My mom told me everything when I was 13. Too much. She got this job as a teleworker for the LA county welfare system and told me there were Romanians hacking people’s EBT accounts again. This time they’d been arrested in a warehouse raid, and it was her job to call around and inform everyone. Your food stamp account balance is zero, we are working overtime to correct the issue, all funds should be restored by Labor Day.
Pretty creative, she said, pulling out of our driveway. They got us.
Yeah.
This time.
Right.
She was so sick of me. That same week she’d written me a heartfelt letter to explain what terrorism was, “why” it was, folded and slipped under my bedroom door. There had been a bombing near a cluster of historic hotels in downtown LA, three homemade explosives made of crockpots and powdered sugar (flammable, makeshift fuel) by a man acting alone, not in the name of any particular extremist belief, nor because he was ugly. Out of sadness, my mom had explained. His sullen mugshot flashed across the screen as they discussed his misdiagnoses, his Wellbutrin dosage, his penchant for craft beer and air hockey. Some people just crack, my mom said, like one of the ladies on CNN. People crack. Ten dead.
His girlfriend seemed confused and catatonic when they ushered her out of her dorm, through a crowd of reporters. In the video you could see her boobs were small and limp under her sweatshirt. I stayed up all night reading the YouTube comments.
User756474: psycho empty black eyes
User756474: her too she knew
ToddHolmes77: If you ask me they should’ve taken him in custody when the aunt said he was not responding to texts and probably had bombs. Total fuck up of law enforcement.
That night I fell asleep and had bizarre dreams. I dreamed of exotic reptiles and of dying. I dreamed I opened the wrong book and died. I dreamed a large snapping turtle snapped my head off, then morphed into a thousand crabs that were actually tiny people that crab-walked away.
I’m just in a bad mood because of the Romanians, my mom said. But it’s not a big deal.
We were parked in front of Chris’s house.
My mom unbuckled, turned. What’s wrong with you?
I caught my window image. What was wrong was I was ugly. When I walked into any room it was the first thing you noticed. It was disruptive. If asked to describe me, ugly would have to be the first thing you said.
You’re being weird, she said.
I look like shit.
God, not now.
She misunderstood the nature of disruptive ugliness, which was that it was disruptive. It needed to be resolved. I smoothed the frizz down on the crown of my head.
Why do you do this? she said.
I stared at her.
You think you’re being impressive?
The light through trees made jagged, overlapping shadows on the pavement.
You think if you say it over and over again I’ll say wow, look how sad, she said. Guess what. I believe you.
She breathed, closed her eyes.
Can you just be grateful that you’re going on a nice trip? I’m not going on a nice trip.
I didn’t say anything. She turned the car off.
Chris had two moms—Amy and Deb. She also had an older stepsister, Joanna. Joanna was a tomboy in brown Teva flip-flops, which people understood to be a result of her moms’ gayness. My mom didn’t camp, she just swung her purse over her shoulder. Have fun, she said, and left.
Joanna was seated in the back of the Jeep, dabbing a wet paper towel on the skin above a scabbed knee. Temporary tattoo. Joanna’s best friend, Kelsey, was next to her, a lawn-chair bag rolled up and propped under her neck. Kelsey knew how to be mean without actually looking at me or talking to me, though when she did, she usually spoke like I was five years old. How ARE you today?
Look, Chris said, and showed me her bicep, where she had a temporary tattoo of the Green Day American Idiot logo.
Oh cool, I said, but felt embarrassed.
Pile in, Deb said. We gotta go.
Destiny pushed through the screen door, out of Chris’s house.
I hadn’t hung out with Destiny one-on-one in over a year. I was switching to private school for the ninth grade, but she and I hadn’t been close since fifth because she was kind of a slut in general; she and Kelsey liked to sneak out to the Westfield mall parking lot to film themselves doing the Wobble. Destiny was also a God girl turned slut; at her house we’d only been allowed to watch Veggie Tales and, if we begged, Fruits Basket, an anime about flirtatious teenagers who shapeshift into cats and caress each other but never kiss. As a kid, Destiny used to randomly lick things as a joke, but as weird as she was, she elicited long, pleasant stares at restaurants, and inquiries from women at the mall claiming to be scouts for bicoastal agencies. She was one of those girls deeply gifted in terms of appearance; her mom loved to joke, it’s only a matter of time, though I didn’t necessarily know until what.
