Nothing Like You Page 10

  “I was a total asshole,” he started. “Please, let me come in. I won’t touch you. I just want to talk.”

  I stiffened.

  “Come on, Holly. I’m like your fucking dog. Please”—he clamped his hands together as if he were praying—“let me come in.”

  “Just say whatever you have to say. And keep your voice down, Jeff’s asleep.”

  “Let’s go to the toolshed.”

  “No.”

  “Isn’t that where you and your little boyfriend play house?”

  I twisted toward the door. I was going back inside.

  “Holly Holly Holly …” He pulled me back by my elbow. “I’m sorry, I’m just jealous, okay? I’m sorry.”

  He fished around in his pocket and pulled out a lighter and a pack of cigarettes. “I miss you,” he said, lighting up.

  I pulled my shorts down so they sat square on my hips and watched Paul puff out a big poof of smoke.

  “And I’m sorry. And I want things to go back to the way they were.”

  I looked at the ground and kicked a pile of dirt.

  “I’m gonna break up with her.”

  A bolt of fear shot up my spine. “You can’t do that. Why would you do that?”

  “For you.”

  “But I don’t want you to.” I looked down by Paul’s feet and saw a rotten lemon. I rolled my foot over the moldy part and smashed it into the ground.

  “Holly.” His voice was pleading. I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to take him inside and take off his clothes and sleep next to him all night long. But all his promises and declarations of everlasting adoration couldn’t change the fact that he only wanted me because I wouldn’t let him have me. “You have to go,” I said.

  He shook his head, took a long drag off his cigarette, and exhaled in my direction.

  I opened my front door and went back inside. Then I watched from the kitchen window as he jogged back down the hill toward his car.

  Chapter 27

  Saskia’s room was plastered with photos of her and her friend Sarah whose last name I could never remember. The twin bed she’d had as a kid had been replaced by a queen-size mattress and box spring with no bed frame or headboard. On her nightstand sat a stack of crappy fashion mags and next to that a picture of her and Paul together in the canyon somewhere.

  “You guys are pretty close, huh?” I pointed at a collage hanging over her dressing bureau. “You and your friend Sarah, I mean.”

  “I guess, yeah.”

  I turned and walked toward her bed. “Did you know I was here once before?”

  “You were?”

  “In sixth grade, for your birthday party.”

  “I don’t remember you being here. So weird.”

  I sat down on her bed. “Where’s your brother?”

  “Work, maybe?” She walked to the mirror, grabbed an elastic off the vanity, and pulled her hair back into a smooth ponytail. “You hungry?” she asked, whipping her whole body around to face me.

  I nodded.

  “Come here.” Saskia took my hand and led me downstairs to the kitchen. She pulled a tub of guacamole out of the fridge and a bag of potato chips from the cupboard. We plopped down on the couch in the living room and ate the entire bowl, barely stopping to breathe between bites.

  Afterward I lay on the floor, my hands resting on my stomach. Saskia was on the couch, still.

  “Have you finished all your school applications?”

  “Basically, yeah.” She sniffed. “Have you?”

  “Pretty much.” I was applying to four schools, all in California, which wasn’t the original plan, but Mom died and that put an end to any big dreams of leaving for snowy New York or whatever. So, three of my schools were in L.A. or nearby. One was up north, in Santa Cruz. “Doesn’t matter much, anyway, I won’t be going all that far.”

  “You’re staying here?”

  “Looks that way.”

  Saskia eyed me curiously.

  “I feel guilty leaving Jeff.”

  “Oh.”

  I rolled over onto my front. “You know Ballanoff used to date my mom in high school?”

  “No way, theater guy?”

  “Yeah, theater guy.”

  “Gross, Holly.”

  I laughed. We lay there for a bit and didn’t talk. My stomach gurgled.

  “Holly?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I ask you something personal?”

  “Yeah, sure.” The cat came by and licked my face. I ran a hand down her smooth coat.

  “Are you a virgin?”

  I froze. My hand locked around the cat’s neck. I shook my head—a slow no. “Why, what about you?” I asked, as a courtesy, a gesture, because I already knew the answer to that question.

  “No,” she whispered, biting at a hangnail.

  No. No?

  She went on. “Seriously though, sometimes I wish I were, still. We were so young when we started … god, and then once you start, you can’t ever go back to just kissing or holding hands … sucks, right?” Saskia stretched her arms out, then flipped onto her side and looked at me. “I miss just … making out.”

  They had been having sex this whole time? My chest tightened. Maybe she meant someone other than Paul. “Who’s ‘we’?” I asked.

  She flashed me a peculiar look. “Duh, hello , I’m not that big a slut.” She chucked a pillow from the couch in my direction. “Paul.” It missed me by a foot, landing by my feet. “Why, what about you?” She asked. “Who’d you do it with?”

