Tasting Never (9 page)

“
You
weren't planning on confessing your love for me or anything like
that, were you?” he asks. And because I think it's a joke, I
respond with, “Not in your wildest fucking dreams.” I
turn around to see what his face looks like because people like Ty
flash everything they're feeling through their eyes like a slide
show, when a bus passes between us, loud and obnoxious, spewing fumes
into the clear air. When it's gone by and I finally have a clear
view, Ty is nowhere to be seen.

11

I'm
sitting in the lap of this guy who smells good and who seems nice,
but that I can't stand listening to when he talks. Everything he
says comes out with an explanation point at the end of it.
What
are you majoring in?!
and
You have really beautiful hair!
I
keep him quiet by pushing my tongue into his mouth, wrapping my arms
around his neck and grinding my hips into his growing erection.
Yeah, sure, somewhere inside of myself I know that I use sex as an
escape, that even now I'm using this guy to forget about what
happened between Ty and me yesterday, but I just don't know how else
to deal.

“
Whoa!”
I hear a voice from behind me followed by bubbly giggles. It's
Lacey.

“
What?”
I snap as I stare at her. She's dressed in this teeny tiny pink
dress that crinkles and sparkles when she moves. Her legs are golden
and long, lean and perfect. The perfect Barbie doll. There are guys
hanging all over her, but she isn't interested in any of them.

“
I
was looking for you,” she says with a laugh. I think she's
plastered, but I'm not sure. I stand up, flicking away Exclamation
Point Guy's hands as he grabs for me and clings to the fabric of the
little black dress I chose tonight.

“
Don't
go!” he says, and I have to grit my teeth to keep from telling
him to shut the fuck up.

“
Keys,”
I say as Lacey pushes away a guy who won't stop kissing her neck. I
hold out my hand and shake my palm for emphasis. “Now.”

“
Come
on, Never. We want to go to the beach. That's why I was looking for
you. Let's all go the beach together.” Lacey holds up her
arms and the entourage behind her cheers their consent.

“
Keys,”
I repeat, unwilling to see Lacey perish in that stupid, little green
car of hers. It would be both tragic and incredibly sad. She rolls
her eyes and pouts her lips, but I don't take in any of it. “Keys.”

“
Fucking
fine,” she slurs as she reaches into her top and pulls them
out. The blonde guy on her right groans and tries to lick the metal
as she passes them over to me.

I
shove his face back, grab Lacey by the chin and whisper, “Be
careful.” I kiss her on the cheek and send her on her way with
her promise to keep her phone on. Bad things can happen at parties
like this. Horrible things.

“
Are
you coming back to me?!” asks Exclamation Point Guy. I close
the door behind me and lean against it, letting my hair fall into my
face, so that I can breathe for just a moment. I feel so jumbled and
confused and messed up right now. I don't understand Ty any better
than I understand myself. I thought he was making me better, but
right now, I feel worse than ever. I put the base of my hand to my
forehead, and slip my phone out of the inside pocket on my coat.
Despite the fact that I'm wearing a sexy dress beneath it, I leave it
on, like a layer of protection against the outside world.

No
missed calls.

Fuck
and damn it.

I
put the phone away and lift up my head, putting a plastic smile on my
face.

“
Now
where were we?” I ask the blonde guy with the nice chest and
the pretty face. The guy who's so drunk that he's willing to do
things he wouldn't normally do. The guy that I'll feel guilty about
tomorrow. This isn't the type of man that I usually go for, not at
all, but I feel like I need a break from those other kind, like I've
got burn scars on my heart and body that haven't healed yet. I move
across the room and swing my legs over the guy's knees. I unbutton
his pants and try to ignore him when he talks.

“
Are
you going to blow me?” he asks. “I've never had a blow
job before? Once, my girlfriend gave me a hand job though!” I
pause with my hands on the waistband of his underwear. They're white
briefs, not something I'm used to. The guys I fuck usually wear
boxers.

“
You
have a girlfriend?” I ask and feel queasy inside. The blonde
guy nods and tries to kiss me, but I turn my face away, unsure if I
want to go through with this. I feel kind of … sick. With
myself, with Ty, with this person, whoever he is.

“
Yeah,
we've dating for two years, ever since we started going here. We met
in a calc class!” he says as I lean back and wrinkle my nose.
What are you doing, Never? You haven't slept with anyone since
that night you blew off your date with Rick. Are you seriously going
to throw a whole month away like this? What do you think you're
going to get out of this?

“
Look,
uh,” I pull my hands away from Exclamation Point Guy and fold
them across my chest. “You, um, I can't do this.” I
shake my head and bite my lower lip hard enough that it bleeds. At
least the pain wakes me up, tells me how stupid this really is. If I
have a problem with Ty, I should call him. That's what a normal
person would do. It's the only thing that makes any fucking sense.

As
if summoned by my thoughts, my phone chirps at me, and I nearly fall
off of the blonde dude's lap in my attempt to get it out of my
pocket. There's a text. Just one. From Ty. My breath ceases to
flow, and my heart doesn't pump.

hey
Nevr sry i acted like a dick can u forgv me? i had a thng w sum grl.
she trshed my place and i was pissed. no xcuses but i wanted u to
know. call me.

I
stare at the text for a moment.

“
Come
on,” moans Exclamation Point Guy as he reaches down and frees
himself from his pants. I give him a tight-lipped smile, put the
phone away and pull out a piece of gum. I stuff it in my mouth,
scoot forward, and fuck him.

All
the while I know that I'm making a stupid, fucking mistake.

12

I
leave Exclamation Point Guy passed out on a bed and walk out of that
party with a smirk on my face, twirling the keys around my fingers
like some kind of female Casanova. When I get outside and find Lacey
making out with some girl that really should be wearing a bra but
isn't, I retreat to her car and sit in the front seat with tears
pouring down my face.

