River told me how beautiful I was until he took my virginity in the backseat of his 1991 Lumina and asked for pictures of my tits. Then I became an object, and the comments about my beautiful big eyes changed into comments about my big breasts and ass, and I never heard the word beautiful again. I didn’t miss it at the time, though, honestly, I lived for the sexual power I had over him. It’s that feeling that I loved so much.
River didn’t care about me, not really. Not as much as he cared about being the cool guy with the naked pictures of Meg Spring. There was even a rumor that he was making guys in our school pay him ten bucks for them. The girls got them for free, to pick me apart, to call me names and criticize every part of my body from my “pepperoni nipples” to the stretch marks on the tops of my thighs. The girls at my old school were worse even than the guys. At least the guys’ comments weren’t negative.
River was careless and thoughtless, and John was supposed to be the opposite of that. I was in control, holding the better cards, and if Shia knew I was happy with John Brooke, maybe it would make me feel better about him and Bell. Such was my illogical logic at nineteen.
With every week out of high school, I felt like I was getting to know myself more and more. I found out things about myself every day. Like new foods, different ways I could appreciate my life. Jo said I always took power too far, and that power can be silent, but I liked to shout and scream. I had been quiet my entire life, and after being tormented for being quiet, I wasn’t going to shut up. Jo always told me that with my confidence, I could be a CEO of a big company in Chicago or New York, but I didn’t feed off the crowd or thrive under bright lights like she did. I wanted to hear the sounds of children laughing and playing, and I wanted a yard.
I didn’t have New York City–sized dreams like Jo, but mine seemed like much more fun. Jo wanted to be a little fish in an ocean, and I wanted to be an expensive, exotic fish in a beautiful clean tank. She didn’t care about being admired the way I did. Not everyone could be like Jo, or Shia even—and I didn’t want to be.
The second that my thoughts went back to Shia, he asked a woman passing by us what time it was. I knew there were big clocks on the wall and a phone in his pocket, but I assumed he was trying to make things less awkward by speaking to someone, anyone. I wondered which one of us would leave first. I started to think I was being paranoid about how awkward it actually was, since neither of them were making a move to leave or strike up a conversation. John was still eating, and Shia was playing with a yarn bracelet on his wrist.
I grew more uncomfortable with each second that ticked on. It was weird that they weren’t talking when they were supposed to be “friends.” The awkwardness ate at me until I started to think that maybe they were both conspiring against me? What would Jo make of this? She would definitely have a theory on the strange behavior of these two young men. John wasn’t acting like we had just been reunited the night before.
When it came down to it, I just wanted to spend uninterrupted time with John. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that even though we were “dating,” we hadn’t spent much time together. Was Jo right about us when she said that we had no foundation?
But what does Jo know about dating? I thought. Well . . . at that point Jo had spent more time with Laurie than I had John, and she had only been friends with him since around Christmastime.
Hell, I’d spent more time with Mrs. King than anyone else in my life lately, aside from my family. I didn’t have much of a social life between working and driving my sisters around. Shia was my friend, at least when I first moved to Fort Cyprus. Thinking about it, I couldn’t remember when we became more than friends, or less, but I knew that if Shia wanted me, he would have said it. He never told me he wanted me, not the way John did. He asked me to leave the country with him, sure, but he used the word “friend” more times than I could count. Kissing friends, that’s what we were.
Meg Spring was for kissing; Bell Gardiner was for marriage.
It made me nauseous to think about.
So much gossip surrounded me everywhere I went, how did I not hear about Shia and Bell? I spent at least fifteen hours a week at his family’s house, and I had no idea he was dating her. I knew nothing about their whirlwind relationship. I looked at Shia across from me and remembered the mysterious emails from “John” that weren’t actually from John.
Still, I didn’t think Shia would do that. He would just text me or come to my house and tell me to break up with John if he had a problem with us. I couldn’t think of a single reason why he would care, but I was still nursing the Bell Gardiner engagement wound, so I wanted him to care just a little. But Shia was better than that; even if he cared, he wouldn’t take his time to make a fake email address and send me fake emails from John to purposely fuck with me.