  “No one you know,” I stammered quickly, a guilty wave slamming my gut. I sat up. “I feel sick,” I said.

  “You need the bathroom?” she asked, rushing over to help me up off the ground.

  “It’s okay,” I gently swatted her hand away, stood up, and waddled off toward the toilet. “Be back.”

  I flipped on the fan, sat down on the edge of the tub, and cried. I hadn’t cried in months. Not since Mom, and even then, I probably hadn’t managed to squeeze out any more than a tear or two at her memorial. These, though, were big, soundless, sloppy tears. Unstoppable. Tear after tear, shooting down onto Saskia’s bathmat like rain.

  Knock knock knock. “You okay in there?”

  I sucked in my breath, then blurted, “I’m good. Be out in a minute.” Then I turned on the sink and splashed some water on my face, the way hysterical women in movies sometimes do. I fixed my hair and blew my nose and tried smiling at my reflection to see if I could pull off looking regular, but my eyes looked like puffy marshmallows.

  I slinked back out the bathroom door with my head down.

  “Are you okay? Have you been crying?”

  I tried looking chipper. “No I just, I tried to make myself puke, which like, always makes my eyes tear. Anyways, it didn’t work. I couldn’t throw up.”

  “You want some ginger ale?”

  “I should go home,” I said.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I’ll just go home and sleep it off. This happens sometimes,” I lied.

  Chapter 28

  I went dressed like a cat.

  There was a piñata, a cooler full of orange soda and Coke, and four small bottles of bourbon being passed around for kicks. Nils and I were perched up high on the wooden railing of the deck, looking down on—I’m gonna guess—fifty kids, maybe sixty. Most of our class was there.

  “So when’s the big breakup scene gonna happen?”

  Nils was wearing a chicken costume. Meaning he wore a fake beak and had a feather tucked into the chest pocket of his button-down. “Tomorrow,” he said, sounding cheerless. “After this whole mess is over.”

  I looked out at the crowd. Saskia and her group, decked out in Girl Scout garb, were drinking in a circle on the ground by the azaleas. Paul was there too. Wearing a fedora and suit.

  “Have you thought about what you’re gonna say?”

  Nils shrugged. “‘You’re a great girl. I can’t handle a relationship right now. I’m not ready to
commit.’ Pretty standard stuff.” He looked at me. “How’s your situation?”

  “Good, actually. Over.”

  “Wow. Really.”

  “Yup.” I sat up straight. “I feel pretty great about it.”

  Nils looked at me as if he was going to say something, but then didn’t.

  “What’re we doing here, anyways?” I asked, turning back toward the party. Watching Paul watch me from his spot on the grass.

  “Who knows,” said Nils. Then, “Hey, look. There’s Paul Bennett!” He feigned enthusiasm. “Dude’s wearing a fedora. What a loser.”

  Sudden nausea. I looked off in another direction. Nora was darting around the lawn in a Laker Girl cheerleading uniform. Midriff and thighs, very bare! I swung my legs over the railing and hopped down onto the grass. “Shall we mingle?” I asked. “Find some booze for our drinks?” I tapped my Coke can.

  Nils jumped off the railing and dropped down next to me. He grabbed my hand and held it for a second. Longer than a second. Weird, because we hadn’t ever really held hands before and it wasn’t like Nils was drunk or anything. He didn’t let go until Nora came by fifteen seconds or so later. She threw the full weight of her body against Nils’s body, knocking our hands apart.

  “Baby,” she cooed, grabbing him by the back of his head and pulling him into a sloppy kiss.

  “Having fun?” Nils asked, righting himself. Pushing his beak back onto his nose.

  “A blast.” She turned toward me. “Holly!!! I’m so glad you’re here!” She lurched forward then, arms outstretched. We embraced. “You want whiskey?” She pulled a skinny bottle of Jack out from under her halter.

  “Sure thing.”

  Nils and I held out our Coke cans. Nora poured.

  I was drunk. Not really drunk drunk, just tipsy, and Nils was off with Nora somewhere, so I was alone, standing by the snack table eating a handful of chips when Saskia stumbled over holding a lily. “Are you drinking?” she asked, leaning forward.

  I held the soda can to my lips and nodded. “What’s that?” I pointed to the flower.

  “I picked it.”

  “I can see that. I’m sure Nora’s parents will be pleased once they see someone’s picked all their lilies.”

  Saskia stuck the flower behind her ear. “Only one.” She flung an arm around my shoulder and pulled me close. “Is this a fun party?”

  “Not really,” I said, quickly scanning the place for Paul. No sign of him. Not that it mattered now, whether he saw us together or not.

