Olivia Christakos and Her Second First Time (16 page)

“It’s not you. It’s me. I’m not ready. I...” he hops in place as he hurriedly slips on his socks. Then his shoes. I’m running out of time.

“Just sit down. Let’s talk.”

Another shake of his head. “I...
can’t
.” He heads for the door, running fingers through the hair that only moments before had been intertwined with my fingers. This crushes me. “Why?” I ask.

With a grip on the handle, he pauses. His voice is stiff when he says, “I lied about you being a virgin.”

My shock registers before I realize he’s gone. My subconscious yells,
I
knew it.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Sophomore Year at UCLA

I stood outside James’s dorm room, drunk and determined. I gripped a bottle of champagne in one hand, a condom in the other, and an attitude that no matter what, I wouldn’t take no for an answer.

I knocked. He answered, and I pushed myself against him, sticking my tongue down his throat before he could object. At first his body tensed in surprise, but it relaxed some with the kissing. He started kissing me back. I dropped the bottle on the floor with a heavy thunk and pulled him toward me. We flopped on the bed that I assumed was his. The other was made and had a large pink bear sitting on it, staring at me accusingly. I hoped that was his roommate’s bed—a roommate who I’d had to stalk for weeks to figure out when he’d be gone. I overheard him tell a friend at breakfast a few days ago that he had plans to stay with his girlfriend in the next town over all weekend.

James was shirtless and sported slinky black shorts. I could feel his hard-on over my skirt. This was working. While straddling him, I tugged off my shirt, making sure my lips stayed in contact with his for as long as possible. I didn’t want to lose him; he could be a little ADD in bed. I’d had this day planned for months and I wasn’t going to screw it up.

The plan was simple: wait until the roommate was gone, be drunk and available, seduce him, and then tell him I wanted to get back together.

He let me undress him. He let me put a condom on him and pull up my skirt. I’d gone commando, so we could skip the ripping-the-panties-off step. I didn’t look him in the eye through all of this. I thought if I seemed aloof, he’d let me do what I needed to do. I pushed myself down on him, sweet pressure bouncing through me. I hadn’t had sex in a year and a half. I hoped he could say the same, even though I’d seen him with a super sexy blonde at a club once—I’d found out her name was Megan—dancing dirtier than he and I ever had. I wanted to take a pair of scissors to her perfectly straightened hair and mini skirt. I’d started to see them around campus, holding hands and kissing, and it made me furious. He shouldn’t be with anyone but me. So I’d decided to do something drastic. To make him see the error of his way. Now he was cheating on her. The thought made me smile.

I pushed my hips back and forth a few times and kept kissing him, and after only a few minutes, we both finished at the same time in a heap of sweat in each other’s arms. As my drunk began to wear off, I started to feel self-conscious—vulnerable and embarrassed about the way I’d just acted. I wanted him to kiss my forehead and tell me he missed me or pull me tightly to him. But it seemed like I was holding on tighter to him than he was to me.

In the silence, I decided that his room didn’t look like the James I remembered. It was messy: clothes thrown wherever, posters hung crookedly and books lay open—pages ripped—on the floor. One stack doubled as a nightstand on top of which a moldy glass of what might have at one time been Kool-Aid stood. James had always been neat in appearance, in himself and his room.

It occurred to me then that I might not know the boy who’s wrapped in my arms anymore. We hadn’t had a proper conversation in almost two years. That much time can completely alter a person. I mean, look at me. I’d become stalkerish, obsessive and depressed. My entire world as I knew it had revolved around James for so long and now that he was gone, I kept trying to recapture that feeling of when we were together. I couldn’t get more than a taste of that feeling at a time and it felt like I was starving myself.

I knew if I told him I wanted to get back together right now, he’d ask me to leave again. Somehow, I just knew that’s what he’d say and I didn’t want
him
rejecting
me
ever again. I wouldn’t be able to stand it. So I stood up, straightened my skirt and picked up my abandoned bottle of champagne. It was a cheap brand that had a twist off cap and I opened the bottle and took a swig. I didn’t look back when the door closed behind me.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Now

Chloe comes back with food and tries to make me talk about what happened in her absence and why Wyatt isn’t here. I don’t want to talk because the
notavirgin notavirgin
thought consumes all of my brainpower, like a phone that can’t hold a charge. So we sit there with the TV on, watching some teen cooking competition and picking at the remains of vegan sandwiches that taste like cardboard. I don’t tell Chloe I don’t like the food because I’m sure Old Liv would have approved.

