The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing (18 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

~

GAGE AND I ARE
doing our lying on the couch but taking it slow thing. The irony is that I like doing that so much that I think I’d be okay with more, not sleeping with him but maybe
almost
. But we can’t get close to
almost
either, and that’s okay too.

Gage touches my breasts like they’ve been sculpted by Rodin. He tells me they’re beautiful and teases me by saying that he knows I like them almost as much as he does. That’s true and I laugh. If we had a robot to bring us food and stuff I could let him play with my breasts forever.

“Do you think they’re done growing?” Gage asks, bending his head down to flick his tongue over one of my nipples. “Maybe we can lie here and watch them expand.”

I giggle at that too. Gage makes me want to laugh at everything. “I think they’re supposed to grow for four years after you first get your period,” I tell him.

The first time Gage slipped my top off I worried that his mother would burst in and interrupt us on the couch, but he said they’d made a deal to always call each other first. The way he talks about his mother makes their relationship sounds weirdly formal. He said she was fur
ious when she found out his girlfriend was pregnant, and even though she’s not angry anymore, she doesn’t want him thinking of her as a live-in babysitter. The bottom line is that 1) Gage doesn’t want us to move our activities into the bedroom and 2) his mother is extremely unlikely to interrupt us on the couch.

“So when’d you get your first period?” Gage asks. He pulls his weight off me, sliding onto the cushion beside me. “You know, I don’t even know when your birthday is.”

“It’s in April.” I get a guilt surge as I answer him. Now he must think I’ll be seventeen come April.

Gage leans over me again, nuzzling my breast and flinging one of his hands around me to fondle my denim-covered butt. “When in April?”

I stiffen, knowing that I won’t be able lie to him. Gage looks me in the eye, his hand still attached to my ass. “What? You don’t like people knowing your birthday?”

I open my mouth to ask when his birthday is, but what’s the point of stalling? We’d only arrive back at this exact point in thirty seconds. “It’s April seventeenth,” I confess. “But do you remember the first time we went out and you guessed I was in eleventh grade?”

“Yeah.” Gage crinkles his nose. “I still can’t believe you’re in eleventh grade. I feel like I’m robbing the cradle.”

I freeze up again, and Gage slides his hand up to my bare back and strokes it, sensing he’s upset me. “Hey, you know I don’t really care. It’s just weird when I think of you still going to school. I feel so far removed from that part of my life now.”

The fact that he thinks he’s done something wrong makes me feel guiltier still.

“It’s not that,” I say in a quivery voice. “I hope this doesn’t really matter because it’s only a few months but …” Gage has pulled his hand away from my back, and I grab his fingers and hold on. “I’m going to be
sixteen
on April seventeenth, not seventeen.”

Gage’s frown is the polar opposite of his smile. You’d think life as we know it was about to screech to a halt.

“I’m in tenth grade,” I continue. “Not eleventh.
That’s the truth.
The rest of it really shouldn’t make any difference. In a couple of months I really will be sixteen.”

“Serena.” This is the disaster vibe Gage gave off when he stormed out of the back seat on our first date. The line between his eyes is so deep that an expedition of explorers could be lost in there and never heard from again. “
Shit
.”

He wrestles out of my grasp and sits up on the couch, glaring fixedly across the room. “That’s not something you should’ve lied about. I mean, look at us.” He motions to my naked chest. “You’re
fifteen
.”

I reach over the side of the couch for my top, thrusting my arms into it and speeding my way through the buttons. “I’m two months younger than you thought I was. That’s all.” I feel like crying.

“I wasn’t really cool with sixteen,” he snaps. “And now I find out you’re not even that.”

“You didn’t tell me you had a kid right away!” My finger slips on the top button. I leave it open and leap to my feet. “And if my age was such a big deal maybe you should’ve asked how old I was before showing up at my house to take me to dinner. Did you ever think of that?”

