“My last school, I was kind of run out,” Vaux says, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “Not like you see in movies or anything. No pitchforks. No torches. It was psychological. Over time. Really, it was a small group of girls, just five bitches, but the principal wouldn’t take it seriously. Not the teachers either. Not the parents. No one tried to stop the name-calling. The torment. They called me ‘easy’ at first. Like that’s genteel. Didn’t last long because then it was ‘slut’ and ‘whore.’ Even my friends, people I went to school with since kindergarten, were saying horrible things about me. This is out loud. This is in the hallways they’re saying it. Shouting it. At a party, once, a group of guys tried to rape me. I’d avoid lines because inevitably some guy would try and grope me. They all acted pissed when I’d shout them off. They’d say, ‘Why so suddenly stuck-up?’ and ‘What sort of tease are you?’ I was going home crying every day. Not wanting anything to do with school. Sobbing on the bus to-”
Vaux closes her eyes. Takes a deep breath in.
I don’t know what to say. My heart lurches around. It’s vulgar the way it’s moving. “The world is full of bastards. It seems like every third person I ever meet is revolting. Stupid. Bitter. There are these families of these people. Generations of them. I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to really get away.”
I squeeze Vaux’s knee again.
I say, “No one could hate you. You’re amazing.”
Vaux laughs. She says, “It’s my body. It was made for my ability. For me to do what I do. You can’t even imagine what it’s like living with this body. Before the high, it was only torment. Being a guy, I’m sure you don’t get it. I’ve been whistled at since I was twelve. Stared at. Spat at by girls. These…” Vaux puts her hands on her breasts and squeezes.
Part of me faints dead away.
She says, “When my boobs started to develop, my mom sat me down and told me how it was with her. All the same stuff, only it was in the sixties and men didn’t have the social pressure to behave themselves like they do now. Battle of the sexes couldn’t be more true.”
I lift my hand from Vaux’s leg.
She puts it back. Says, “I got the nastiest looks from girls. From the jealous ones who still wore training bras. There were other girls like me, though. Girls betrayed too early by their bodies. A clique of us, all these girls in big sweatshirts and coats. Scarves and frumpy dresses. My friend, Carla, she was the first the boys really noticed. They moved in like jackals. She was too aware of the attention it got her. Just the year before not a single boy would talk to her, but then, boom! And she took advantage of it. Let them touch her so long as they took her out. So long as they stayed friends. Not me. I didn’t let my body cheat me that way. It pushed out and I pushed back. Back then, and this will sound crazy, but the boys, they all called me stuck-up. They said mean, wicked things but the opposite. I didn’t cave. Then I met a boy I liked and we kissed and I felt something. This was freshman year and we dated for about two months. He was a senior. Things got…” Vaux pauses, asks, “Is it okay for me to talk to you about this?”
Already I can feel the muscles at the back of my neck straining. I just clench my jaw and nod.
Vaux gives me a smile.
Sitting there, my hand on her knee, she talks to me about the first time she got together with her first real boyfriend. How afterward she felt this rush, just barreling up her body and slamming into her brain, and how she saw, with this ex-guy in her arms, she saw him in this plane crash as an infant. How even though his brain was barely developed enough to process the memories, they were still there almost as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. The high, Vauxhall explains, afterward, it was like spiraling up into the sky and then over the sun and crashing down into cotton candy. Everything of her was vibrating. Everything felt alive.
Vaux says, “We broke up a week later. And then, I just needed to be in that place again. To have that feeling again. Parties. I’m embarrassed by some of the things I’ve done. That I still do. But I…” And she shakes her head.
“I know,” I say. “I know.”
Vauxhall asks, “Want to know why I sang to you?”
“Of course.”
“When I first walked into the lunchroom I saw you sitting with your friend and the first thing I thought was that you were incredibly cute. Only all jacked up with bruises in a prizefighter sort of way. I saw you sitting there, with Paige, and I got jealous. It sounds silly, but I wanted you all for myself the moment I saw you. I wanted you-”
“You saw me and thought, Hmmm, wonder what’s in that dude’s past that he doesn’t know about?”
“No.”
“What, then?”
Vaux’s face relaxes, the tears stop. “I don’t know what it was, this feeling, this flutter, but when I saw you, I knew you’d understand me. I knew you’d help me. Maybe you’d even love me.”
“I do.”
“I know. At first, it scared the hell out of me.”
I get closer. So close I can feel the warmth radiating off her skin. “And now?”
And now we kiss.
Finally.
Vaux’s lips are softer than anything I’d ever imagined. Moist too. They are perfect and as my lips sink into hers, it’s like I’m swimming. I’m pushing through the crystal water around the Great Barrier Reef. I’m slipping into a shallow sea.
Looking deep into me, Vaux says, “Were you scared to stop?”
“Yes but not for long.”
Vaux whispers, “I’m scared.”
“I know-”
“And really anxious.”
“I’m here for you. I love you.”
And we kiss again. Hard.
What happens in my chest is hard to describe. It’s something I imagine only happens in the deepest parts of space. It’s when a star collapses. Or is born. A supernova flowering into existence. What happens in my body is nothing short of miraculous. Every fiber connecting to every muscle and every tendon and every bone. All of it comes alive. All of it hums with a beautiful energy. A song.
This is magic greater than any concussive high.
My head clearer than it’s ever been, like it’s floating up into the sky, gliding over the treetops and scuffing roofs.
And then we leave.
On the doorstep to Vaux’s house, I don’t try to kiss her. I just hold her hand and look her in the eyes and tell her I’ll see her soon. I tell her to sleep tight. I say, “I’ll never leave you.”
An hour later, at home, lying awake in bed, I’m trying to will every cell in my body to remember the feel of her, the weight of her, against me.
My pillow is a terrible stand-in.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ONE
