Lucy in the Sky (16 page)

We all went back downstairs to dance, and after about 20 or 30 minutes, I was feeling hot, and a little drunk, but nothing else. I went to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water out of Blake's fridge. The clock on the microwave was glowing a bright
blue 11:47, and I realized at that there was no way that I was going to get home at the right time tonight.

The party had thinned out a little, and I found Lauren by the pool and pulled her into the kitchen. I told her I needed a favor. She just smiled and shook her head and said not to worry. The minute I'd swallowed that tab of E she knew we weren't going home before 4 a.m., and she'd called Cam to tell him that I was spending the night at her place.

YES! I threw my arms over my head and spun around in a circle, and it felt like a big wave of pure happy crashed down on top of me. I almost felt like I was going to cry because I was so happy. When I looked up, Ross, Ian, and Blake were standing behind Lauren in the kitchen watching me spin around. I caught myself, and said, WHAT?

Ross handed me a grape-flavored candy lollipop and said, Feeling anything yet?

I took the sucker and unwrapped it and put it in my mouth as I thought about it and said, I don't know. But Ross! This sucker tastes AMAZING!

They all burst out laughing, and Blake said, You're rolling!

And it was like the minute he said that I felt another big wave of pure happiness crash over me, stronger this time. It made my knees feel weak and my jaw a little clenched—almost like I was going over the first drop on a roller coaster, and I was
glad that I had the sucker in my mouth. This wave made me take a great big deep breath, and suddenly I felt a wave of heat that made my forehead a little sweaty and I took another big deep breath. The waves were coming with my breath and Lauren took my hand and said, C'mon! Let's go outside.

As I stepped out onto the back stairs that went down to the pool, a crisp breeze came blowing off of the water and the red lights of the pool seemed to glow brighter in a flash. The grape sucker in my mouth tasted like the best thing I'd ever put on my tongue, and Lauren's hand felt so soft in my mine. Suddenly I stopped and closed my eyes and took another deep breath as a big wave of intense feeling rolled through my body.

I felt Blake's hands on my shoulder, and my eyes flew open. The lights in the pool flashed 100 times brighter than they had been, and as I looked up at the sliver of moon reflecting off of the ocean, my eyes wiggled back and forth really quickly for just a second, and I saw these AMAZING streamers of light flying off the moon and the lights in the pool. I felt Blake's lips at my ear, and my whole body shivered like I was cold, but I wasn't.

Blake whispered, This is why they call it Ecstasy.

And as he said it, I felt another wave of pure happiness wash over me, and I realized THIS is why they say you're ROLLING. I pulled Lauren's hand closer to me and said, It's coming in WAVES!

I've always had fun dancing, but after a couple of songs, I get bored, or sweaty, or tired, and usually take a break. Dancing on E was like NOTHING I'd ever experienced. I couldn't get my body close enough to Blake's or to Lauren's. Every touch felt like an electric wave of tiny tingles that spread slowly up my fingers and arms down my whole body into my legs and feet. The music sounded like something coming from inside of me. I wasn't HEARING the music, I was FEELING the music, and we danced, and danced, and danced, until all our makeup had sweated off, and we'd kicked off our shoes, and Blake had wrapped his arms around me. I felt like I could dance all night long.

The funny thing is that writing this now, there are so many problems that I can think of. There are so many things that I feel aren't right about me, about my life, about how I look, about how I feel, about my friends, about my family. I have so many fears, and worries, and I think too much about all of those things.

But dancing by the pool with Blake and Lauren, and Ross and Ian, I didn't worry. At all. I wasn't afraid. Of anything. It wasn't that I had all the answers to all of my questions, it was that I didn't have any questions. Everything felt like it made sense, and not just in my head, it made sense in my heart, in a way that I can't explain. My stomach was calm and I felt a beautiful, glorious, peaceful excitement. Peaceful excitement? I sound like a CRAZY
person. But that's what it was like—that there was nothing wrong. It felt like “wrong” wasn't even an option, as if nothing had ever been wrong, or ever COULD be wrong.