“You look older,” Gage says with an accusing look. “You must know that.”

I don’t know what he’s talking about; I look roughly the same age
as Genevieve or Nicole. “Why does it even matter?” I ask. “We’re talking about
two months
. Why do you have to be so …” My arms slice the air helplessly.

“So
what
?” Gage asks.

“It’s like that night we first went out. You just … you overreact.” I’m not trying to fight with him, but he needs to see how ridiculous he’s acting. “You could’ve just told me to stop, you know. You didn’t have to leap out of the car.”

Gage locks his hands around his neck and shakes his head. “We already talked about that. You don’t need to bring it up again and make me feel stupid.”

“I’m not trying to make you feel stupid. I’m just saying you need to keep things in perspective. It’s two months!” I’m shouting, afraid he’s going to break up with me for the sake of sixty stupid days.

“Can you be quiet for two seconds?” Gage demands, his angry eyes freezing me in place.

Gage sits back, his body low on the couch like I’m wearing him out. He shuts his eyes, and when he opens them again I’m still staring back, waiting for him to continue.

“I was fourteen when Christabelle got pregnant,” he says. I’ve only heard him refer to Akayla’s mother by name a couple of times, and suddenly I know that I’m going to come out of this conversation feeling even worse than I do right now. “She was fifteen. I don’t know if you can imagine how fucked up that really was.” The colour drains from Gage’s face. “And I don’t want to be in that situation again. Ever. But I especially don’t want to be in that situation, or anywhere close to it, with someone who’s only fifteen years old.”

I blink at him and feel a lone tear fight its way down my cheek. We were never going to be in that situation together, but I can’t stand here and tell Gage he’s being paranoid after what he’s been through. I turn my face away and bend to pluck my bra from the beige carpet.

With my fingers looped around one of the straps, I head for the bathroom. I lock the door behind me, undo the buttons on my top again, and fasten my bra into place, more tears wetting my skin. I splash warm tap water onto my face and lean against the counter, patting my skin dry. Akayla’s Little Mermaid toothbrush holder set grins manically at me as I realize I left my phone in the family room with Gage and that I have no idea who to call anyway. Anyone I’d want to pick me up doesn’t know of Gage’s existence — my parents aren’t an option.

Suddenly there’s a tentative knock at the bathroom door. “Serena? Are you okay?”

I’m almost sixteen, which doesn’t seem to be okay enough.

“You don’t have to hide out in there,” he says. “Come out and talk to me.”

The suggestion that I’m hiding makes me mad. Am I supposed to root my feet to the family room carpet until he’s ready to stop guilting me for something I can’t take back or change? “I’m not hiding,” I tell him, my angry tone already losing strength. “I’m getting myself together to leave.”

“You don’t need to leave. Just come out. We can talk.”

I don’t want to listen to him talk anymore, but I can’t stay locked up in his bathroom forever. I unlock the door and stride determinedly past him, Gage trailing me down the hall saying, “Have you really heard anything I’ve been trying to say?” We stand in front of the television, facing each other, Gage’s hands in his pockets. “I can’t act like it’s good news that you’re fifteen. I had second thoughts when you said were sixteen, more doubts when you ragged on me over the phone that time, and now … I don’t know.” He shakes his head like this is the final straw.

“Two months,” he says in a low voice. “I’m not touching you again until you turn sixteen, so don’t ask me to. We can hang out but no …” He motions to the couch, his wrist flipping sideways in aggravation. “I’m just not.”

I part my lips and rub my left eye, which has started leaking again.

Gage reaches for my cheek, skimming his thumb across it and absorbing any dampness I’ve missed. “That’s just the way it has to be for now, end of story.”

I don’t think most nineteen-year-olds would see much difference in having a sixteenor fifteen-year-old girlfriend, but Gage does, and I wish I could’ve stayed calm through this whole scene so he wouldn’t guess just how important it is that he doesn’t break up with me.