Why would Wyatt lie to me about the whole virgin thing? I can’t get my mind around it. I can’t think of one reason except maybe because he was trying to protect me somehow. But whatever reason he has, I’m pissed that he’s keeping it from me. I trusted him and everyone else to help me fill in the blanks about who I am, but so many things I’ve been told about myself don’t seem to fit. And now Wyatt has actually admitted to lying to me. When the last of the sun slips into hiding for the night, Wyatt is still MIA and my anger is starting to boil instead of simmer. I ask Chloe, “Do you still want to go to Pink Dollars with me? We could take a cab.” I need to get out of the hotel room, out of my head, for a little while. We have a plan and I want to stick to it.

“Sure!” she says, sounding more cheerful than she has for the last few hours. She complained about everything on TV and how the food screwed with her stomach. Maybe she was bored or didn’t think we’d get to go out without Wyatt. “I wish I had some better clothes to wear, though.”

She’s dressed fine for a nightclub: designer jeans, low-cut blouse, blonde hair straightened and gobs of makeup. “You look nice.”

“But do
you
want to go?” she asks. “You kind of seem upset.”

“I am,” I say, finally opening up. “Wyatt lied to me about something and I’m pissed about it. Did you know I’m not a virgin?”

It takes her a long, slow minute to answer. “Yes.”

I know she wasn’t there for the conversation, but I still would have liked to have known that information beforehand. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I...” she pauses, thinks. “You didn’t ask.”

This is technically true and since I realize it would’ve been impossible for her to tell me everything about who I am, I let it go. “How many guys have I slept with?”

After another long pause, she says, “Just one, that I know of.”

My mind begins to put pieces together. Wyatt telling me about James. Chloe saying I’ve slept with only one person. But if James was the one I slept with, I would have been fifteen. I mean, if everything else everyone has been telling me is true. Which, I’m beginning to realize, it might not be. “Was it James?”

Her eyes widen. “How do you know that name?”

“Wyatt told me I had another boyfriend, before we got together. Was it him that I slept with?”

Chloe just stares at me, looking unsure of how to answer. “I think you should talk to Wyatt about this.”

I pound my fist on the bed. “I don’t want to talk to Wyatt, I want to talk to you. Wyatt has already admitted to lying to me, I want to hear it from someone else!”

She sighs, rolls off the bed, and begins fluffing her hair in the hotel mirror. “Yes, okay. You slept with James. And only James. That I know of anyway. You could have slept with other people and not told me, though.”

“Do you think I would do that? Not tell you?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Do you know why Wyatt would be so weird with me or lie about being a virgin?”

Chloe straightens her clothes before she answers. “Wyatt wants what’s best for you. I don’t know exactly why he would lie, but there’s probably a good explanation.”

* * *

As we walk through the lobby and outside, I see Wyatt leaning against the brick wall of the hotel, looking smoldering. If he were a character in an old movie, he would have a cigarette dangling from his mouth. “Ready?” he asks without looking at me.

I keep my anger in check when I say, “If you still want to go,” but the trust I had in him is gone now and I think he can sense it.

“I don’t, but it’s the reason we came isn’t it?” There’s an edge to his voice I’ve never heard before. Like he’s the one who should be mad, not me.

I want to yell at him, to tell him he doesn’t get to be the one who’s pissed in this scenario, but I don’t want to do it in front of Chloe. I’m trying to keep my mind open about him lying to me, hoping there is a damn good reason, but I can’t get past all my anger.

“We’ll just take a cab,” I say to him. “Since you don’t want to go.”

A scowl gathers above his eyes and I think he might be offended now instead of pissed. “I’m not going to let you take a cab.”

“Let me?” I say, incredulous. Chloe’s eyes pop from the scenery she’s pretending to study over to us, sensing confrontation. Wyatt is totally on thin ice and I am very close to leaving him here. Maybe my mom could come pick Chloe and me up or something. I glare at him.

