“Should I?” he asked again.
I was dancing with yes and no, reeling from the grip of one and then the other. In the back of my mind was the realization that this was what Haylee wanted more than I did, and it was Mother’s fault. She had taught us that what one of us did the other must do, or we would become too different and in the end hate each other because of the difference. The yes in me argued that I should do it for Haylee’s sake as much as my own.
The no in me was screaming that she was turning me into her. Didn’t I always want to be my own person, have my own identity? More important, didn’t I want this to be special and to come about only after a commitment of deeper feelings and an investment of trust, just like Mother told us? I liked Matt a lot, but how could all that have come so quickly? This was really only our second date. Yes, we had spent a lot of time talking at school, but that wasn’t intimate time.
And what about tomorrow? Could I live with the regret? Could I do what Haylee did and not make it as big a thing as Mother wanted it to be for us?
I wasn’t Haylee. I wasn’t. This was too soon.
“Not yet,” I said.
I could almost feel the disappointment in the air, because some of it was coming from me as well as from him.
He turned away and lay on his back. I felt a wave of cold air come between us.
“It’s all right. It’s all right,” he said. “I just have to calm down a bit.”
I put my hand on his chest and pressed my face against his shoulder. We lay there silently. I heard his breathing slow to a regular rhythm and realized he was falling asleep. Whatever it was they had put in our drinks was doing this, I thought angrily. I slipped off the bed and reached for my bra and my dress. Then I went into my bathroom and splashed my face with cold water. I felt tired but not as dizzy as before. Perhaps I hadn’t drunk as much as Matt. When I stepped out, I saw that he was on his side now, sleeping. There was no point in waking him. I thought about the food we had left out and decided to go downstairs and put some of it into containers as Matt had suggested. The door to Haylee’s room was closed. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to her anyway.
While I was taking care of the food, I saw that either Haylee or Jimmy had spilled some marinara sauce on one of the dining-room chair cushions. Mother would be very angry about it, I thought, and hurried to get the stain remover. It took quite a while to get the sauce out of the cushion. After that, I continued cleaning up. We hadn’t even touched the tiramisu. Maybe Matt and Jimmy would eat some when they came down. I looked at the clock.
It was almost nine thirty. We still had some time, but I thought I had better get them down here. I hurried up the stairs, intending first to knock on Haylee’s bedroom door, but when I reached the landing and started down the hallway, Haylee stepped out of my bedroom.
Totally naked!
She stood there smiling at me. For a moment, I felt as if my feet were nailed to the floor.
“What were you—”
“You’re not a virgin anymore,” she said, laughed, and sauntered to her bedroom.
I still hadn’t moved. What had she done? My heart was pounding. I approached my doorway slowly, almost with baby steps, and paused there looking in. Then I flipped on the lights. Matt was facedown on my bed, also totally naked. I gasped with a moan loud enough to stir him. He turned slowly, his eyes blinking. He rubbed them and gazed at me.
“Hey,” he said. “How did you get dressed so fast?”
Beside him on the bed was the empty contraceptive wrapper.
I still had not entered the room.
“What did you do?” I asked, my hands at the base of my throat.
“Do?” He sat up and leaned against the headboard. “What do you mean? You mean my falling asleep? I’m sorry—”
“No!”
My exclamation was so loud and sharp that he seemed to tremble like someone experiencing an earthquake. “What?” he asked, reaching for his underwear and slipping it on. He was grasping at all his clothes.
“My sister,” I said.
He shook his head and put on his pants. “Sister?” He looked at the doorway to my bathroom. “You came out of the bathroom . . . naked, and I was surprised, but—”
“It wasn’t me,” I said.
Now he simply stared at me. His face moved from disbelief to suspicion and then back to disbelief. “You took it out. You put it on me and—”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” I said, slamming the palms of my hands against my ears.
He hurried to finish dressing. “It can’t be,” he mumbled. “It can’t be.”