“I’m not trying to ignore anything, Josie.” Surprise flickers across his face. He shifts forward, our knees touching. “I know you’re bigger than me, but I also know you aren’t gonna crush me so much that I won’t be able to handle it.”
“How?”
“Because I can talk.” He kisses my cheek. “And if I need to stop, I’ll tell you. Just like you’ll tell me, right?”
“Yeah.”
He makes it sound so simple. Maybe it is to him, but it isn’t to me.
“I like your body,” he says, leaning forward. “It’s my favorite person’s body. And it’s not like I didn’t notice that you’re, you know, bigger.”
“It’s okay for you to say fat,” I say. My voice comes out as a whisper. “I’m fat.”
“Yeah.” He smiles, soft. “I know.”
“It’s just that…” My voice trails off. What am I trying to do here? Convince him that he shouldn’t like me? I’ve spent all this time telling myself that I’m beautiful, but now it’s like I don’t even believe it. “I don’t know. People I like don’t really like me back. Not usually, anyway. I think it’s because they don’t like the way I look. And I’m pretty sure everyone likes the way you look. I don’t want you to do anything just because you feel bad for me.”
He snorts. “People are stupid. I like you and the way you look and I don’t care what anyone else thinks.”
“It’s just a lot,” I say. “Sometimes I have trouble with the way I look, but I like everything about you.”
He takes my hand.
“I think I understand,” he says. “I don’t think anyone really likes the way they look. At least, not all the time. Sometimes I look in the mirror and feel like I’m still fifteen. I hate it.”
My eyes snap up. He shrugs a little.
“Are you serious?” I say. “You shouldn’t. You’re beautiful.”
“Are you just saying it because you feel bad for me?”
Now I know he’s mimicking me. I roll my eyes and look away.
“Not everyone looks the same.” He moves closer, placing a hand on my cheek. There’s something so intent in his eyes, so earnest, that I can’t just laugh it off. “And not everyone is— Look, Paris and New York are both beautiful cities, right? But they’re different. People love them for different reasons. It’s like us.”
“You make it sound so sappy,” I say, ducking my head into the crook of his neck. “I must sound more insecure than I thought if you’re doing big-city metaphors now.”
Instead of laughing, he leans closer.
“But I want you to know that I’m here because I want you,” he says. “You know that, right?”
I think I do. I fight back a smile.
“Well, I want you, too,” I say, cheeks burning. “I just haven’t done this before.”
“Kissing?”
“Not without shirts.”
“Ah.” He moves down, kissing my chest. “It’s a little different for me. The last time I did this was with a guy—that was, like, two years ago.”
“Oh,” I say. It’s another thing for my brain to worry about—how different my body must be from his ex-boyfriend’s. “Is it weird? To be with a girl this time?”
“I don’t think so,” he says, cocking his head to the side. “Kissing someone new is always different. You’re different from him, but it’s not just the gender. I don’t know if that makes sense.”
“I think it does.”
Marius runs his hands over my stomach. No one has ever been this nice to my belly, touching it with gentle hands and grinning up at me every few seconds. Then he moves lower and I let him, both of us reaching for the buttons of my jeans, pulling them down.
I always thought of sex as the thing straight cis people do to make babies, but Marius leaving kisses on my thighs feels like sex, too.
“Is this okay?”
“Yeah.” I close my eyes and let myself forget everything else but his lips. “It’s perfect.”
@JosieTheJournalist: why do people with power have to be completely horrible?
I’m giddy when I get back to the hotel room a few hours later, but my grin is wiped off my face when I see Alice waiting for me by the door with her arms folded. There’s no reason for her to be waiting for me outside the room unless something bad happened.
I glance down at my phone. There’s a call from Maggie, but also an email and three calls from Ms. Jacobson. Shit. I didn’t look at my phone once while I was at Marius’s, and I didn’t think to check it while I was on my way back. Why would I? I’ve been floating on air.
My steps slow as I get closer to Alice. Her eyes are wide as she glances up at me.
“What took you so long?”
“Um,” I say. “Marius and I hung out a little longer than I thought….Why does it matter?”
“You— It’s—” She runs a hand over her forehead. “I don’t know what’s going on, but someone left you a bunch of messages on the hotel phone.”
I push past her and into the hotel room, my stomach sinking. Was it Ms. Jacobson again? Maybe she wanted to get in touch with me about some notes, but I wasn’t picking up. I’m just grasping at straws. My stomach is all twisted up as I head to the nightstand between our beds. The phone flashes red.
“Did you listen to them?” I ask. My throat is so dry that it’s hard to swallow. “Do you know who was calling? Did they sound mad?”
“I only listened to the first one.” Alice pauses by the door. “It was Ms. Jacobson, asking you to call her about something urgent.”
It feels like there’s a large stone in my throat and I can’t swallow around it. All of the things I’ve been doing wrong jump to mind: spending time with Marius when I’m not