He sighs, letting the argument go. Like he’s replaced his confident mask for a more reserved one. “That’s not what I meant.” His voice is softer, the earlier edge to it now gone. “I meant I’ll take you. We’ll go together. I don’t want you going by yourself. Not that I could stop you.”

The drive over is even more awkward than the entire drive up. All the touching, bumping, breathing. It’s excruciating and as soon as we’re parked in front of Pink Dollars, I practically push Chloe out to escape.

Pink Dollars looks a lot different when it’s open. Well, there’s a different vibe about it, I guess. A female bouncer sits out front of the open door, smoking, and a few people stop, show their IDs and enter the club. I’m nervous about my fake ID. Will the bouncer know me and know that mine is fake? Will she remember me from the stories that surely floated around after my accident? Or maybe the club has gotten a lot stricter about who they let in.

Wyatt goes first and, since his ID is real, she lets him in. Chloe’s next and her ID is equally as fake as mine (probably done by the same person.) The bouncer takes a second, longer, glance, but ultimately waves her in too. It’s my turn. My hand shakes an infinitesimal amount and I’m not sure why I’m so nervous. The worst that could happen is she doesn’t let me in, right? She won’t have me arrested, would she?

She looks at me, barely glances at my ID and nods me inside. My shoulders relax.

I expect the club to be loud and packed, but I remember it’s still early, just after seven. A handful of small wooden tables are spread out on this lower level by the front door and bar. I count a dozen more on the upper level, along with a dance floor and a few pool tables. “I’ll order us some drinks,” Wyatt says, and takes off without bothering to find out what kind we want.

“Okay,” Chloe says as soon as he’s gone. “Putting the awkwardness aside for a minute, tell me how you’re feeling. Are any memories coming back? Does this place give you the creeps or anything?” Some quiet music plays and we pick a table.

Aside from the ghost-town feel of the place, I don’t feel any awkwardness. A few guys are hanging out, laughing and singing and nursing drinks while a large man in drag checks his bottles behind the bar. Other than that, the place is quiet. “No. I was hoping my entire memory would come flooding back when I walked in, but there’s nothing. I mean, this was the very last place I was before I got hit, so there should be
something
.” I search the wood paneled walls, the furniture, the DJ who stands on his own little platform on the second floor, but nothing feels familiar. This feels like the first time I’ve been here.

“Yeah,” Chloe says, her voice soft and careful. “But I was the last person you talked to before you were hit and seeing me didn’t help you.”

“What I still don’t understand is that, okay, I went into the middle of the road to see if to see if the truck coming down the street was Wyatt—even though I know now he was inside the club—and someone else hit me. So, the person coming down the road wasn’t Wyatt. Fine. It was someone else. But, if I had been paying so much attention to the driver, how could I let myself get hit? Was a car coming from the other way or something?”

Chloe’s mouth is partly open and her eyes are wide, looking around the room. Like she didn’t hear me or she’s getting ready to say something. It’s a long moment before she actually does. “Um. Yeah, I don’t really...” She turns around, like someone has called her name from behind her.

“You don’t really what?” I ask, suddenly suspicious. She’s obviously hiding something.

Wyatt returns with three shots of some kind of brown liquid and three pale beers. I stare at them. I’m not taking the painkillers as much—haven’t had one today—but I’m not sure if I should be drinking at all. The last time I did, I was almost killed.

Wyatt sits, spotting my confused expression. “I thought we could all use some loosening up.”

Chloe nods and downs her shot, then steals mine, avoiding my question. I don’t let her off the hook this time. “Chloe, what is it?” I say it slowly, with all the patience of a saint. “Tell me.”

Wyatt looks at Chloe quizzically, trying to catch up.

She hesitates, opening and closing her mouth, but all that comes out is a heavy sigh.

“I deserve to know,” I say through my teeth, playing with the label on my beer but not taking a drink.

She sighs. “There was this kid.”

“A kid?” I ask flatly, annoyed.

“Yeah. He was riding his bicycle and swerved into the road. You went after him. Pushed him out of the way, onto the sidewalk.” She breaks into a quiet sob. “You froze—it was just a second’s time, or else I would have come after you, I swear—and the car hit you.”

