Lust

Chapter 8

It had been two days.

Beth and Adam still weren’t speaking to each other-and Beth was desperate.

Which was the only possible explanation for her call. A last, the very last, resort.

And after all, there was no one else. She hated to admit it, but after getting together with Adam, she’d drifted away from most of her girlfriends. There was nowhere else to turn.

Desperation sucked.

She flipped open her small Winnie the Pooh phone book to the right page-after all this time, she still didn’t know the number by heart-and began to dial.

“Hey, Harper, it’s… Beth,” she said timidly, once the other girl had answered the phone. And they began to chat. Awkwardly pushing through all possible areas of small talk (big surprise, there weren’t too many), Harper at least had the grace not to ask, “Yeah, but what do you really want?” though Beth was sure it was at the forefront of her mind. And why not? When had she ever called Harper “just to chat”?

As Harper prattled on about something that had happened to Mr. Greenfield’s toupee during third period, Beth asked herself again whether she really wanted to have this conversation. Whether she could actually bring herself to have it out loud. She shuffled through some papers on her desk, began doodling on the back of one, nothing but meaningless scribbles, but it passed the time and calmed her down. Finally, she glanced over at the bed, which she’d neglected to make that morning. The sheets and comforter were tangled and strewn haphazardly across its surface; it seemed a bigger mess than one person could possibly have made on her own, even tossing and turning all night, as she had. It was the bed that convinced her; she didn’t want to be on her own there, not forever.

“Harper, can I ask you something?” she interrupted. Harper was still talking, laughing about whatever it was she’d just divulged, but she broke off immediately, sensing the tension in Beth’s voice.

“Of course.”

“Well…” Beth had no idea how to begin. “You and I have spent a lot of time together, but we don’t really know each other that well, I mean, I guess we’re not really friends…”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Harper said quickly. “Anyone important to Adam is a part of my life. You know how close we are.”

Beth felt a quick stab of pain at the words-yes, of course she knew how close Adam and Harper were. Hadn’t she suffered through hours of conversation about how wonderful Harper was? What a great friend she was? How misunderstood she was? Like she needed a reminder that her boyfriend considered some other girl his best friend, maybe his soul mate. (He’d never said it aloud… but then, Beth had never had the nerve to ask, not wanting to hear the answer.) Platonic soul mate, she reminded herself-and, after all, why else had she picked up the phone?

“You do know him better than anyone else-probably better than I do,” Beth admitted, gritting her teeth. “That’s kind of why I wanted to talk to you.”

There was a long pause.

“Well,” Beth began again, “maybe it’s been obvious that Adam and I haven’t been getting along all that well lately.”

“Really?” Harper’s voice oozed concern. “I hadn’t noticed-what’s wrong?”

“It’s been a lot of little things, I guess-but, I mean, there’s this one big thing hanging over us. And I think-no, I know, that’s the real problem.”

“What?”

“You’ll laugh.”

Of course she would laugh. Harper went out with a different guy every week, and Beth was sure she wasn’t pushing any of them away with some half-articulated excuse that she only half believed herself. Not that she wanted to be like Harper. Of course not. She didn’t even like Harper. But all the more reason not to want the other girl to laugh at her, hold it over her for the rest of the year, spread it around the school that Beth was… well, Beth was sure Harper would find an appropriately cutting description.

Maybe this had all been a big mistake.

“I swear, I won’t laugh,” Harper promised.

“You will,” Beth countered.

“Beth, I promise you,” Harper said seriously, “you can tell me anything. If you have a problem, I really want to help.”

On the other hand, she sounded so sincere-and Beth was so desperate.

“It’s sex,” Beth said finally. “I’ve never-well, it would be my first time, and I’m not sure I-”

“You haven’t slept together yet?” Harper asked incredulously.

“You probably think that’s pathetic, don’t you?” Beth held her breath and waited for the inevitable.

“No, no, of course not,” Harper said hastily. “You just caught me off guard, that’s all. I always assumed… but there’s nothing wrong with it.”

Beth sighed in relief. Maybe she could confide in Harper after all. This thing had been eating away at her for too long, and it would be so good to actually talk to someone about it. Even Harper…

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Beth explained. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I do. Or at least, I think I do. But every time we get close, I just freeze up. And he thinks it’s because I don’t trust him, but it’s not that-it’s just that…”

“You’re not ready,” Harper prompted.