Hey, she said, grabbing onto the handle of the Jeep, hanging off of it, stretching one arm up and away like its span could go on forever. I didn’t know you were coming.
Amy and Deb hadn’t wanted to pay any extra-person fees and apparently there were three of us extras in the car, so we all hid under blankets in the back, heavy-breathing, trying not to laugh.
I heard a park ranger tell them to head toward the meadow. Destiny’s mom Sarah was driving an hour behind us with Destiny’s younger brother Callum.
We broke free and felt the coolness of air in our sinuses, saw a few trailers parked nearby. Neon lawn chairs littered the dirt, seats sagging with leafy matter. Tipped-over coolers leaked melted ice. We set up tents in a clearing near some park benches and a metal firepit. Up the hill was the public restroom, a squat cement building with no doors.
All of us girls shared a see-through tent with mesh sides that mosquitos got caught in, twitching. I felt like anybody could just walk up and see. Nobody seemed worried about that, and I understood that this was what camping was like. You were meant to feel challenged, exposed.
We unfurled our sleeping bags in a tight row.
We’re gonna walk around and try to meet boys tomorrow, Joanna whispered to Destiny.
Chris seemed nervous. Her hair part was a zig-zag, she moved some from her eyes. I want to go fishing while we’re here. She looked at me. You’re gonna fish, right?
The whole reason I’d been invited was to spend time with Chris, but now fishing sounded like the most boring thing we could do.
Why the fuck do you think we even came here? Kelsey asked her.
We were all awake by 6 AM eating cereal on the park bench. I woke up with a stomachache, but also starving, and downed three bowls.
You like your new school? Kelsey said to me. Everybody’s rich there right? And really smart? she asked, not without resentment, though also with curiosity, like finally, something to talk to me about. Kelsey got straight Cs.
All the girls turned to look at me. Kelsey ate a single dry Froot Loop.
It’s OK, I said. We just had Welcome Week. We don’t start until September.
Saying “Welcome Week” felt dorky.
Sad you won’t go to Franklin with us, Chris said, softly, through her hair.
At Welcome Week, we’d been instructed to walk out of our orientation assembly and onto the quad for festivities. The song “There She Goes” was playing on speakers. There was a vegan ice cream sandwich truck and a red plastic-covered banquet table with platters of sea bass ceviche and tomato tapenade crostinis. An elaborate bagel and lox spread reminded me of the bottom of an aquarium, tufts of dill. A man wheeled out a butler cart with a three-tiered stand of steaming crab rangoons, sweet and sour sauce drizzled on top. All the kids gasped and then jogged over. Thank you, they all kept repeating to the chef, thank you so much, and he nodded like he was grateful too, as we each took a rangoon and ate it hungrily in one big bite, feeling the sharp, awkward shape of wonton in our mouths.
The teachers all wore ascots and berets and, when they walked past, tapped our shoulders. How we doing over here?
I’d written in my application essay that if accepted I’d like to swim and dance ballet and get in touch with my heritage, which from the age of about four had consisted of a monthly phone call with my Honduran dad, who now worked as a home health aide for an ex-reality TV star in Wisconsin suffering from late-stage cerebral palsy. It was music to their ears.
By the end of Welcome Week, I understood what was really going on. I sat at the table with the rest of the new admit girls, just ten of us. Most of them wore modest, over-laundered sweaters and bragged about the sports scouts they’d already spoken to at Yale, the volunteer hours they’d logged building Legos with autistic children.
A cluster of girls stood on the quad, laughing. Those girls were not part of the diversity initiative, and they were sluts, my table agreed, the girls from Willowcrest’s filter school that cost tens of thousands a year starting at age three, some of them from old money or else with B-list actor parents, girls who didn’t truly deserve to be here. Girls who definitely didn’t respect their bodies, sticking their chests out at guys who’d been their friends since they were toddlers, a sheen to their question-mark ponytails, clueless, but shoo-ins for Ivies because of who they knew. Girls who wore NorthFace puffer vests and blocky white shoes with logos I didn’t recognize.
I didn’t hate those girls. I didn’t think they were sluts either. I just didn’t like how it felt to sit there, watching from afar. I silently ate some ceviche.
How was it? my mom asked when she picked me up.
I don’t know.
I wasn’t even the hottest Latina. That was Jessica, a new admit from Riverside who pronounced her name Hessica. I watched the long stretch of green football field out the car window, the boys with lacrosse paddles swatting at each other’s taut calves.
