to decipher what kind of judgment Miss Reynolds's eyebrows are delivering. Alex leans against the wall, eyeing me in the mirror while I splash my face.

A flush of embarrassment rises up my neck and into my cheeks, underscoring the hot tear tracks. “I'm sorry,” I say.

“Why?”

I watch the water sweeping away the salt on my face, the drops collecting on my chin as I lean my forehead against the mirror. “Because that's not me,” I say, closing my eyes. “I don't hit people. That's not who I am.”

And Alex's voice in the darkness. “Wrong. That's
exactly
who you were in that specific moment. That was Claire at her most basic, unaltered by expectations.”

I open my eyes, the blue of my irises so much more intense now that I've been crying. “But you stopped me.”

“Venting your primal self in an emotional moment can be more than your socially constructed self can handle after the fact,” Alex says, her eyes gliding over me. “Look at you. Your hands are shaking. Your voice is
weak. And your conscience is reasserting itself.”

I heave a sigh and pull back from the mirror, my forehead leaving a smear behind. “Yeah,” I admit. “It totally is.”

All I did was smack Branley's hand a little, dent her makeup, and give her a lesson on what her new lipstick tastes like. And I feel like shit.

I turn to face Alex, resting my back against the sink. “Thanks for stopping me.”

“Of course,” she says, as if restraining people is part of her routine. Her eyebrows come together as she scrutinizes the wall above my shoulder.

“Is Marilee Nolan a bitch?” she asks.

“What?”

Alex nods at the wall behind me. “Right there, it says
Marilee Nolan is a bitch
. Is she?”

“No, I don't know. Not really. I don't think so,” I say. But whoever wrote that had a red Sharpie and a lot of conviction.

“We should erase it,” Alex says.

“That's permanent marker.”

“Nothing is permanent.” Alex pumps the towel dispenser half a dozen times and I find myself playing janitor with her, our knuckles scraping against the cinderblock wall as we wet fistful after fistful of cheap towels.

“I stopped you because it's easier to fantasize about
violence than actually perform it,” she says a few minutes later. “Most people consider things they wouldn't do in real life, and there's enough visceral satisfaction in the thought to alleviate the emotion. In reality, hurting another person on purpose is not a simple task, and not everyone is up to it.”

I remember how I wanted to find the guy who threw out the sack of puppies and kick him bloody, how many times I've considered punching Branley in the face. But when I actually tried, it all went the wrong way, like a carefully scripted scene I imagined ahead of time falling apart because nobody else knew their lines. Of all the times I imagined smashing her nose until it bled and shredding her pouty lips on her perfect white teeth, I never factored in that look of complete incomprehension on her face when I did it. Now that I can't unsee it, the absolute innocence in her eyes when I was bent on hurting her is its own revenge, and I feel gut punched even though Branley never raised a finger.

“It's not restricted to violence,” Alex continues, still scrubbing at the wall. “People fantasize about sex with someone they can't attain, or what they would do with the money if they won the lottery. It's wish fulfillment, a break from reality.”

“A way to escape,” I say, thinking about my dad's words the other day.

Alex nods. “Until it becomes your new prison, and you either live in the daydream or make it reality. And in your case, that would mean going against who you actually are, inside. A good person.”

I toss my last handful of paper towel, now stained pink, into the trash and get myself a fresh one from the dispenser. I wet it and press it against my still-hot face. She's right. My new friend with a good vocabulary knows me better than I know myself.

“We should go to the office,” I say. “Talk to Miss Reynolds.”

Alex follows me into the hallway and we walk the rest of the way in our special kind of silence, the one that doesn't need to be broken for us to be comfortable. I get into the guidance office just as Reynolds is hanging up her phone, probably getting a call from Hendricks saying I'm on my way. I don't know why I'm here. I don't need her anymore.

Alex made the bathroom more productive than the guidance office, more honest than my father's confessional. But I say the right words, tell the truth like I'm supposed to, and promise to apologize to Branley, who is reportedly
being very mature
about the entire thing.

When I'm done, I find Alex waiting for me in the hallway. She's pressed against the wall underneath the sign for the girls' bathroom that someone drew on—an
erect penis with eyes glaring up her plastic skirt.

I didn't expect Alex to be there. I am the preacher's kid. My friends are on the debate team and Quiz Bowl. My friends are in marching band. My friends are in class right now because that's where they're supposed to be. Except Alex isn't.

And I'm pretty damn sure that she's my friend.