At some point, we all ended up in the jumping castle. If bouncing around had been fun BEFORE, it was AMAZING on Ecstasy. As I jumped up and down, the lights at the pool squiggled in bright plumes around me. My eyes would wiggle back and forth really fast a couple times a minute, and great big waves of happiness swept over me until I was breathless.

Finally we all collapsed in a heap in the castle and lay there talking, talking, talking. Ross talked about how glad he was that he'd met Ian, and Ian talked about how he couldn't believe that Ross was into him, and when I looked up, he had the most beautiful smile and there were tears sliding down his cheeks. His whole face looked lit up from the inside, and his eyes almost seemed to be glowing.

I felt so happy in that moment that Ross and Ian had found each other. Lauren took my hand, and Blake pressed his body against mine on the other side and ran a hand through my hair. I said how great it was that I'd met Lauren and Ross this summer, and suddenly my eyes were filled with the happiest, warmest tears I'd ever felt. I had to take several deep breaths as I talked. Lauren had tears in her eyes too. As the drops brimmed over my eyelids and slid down my cheeks, they felt thick and
warm, like syrup or glycerin, and another wave of pure joy washed over me. We all lay there for a few minutes listening to the music, and then Blake said:

Let's go put our feet in the hot tub.

So we did.

The DJ was playing slower songs now, and people were leaving.

Somebody gave me a water bottle, and the warmth of the hot tub on my feet and legs felt like a delicious caress. Lauren and I talked and talked about how wonderful it felt, and how amazing this night was, and how we wished that Astrid and Cam were here with us. Slowly, somehow, it got quiet. The music finally faded away, and everyone left, and Lauren looked at me and smiled. She didn't even have to say any words. It was just the two of us sitting here under the moon. And I felt so connected to her, like we'd be best friends forever.

Blake must've seen everyone out and paid the DJ, because he came to the back door and said, Hey you guys! C'mere.

Lauren and I got up and walked into the house, and there in the living room, Ross and Ian were lying on the shiny silver shag rug in the living room. The fibers were thin and stringy, soft and smooth. I don't really remember how it happened, but soon we were all lying on the rug. It felt SO GOOD running our hands and feet through it.

We stayed there for a long time on the rug. Blake disappeared into the kitchen and brought back ice cold cosmos for me and Lauren. I remember drinking it and thinking that my eyes hadn't gone wiggly in a little while. And then Blake was back on the rug with me, running his hands over the long silky silver fibers, and over my skin. Then we were kissing, and I closed my eyes and felt his body pressed against mine, and it was like we were moving together and breathing together and thinking together. His tongue felt so amazing against my own, and his hands were electric on my body.

I felt his fingers unlacing the corset of my costume, and I looked around and realized that everyone else was out back in the hot tub, and it was just us. Then we're upstairs somehow in Blake's bedroom, and sinking, sinking, sinking down into the soft mattress. I'm naked, and Blake is naked, and he's pressed against me so tight that it makes me gasp. His breath is on my ear and neck, and his hands are on my breasts. My arms are wrapped around him, my fingers sliding down his back and across his thighs, pulling him into me closer and closer until I feel like we have somehow merged into one another. I can't feel where I start and he stops, and the waves of warmth and feeling roll through me and I have never felt like this before, but I never want it to stop, and then …

I wake up.

When I opened my eyes, the light was bright outside the window. I lay there for a minute before I remembered where I was. I had a terrible headache and my jaw felt sore, like I had been gritting my teeth all night. I felt so achy and I stretched my legs slowly under the covers. I felt an arm around my waist and suddenly I realized that I was in Blake's bed. With Blake.

He ran his hand up and down my back, and whispered how beautiful my body is, and how amazing I felt last night, and in a flash I remembered:

We had sex.

I froze, and my stomach dropped, but not in a happy way. My head hurt so badly that I closed my eyes for a minute. Blake gave me a soft kiss on the forehead and slipped out of bed into the bathroom. I heard the shower turn on, and I grabbed my underwear off of the floor. It was the only thing I saw of mine in the room. Then I remembered the rug.