It feels like I’m at summer camp, I said, the day distilling to a headache and lodging itself between my eyes. It feels like I’m at summer camp and this isn’t real.
We drove through Burger King and got onion rings and I ate even though I wasn’t hungry because they were so good, and my mom played “Origin of Love” from Hedwig the musical, whose melody had sounded familiar even the first time I’d heard it.
Last time I saw you, we’d just split in two. You was looking at me, I was looking at you.
School’s good, I told Kelsey.
Kelsey nodded slowly, eyes glazed over.
That’s great you like it, Deb said.
I didn’t know how to stop people from looking at me like that. With pity.
The pain in my stomach had spread down the fronts of my thighs. Then I felt it, my period, straight through the stiff crotch of my denim shorts for the second time ever.
I ran to the tent, where Destiny was sitting and texting on her phone. She slid the keyboard back into the screen. You OK? she said.
She took me to her mom. Sarah held a beer koozie and rummaged through her tent, told me she had some tampons in her bag.
I do think having to see all the shit and the blood all the time makes you a better person, she explained. Here you go. And she handed it to me, super plus.
I’ll walk you up there, Destiny said.
The campground bathroom was cold and metallic and everything inside it was soaked in water. I shut myself in the small stall.
My mom had insisted, please let me show you how to put a tampon in. You can’t wear a pad if you’re swimming.
I squatted over the toilet with my shorts around my knees and tried. Once. Twice. I sat on the cold seat, my body starting to prickle and sweat from panic.
What’s going on in there? Destiny said. She stood right outside the stall.
Nothing.
She waited a minute. What’s wrong with you? she said. Have you put one in before?
Yeah, but only one other time.
Do you need help?
It was like when we were alone, away from Joanna and Kelsey, she could be ever so slightly nicer. I could tell her ear was pressed up to the stall.
No, I said.
It’s just your vagina.
I know.
Hasn’t anyone ever fingered you? she said, incredulous. Then, kinder: Haven’t you ever fingered yourself?
Yeah.
Well, it’s just like that.
For five more minutes she tried to coach me, gently. If you can find the inside, this ridge, then go deeper and aim diagonally, it won’t hurt, just push.
This made it worse, her coaching. Someone else being present divorced me from my knowledge of my own body and from the privacy of my vagina, and all I could think about was her voice, and whether she could see me squatting like a chicken through the slats. What she said about my vagina was not the way my vagina was. The thing she described had depth and structure. This felt like a flat plane of flesh with a divot that hurt to prod past a certain point.
So much pointless ramming. My brain lapsed out of the practical and there was just her voice, the grain of it.
I still can’t get it, I said, though I had found that one spot just beyond the opening that I pressed on occasionally, under the covers, and it was all wet.
Let me in there, she said, slightly irritated. I’ll do it for you.
I can’t, I said, softly.
Let me in.
No.
Her voice had a rasp in it, and was kind of monotone. She spoke like nothing was really a big deal to her, there was a cap to how emotional she could ever seem, to how terrible something could ever be. It was reassuring.
How is this possible? she said. I just don’t get it. It’s not a big deal.
Do not do this, my brain said.
It’s not scary, she said. It’s really not.
She had a hot voice. I pictured her flanks, the extra flesh she had there, and her tanned skin. I was trembling now, I’d gone an inch deeper.
I can’t, I said, softly. I made a small circle with the tampon.
Open up. She banged on the door once.
NO.
Ok so just fucking shove it in so we can go.
Please.
Open UP.
She banged.
When I shoved it in I came weakly, insincerely.
I winced a little.
It’s in, I whispered.
I heard screams,,then realized Kelsey and Joanna were outside the door too. They jumped up and down, flip-flops flapping, cheering wildly.
I waddled at the back of the group as the girls sprayed their freshly shaven legs with sunscreen.
Can you bring Callum? Destiny’s mom asked. To walk around.
100 percent no, Destiny said.
All right. Just be back by 4 for dinner please.
We were going to find boys and tell them to sneak out and meet us in the meadow later, in the middle of the night. This plan seemed unrealistic and distant as we walked the dirt path away from our clearing, “It Wasn’t Me” blasting from Kelsey’s portable speaker. Kelsey backed up onto Joanna, gyrating her narrow hips.
