Nothing Like You Page 5

  “You have to leave before Jeff gets up.”

  I could hear him sliding his pants off under the covers. “I think about you all the time,” he said, and then he pulled me into him and I let him say sweet things to me, I let him slide off my underwear. “Is this okay?” he asked, running a hand across my stomach. I nodded and brushed my lips against his lips. I knew there was another person to consider. I knew he loved her and not me. But it was my life and my bed and I wanted to feel what I wanted to feel. If I die tomorrow, I thought, at least I’ll die knowing I felt something real.

  Chapter 9

  So here’s where things started to get a little mixed up.

  I suddenly had a secret. And it made me feel guilty, yeah, but I also felt really fantastic. I felt the opposite of dead, really what I’d been striving for, and someone suddenly wanted me in a way I hadn’t been wanted before. I didn’t even mind having to keep things to myself. I mean, I thought the whole situation was really unfortunate, but I knew that I was the one he wanted more. That if she weren’t so fragile, so unstable, he’d be with me for real. No Saskia. No secret affair.

  “She’s frigid.”

  “No, she’s not.”

  “Holly, she is, she won’t have sex with me.”

  We were in the back of my car, parked at the beach. Paul was smoking. My windows were rolled up.

  “You’re lying,” I said.

  “I’m not.”

  “You’ve been together three years. You’ve had sex with her.” I buckled and unbuckled my seat belt.

  He shook his head. “She’s saving herself.” He laughed and dragged off his cigarette. “So ridiculous, that we’re still together …”

  I hated hearing him say it: He was with her, not me. It had only been two weeks, the two of us doing what we were doing, and already I felt possessive.

  He rolled onto his side and took my face between his hands. “It’s so much better with you. It’s easy. It feels right with you.” I loved this. When he compared me to her. Things were easier with me. I was better than her.

  The day before at school, I’d watched them in the hall together. Bumping hips while they walked. I’d watched her whisper something in his ear while he grabbed at her hands and bit the collar on her orange Lacoste polo. Three girls passed by, waving hello, and Paul leaned into Saskia and kissed her. He slipped her the tongue in front of everyone and she smiled, mid-kiss, and pushed him away, hitting him gently with the heel of her hand. Nils was with me. He was watching too. We leaned against our lockers in the hallway, sharing a bag of cheese popcorn. He said, “Those two make me want to puke. Seriously. Happiness like that should be outlawed.”

  And he could say what he wanted, but it all looked like lies to me. I felt bad for her. Fragile, frigid Saskia Van Wyck. Poor little girl, I thought, watching them stroll right past me. Their arms linked like paper dolls. You think he’s yours, but he’s not, I thought. You think he’s yours, but really he’s mine.

  Chapter 10

  Once, years ago, Mom hosted a crystal convention in our living room.

  I was ten, padding around in socks and my long white nightgown while dozens of new-age hippies milled about sipping Kombucha tea, fondling rocks, and discussing energy.

  “Who are these people?” Jeff asked. He was sitting on the granite island in the middle of our kitchen.

  “I have no clue,” I said, running toward him, scaling the side of the island so we could sit side by side.

  “You think they know we live here?” Jeff asked. He was twirling a long, rose-quartz baton between his thumb and middle finger.

  “No way,” I said, getting settled, eyeing the crowd.

  Mom moved easily from circle to circle, beaming, refilling cups, stopping occasionally to check out a rock and discuss its unique shape and healing capabilities.

  “I like that lady,” I said, tilting my head toward a woman wearing a neon yellow jumper, inspecting a piece of amethyst. “I like her braids,” I said, tugging on my own hair.

  Jeff nodded. “Or what about this guy?” he said, pointing at this young dude with sandy hair hovering around my mother. “He’s been trying to talk to Mom for the last half hour.” Jeff looked at me. “You think he likes her?”

  “Like, likes her?” I asked, horrified. “Ew. No.”

  “I think he likes her,” Jeff said, amused. We both looked back at my mom. The guy was trying to edge his way into my mother’s conversation with another woman.

  “I’m right. You know I’m right,” Jeff said, nudging my shoulder.

  “Maybe.” I nodded, turning to face him. “But doesn’t that make you mad?”

  He put a hand on my head. “It makes me proud ,” he said, happily mussing my hair, then pulling me forward and into a tight embrace.

  Chapter 11

  Nils was suddenly suspicious. He’d stopped dicking around with Nora Bittenbender long enough to notice my hysterical good cheer.

  “You seem different,” he said, folding down a page in his book and turning toward me.

  I shrugged.

  We were in The Shack, after school. It was almost six and dusky out.

  “I just—I get the distinct impression that you’re hiding something from me.”