My chest tightens. “So I wasn’t looking for Wyatt?”

“Well, you started off looking down the road, seeing if...
he
...was coming down the street, but you only actually went into the street because of the boy.”

“Is the boy okay?” I ask hopefully. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“The boy is fine. And he asked me not to tell anyone. He was so scared of getting into trouble because he thought he killed you. I lied because I didn’t think it would matter to you
how
you were hit. Just that you needed help. I told the boy to go home, that I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“But it does matter how I got hit! All this time, I thought I was just some drunk chick that wandered stupidly into the street after some guy. Sorry, Wyatt. And now I find out that I may have saved some little boy’s life? This changes things.” My hands fly to the tips of my hair, tugging. My voice has gone all high and loud and a couple of the guys at the bar turn to watch. “I actually do care about people,” I add, more quietly.

“Of course you do.” Wyatt puts his hand over mine and I’m surprised that he’d do that after the awkwardness in the hotel. I pull away, though, because I’m still pissed.

I
saved some boy.
I think.
I’m a good person
. This changes so much of how I pictured Old Liv. But now she’s more of a mystery to me than ever.

Wyatt still hasn’t touched his shot. I grab it, fling it down my throat, and feel the satisfying burn. “What?” I say when I come up for air, looking at Wyatt’s incredulous expression. “I definitely need some loosening up.”

* * *

I’m drunk. Chloe tells me I’m doing my drunk snarl, Elvis lip meets bulldog. I don’t get it, but I’m not getting anything at the moment.

The club has begun to fill up but I’ve barely noticed in my drunkenness, and it’s great. Guys are dressed in drag and a few of them do a skit and sing, but I barely notice. My head spins with vodka and anger. I want to get Wyatt alone to ask him why he’d lied, but part of me—even in my drunken state—tells me it’s not a good idea to do when we’re all lit up. Maybe that means I’m not quite drunk enough.

Chloe and I dance. Wyatt watches from the table. I know he cares—it’s all over his expressions and mannerisms. So why is he giving me such a hard time? I shake out my limbs. I shouldn’t worry about this right now, so I’m not going to. Fun is happening and I want to swim in it.

When the song ends and we clear the dance floor, Chloe offers to buy the next round and leaves me with a sullen Wyatt who looks to be far less drunk than I am. I only now notice what he’s wearing, because it’s familiar somehow—a black, long-sleeved shirt, pushed up to the elbows.

A couple of boys behind him are making out. A sense of déjà vu washes over me. “You used to wear He-Man underwear,” I say, surprising myself. I can’t see this memory, exactly, I just know it’s there. It’s the oddest feeling. My brain twinges in pain.

Wyatt’s face seems to have gained its own gravitational pull. “Olivia...I—” He looks as though he’s about to confess to a murder, but my head is giving me such problems that I don’t care.

“Ugh...headache,” I spew, gripping the sides of my head. I stagger back and forth and Wyatt steadies me with a hand.

“You okay?” he asks, stooping to look up at my half-hidden face.

I shake my head and the movement makes it worse.

“Sit down.” He grabs me by the elbows and sits me on the bench next to the boys who are making out. “I’m gonna get you some water.” And he’s gone.

He’s always disappearing. The Great Disappearing Wyatt.

People should hire him for birthday parties.

A guy approaches me as soon as Wyatt has disappeared in the crowd. He’s short, chubby, his white T-shirt pulling tight across his chest. I think I could see his nipples if I squint, so I do. “Olivia.”

I’m in trouble. Someone has recognized me and they are going to tell someone else and I’m going to be thrown in jail for underage drinking or drinking in a bar that I was drunk in before and had an accident outside of. Surely there’s some kind of law that says I can’t be drunk in a bar that I was nearly killed outside of.

“What’s it to you?” I say. I can feel my lip curling, like that Elvis bulldog Chloe was talking about earlier.

“Wyatt’s...girlfriend?”

I peer up at his face, realizing I keep staring at his nipples. His voice isn’t nice so I’m not going to be nice back. “If you’re taking drink orders, I would like a rum and Coke.”

“It’s all a lie, you know.”