I
sob and shake and scream. I grab the steering wheel with an iron
grip and contract the muscles and tendons in my hand so hard that I
feel like they're going to burst out of my skin and kill me.
I
wish,
I think as I pull my phone
out and dial Ty's number. I put it to my ear and sit in the dark
silence of the car, trembling. I don't know what I'm going to say to
him. What did he to do me anyway? Nothing. Nothing at all, and yet
I'm so mad, I could spit.
Ty didn't make you fuck that
guy, and he didn't break you. That wasn't him.

“
I'm
not broken,” I say aloud, but the only person I have to
convince of that is me. Ty doesn't answer, and I don't leave a
message because I don't know what to say to him. Suddenly, the
loneliness of the car becomes stifling, and I have to climb out and
walk back to the front yard where Lacey is lying on her back and
looking up at the stars. She's holding hands with that girl, and
they're both grinning like fools. “Let's go,” I say to
her, wondering when I stopped enjoying being alone.

“
You
take the car, Never,” she says, eyes dewy and wide. “This
is Trini's sorority house. She lives here.”

“
I'm
an Alpha Omega,” Trini says as the two girls turn towards one
another and start to giggle. Lacey brushes Trini's dark hair away
from her heart shaped face and they begin to kiss. I stare down at
them for awhile, hoping they'll stop soon, but they don't. In fact,
the longer I wait, the more intimate they get. Finally, I'm forced
to retreat back to the little, green car by myself. It's a Fiesta, a
gift from Lacey's dad. Wish I had a dad. Wish mine hadn't been
murdered right in front of me. Wish I had someone to tell this
secret, too.

I
realize that I'm having a small anxiety attack and climb into the
back seat for awhile to rest. As soon as my head hits the
upholstery, I start to cry. Hours later, I fall asleep and spend the
rest of my night in the back of Lacey's Ford, dreaming of one thing
and one thing only.

Ty
McCabe.

13

It's
been almost three weeks since I last saw Ty, and I miss him so much
it hurts when I move, like my muscles are sore from wishing too much.
Why, I don't have any fucking clue. When I tell this to Lacey, she
just smiles and gets all quiet. She's been acting strange ever since
she met that girl, Trini. They hang out every available second of
the day and even have these obnoxious sleepovers that make me want to
grab my blankets and go curl up in the hallway. At least they don't
have sex with me in the room. At least there's that.

“
If
you miss him so much, then call him,” she tells me with a roll
of her eyes, like this is a
duh
moment
that I am just not getting. “I bet he'd be thrilled to hear
from you.” Lacey grabs her hair and twists it into a bun on
the back of her head. As she does this, she watches me tack pictures
to my wall. There are hundreds of them, and I'm determined to hang
them all up. I've been working on this for days, plastering the wall
next to my bed and planning to continue until I get to the closet.
Lacey hasn't asked about them, but I saw her looking when she thought
I was sleeping last night, using her phone as a flashlight.

“
These
are my sisters,” I tell Lacey who raises her pale eyebrows.
I've never told her about them. Not once. She only knows a little
about my mom because she found my belly dancing costumes stuffed in
the back of the closet. To assuage her curiosity, I had to tell her
something. “Beth is the oldest.” I pause and am royally
pissed at myself for having to calculate my sister's age in my head.
This is just something I should know without thinking. “I
guess now she'd be about twenty-three.” I point to a picture
of a pretty girl with copper hair and a smile that could disarm even
the toughest heart. Beth. God, it's hard to miss someone so much
and hate them at the same time. It's a disconcerting feeling. “I'm
next in the lineup.” I move my finger across the wall like a
pointer until I find a picture of me at sixteen. Lacey stands up and
squeals.

“
You
were so cute!” she says as picks at the edge of the photo with
her nails. They're painted bright yellow this week and while I find
them obnoxious, I keep catching Trini sucking on them and telling
Lacey how sexy they are. They're so goofy together that I have a
sneaking suspicion that they think they're in love. I can't judge if
they are or not; I'm not qualified, but if it's true, then I hope I
never fall into it because when they're together, they act like
idiots.

“
Then
there's Jade who's … ” I count in my head again.
“Twenty. Zella who's nineteen. India would be sixteen now, I
guess.” I sigh and try not to imagine my little sisters too
clearly. The younger they were when I left, the more I miss them,
the less culpable I hold them for what happened. Beth, Jade, and
Zella are at least half responsible for me leaving. “Lettie is
thirteen and Lorri is ten.” I point them all out, a sea of
girls with pretty lips, pale skin, and eyes that sparkle with blue
and green flecks. We all look like our mother, like a sea of copper
haired clones. Except for Beth, Zella, and me, nobody shares the
same father. My mom's as big a whore as I am.

I
drop the pictures to my bed and they flutter down to the red and
black comforter like a swarm of butterflies.

Tears
are falling again, and I don't know why. I don't know anything
anymore. I thought I had things figured out, at least a little bit.
Stay busy, find a reason to live in the morning, cry myself to sleep
at night. I didn't have friends, and I brushed bodies with bruised
souls. Now I can't even stomach the thought of sex and being alone
makes me physically ill.

Ty
has changed me; Lacey has changed me; I'm changing myself. Just
everything's changing, and I don't know how to deal. It's happening
fast, too fast for me to follow. I don't like it. I don't feel in
control now. The world is spinning, and I can't stop it, no matter
how hard I try.

“
Hey,”
Lacey says as she scoops the photos into a neat stack and sets them
on the edge of her desk. “Why don't I blow off my date with
Trini tonight, and we'll go out, just me and you. No boys, no girls,
just a round of mini golf?”