Saw me bangin’ on the counter. It wasn’t me.
Joanna wore a blue and green paisley bandeau, and she had abs and was built like the swimmer she was, broad-shouldered. It was no surprise to me that I could see girls in this light, as sexual. At my public middle school, being gay had been cool. Auditioning for Little Shop of Horrors. David Bowie.
Destiny was voluptuous, and in general, voluptuous things turned me on. Roundness, asses, biceps, pumpkins sometimes, really smooth balloons. Round things seemed to exude, to teem with something.
We did a few laps around the long central road, kicking up dirt, the three girls performatively dancing, Chris and I at the back of the pack. Up ahead at the bend, we caught a glimpse of two men in lawn chairs low to the ground, drinking beer.
Their gaze on me felt heavy but in a non-threatening way, they were comfortable looking at people straight-on. They both had big muscular thighs flecked with sun-lightened hair.
We’re just sitting out here, Anthony said. I’m Anthony. He placed a hand across his heart, as if making a promise.
What’s your accent? Destiny said. She talked differently around the boys, more choppy, clicking her tongue as if to assert that she had one.
I was adopted from Australia by an Italian woman when I was two. That’s why I still have an accent. Straight from Italy. She makes the best pasta.
Oh woww, Kelsey and Destiny said, at the same time. Chris was knee-high in some nearby weeds, in her water shoes, looking for cool rocks.
How do you guys know each other? Joanna asked them.
We met here yesterday, Terrance said. Both here camping out, thought I’d make a friend.
He was blonde and wore wrap-around sunglasses with camo arms.
What are you guys up to? Anthony said.
We were just strolling around, Joanna said. What we’d really like is some beer.
We don’t have money for that, Kelsey said, swaying her arms around herself, maybe to keep from seeming nervous. Do you think you could help us out?
Terrence kicked open a cooler at his feet and handed out three Heinekens.
You want one? he said, looking at me.
I’m good, thanks.
Kelsey looked at me like I was an idiot. Destiny was the one to invite them to meet us in the meadow later.
Yeah, we’re down, Anthony said. I have some more cold ones in the trailer. Could bring those out too. He looked between us. I mean, only if you guys want.
Terrance laughed. Yeah, we definitely don’t have anything else to do. My family’s gonna be a mile away watching fireworks.
We exchanged ages. Terrance was 15. Anthony was 17. Destiny lied and said she was 15 instead of 14. Joanna and Kelsey didn’t have to lie, they were 15. Nobody asked me.
You came here with your family? Anthony asked Destiny, directly.
Joanna beckoned for Chris to come over, to stop acting like a child.
They’re over there, Destiny said. My mom and brother. They’re fucking annoying but they’re chill.
Cool.
Meet us at the meadow? You promise? she said.
After walking around for a couple more hours with “It Wasn’t Me” on repeat, we found two more boys, twins who were motocross enthusiasts from Tehachipi forty minutes away. Their parents were in the distance in the mottled shade, grilling steaks on the campsite barbecue.
We lounged amongst some weeds near a filthy firepit. One of the twins, Andrew, army-crawled into a hollow tree trunk and came out the other end with cotton tufts in his eyelashes and on top of his head. He stood over us.
Wait, bend down, I said.
No. Why? he said.
Bend down, I said, trying to flirt.
Why.
You have cotton on your head.
He dusted it off, turned away.
Smooth, Kelsey said.
Destiny looked at me with so much pity.
Dinner was tacos in a bag, which we scarfed down, starving.
Destiny’s mom Sarah was born-again and had hardened filler injected into her upper lip that sort of made it seem like a healed cleft palate. Studded angel wings bloomed at the back of her shirt, with special details where the spine met the feathers, tiny bits of whimsical interstitial tissue connecting them. My mom didn’t like Destiny’s mom, and I understood it had something to do with her church’s stance on abortion, with the lips, the shirts.
Thank you God we are grateful for what You’ve given us and we will make the best of it every single day, she said. And we forgive You for all of it. We forgive the world. We forgive the world just the way it is. We dug in. I churned the hot meat and cheese with a spork.
So is there anyone, like, famous in your grade? Joanna asked. It was like she was offering me one more opportunity to impress everyone.
The guy from Blink-182’s son is in my grade, I said.
No way! she said.
Uh huh.
Tom or Mark? Chris asked softly.
Mark, I whispered.