  I turned onto my side, amused, and faced him on the futon. “Oh yeah? Like what? What am I hiding?”

  “I dunno. You’re happy all the time. Like, all of a sudden, things are great.”

  I forced a frown and brushed a stray hair off Nils’s forehead. He looked at me for a beat. “Lemme guess: You’re in love!”

  I snorted.

  “Or maybe you’ve just won the lottery!”

  “Could be.”

  “Or maybe you got that adorable little fruit bat you’ve always wanted. The one we saw splashed across the glossy pages of National Geographic not too long ago… .”

  “That very same one?” I played along excitedly.

  “That very same bat.”

  I put my hands to my heart. Nils took a breath and dropped his head back down on the bed. “So what’s the real deal?”

  I flipped onto my back and fixed my eyes on the ceiling. I couldn’t tell him about Paul. I just couldn’t. “No deal. I’m putting on the Christmas lights. It’s getting dark.” I rolled to my side and stuck the plug in the socket.

  “Holly.”

  “Nils.”

  “Come on, no kidding. What’s up?”

  “Nothing. I just feel good. There has to be a reason for that?” I tried my best to look believable. “Maybe the cloud has finally lifted.”

  “I thought we told each other everything.”

  “We don’t tell each other everything.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “No, we don’t , loser. I don’t know anything about you and your thing with that girl.”

  “That’s because you don’t want to know anything. I’d tell you if you asked. And why can’t you say her name, Holly? You know her name.”

  “Yes, I know her name.”

  “Say it.”

  “Nora … Slut-bender.”

  Nils sat up, pissed. “She’s not a slut. What, just because she’s not some perfect little virgin, she’s a slut?”

  “Fiiiine, she’s not a slut. I still don’t like her. And you don’t like her either! Remember? She’s dumb, Nils. You’re just with her’cause she’ll have sex with you.”

  “You’re jealous.”

  I laughed. “Jealous of what ? Her constant giggling? All that bottomless depth ?” I got up on my knees. “Oh! Or! Watch for her birthday party costume. Bet you anything it involves a bikini!”

  “Okay, Holly, enough.”

  I tilted my head to one side. “You’re a smart guy, Nils. I don’t understand why you’d go out with a girl like that.”

  “One day you’ll get it. You’ll invest more than two seconds in something or someone, then we’ll talk.”

  “You think you know everything about me?” I stood up. “You don’t know everything about me.
I’ve invested in things you know nothing about.”

  “Clearly.” We looked at each other. Nils grabbed my hand and dragged me back down. He looked me straight in the eye.

  I wilted a little. “Look, I can’t talk about it, okay? Just respect that, please? Because I can’t. Not now, anyways.”

  “All right.”

  I grabbed him and wrapped my arms around his neck. Then held on tight for second or two before pulling back. “Do you bring her here?”

  “Who? Nora?”

  I nodded, my hands sliding to his shoulders. “Do you?”

  “Holly, no. Come on. This is our place.”

  We linked pinkies. Then we both slid back down onto our backs with our books. Nils reached over and slipped a finger through my hair. “I love fighting with you,” he whispered.

  I dragged my knees to my chest. “Exciting, isn’t it?”

  “Makes me feel so alive!” he teased, pulling on a thick chunk of hair and jolting my head hard to one side.

  Chapter 12

  Mid-November. I was helping Ballanoff carry two huge stacks of books back to his office. We were talking about dumb stuff. Surface stuff. School and Dad and a new section from The Crucible we were working on in class. And then came a quick lull in the conversation and who knows why I said what I said but here’s what came out when I opened my mouth: “Jeff says you had a crush on my mom.”

  It’s true. Jeff claims Ballanoff was really into my mother in high school.

  You should have seen his face. Frozen deer. Spotlights. Or headlights. Or whatever. “He says that, huh?”

  I nodded. “Is it true?”

  He fished his keys from his jacket pocket, then he undid the lock on the door. “Come on in. Stay a while.” We both dropped our books onto his messy desk. “You want iced tea?” He bent down by the mini fridge.

  “Sure.”

  “Diet?” he asked, grabbing two Snapples.

  “Fine by me.”

  He tossed me my drink, then sat down across from me. “Yes. True. I had a crush on your mother.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  This was amazing to me. I loved the idea of my mother existing pre-Jeff. There’d only ever been one other guy I knew anything about, hairy Michael, Mom’s college boyfriend. But now there was this, too. “Did you do anything about it?”

  “Like what?”

  “I dunno. Did you tell her? Did you pursue her?” He just looked at me, so I leaned forward and said, “Mr. B, did you date my mom?”

  He half laughed/half coughed, as if he were clearing his throat. “No, Holly. I didn’t date your mom.”

