“Tov? What’s wrong? You’re quiet.”
I attempt to count the things that are wrong. My mother is dying. My sister is dying. Then the selfish things, the things that occupy too much skull space: I don’t know what I want to do next year, where I should go or what I want to be. I could study medicine somewhere else, of course, but the idea of becoming a surgeon was linked to Johns Hopkins—that was where I fell in love with it. And becoming a surgeon means facing death nearly every day of my life. Am I sure I want that?
Adina was wrong. Choices aren’t easy, and I have an entire lifetime to continue making stupid ones. Lucky me.
All I want is to know exactly what I want in this moment. To become a surgeon, to go to school nearby or leave this place behind, to do nothing at all. I want to fucking pick one thing and be happy with it.
I glance up at Zack. There’s this way he looks at me: like he’s awed by me, even when I’ve disappointed myself. Suddenly I know exactly what that one thing is.
“Tov?”
Adina stole Baltimore. I’ll steal her confidence.
In one quick motion, I press my lips to his and push him back onto the bed, kissing him harder than I ever have before, until I’m dizzy with the scent and feel of him. I never thought when I got a boyfriend that I’d want to touch him all the time. I never thought I’d want so much of someone else.
“Whoa, whoa,” he says, his hands roaming down the sides of my body. “Where is this coming from?”
“I really want you.” And I really, really need to feel good again.
He clutches me tighter. “God, you’re beautiful.” His mouth travels from my jaw to my neck to my collarbone. “And hot. You’re hot, too.” No one has ever, ever said that about me. That’s something they say about Adina. I’m smart, and she’s beautiful.
It’s working: I can be both. I am both.
Our shirts land on the floor, and my fingertips memorize the curve of his spine, the feel of each individual vertebra. I’ve always tried to hide my double-D-cup breasts beneath layers of loose clothing, and now I’m hyperaware of the way they react to Zack’s hands and lips. With him, I’m not shy about it.
I reach between us and splay my hand over the front of his jeans, fumbling with the button.
“Hey,” he says. “Hey. Wait a second.”
He doesn’t get it. I have to go fast, fast, before I lose this fragile confidence I’ve only just claimed for myself. Finally I undo the button and mash down his zipper. My hand finds what it wants, and Zack groans. I hold my mouth to his ear. “Do you have a condom?”
He wraps his hand around mine. Gently removes it from inside his boxers. “Tov. Slow down.”
Breathing hard, I blink up at him, unsure what he’s saying. “You don’t want me?”
“It’s not that. I do want you.” He makes a strangled-sounding laugh and glances down. “That part should be pretty obvious. But I just—this would be my first time too. I don’t want us to rush into it or regret anything.”
“So you’d regret having sex with me.” I get off his lap and cross my arms over my chest, feeling a hundred times less hot than I did a minute ago.
He scrapes a hand over his face. “I’m not saying any of the right things.”
“No. You’re not.” I snatch my bra and shirt and dress faster than I ever have before. Then I press my back against the wall and pull my knees up close to my chest.
Zack zips his jeans. Puts his shirt on inside out. Neither of us can look the other in the eye. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, fingers searching for mine on the bed, but I keep them out of reach. “I guess I thought we’d talk about it before we, you know, did anything.”
“What was it you said when we went camping? About corrupting each other? We’ve done just about everything else. And we barely talked about that.”
“I—I know. But this feels like a bigger deal, I guess. We could . . . talk about it now. If you want.”
I choke out an odd laugh—odd because I don’t find this funny at all. “I really don’t.” What’s there to talk about? He doesn’t want me: that’s all I can focus on.
A silence hangs between us, heavy as a meteor.
“You don’t have to stay,” he says.
“You want me to leave?” My voice cracks. I don’t know if I can take getting kicked out, doubly rejected.
His eyes widen, and again he tries to grab my hand, but I won’t give it to him. “No! I meant, maybe you wanted to leave? If you’re . . . mad at me? I want you to stay. If you want to.”