The party was coming to an end. Teens were laid out in precarious positions around the suburban home. Puddles of puke and muddy footprints stained the tan living room carpet. Red solo cups on every surface. Rhythmic squeaking from a few of the bedrooms. It was a muggy night in late June. The Saturday they met.
Oliver walked into his bedroom that night and smiled. His girlfriend was laying under his covers. The light from the open door cast on her face and an exposed nipple. A feeling of love and joy spread through him making him chuckle quietly so he wouldn’t wake her. One boob hanging out of her tank top. It reminded him of a painting they studied in art. The lady in the painting was Agnès Sorel. The art teacher said she had her gowns tailored that way to show off her favorite breast. It probably wasn’t very romantic of Oliver to compare his girlfriend and another woman’s boobs. He had known she wouldn’t make it through the night. She drank enough to put a grown man to shame. There was no hope in waking her, but Oliver was still careful to be quiet. As quiet as he could be with the loss of his balance. He carefully lifted the covers so he could climb in bed next to the current love of his life.
There was already someone there.
Something Oliver didn’t know was constantly hanging over himself finally fell. Now he didn’t have to worry about what she could be doing behind his back. Here she was, naked from the waist down and tangled with a stranger. Every beautiful woman that occupied his bed at night had used him. For his money or his body or even just for a quick fuck. Maybe that was the problem. He needed to stop sleeping with beautiful women.
He felt his beer trying to make a reappearance. If he wasn’t drunk, he probably would have made it into the toilet. Instead he was moving too fast to stop and tumbled into the bathtub.
He needed to use someone like he had always been used. Someone who wouldn’t use him back. Someone who didn’t even like him. Someone who wasn’t beautiful. Someone like-
The bathroom door creaked open.
Oliver took her in through the blur of the tears in his eyes. A skinny girl with frizzy black hair that looked like it hadn’t been brushed in years. Her black t-shirt was torn and her oversized jeans didn’t look like they even belonged to her. The only thing Oliver found slightly attractive about her was her big brown eyes.
She looked at him from across the room, her face changing from fear to annoyance. “What are you doing here?” she asked in a harsh whisper.
Oliver didn’t know how to respond. He figured he would shoot back a joke, but when he opened his mouth to speak, she soundlessly moved over to cover it. His face scrunched up in confusion and she placed a finger over her lips motioning that he should keep quiet. He could smell her from here, a mixture of garbage and perfume.
He watched her stop moving completely. Even her chest stopped moving. He could tell she was holding her breath. A couple of seconds passed and he heard footsteps right outside the door. He felt her hand tense against his mouth. Her fingernails now digging into his face. He didn’t understand what was wrong. This was a party. There were people a ton of people who could be out there. But the way she was acting scared him enough to keep him quiet. He even held his breath when the footsteps paused in front of the bathroom door.
When the footsteps retreated, she visibly relaxed and started to breath again.
Not knowing what else to say, Oliver asked, “What’s your name?”
“Faith,” she replied. “I’m in your same English class, idiot.” Then slipped out the bathroom window as if she had done it a million times.
That Monday in English period they all had partners to read a story called “Romeo and Juliet”. He convinced the teacher to make Faith his partner. Oliver could tell she wasn’t happy by the way her eyebrows scrunched up, but she didn’t ask the teacher to change partners. He considered this a good sign.
Faith would be the subject of his experiment. She wasn’t beautiful, so she couldn’t use on him like the others. It wouldn’t be enjoyable for him, but it was necessary.
“Hey,” he said sitting next to her.
She ignored him. They read the play quietly. Well she did, Oliver just played on his phone. The teacher handed out a worksheet for them to complete together. She still ignored him. Oliver looked at her, why was her hair always so messy? He looked farther south and noticed her t-shirt was at least three sizes too big. He sighed. If he did sleep with her, she wouldn’t have the beautiful curves of all his other lovers.
“It’s stupid that they both died in the end,” Oliver said anxious to end the science between them.
“I find it romantic,” Faith said, her voice rising in a defensive way.
“Romantic?” Oliver said and then laughed, “How do they even know that they like each other. They knew each other for what? Two days? Three days? They didn’t even have sex.”
“Didn’t you read the play?” she asked passing him the script, “Look right here. Act 3 scene 5.”
Oliver swiped it from her and scanned the words, “Look I know it’s in English… but that’s all I got.”
She sighed, “How did you make it to senior year?”
Oliver smirked, “You have no idea what money can do.”
Her lips thinned and her eyebrows turned down in anger. She turned away and continued working on the packet. Oliver didn’t know what he did wrong, but he knew when a woman was angry with him.
“Hey,” he said softening his voice, “Look, I’m sorry. How about you teach me?”
She looked at him. He gave her a small smile.
