Ballads of Suburbia (22 page)

L
IAM APPROACHED ME AT
S
HELLY'S
N
EW
Year's Eve party after I'd polished off an entire bottle of champagne. Christian had gone to find another one and I was in the midst of a drunken debate with Gonzo about the superiority of champagne (my side) versus beer (his side) when Liam interrupted, “Sis, take a walk with me?”

“Will there be a joint involved?”

“Naturally,” Liam said, flashing his laid-back stoner grin.

So I thought nothing of his request and instructed Gonzo, “Tell Christian to wait here for me. I'll be back in time for the kiss at midnight. Then you and I will settle this debate.”

Liam and I trekked down Shelly's block through the freshly fallen snow, passing the joint back and forth. I found that pot plus champagne equaled dizzy-a good dizzy, an it's-New-Year'sand-it's-snowing-and-this-is-how-it-should-be dizzy. But Liam was introspective as usual.

He exhaled a long, dragonlike stream of pot smoke through his nose and said, “What a year, huh? Last New Year's it was just you and me watching Nirvana on
Live and Loud
on MTV. I think we went to bed before Mom and Dad even came home.”

I nabbed the joint. “Yeah, Kurt Cobain was alive, Mom and Dad
were on a date, and we were friendless. I guess at least the last thing changed for the better.”

“It changed for the better in a big way.” Liam faced me, his eyes startlingly green. “With you, Christian, and Maya, not only do I have real friends for the first time ever, I feel like I have a real family for the first time in years.”

I nodded and took another quick drag from the joint before handing it back.

“Christian's really good for you,” Liam continued. “You're acting like the sister I haven't seen since Stacey moved. It's the kind of happiness you deserve. Happiness I knew Adrian would never be able to give to you.” He picked up his pace and sharply turned the corner.

I cut across someone's crunchy, snow-dusted lawn to catch him. “Wait, what does Adrian have to do with this?”

Liam continued to walk swiftly, speaking over his shoulder, his words as cold as the snowflakes that blew into my face. “Maya told me about your run-in with him at Ambrosia's on Christmas.”

I grabbed Liam by the crook of his arm, forcing him to stop. “My ‘run-in'?” Anger tinged my voice. “We talked for a second about this party. Where I haven't even seen or spoken to him, might I add. Why the hell was Maya bringing it up? And why isn't she here saying it to my face?”

“Because she wasn't feeling well, so she went home. But she asked me to keep an eye on you and Adrian tonight because she was concerned, and honestly, so am I. I watch people closely. Maybe it comes from being the outsider all these years, I don't know. I hate doing it. I hate seeing things before people see them for themselves. Like the divorce.”

“Liam, this isn't-”

He stomped his foot. “I've watched you and I see how even though Christian's at your side, you're always looking around for someone else. We walk into a diner, a show at the Fireside, any
place Adrian might be and you're looking for him. And then Maya told me about how you were so concerned about Adrian at Ambrosia's. Neither of us want to see you or Christian get hurt. If Adrian's the one you want to be with-and I have a feeling that even though he's no good for you, he is-you need to figure it out. Because you, Christian, and Maya are the only people in the world I care about and if everything gets messed up”—he anxiously ran his fingers through his unruly strawberry blond hair-“I couldn't deal with it. It would be like the divorce all over again.”

My fingers fell to the ring around my neck and I shook my head, afraid of failing at my one shot at well-adjusted happiness. “I don't want to mess things up. I wouldn't be able to deal with it either.” I took a deep breath, hoping it would sober me, but it didn't. A million different emotions swirled and the pot-champagne high made them difficult to sort out. Good dizzy was turning into nauseous, confused dizzy.

“I'm sorry,” I whimpered, “I'm so wasted right now and I can't handle this…” I glanced over my shoulder toward Shelly's house. “Christian's probably looking for us.”

“Go find him, then. I'm going to check on Maya after I finish this.” Liam brought the joint to his lips, but before he inhaled, he added, “Kara, if you aren't in love with Christian, break up with him. It'll hurt, but not as bad as it would if you cheat on him. Christian's my best friend. Don't break his heart.”

With the weight of more responsibility than I could handle resting on my shoulders, I stumbled back to Shelly's. Suddenly my relationship wasn't just about my happiness but my brother's, too. I couldn't let Liam down. I
wouldn't
let him down. I was with Christian and I was happy. Wasn't I?

I probably should have gone home to sober up and think everything through. Instead, I decided to run from my feelings like always. So I headed in the direction of more liquor and ran smack into Adrian alone on the front porch.

He leaned against the railing, watching the snow fall while quietly smoking a cigarette and swigging from a bottle of champagne. He didn't seem particularly startled when I staggered up the steps, my untied combat boots thumping gracelessly against the wood. Adrian was never fazed by anything; I could have shown up screaming, holding a bloody kitchen knife and he wouldn't have blinked.