Beth sighed again.

“I guess so. I mean, I guess I’m not.” Why was it so easy for Harper to grasp, but still so hard to make Adam understand? It’s not like she’d made some hard-and-fast rule for herself, no sex until college or something. And it’s not like she thought there was something wrong with the girls in her class who were doing it-even the ones who were doing it a lot. She had just always thought of herself as someone who would wait. Until she was really in love, until she was old enough-it had all seemed pretty simple and straightforward in the abstract. But now? With Adam? Now she wasn’t so sure-what did it mean to be “really” in love? When would she be “old enough?” What did it mean to be “ready”-and would she even know when she was? Would it be when she wasn’t scared anymore? When sex didn’t seem like such a big deal that might change everything, ruin everything? What if that time never came, and this was what it felt like to be ready? After all, when she was with him, part of her always felt ready, more than ready-eager. Hungry for more. It was just that the other part of her, the part that said no, wait, not now, not yet-that part was stronger. And that was the part that stayed with her when she got out of bed. That was the part she had to trust-right?

“So, have you two talked about this?” Harper asked.

“It seems like it’s all we ever talk about anymore,” Beth admitted. “And he says he understands, but it’s like there’s always all this tension between us. We’re always fighting about something-but it seems like, somehow, it’s always about this. I’m just afraid…”

“What?”

Beth had never put the fear into words before, although it was always with her, simmering just beneath the surface. Somehow saying it out loud made it just a bit more real, a bit more dangerous. But it had to be said.

“Sometimes I’m afraid that he’s going to break up with me,” she said quietly. “Find someone else who’s not so-someone who is ready.”

“Beth,” Harper said in a grave voice. “Like you said, I know Adam. He would never do that. He loves you.”

“You don’t understand, Harper,” Beth said plaintively, and suddenly all of the concerns she’d bottled up over the last few weeks came spilling out. “There’s something off, and lately it’s like, everywhere I turn, he’s with Kaia. What if she-and he-I don’t know. Maybe I should just-do it, you know? What am I waiting for?”

“You’re waiting until you’re ready,” Harper reminded her.

“But how will I even know when I am?”

“Trust me, when it’s time, you’ll know,” Harper promised.

“And in the meantime?” Beth asked, already knowing the answer.

“In the meantime, you wait,” Harper explained. “And if he loves you, he’ll wait too. I promise.”

“Thanks, Harper.” Beth was grateful, but unconvinced. “Listen, don’t tell anyone about this, okay? Especially Adam. I’d be so embarrassed and-”

“You don’t even have to say it,” Harper assured her. “My lips are sealed.”

“Miranda, you’ll never believe what I just found out!” Harper squealed into the phone.

Talk about the light at the end of the tunnel. So the perfect little relationship was missing one thing? Meaning-unless something had happened last year that she didn’t know about (unlikely)-Adam, too, was still a virgin. Unbelievable.

She laughed and laughed.

If he loves you, he’ll wait, she mused. Yeah, right.

Miranda hung up the phone feeling strangely optimistic. Harper seemed convinced that Beth’s impenetrable virginity was a sign that the relationship could never last. Miranda wasn’t so sure-and as Harper was tossing out the insults, Miranda silently wished that she wouldn’t be so quick to forget Miranda’s own virginity. But Harpers buoyant tone had swept her beyond all doubt or annoyance. And the feeling of hope was contagious. So contagious, in fact, that when Harper suggested that Miranda call Kane and ask him to the upcoming formal, it actually hadn’t sounded like an insane idea.

That was then, this was now. And now her phone was staring her down like a cellular firing squad.

Miranda took a deep breath, gulped down an Altoid (though the minty fresh breath did little for her confidence level), and brought up his number on the phone. She couldn’t overthink this, Harper had pointed out. She just needed to suck it up and do it. Whatever happened, at least she would know she tried. Right? At least she’d know she had some balls.

Miranda hit talk and waited, with mounting panic, as the phone rang and rang.

“Hey, Kane, it’s Miranda,” she said when he finally picked up. She tried to make her voice slightly low and husky, aiming for perky but not too perky, casual but intense, sexy but not sex starved-but most likely, it just came across as lame.