Who had time for that? Nobody. Nobody with anything real in their life.
Shia sat across from us with his eyes dancing the line between bored and focused on the TV above our table. A basketball game was playing, and knowing Shia had less than zero interest in sports, I knew he was avoiding conversation, or maybe didn’t have anything to say. On a bookshelf behind John’s back was a collection of encyclopedias, so I pulled a Shia and looked them over. They seemed so ancient sitting there. There must have been some wasteland full of encyclopedias and dictionaries whose existence was devalued when the internet took over the world.
Staring at the encyclopedias only granted me a minute or two, and the silence ticked on. Shia leaned his elbow on the table and began to look around the room. John was still looking down at his phone in his lap, and my water cup was already empty again.
What in the world could be so interesting? More interesting than me?
Shia stood up slowly from his chair. His fingers pulled at the bottom of his T-shirt. “Want some more water, Meg?” He looked straight into my eyes, and I knew he wanted to say something, but I couldn’t tell what.
I shook my head no, even though I wanted more. My throat was still burning a little. Now it felt tight, like I was being pulled with such force that when I snapped, the tearing sound would, like a shriek, rip the awkward silence among the three of us. Shia grabbed my glass, and I had a feeling that John was in his own little world, not aware of anything.
And, boy, was he not. The tension and hyperawareness of our secret was boiling between Shia and me. And there sat John, too distracted by his phone to even notice that the stove was on.
I knew I was being slightly petty, and John probably had so many friends and family members to catch up with now that he was graduated from West Point, but I wanted more attention than the stupid device in his hand. John didn’t say much of anything before Shia came back with a cup of water and a bottled water. I didn’t think that John would have noticed that my cup was empty in the first place, let alone know to fill it up even if I said no. But should he have? Should John Brooke have to play these games I couldn’t seem to help but play?
“Well, I’m gonna go. I have to run by my dad’s office, pick up Bell from Spirits, and then go home. It was good to see you, man,” Shia said.
John squeezed my hand and stood up to hug Shia. Shia was taller than John, who stood about five foot eight and had a stocky build. My mind flipped through a picture book from the first time I saw him to the last, here today.
His and John’s exchange was a few seconds long, and they promised to call each other. I didn’t think they would, but I couldn’t decide which of them would be the least likely to call. John seemed withdrawn, and Shia seemed like he didn’t know what to say or do—which was a first. I didn’t know if I should have been standing up and I waited too long, so Shia stuck out his hand and shook my hand. Like we had just done a business deal or met for the first time.
Not like he waited for me at the airport to leave the country with him and I didn’t show.
When he was done shaking my hand, he walked out of the room so fast that for a second I thought I’d made him up being there at
all. John grabbed ahold of the arm of my chair and yanked it closer to him. I yelped and he laughed, and all felt right in the world. Well, at least my tiny bubble of a world inside the Club Room of the Ritz in the French Quarter. I felt a little like Carrie Bradshaw in Paris with her artist, Alexander. Then again, Alexander ends up being a complete dick and the trip goes down the drain and ends with Big coming to take her home from Paris. Hmm. Worst analogy ever. Okay, so I couldn’t come up with anything else, but I’m sure there was a Chris Klein character from a few years back that would serve better.
John felt like the type of man who knew exactly what he wanted, and in that moment he wanted my mouth. His mouth was rough and I licked his lips to wet them before my tongue met his. He tasted like Pepsi and salt, but his face was so smooth. I remember thinking that he must have shaved after his workout and shower. I lifted my hand to rub his skin, and I almost wanted to open my eyes to make sure Shia wasn’t in the Club Room anymore. John’s hands went to my hips, and my dress felt so thin when his hands rubbed the cotton into my sensitive skin. I leaned into him and put my hands on his thighs.
His pants were stiff and ironed to purposely have a crease down the front of his leg. I kissed him for the way I acted when I got those stupid emails, I sucked a little at his tongue for not planning anything for us this weekend, and my hands traveled seductively up his thighs for bringing Shia back, though John didn’t seem to care at all.