I pulled a blanket off of the bed and wrapped it around my shoulders and headed downstairs. My phone and purse were on the counter in the kitchen. I walked into the living room and felt a flood of relief when I saw Lauren curled up on the couch under a blanket.

Then I was shaking her awake, and we both checked our phones and it was after noon. The only thing that went running through my head was that I needed to find my skirt and shoes.
I collected the pieces of my costume, pulled the skirt on, and carried the corset back upstairs.

Blake came out of the bathroom in a towel as I sat down on the edge of the bed to buckle my shoes. He asked why I was leaving so soon. I asked if he had a T-shirt I could borrow so I didn't have to lace myself back into the corset, and as he fished through a dresser drawer, I realized there was something else in my head besides the pounding:

A nagging question.

As it formed in my brain, it sank down into my stomach, and I felt another wave wash over me. This one was a wave of pure undiluted terror that forced the words from my stomach up into my mouth and flying out of my lips:

Blake? Did we use a condom?

The way he smiled at me was different from the smiles I'd seen from him before. He handed me the T-shirt, and he tried to lean in and kiss my neck. I pushed away from him and looked into his eyes.

He said, What? You're on the pill, right?

The room started to spin a little bit when he said it, and I took a step backward. My cheeks were hot and I gulped a deep breath. Blake saw the answer before I even said the word no.

He shook his head and snorted a short laugh through his nose. He looked at me like I was the silliest, stupidest girl he'd ever met.

As Lauren drove us down the highway along the coast, I couldn't help but think that he was right. Lauren grabbed my hand and held it as I told her everything. She told me that I didn't need to worry: She had morning-after pills at home. She got them from her doctor in New York.

I leaned my head against the window and just stared at the gray clouds and the angry waves that pummeled the rocks along the beach where I first went to watch Ross surf. I thought about that girl who'd sat on the sand and watched Ross ride that day. She was so different from this girl: the one who had done Ecstasy last night, and had sex with a 20-year-old with no condom. This girl who was going to her best friend's house to take a morning-after pill.

Who am I now?

How did this happen?

That's when Cam texted me: WHERE ARE YOU?

I texted back: AT LAUREN'S.

He called me, and when I answered, he yelled into the phone: NO YOU'RE NOT!

When I didn't answer his texts this morning, he'd driven over to Lauren's and knocked on the door. Her dad told him that Lauren had spent the night at a friend's last night and that I wasn't there.

I hung up on him. We raced back to Lauren's, I gulped
down the morning-after pill, then she dropped me off at home.

Mom and Dad met me at the door, and I was terrified that Cam had already told them I hadn't actually spent the night at Lauren's, but he hadn't. They wanted to hear all about the party. The very last thing on the entire earth that I wanted to do was sit down to brunch with Mom and Dad and tell them about the party, but as I did, I realized they didn't know that Cam had left early with Astrid.

By the time we were done eating, I felt terrible. My headache had gotten steadily worse after I took the pill, and now I felt sick to my stomach. I was dizzy as I left the table, but Cam followed me to my room and hissed: What the HELL are you thinking? Did you spend the night at Blake's?

I just stared at him and then said, Why do you care?

His face got bright red and he said, I swear to God, if I find out that asshole laid one finger on you, I'll kill him.

I told him to calm down. That I could take care of myself.

He left in a huff, and I've been lying here, thinking about last night, and trying not to throw up.

Blake just texted me. He says he wants to see me again soon. Tonight. I texted him back and told him I have homework to do. We have essays due in American government tomorrow. It's the last thing I want to do.

All I want right now is to feel Blake's arms around me
again. I want to hear him tell me I'm beautiful. I want to feel those amazing waves of pure happiness crash over me again and again.

I don't care what Cam says.

I don't care what anybody says.

November 2

Didn't finish my American government essay. I've never not turned in an essay before. Lauren didn't have hers either. Mr. Daniels made us stay after class so he could talk to us. He told us we could hand it in during class on Thursday or he'd drop our scores one letter grade.

I don't care about Abraham Lincoln and the treaty that ended the Civil War. Writing this essay is going to be like pulling teeth.