So did you meet boys when you walked around? Callum said, half-bitter maybe. He wasn’t old enough to do anything besides fish.
None of your business, Destiny said, helping herself to chunky salsa.
Amy was mixing Deb’s taco bag by mashing it with her hands. You guys made friends?
Joanna shrugged.
Who? Callum said.
I like Terrance, Joanna said. He’s just nice.
Nice, Sarah said. Glad there’s other kids around!
Who’d Celeste like? Callum said.
I stared down at my bag.
I don’t know, nobody, Joanna said.
Because Celeste is ugly, Callum said.
Destiny smacked his head.
What the fuck is wrong with you? Kelsey said. You don’t say shit like that.
Celeste is beautiful, Joanna said.
Callum, fucking apologize, Destiny said.
These people wouldn’t last a day at Willowcrest, I thought. My mom was right, she’d said it once: yes, they’re our friends but they’re also white trash. It made me feel like I was smothering actual garbage in their faces to think it—white trash. My mom once told me that I possessed something they could not possess, something deep-down that they all wished they had. I thought she was lying, but when Callum said what he said, I felt it, and I didn’t cry. It was something deeply connected to the Green Day tattoo.
I took the first opportunity I could to go back to the tent, and Chris followed me in.
Everything they do is so boring, Chris said. That stupid song. Joanna told me she doesn’t even like that song. It’s because Kelsey likes that song.
I don’t mind it, I said, and thought of all those Sunday afternoon play dates—we still called them that, play dates—when Chris and I lay on the carpet and listened to 21st Century Breakdown all the way through. I knew there was a future we both wanted, one that looked like the “Jesus of Suburbia” music video, one in which we hung out in a 7-Eleven parking lot and did a lot of cocaine, or else we didn’t do it, but it was present, present in our lives, the shitty lives we led with our frustrated boyfriends in trash-littered apartments, rolling around in the trash, kissing. The love which meant more, it seemed, if everything else was really, really shitty.
You’re not going to the meadow tonight, are you? she said. She seemed to be pleading that I wouldn’t, that I’d stay with her. Her overnight bag had a lady bug embroidered on it, her favorite insect.
I don’t know, I said.
Can we fish tomorrow? Chris said. I’m so bored alone.
Sure, I said, though I didn’t mean it.
In the middle of the night Joanna shook me awake. She and Kelsey were already wearing their jackets, hoods up. Destiny shoved herself into some jeans. Chris was fast asleep, covers pulled to her chin, only the pointy upward swoop of her tiny nose visible.
You coming? Joanna said.
We walked silently down the dirt path toward the meadow, ten minutes through bristling thick trees in the black dark. I’d never disobeyed the orders of adults so blatantly.
Do you think they’re gonna be there? Kelsey said. Are they gonna bail?
No way, they were down, Destiny said.
Joanna zig-zagged her flashlight back and forth across the path. LOOK. Oh my God look. What is that?
Shut the fuck up, Kelsey said, laughing.
I knew I shouldn’t have come. It wasn’t the same without Chris, they didn’t need me here. In the dark, we could see the meadow, where the trees stopped growing. Our eyes hadn’t adjusted so it was hard to say, but it seemed like there was a collection of big rocks up ahead. Humps in the grass.
I think those are deer, Kelsey said. Sleeping deer?
Yeah, they’re moving, I said.
One of them jolted, jumped up. It was Terrance. Then Anthony.
DID WE SCARE YOU?
The girls cackled. OH MY GOD YEAH.
We walked away from the meadow and into the forest, dry brush scratching at our ankles, and I suddenly had a very bad feeling, like we shouldn’t be out in the middle of the night in the middle of the woods near Bakersfield. The main highway was in front of us in the distance, empty. This was how girls got raped and killed, I thought.
You don’t have to justify anything to anyone but yourself, my mom had said once.
But everybody lived relationally, I thought. Everyone needed at least one other person to tell them that what they were doing made sense.
The trail ended, turned to grass. We made it to the lake, which was lit by some tall yellow-y lamps, dim but just enough that we could see where the water lapped at the rocks.
Everybody started undressing but it wasn’t scary. In the dark, nobody could really see anybody else, like we didn’t have bodies. Without a body, in the presence of boys, I felt like a girl, like my ugliness was at bay. Once our eyes adjusted, only the barest flesh parts glowed lighter, paler than anything else.