  “Did you ever kiss?”

  “Holly.”

  “Come on, you’re giving me nothing.”

  He shifted around in his seat, pursing his lips. “Once. When we were your age, about. It wasn’t anything. I don’t think she was really that into it, to be honest.”

  I blinked. “Were you sad when she died? I mean, I would have been so sad if someone I’d really liked once had died.”

  “Yeah, of course. I was very sad.” And then he really looked it. I could be wrong, but I swear to god his eyes got a little wet.

  “I want to go see a psychic,” I blurted.

  “What for?”

  “You know. I wanna see if I can make a connection. Just so I know she’s okay.”

  Ballanoff shifted around in his seat.

  “Know any good mediums?” I joked, babbling on. “I got a card from this lady at the bookstore in town. That newagey place right next to Nature Mart? She gave me the card of her friend.” I paused a second and when Ballanoff didn’t say anything, I said, “You think I’m crazy.”

  “I don’t think you’re crazy at all.”

  And then we stared at each other for a minute, which kind of freaked me out but I think Ballanoff just got really sad, suddenly. “You look so much like her,” he said. Everyone says that. All the time people say that and I know it should make me feel really great but all it ever truly does is turn my gut. Same hair, same skin, same violin dimples on the small of my back. And if I look like her, who’s to say I won’t die like her?

  “Heard it before. Dead ringer,” I said, rolling a split lock of tangled hair between two fingers.

  Chapter 13

  Paul and I had figured out a system for seeing each other. Mainly school nights, after midnight. After Jeff and Nils and Saskia were asleep, he’d drive over and tap my window and I’d run down the hall and open the front door and then he’d crawl into bed with me.

  “Ballanoff and my mom kissed once, when they were, like, seventeen.” I slid my arm across Paul’s waist.

  “Shut up.”

  “It’s true,” I whispered. “He told me today. After class.”

  “Doesn’t that creep you out?”

  “I think it’s nice. I like thinking about my mom when she was my age … like, I like the idea of her doing things before she was my mom or Jeff’s wife. You know?”

  Paul nodded and put a hand on my head. “Why do you call Jeff Jeff?”

  “Sometimes I call him Dad to his face. But I dunno, when I was little I just thought it was really funny, calling Dad, “Jeff.” I think I wanted to be grown up already. And it seemed like a very grown-up thing to do.”

  He moved his hand from my head, sliding it down so he was holding my hair. “What did you call your mom?”

  I bent my head back so I could look at him. “Just Mom.”

  He laughed.

  “Why’s that funny?” I bit his shoulder and wrapped my leg around him under the covers. “I kinda can’t wait for you to meet him.”

  “Who?”

  “Jeff. Duh.” I pressed my nose to his armpit. He smelled like a muted mix of Right Guard and BO.

  “Holly,” he said, getting up on his elbows to face me. “I can’t meet Jeff.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, what’re you gonna say, ‘This is my friend Paul, he’s not my boyfriend but we sleep together sometimes. Oh, also, he’s got a girlfriend.’”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have to say any of that. I could just say you’re my friend. That’s the truth.”

  “Yeah but, what if he knows Saskia’s parents or something?”

  “Saskia’s parents? He doesn’t.”

  “You can’t know that for sure. What if he does?”

  I sat up. “So you’re never gonna meet my dad? What about Nils? You know he’s already started asking questions and I don’t know how much longer I can hide this from him—”

  “What do you mean, he’s asking questions?”

  “Well, you know, I think he’s noticed how happy I am.”

  “If you tell anyone about us, I swear to god, Holly—”

  “You swear to god what ?” I pulled on the sheet, hiking it up under my arms the way naked women sometimes do on daytime soaps.

  “I’m just saying, no one can know. They just—they can’t.” He lowered his voice a notch. “Saskia would die if she knew. We can’t ever tell anyone.”

  “Well, what if you guys break up? We can’t be together then? Like out in the open, for real?”

  He softened. “If we break up, yeah, I guess then we can talk. But you can’t tell anyone, Holly. You can’t. No one can ever know about this, okay?”

  I nodded, but I wanted to cry. Instead I sucked it up and lay back down and tried to remember why this whole thing felt so great to begin with.

  He nuzzled up next to me then, resting his head on my chest. “I love being with you. I do.”

  “I know,” I said, lacing my fingers through his fingers.

  He went on. “It would be a real shame if somebody found out about us and all this had to stop.”

  My stomach churned. I flexed my fingers so that our hands were no longer entwined. He bit my earlobe and slid his free hand between my thighs. “Your hair smells so nice. Like roses.”

  “Different shampoo,” I mumbled, rolling away from him and onto my side.