However, I was thrown off by running into him right after my conversation with Liam. Was this a sign of some sort? I froze on the top step, staring until he finally broke the silence with a simple “Hey.”

I blurted, “I'm looking for Christian.”

“Haven't seen him.”

Unsure of what to do next, I stood there until a noise from inside the house brought me back to reality. The collective shout of a countdown: “Ten, nine, eight…”

Adrian rolled his eyes and slurped champagne. He offered me the bottle as the crowd inside shouted “Happy New Year!” I accepted and took a long, slow drink because that's what you do on New Year's, you drink champagne. But when I handed it back to Adrian, he pulled me toward him and kissed me hard on the mouth before I could even swallow. Champagne dribbled down both of our faces.

“What the hell?” I wrenched away from him, stumbling up the last step, closer to the safety of the front door.

He shrugged. “That's what you do at midnight. You kiss someone.”

“Yeah, someone you love!” I objected, wiping my sticky mouth.

“Don't you love me, Kara?”

This was like a scene in our “Stories of Suburbia” script. He played the role of Bad Rebel Boy, loafing on the front porch in
his black leather jacket, waiting to pounce on me, Good Girl Gone Awry, so that he could lead me further astray and fuck with my head.

And now it was time for me to have the big flashback. I saw a summer night, me in his bedroom for the first and only time. My fingers tangled in his brown curls. The two of us stripping down. Me, stripped. Stripped of every single inhibition when I looked at him and said the “I love you” that he threw back in my face.

I spun out of the flashback, drunk and angry. “Don't! Just don't.”

If this was part of our script, something horrific would've happened at that moment: a car driven by another drunk teenager would careen out of control on the slippery street, skid across the snowy lawn, and hurdle into the porch, killing us.

But my life was not the “Stories of Suburbia” script; it was more akin to a teenage soap opera à la
Beverly Hills, 90210.
Instead of the car wreck, Christian walked outside.

“What's going on here?” he asked in a low, vacant voice.

I whirled around. “I was looking for you.”

“But you found Adrian and kissed him.”

“He kissed me!” I protested.

Adrian shrugged and swigged champagne like the whole situation bored the hell out of him. This really irritated Christian.

“She's my girlfriend, you know.
You
lost her.”

Adrian didn't respond, but Christian seethed. He yanked me through the front door. “We need to talk.”

I tripped up the stairs after him toward that atrocious pink bathroom where Cass had her acid freakout.

We passed a blur of faces. Mary and Jessica grinned wickedly at me, misinterpreting the way Christian dragged me by the wrist and I whined his name.

“Oooh, passion,” Jessica snickered.

“Whore,” Mary spat callously as Christian slammed the bathroom door.

“What's going on with you and Adrian?” he snarled, releasing my wrist with such force that I lost balance and crashed into the vanity, bruising my left forearm.

“I bumped into him accidentally.” I grasped for Christian, trying to steady myself.

“Accidentally?” he scoffed, pushing me away.

I plummeted into a seated position on the toilet. The fuzzy pink cover did not cushion my fall. “Why are you freaking out?” I grumbled, rubbing my sore tailbone.

“Because I watched my father ruin every relationship he's ever been in by cheating and I hate cheaters!” Christian jabbed his forefinger into the ring that hung from my neck, pressing so it dug into my collarbone. “I love you! I trusted you!” he screamed in my face, beer breath blasting into my nasal passages. He removed his finger from the ring and pointed over his shoulder, indicating Jessica and Mary outside the door. “Are you a whore like they say you are?”

The rosy room spun and I wanted out. I didn't have to take his shit. I stood dizzily, groping for the doorknob behind him. “So what if I am?”

Christian blocked the door. “Say you're not.”

“Let me out.”

Suddenly, he twisted me around, ramming my back into the door. His palms pounded against my clavicle, thumbs digging into the base of my throat. I coughed and sputtered, barely able to breathe. As I struggled against him, his mother's ring swung back and forth on its chain. His hands crushed it into my chest again and again.

“Say you're not…say you're not…” he repeated as I tugged on his arms, trying to tell him that I couldn't say anything while being choked.

Rage contorted Christian's face into something completely unrecognizable-all flared nostrils, angry red skin, and gnashing teeth.
Demon
, I thought.
The pot and champagne have conjured Cass's acid demons.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror: black eye makeup smeared down my cheeks, making me look crazed, like Cass had. Except my face was as pink as the bathroom walls. Pink going purple because the demon in Christian's clothes continued to throttle me.

Finally he finished his sentence, screaming, “Say you're not in love with Adrian!” and releasing my neck so I could answer.