I looked down, saw my pink swimsuit lightly pressed to my cold skin, propping the flesh up, creating more boobs than I had. In my swimsuit, I was a girl first. This is something they can’t take away from you, I thought. Girl.
I slipped into the lake water, dove under headfirst. Anthony came from behind and lifted me up. I screamed. His hands skimmed my chest and I felt my body throb, easy, then gone. He threw me and I smacked down onto the water’s surface, delighted.
He picked each of us up and tossed us. Destiny slipped away, and he waded after her.
Anthony, Destiny and I all trudged out of the water, and sat with our legs outstretched in the grass. Kelsey and Terrance stood over us, drinking beer. She’d latched onto him, pushed Joanna out. I was the only one who didn’t drink. The Tehachapi boys came, bringing with them a small cooler, and now they talked to Joanna, away from us, near the shore.
We all went around talking about celebrities, which ones we thought were hot or overrated.
I’ll go first, Kelsey said. Robert Pattinson.
Overrated. Jesse McCartney, Destiny said.
That’s so obvious, Kelsey said. He’s cute but he’s not my type. She turned to look at Terrance.
Megan Fox, Terrance said. She’s bad.
Aubrey Plaza, Anthony said.
Kelsey looked at me, pointed, like she always did, giving me exactly one opportunity to speak per conversation.
What about you? she said.
I considered it.
I don’t know, I said.
Come on.
I don’t know.
Come on.
The downtown terrorist, I said. That guy. The guy who blew up all those people downtown.
Ew no fucking way, Kelsey said. That’s so fucking weird.
The bomber? Destiny said.
Anthony laughed a little.
She’s just trying to be edgy, Kelsey said.
Destiny smiled. I guess he has nice hair.
Kelsey and Terrance walked back toward the water. The Tehachapi boys vied for Joanna’s attention by seeing how far they could each jump over a dirt patch.
I noticed Destiny next to me stringing beads on her bracelet. The clear wire string had snapped. I leaned over, tied it around her tanned wrist.
Your guys’ parents together? Anthony asked.
Destiny nodded. They fight a lot though.
Mine aren’t, I said.
That’s tough, he said. That’s what you realize. Can’t rely on your parents for anything. You guys will realize. They’re just never there. For anything.
I thought you loved your mom? Destiny said.
I do, Anthony said. That’s not the point. Anthony finished his beer, shook the can.
I’ll grab more, Destiny said, and she ran to the cooler.
Anthony looked at me. Why? he said.
Why what?
Your parents?
Only women were capable of properly telling a story, my mom had said once, about my dad. I thought it was true. My dad was always spewing facts about my mom at random, referencing bizarre things she’d done—placed his work boots in the oven and cooked them at 350, stashed all his records in a random storage locker in Pasadena, left his car in a library parking lot at the edge of Pasadena. The facts seemed to tumble from him, out of order and unstrung like bracelet beads.
I was unmedicated bipolar, my mom had explained.
My mom’s bipolar, I said now.
It felt like Anthony sort of understood. His face changed, like I’d said something meaningful. Yeah. That’s really tough. Do you think that they could ever get back together?
I shrugged. I don’t know. Probably not. It’s been a long time. Then I looked down at his leg. What’s that?
He had a huge tattoo on his upper thigh, the outline of something.
Gun, he said. It’s so dumb. It looks so fucking stupid. I don’t even like guns.
Did your parents care?
He shrugged. My mom did. But she got over it. She lets me have my freedom. He stared at me. I’m guessing you don’t have any tattoos.
Destiny returned, handed him a beer, handed me one. I cracked it and took one huge gulp.
You wanna swim again? he asked her.
My mom wakes up really early, we need to get back to the tent now, Joanna said. Let’s go.
I’ll take the blame, Destiny said. I don’t care. Her hair was dead and disheveled and crunchy with lake water. I’m gonna stay.
The rest of us hurried back in our flip-flops. I didn’t know where Destiny went with Anthony. I lay in the tent but couldn’t sleep, wide awake, my wet hair clumped at the back of my neck, thinking about his touch.
What happened? Chris said.
I turned to look at her. I don’t know, I said, and I really didn’t.
She blinked at me as if confused by everything.
Destiny isn’t here, she said, worried.
She’s fine, I said. She’s definitely fine.
I still couldn’t sleep. After some time I went to the bathroom. Having already been out at night, the dark no longer scared me. I walked uphill alone on the unlit path.