“Fine,” she said, “Just this once.” She pointed to the first stanza, “Juliet is telling Romeo it isn’t morning. She wants him to stay. Romeo argues back that it is indeed morning and he need to leave before he is killed for being there.”
Oliver listened to her explain the rest of the scene. Faith seems fascinated by the characters. Each one she told about with great detail. He just listened to her talk. Her voice was low and calming, putting him almost in a trance. When she got to the end of the scene she stopped and looked away to scribble something down on the worksheet paper. A strand of her curly hair falling into her face. He caught himself before he reached out to tuck it behind her ear.
“What are you writing?” Oliver asked, blinking his stinging eyes. Had he not blinked?
“I am completing the worksheet,” she says like this is obvious. Oliver glanced at the clock and saw it was close to the end of class.
A few seconds passed before Oliver broke the silence, “When we were in the bathroom together, who was that person you were hiding from?”
He saw her breathing catch in her throat. She took a few seconds before smiling a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, “I’d hoped you were too drunk to remember that. She’s a friend.”
Before Oliver could ask a follow up question, the bell signaled the end of class and Faith disappeared into the rush of teens heading to their next class.
It took a lot of convincing for Faith to go out with Oliver. He had tried giving her flowers, she said she was allergic and walked away. He spelled out “Will you go out with me?” in the football field during halftime, but she never came to the football game. He probably should have thought that one through better. She wasn’t the type to go to football games. He tried to corner her in the hall and use the pickup line, “It’s a good thing I have Faith in myself, because I want to have myself in Faith.” She slapped him. She ignored him in class. She wouldn’t talk to him in the hallway. He invited her to lunch, but she would always eat alone. Nothing he tried had worked.
He came home just before midnight that night. Just sober enough to notice the Shakespeare booklet on his dresser. Its pages yellowed from all the students before him. He picked it up and turned to the first page, he took a deep breath. The words swam on the page. “’Gregory, o' my word, we'll not carry coals.’” he read aloud. He had no idea what the words meant. He didn’t know why he was even trying. He pulled out his phone, opened up SparkNotes, and began to read.
Three hours later he found himself standing below Faith’s window. It was cliché, he knew, but this was his last idea. He threw a pebble. There was a little tink as it hit the upstairs window. No movement from the inside. The threw another, then another. After the fifth or sixth pebble, the light in the room came on. Oliver threw another pebble and saw Faith open the window.
“Dude, what the fuck? Its three in the morning. How do you even know where I live?” she said in a harsh whisper.
Oliver smiled and ignored her questions, sometimes it paid to have connections. He cleared his throat, “’Did my heart love till now? For I never saw true beauty till this night.’”
“Is that Shakespeare?” she asked, then laughed with a snort. She caught herself and looked behind her, almost like she was looking for someone. Oliver found the laugh somehow charming and real. Something he wasn’t used to in his close circle of friends.
“Would thou Juliet let down her hair?” he asked with a dramatic wave of his hand.
She laughed again and Oliver thought he quite liked the sound. “That’s not even from Romeo and Juliet. Hang on, I’ll come down. We wake up my dad, I’ll never hear the end of it.” She crawled out of her window and stood on the roof pausing to look at the stars. She grabbed the rain gutter and slid down the house fireman style.
“You look like you’re in a much better mood than when you opened the window.” Oliver joked.
She looked down, “Just relived you aren’t someone else.”
Oliver, who hadn’t realized the change in mood, said, “Yeah, it would suck if I was a murdering maniac.”
Faith didn’t say anything. She just stared at her feet.
Oliver, who had finally sensed her discomfort, said, “How about we go grab some food?”
“Do you ever let up?” she asked looking up a small smile playing at her lips.
“I know this nice little restaurant that stays open 24 hours-“ Oliver started but Faith cut him off.
“I want Taco Bell, and I’m driving,” Faith said then started walking toward the garage.
Oliver had never been on the back of a motorcycle. He tried to pretend he wasn’t about to shit his pants, but every turn or bump sent him grabbing Faith. The world looked so much faster than it did in a car. The road was so close. Each turn was so unsteady.
“I love the world this late at night,” Faith said over the wind. She slowed down to a stop in the middle of an empty intersection. The red light slowly changing with no one to listen. “Dance with me.”
“What?” Oliver said as Faith switched on the radio.
“You want this to be a proper date? Dance with me.” Faith said with her hand outstretched.
Oliver reluctantly stepped off the bike and grabbed her hand, “Isn’t this dangerous?” He looked around the empty streets as if afraid to be hit by a semi going eighty.
“Yes. Especially with all this traffic,” she said waving her hands around dramatically, then pulls him closer.
They stepped to the music. Oliver not quite sure where to put his hands. He kept looking down, afraid he would step on her feet or trip over his own. He spun her around so her back was to him, just like he saw in the movies. The movement caused her hair to expose the back of her neck. A line of four dark bruises covered her neck. Almost like fingerprints.