“Oh, hey, what’s up?” He sounded vaguely surprised to hear from her-small wonder, since in all their years of semifriendship she’d never called him (the number was in the phone only as a concrete manifestation of her pathetic wishful thinking).

“So how’s your weekend going?” she asked, trying her best to sound nonchalant even as her stomach clenched and her heart thudded rapidly in her ears. She’d always prided herself on her clever banter, but all remnants of wit flew out of her mind now that his voice was on the other end of the line, and the moment of truth-or, potentially, of abject humiliation-crept inescapably closer with every passing second of small talk.

“Better now.” She could almost hear the smirk in his voice, and she knew that his deep brown eyes were twinkling beneath an ironically raised eyebrow. She’d memorized his face, and the minute movements it made, well enough that she could close her eyes and see him peering back at her. Which, on a ten-point scale, upped her nervousness level to about a thousand.

Is he flirting with me? she wondered as always-or was this just the only way Kane knew how to talk to people? After all, he also “flirted” with the old woman who ran the cash register in the cafeteria, and occasionally the bald guy with the unnecessary hairnet who ladled out the food from behind the counter. Maybe he just couldn’t help himself.

“I’m glad I could bring a little ray of light into your dark and lonely life,” she told him, an electric thrill running through her when she scored a laugh.

“So what’s up?” he asked, chuckling. “Or did you just miss the sound of my voice?”

“You wish. No, I’m calling because-” Miranda stopped, the words choking in her throat.

Because I want to ask you to the dance.

Because I want to know whether you had a date yet for the dance.

Because I want to come over there and rip off all of your clothes.

“Because, uh, I was wondering if, I mean, do you have-”

“Spit it out, I’ve got a hot date coming over,” he joked. Probably it was a joke.

“Do you have-do you know which chapter we were supposed to read for Setlow’s class?” God, she hated herself sometimes. It was an asinine excuse for calling him, which, she supposed, was appropriate, since it had been asinine to call in the first place. She looked down at herself in disgust, at the oversized T-shirt and boxers she’d thrown on after dinner, her lying-around-and-watching-TV outfit. Or, the way things were going, more like her boring, frumpy, destined-to-grow-up-into-an-old-maid-and-die-fat-and-alone outfit. A fate Miranda supposed she deserved, since she apparently didn’t have the nerve to do anything about it.

“You called me to check up on the homework?” Kane asked incredulously. “Stevens, are you feeling okay? Taken any recreational drugs lately?”

She laughed shakily. At least he’d bought it. She didn’t know whether to be angry at herself for chickening out, or grateful that whatever insanity had convinced her he might be interested had subsided before she could make a complete fool of herself.

“Miranda, you still with me?” he asked, when she didn’t respond.

“No, yeah, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was stupid. I’d better go,” she babbled, all in one ragged breath, and snapped the phone shut before he could say anything else.

Stupid was right.

Adam sat in his empty living room, staring at the darkened screen of the TV. The phone rested on his lap, as it had for the last half hour, ever since he’d flipped off the TV in disgust, midway through some crappy sitcom. He’d picked up the phone, determined to make things right. And then he’d put it down. He’d gone through the pointless routine again and again, even dialed part of the number a few times, but couldn’t bring himself to finish.

He wanted to apologize to Beth, of course he did. But he didn’t know what to say. He still wasn’t quite sure what he was apologizing for, to be honest, or even whether he was the one who should be apologizing in the first place. His mother often claimed that the man was always the one who should be apologizing-and that was certainly his father’s way. Adam Morgan Sr. had apologized and apologized, but it was, Adam supposed, never enough. At least it hadn’t been enough to stop his mother from throwing plates at his father’s head, or sneaking a gulp from an ever-present bottle of scotch when she thought her young son wasn’t looking. Adam resolved-not for the first time-that there was no way he would ever model his relationship after his parents’ short-lived marriage. Better to die alone than go down that path.

Still, Adam reasoned, he’d obviously done something wrong. Hurt Beth in some way. And hurting someone he loved was the last thing he’d ever wanted to do.

He picked up the phone. Dialed the familiar number. Listened to it ring.

“Hello?”

He opened his mouth, closed it again.

Hung up.