“So what’s that mean exactly?” I mumble. “You want to be friends?” No more lying on his couch? No more kisses or holding hands? I feel both starved and grateful at the suggestion. If we’re friends I’ll still be able to see him, at least.

“Being friends is good, isn’t it?” He shrugs, his pupils growing as he stares at me. “Friends can be a lot of things to each other.”

That’s true, but once again I don’t know what his definition permits and what it forbids.

Gage picks up on my confusion and reaches out to hold my hand. “I bet you wish you never walked into this. You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

I’m too confused to even answer, and Gage’s smile is almost sad as he says, “Maybe I am. You probably have no idea how hard it is to have all these limits when what I really want to do is …” He stops, his smile disappearing into his tired face. “But that wouldn’t be a good idea anyway. You’re so young.”

“I’m not as young as you act like I am.”

“Why?” Gage asks, cocking his head. “Because you gave some guy before me a blow job? Believe me, you’re
young
, and I wouldn’t want to grow out of that too fast if I were you. I mean, no matter what, even if we broke up now and you hooked up with some other guy.”

“Don’t talk about me hooking up with some other guy.” My free hand lands on his waist, squeezing in punishment. “That’s not going to happen. I’d sworn off guys before you. You’re like … you’re my downfall.”

This isn’t a good thing to say to Gage, who already seems to see himself this way, but it feels partially true. My friends wouldn’t be happy if they knew we were together and they know me better than he does. Or maybe I should say they know
parts
of me better than he does. There are other parts — the snuggling up with him on the couch and feeling like I’ll starve to death if I never see him again parts — they don’t know at all.

“Not in the way that you think of it,” I continue. “Not because you have a daughter, which makes your life more complicated. Not because you got somebody pregnant five years ago. You wouldn’t let that happen again.”

“Not on purpose.” Gage threads his fingers through his hair. “But that’s the problem, isn’t it?” He begins to tell me about the girls he’s seen before me, some of whom were on the pill and some who weren’t. He freaked out a little every time he slept with one of them, pouring water in the condoms after the fact to look for leaks and tracking girls’ periods when he could. He says the worry was exhausting and that it reached a point last spring where it didn’t seem worth it anymore unless he was really serious about someone.

“And potentially that could be even worse,” he points out. “Like with you, I don’t want to have to worry about what could happen if a condom broke on us or something else went wrong.” By this time the two of us are back sitting on the couch together and he looks spent but maybe a little relieved to be able to be so blunt with me. “So unless someday, in the future, you’re on some kind of hormonal birth control thing too we won’t be together like that. It’s really important that you know that.”

“I know.” I nod with my eyes, trying to reassure him that I really do get it.

“Okay.” Gage nods too. “I sound like a broken record. So you …” He rests his hand on my thigh. “Why’d you swear off guys? Did somebody” — he drops his voice like it’s a big deal to ask — “break your heart?”

“He didn’t break my heart. We just weren’t right —
he
wasn’t right.” I explain about Jacob, the party at Wyatt’s and Aya’s clammy hand on my knee. I’m careful to keep my voice level, even as I insult Jacob and his friends. If Gage feels too sorry for me I might start to tear up again.

“That’s really fucked up,” Gage comments, his face serious. “On so many levels.”

“I know.” I keep Nicole and Genevieve’s bad experiences to myself but mention Orlando’s gossip porn rumour about me and some of the other shitty stuff that contaminates the atmosphere at Laurier.

“I didn’t know you were dealing with any of this shit,” Gage says, frowning. “I don’t know why people bother talking trash about other people. It’s not right. I wish you told me before.”

“There was nothing you could’ve done anyway. You know how it is. School’s just like that.”

“I know.” Gage pinches his ear. “Doesn’t mean I can’t drop by and throw my weight around. Make the assholes eat their words.”

Gage is past the point of high school fights. I can’t see that happening at all, but I still like him saying it.