“What happened to your neck?” Oliver asked.
Faith stopped dancing and Oliver felt her muscles tighten and her breathing stop. She was quiet for a few seconds before she said, “We should probably get going.”
The rest of the ride was silent. Taco Bell was empty, just as the rest of the world at the moment. Faith had insisted on paying for her own order. Good thing too, she ate her weight in tacos. Oliver was impressed.
They talked about everything and nothing for a while. Oliver was surprised at how easy she was to talk to. Soon they came across the topic of past lovers, something he wasn’t very comfortable with. Mostly because they were the reason he planned to use her.
“So,” Faith said taking a long sip of her bright green drink, “What is your body count? Someone of your status has to be pretty high, right?”
This was a loaded question for anyone he went out with. If he said he was a virgin to make them feel special, he was always busted the second he lasted more than two seconds. If he gave his actual body count, which was somewhere in the twenties or thirties, they would never want to sleep with him. “A few,” Oliver said, it was always the best answer, “What’s yours?”
“I’m a born-again virgin. Had sex with one person in my entire life, biggest mistake of my life,” she said. Oliver’s spirits fell, getting in her pants would be a lot harder than he originally thought.
“Was he that bad?” Oliver joked.
She stopped breathing like she had done earlier when he asked about the bruises or in class or in the bathroom, “She. It was a she.”
Oliver decided he didn’t like to see her like this, and he needed to change the subject. He stood and moved to the window where the first light of dawn could be seen through the clouds, “You ever have ice cream for breakfast? The gas station next door sells Ben and Jerry’s.”
Faith smiled, “I guess 5AM is as good as any time for ice cream.”
After their first date at Taco Bell, she agreed to meet him again. They had a few more outings -as she called them- and soon it wasn’t awkward at all. Faith would even hang out with him at school. Oliver found himself enjoying her company. He had to regularly remind himself that once he had sex with her this had to end. He was only here to use her, just like he had planned, but it was getting harder and harder to believe that.
It was close to eight. The clear sky made it easy to see the stars. There wasn’t a moon, Oliver had known this would be just how she liked it. He set out an old quilt and brought takeout from her favorite restaurant. As a final touch he put out a few lit candles.
The clock was nearing eight-thirty and she still hadn’t shown. It wasn’t like her to be late. Oliver texted her only receiving a short response ten minutes later, “On my way.” It got darker as each of the candles he lit burned out one by one. With one candle left he heard footsteps and checked the time 10:02. Why had he waited so long?
“Oliver?” she called.
He could just see her figure in the candle light. There was something off, but he was too angry to figure out what it was.
He knew she could see his face and the anger plainly written there, “I’m sorry I’m late. I ran into… a friend.”
If Oliver was less angry maybe he could have placed the pause with the off feeling about her. He could have recognized the feeling she had every time she talked about her ex. He could have known she needed him. He knew her. Instead he decided to start an argument, something he was particularly good at, “I came here early so I could set up this date for us. I lit candles and brought food. I even planned it so there wouldn’t be a moon. I know that’s how you like to star gaze. I did this for you, and you blew me off for ‘a friend’.”
She took a deep breath, Oliver could tell she didn’t want to argue, “I know I messed up. But-“
Oliver looked away from her, his body rigged from trying to keep his anger in, “I get it. Things happen,” he forced his voice to become softer, “It’s just, I sat out here, getting eaten by bugs and watching the candles burn out.”
He felt her eyes on him as he started cleaning up, “I didn’t ask for this.” He turned to face her, she was looking at the ground, “We have to stop seeing each other.”
He stood up from where he was folding the picnic blanket. Was she breaking up with him? “What? Why?” This was not part of his plan. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked.
“It’s not you, it’s me,” she looked up, “You know, all that crap you won’t believe.”
Oliver walked up to her and grabbed her hands, “I don’t want to break up.” He thought back to his childhood when he was barely five. A brown scruffy mutt was trapped in a dumpster. Oliver took him home and named him Roux because he matched the gumbo they ate that night. The next year Roux was hit by a car. Oliver could still remember the hurt in his chest for the next few weeks. He wasn’t prepared to feel this hurt all over again for Faith. A cold iron fist squeezing his ribcage and impairing his ability to breathe, “I’d miss you too much. Your hair. Your eyes. Your smile.” Maybe he even loved her.
She laughed and it sounded sad like she was trying not to cry. He pulled her close locking her in his arms. He never realized how very small she was. Or how her hair smelled like strawberries. Or how you could feel her ribs through her shirt. Or how desperately he had wanted to touch her like this. As they stood there clasped together, the last candle burned out.706Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfFreX6tSrH