“I'm not,” I gasped. “I'm not.”

The demon dropped me to my knees so violently that they bruised despite the mauve bathroom rug. Then he was gone.

I crawled to the toilet, hugged the bowl, and puked. Afterward, I pressed my cheek against its cool, pink porcelain lip.

That did not really happen.

I flung myself into the small space between the toilet and sink like Cass had done to escape her demons.

That was not Christian.

I put my finger through the ring that still dangled around my neck and held it up. I focused on the way the stones sparkled and thought about Christian's soft smile under the Christmas lights when he'd given it to me.

He wouldn't do this. He didn't do this.

I rose shakily and stood in front of the mirror. I wet a Kleenex and wiped away my makeup.

This is a bad dream or a bad trip or something. Just blot it out.

So I went back to the party and drank until everything went black.

I
AWOKE WITH A THROBBING HEADACHE ON
New Year's Day. Pot, champagne, beer, and a couple shots of god knows what-not a good combination. It hurt so badly that it momentarily overpowered all other pain. Then the awareness sunk in that every inch of me ached. The memory of
why
I ached followed.

Though much of my evening was lost in a murky fog, my conversation with Liam and encounter with Adrian stood out, and a blinding spotlight shone on my fight in the bathroom with Christian. Every word, every detail illuminated, as impossible to ignore as the irksome beam of sunlight that had battled its way through the slats of my blinds to wake me that morning. I wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, nothing more than to forget, but I couldn't.

I sat at the edge of my bed in a T-shirt and boxers-a shirt and boxers I'd stolen from Christian, no less-and scoured my body for bruises. Red and purple splotched across my left wrist and forearm, forcing me to recall the way Christian had dragged me into the bathroom. A large, oblong mark ran along the top of my tailbone from when he'd thrown me down on the closed toilet. I stripped off my T-shirt and examined further using the nearby full-length mirror. Most dramatically marred was the stretch across my chest where his mother's ring had left six bruises.
I studied them for a long time-observing that they looked like hickeys, marks of love, not violence-before turning my attention to my arms.

The bruises there formed a camouflage over my pink scars. I hadn't cut since Thanksgiving; it seemed pathetic, but it was the longest I'd ever gone. And I'd done it because of Christian, because he'd been so caring. I still couldn't equate Demon Christian of the night before with the Christian who had comforted me so many times. How could he have possibly hurt me like this?

I numbly pressed on the bruises, poking harder and harder. Bruises were different than cutting, less satisfying because my blood was trapped beneath my skin. But cutting on top of the bruises didn't seem smart. The bruises had their advantage; I'd have them for a while and could make myself hurt just by touching them. I had a feeling that I'd want to make myself hurt a lot.

I traced my very first scar. The Stacey scar. I wondered how she'd rung in the New Year. Had her boyfriends ever done anything like this and what would she do if they did? I longed for Stacey for the first time in almost a year, since I'd met Maya. I wondered if a boy was going to come between Maya and me now. Would Maya still care so much about Christian if she knew what he'd done to me? Could I still care about him after what he'd done?

A moment from the very end of the night flashed into my mind. A slow dance to a fast song amid the thinning crowd in Shelly's basement. It must have been around four a.m. and I was completely blitzed. Christian murmured words that sounded gentle, like the Christian I was used to, but I couldn't actually understand him over the music. I heard “Adrian” and “flipped out” and “not me” and “we're both sorry, right?”

I told him, “The ring, it hurt me,” pointing at my chest.

He held me closer, shielding me from view as he put two
fingers inside the collar of my shirt and pulled it down a few inches. He quickly released the fabric and kissed my neck, little nibbles that I'd taken as apologies. He looked into my eyes and swore, “Never again. Let's forget this happened.”

Drunk, I'd agreed.

Sober, I had to think about what I was doing and why.

Part of me wanted to call Stacey and pick up where we left off in eighth grade, maybe even transfer to her school and pretend none of this had happened. But Stacey had her life now. She'd had it before I'd even gotten my own. And now my life was intertwined with Christian's, Maya's, and Liam's. They were like my family. Was I ready to lose two families in one year?

Liam had given me an out the night before, telling me I could choose Adrian. It seemed like both he and Maya expected me to do that. But I remembered what Maya screamed at me after we'd run into Adrian at Ambrosia's:
“Do you ever think about other people, Kara? Or only yourself?”

And I remembered the look in Liam's eyes when he told me that Christian and Maya were the only true friends he'd ever had. He'd pleaded with me not to break Christian's heart, but he was actually asking for me not to break his.

I was determined not to, so I buried what happened on New Year's Eve. I would pretend none of it occurred and everything would go back to normal.

Somehow.