Chapter 1
Sasha
I pour my fourth cup of pomegranate white tea. It’s lukewarm. He’s late. I hadn’t expected that.
A part of me hopes my cell phone will start playing Jingle Bells . I’ll pick it up and it will be him, calling the whole thing off. Over the years I’d asked him to do many things for me. I’d told him things I’d told few others. But today, I’d share a secret that I hadn’t told a single other person, and I knew that after I was done he’d never look at me the same way again.
I take a sip of tea through tight lips, then set the cup down on the tray with an unsteady hand. I’d tried to tell others. My best friend Diana. The university therapist right before I dropped out. That support group at the Women’s Center. I didn’t even make it past the door. For ten minutes I pretended I was looking at fliers, then left.
And, of course, I’d tried to tell Brian.
I must have tried to tell him about a hundred times, but something always stopped me. Shame and embarrassment, sure, but it was more than that. Every time I opened my mouth to explain what happened—every single time I just thought of it—I gave the memory new life. I’d feel that man again, invading every part of my body until my mind was filled with only thoughts of him.
I don’t want to admit it happened.
I don’t want to think of him inside me.
I don’t want to give him any power over me.
This isn’t the kind of thing one can bury, though it’s seductive to try. Trying makes me feel like I can conquer it, but forcing it down doesn’t make it leave. Instead, it waits quietly for the opportunity to well up at the most inappropriate and random time: someone lighting a cigarette; the sound of a car door opening; when I look up to find a perfect, cloudless blue sky.
Trevor is the only one I haven’t tried to tell.
He’s beautiful even though he doesn’t try to be. His long, strong fingers are always smeared with charcoal. Oil paint decorates his plain, dark clothes. He smells like linseed oil and sawdust. His black hair is always either buzzed or just a bit too long because he never gets it trimmed. And bold, intricate tattoos decorate his arms.
I think he makes people uneasy because he’s the kind of man no one can tie down—because he not only sees beauty in ugliness but seeks it out so he can capture it in his art. He’s never judged me, perhaps because people are always so quick to judge him. And yet, I’m afraid he’ll start now.
I don’t know if he’ll do what I ask. He probably won’t. No sane person would. No sane person should ever want such a thing. But I do. Even if it destroys me—even if it destroys us both—I still want it.
I drink my tea and wait, wondering what could be keeping him, wishing he won’t come, because what I was going to ask would shatter everything that ever existed between us. I’d already broken so many irreplaceable things. There was only him left, and soon I would break that too.
***
Trevor
I love Tia. Ever since the day I saw her in a neighbor’s scraggly lawn with a little ‘For Sale’ sign I could barely read through the dirty windshield, I knew she was the one. Five months later, right after turning 16, I’d bought her with money I’d saved up from mowing lawns, hammering nails, carrying anything anyone wanted me to carry, and working at my uncle’s car wash. I’d never been so happy about owning anything, but that didn’t mean I could pretend the car wasn’t a piece of shit.
On most days, this didn’t bother me. Sure, it was sometimes a little awkward to pull up to a girl’s house with this gas-guzzling, wheezing monstrosity, but let’s just say that anyone who’d taken a trip with me in the backseat had suddenly forgotten about whatever it was they were originally complaining about.
Yeah, Tia and I’ve had a lot of good times.
Right now is not one of those times.
Traffic is bad. Traffic is always bad at 4:30 on a Friday. But your car suddenly
Sasha
I pour my fourth cup of pomegranate white tea. It’s lukewarm. He’s late. I hadn’t expected that.
A part of me hopes my cell phone will start playing Jingle Bells . I’ll pick it up and it will be him, calling the whole thing off. Over the years I’d asked him to do many things for me. I’d told him things I’d told few others. But today, I’d share a secret that I hadn’t told a single other person, and I knew that after I was done he’d never look at me the same way again.
I take a sip of tea through tight lips, then set the cup down on the tray with an unsteady hand. I’d tried to tell others. My best friend Diana. The university therapist right before I dropped out. That support group at the Women’s Center. I didn’t even make it past the door. For ten minutes I pretended I was looking at fliers, then left.
And, of course, I’d tried to tell Brian.
I must have tried to tell him about a hundred times, but something always stopped me. Shame and embarrassment, sure, but it was more than that. Every time I opened my mouth to explain what happened—every single time I just thought of it—I gave the memory new life. I’d feel that man again, invading every part of my body until my mind was filled with only thoughts of him.
I don’t want to admit it happened.
I don’t want to think of him inside me.
I don’t want to give him any power over me.
This isn’t the kind of thing one can bury, though it’s seductive to try. Trying makes me feel like I can conquer it, but forcing it down doesn’t make it leave. Instead, it waits quietly for the opportunity to well up at the most inappropriate and random time: someone lighting a cigarette; the sound of a car door opening; when I look up to find a perfect, cloudless blue sky.
Trevor is the only one I haven’t tried to tell.
He’s beautiful even though he doesn’t try to be. His long, strong fingers are always smeared with charcoal. Oil paint decorates his plain, dark clothes. He smells like linseed oil and sawdust. His black hair is always either buzzed or just a bit too long because he never gets it trimmed. And bold, intricate tattoos decorate his arms.
I think he makes people uneasy because he’s the kind of man no one can tie down—because he not only sees beauty in ugliness but seeks it out so he can capture it in his art. He’s never judged me, perhaps because people are always so quick to judge him. And yet, I’m afraid he’ll start now.
I don’t know if he’ll do what I ask. He probably won’t. No sane person would. No sane person should ever want such a thing. But I do. Even if it destroys me—even if it destroys us both—I still want it.
I drink my tea and wait, wondering what could be keeping him, wishing he won’t come, because what I was going to ask would shatter everything that ever existed between us. I’d already broken so many irreplaceable things. There was only him left, and soon I would break that too.
***
Trevor
I love Tia. Ever since the day I saw her in a neighbor’s scraggly lawn with a little ‘For Sale’ sign I could barely read through the dirty windshield, I knew she was the one. Five months later, right after turning 16, I’d bought her with money I’d saved up from mowing lawns, hammering nails, carrying anything anyone wanted me to carry, and working at my uncle’s car wash. I’d never been so happy about owning anything, but that didn’t mean I could pretend the car wasn’t a piece of shit.
On most days, this didn’t bother me. Sure, it was sometimes a little awkward to pull up to a girl’s house with this gas-guzzling, wheezing monstrosity, but let’s just say that anyone who’d taken a trip with me in the backseat had suddenly forgotten about whatever it was they were originally complaining about.
Yeah, Tia and I’ve had a lot of good times.
Right now is not one of those times.
Traffic is bad. Traffic is always bad at 4:30 on a Friday. But your car suddenly
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