I locked myself in a stall, pulled my pants down.
I heard soft whispers.
I unlatched the door, walked to the sink as silently as possible. It didn’t seem like they’d heard me. At the far end of the bathroom was the big stall. I moved slowly toward it until I could look through the slat at a discreet angle.
In the stall, Destiny had her fingertips lightly pressed to Anthony’s shoulders. His dick was visible through the board shorts, pressing into her stomach. She basically ate his mouth off his face, kissing him.
That was when he pulled it out.
And I saw it in her face. Fear. I had the urge to pull her away, like when the vet had presented my sick cat with a massive needle and she’d scrambled in the nurse’s arms and my mom and I had both gone to snatch her away, then stopped ourselves. Don’t touch her, I’d thought.
Then the fear dropped from Destiny’s face and she bent to her knees, took it in her hand, her mouth.
He tried to gyrate his hips. It was just sort of sitting there, no ease. She was bad at it, I thought. I backed away, slightly, but couldn’t stop watching as he let her do it, badly.
She stood.
I can’t, she said.
What?
She shook her head. I’m tired, she said. I’m sorry.
He lifted her face, which was small and round, like he was petting a cat.
It’s OK, he said, softly. It’s OK. It’s OK.
She nodded.
I don’t mind. Why don’t you go back to your tent? It’s OK.
She nodded. Will you text me?
It’s OK.
I almost thought he might nuzzle her nose.
I hurried into a stall and sat on the toilet, keeping my knees up until I heard her leave.
After a few seconds I climbed down. I walked to the sink, stared at myself in the mirror, pressed the little metal button for cold and placed my hands beneath the water.
Oh shit, he said. Hey.
Hi, I said.
He had an abstracted look on his face. He scratched the back of his head. His hair needed a cut, it was coarse, unruly hair, sticking out on the sides.
I didn’t move.
He chuckled a little. What’s up? he said.
He stood behind me.
I turned, knelt down, and thought, I just want to know if he’d let me see it. I just want to know how far he’d let me go.
I unzipped his shorts. It was so foreign, the flop of it, turgid like a water mammal, and I took it in my hands and thought, I’ll stop myself. Surely I’ll stop or he’ll stop me. Surely I wasn’t allowed to just do it.
He pulled me to my feet, hugged me. He hugged me for a long time, my arms flattened at my sides, as if to say, thank you.
Get some sleep, he said.
He smelled like Old Spice and wet earth. I stayed and rinsed my mouth out.
I left the bathroom and walked around the building’s perimeter. Callum stood by the water fountain, fingertips against the wall. He jumped when he saw me.
I stared at him.
What were you doing? he said. His arms fell limply by his sides.
Did you see? I said.
Who were you with? he said.
I smacked him across the face. I didn’t even think about it. Then I pushed him, hard, in the chest.
Stop!!! he cried, lifted a hand to cover his face.
Do not ever tell anyone or I will kill you.
I didn’t see anything. I didn’t see. I didn’t see.
I know you saw. I will kill you.
Tears streamed down his face. I stared at him, and he scrambled away, ran.
In the car the next day, we all buckled up, and Destiny told us about Anthony. I had my bucket hat on. A jumbo box of Goldfish crackers was in the center console, dust floating in the light.
It was . . . amazing, Destiny said. I can’t believe he liked me with no makeup. Like, none of us have been wearing makeup this whole time. It makes me feel like he really likes me for me.
Did you get his number? Joanna said.
Yeah I did. I think we might hang out again. My parents are driving down to San Diego at some point so I feel like I can get them to take me. She looked out the window expectantly.
Did you kiss him? Kelsey said.
Destiny grinned. The girls squealed.
Amy and Deb slammed the trunk, all packed up to go.
Not another word about this, Joanna said. Not one.
If I were to have said another word, I would’ve said that all I would think about for weeks was how he looked at me and what he said when he did, that it was like each of my features was being sketched out, detailed, colored in.
God, I love your mouth, he’d said. Your eyes. Your hair. Your mouth.
I feel carsick, I told Chris.
She leaned her head back. That sucks.
It hurts, I said.
It’s worse if you think about it.
I closed my eyes, put my head between my knees.
Eventually I sat up. Chris was staring out at this expanse of trees. I looked closer. Their leaves sprawled like hands, transparent in the sun, taking on an activated glow.
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