  “I didn’t think so.” She kept her arm draped around my shoulder as we swayed from side to side. “I’m so glad to know you, Holly Hirsh.” She pulled me closer and I let her. I loved how she loved me.

  After that I found Nils, then lost him again, then waited in line for the bathroom forever, then got fed up and wandered back outside. I surveyed the crowd. All drunk. It was late. I wandered away from the party, through a heavily wooded area and found a nice spot behind an overgrown patch of jasmine. I pushed my leggings and underwear down around my ankles and squatted.

  “Is that you?” came a disembodied voice.

  I screamed, jumped up, and accidentally peed all over my legs.

  “Holly, I know it’s you, I’m coming back there.” It was Paul.

  I quickly hiked up my underwear and leggings. Paul appeared from behind a bush. “Hi.”

  “What’re you doing back here?”

  “Detective work …”

  “Is that what you are?”

  “A detective, yes. Like my hat?”

  “I guess.” I stepped backward into a tangle of weeds.

  “Got a minute?”

  “Not really.”

  “That blond girl back there? The one dressed like a Girl Scout … you know her?”

  I froze momentarily, said, “Don’t be a loser,” then walked toward him. “Come on, let’s go back to the party.”

  “What, so you’re, like, best friends all of a sudden?”

  “You’re drunk, Detective Bennett. We can talk later, okay?” I tried pushing past him. He grabbed my arm.

  “I miss you.”

  I shook my arm loose. “You don’t miss me. You had me and didn’t want me.” I walked ahead. “Besides, you lied. You lied about sleeping with Saskia.”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “You did, you lied.”

  “Holly, come on, wait.” He grabbed my arm again and spun me around.

  “I have to go find a bathroom.”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “Not now.”

  “Holly.”

  “What?!” I whipped around, waiting. Tapping my foot against a pile of dry, crunchy leaves.

  “I think I should tell her.”

  My chest tightened. “Tell her what?”

  “About you and me.”

  “There is no you and me.”

  “Holly.”

  “You can’t.”

  “No, I can. I’m going to. This is good, see? It’ll be out there then and no one has to feel guilty or bad anymore. What’s that saying? About truth and freedom?” He started back toward the party. I grabbed him by the shirt and tried pulling him backward, but he just kept moving forward. So I flung myself on him, wrapping my arms around his neck from behind. He stopped. “Holly, what the hell?” He turned to face me. We were nose to nose.

  “Please, you can’t. It’ll crush her. I’ve never had a friend like her before. She’ll hate me.” He took me by the chin. I pushed his hand away and took a breath. “Don’t tell her. Please.”

  “I have to.”

  “No, you don’t. Please, Paul? Whatever you want. I’ll do it.”

  “Whatever I want?”

  I nodded.

  He took a step forward and pushed my shirt collar to the side so that it hung off one shoulder. Then he snapped my bra strap and laughed. My eyes welled up and went blurry. “Come on, Paul, please.”

  “Seriously, Holly, pull yourself together.” He took my hand as if he were being nice. “You mull it over, okay? Things either go back to how they were or I tell Saskia about you and me. I’m giving you a week.” He kissed me quick on the mouth and walked off.

  I wiped my face, picked a twig off my sweater, and made my way back to the party. Nils was sitting Indian style on a cooler eating candy out of the broken piñata. He was talking to that Sarah girl.

  “Hey.” I tugged on the sleeve of his shirt.

  He looked up, “Where’ve you been?”

  “Can we go, please? It’s late.”

  Nils stood up.

  We walked home. It was a short walk, half a mile, maybe. I made Nils hold my hand all the way to my front door.

  “’Night, Hols.” He turned away from me, heading back across the yard to his house.

  “Nils?”

  He twisted back around.

  I was sobbing. Suddenly. That same sort of breathless, silent crying I’d been doing days before in Saskia’s bathroom. I felt my throat constrict and waved my hands in front of my face. Nils ran over.

  “I can’t breathe,” I shrieked, fanning my hands, treading the ground beneath me. Nils took me by the waist and walked me over to The Shack. We went inside, he sat me down on the futon, and plugged the Christmas lights into the wall socket. “Should I go get Jeff?”

  I shook my head and pulled him down next to me. “I did a really bad thing. I did something really bad to someone I really care about.”

  “Who?”

  “Just promise you won’t hate me. Ever. No matter what happens. Please?”

  “I could never hate you. You’re my best friend.”

  I nodded as if to say thank you I love you you’re my best friend too but I couldn’t get the words out.

  Nils pulled me forward and I collapsed into his chest. I cried and I cried and with each silent sob his shirt grew more and more transparent with my snot and salty tears.