Tasting Never (18 page)

“
I
think that you're right,” he tells me as I stand and stretch.
Ty runs his hands down my sides and pauses when he catches me looking
at him. “The more I learn about you, the more I want to know.”
I don't know how to respond to that; I'm not prepared for it. I
smile at Ty and grab his hands, pull him to his feet, and put my
forehead in the crook of his neck.

“
You
promised me zombies,” I tell him as he lifts my head up and
grins.

“
I
did, didn't I?” Ty asks and I can tell he feels what I'm
feeling, like there's this invisible string wrapped around the two of
us that wasn't there before.

“
Show
me,” I say and he does. We sit together on his couch and we
drink and we eat and we walk, and I know that we care about each
other because we
don't
have sex. Later, I fall asleep and
wake up to Ty carrying me. He puts me in his bed, lays me down
gentle, and steps back. He doesn't try to touch me or sleep me with,
and he certainly doesn't kick me out.
I'm the first girl in his
bed,
I think as I curl into a ball and wrap the blankets around
my shoulders. As strange as it sounds, it's comforting and my heart
lulls me to sleep with a gentle, peaceful lullaby.

I
wake up early the next day, look at the clock and get dressed for
class, putting on my yellow SOG tee and not caring what anyone thinks
about it. When I head into the living room, I see Ty lying shirtless
on his back on the couch, chest rising and falling with every breath.
I move over to him and stare down at his face. His sexy lips are
curved in a meaningless frown, and his eyelids are fluttering like
butterflies. I brush Ty's hair from his forehead, plant a kiss on
his cheek, and disappear out the front door. In his sleep, he
smiles.

27

When
our next SOG meeting rolls around, Ty and I head there early to help
Vanessa set up the rug. When she sees me, she smiles and acts like
nothing unusual happened last week. I don't apologize for storming
out because I don't believe that I owe anyone an apology. I did what
I had to do in that moment, and I'm proud of myself for it. I was
hurting, yes, and maybe I overreacted, but I can still feel, so
there's hope for me. The ones that have forgotten how to feel, those
are the ones that are lost. I'm still here, and Ty can save me if I
let him. Just as I can save him if he lets me. We're not there yet,
but we're now two weeks celibate and the recipients of a pair of
orange chips. I've turned my red one into an earring and I plan to
do the same with this one.

“Never,”
Vanessa says as the meeting begins, as the other members sit down and
smile at me, nod, raise a hand in acknowledgment of my presence. A
girl with bleach blonde hair and bright eyes leans over and tells me
that,
You're not the only one.
I smile back at her and hope
that whatever it is that Vanessa is going to ask, I can answer.
“Have you thought about the question I posed last week?”
I stare back at her and for the life of me, I can't remember. She
chuckles softly and sets her tablet down on the rug. “I asked
you what it was that you loved most about yourself.”

Ah.
That.

I
nod and reach inside my coat for gum, pausing when I realize what I'm
doing. I'm trying to weasel my way out of answering the question
again. I still don't have an answer for her and most importantly, I
don't have one for myself.

“Can
I tell you what I love most about Never?” Ty asks as I turn in
slow motion to look at him. Love? He loves something about me? Is
that the same as loving me? I swallow and avoid that train of
thought. It might lead to a wreck of gnarled metal with my heart in
the center of it. I don't think I could handle that.

“Can
I tell you what I love most about Ty?” I say, and I don't
notice it then, but everyone around me is smiling big and goofy,
recognizing something between us that even we don't see yet. Ty
McCabe and I are falling in love.

“Of
course,” Vanessa says, emerald eyes sparkling. “Please
do.”

“I
think you have an incredible capacity to love,” Ty says and
then because he's been too serious, he has to go and make an ass out
of himself by grinning and saying, “And a tight ass.” I
roll my eyes as chuckles wind their way through the group, but
inside, I'm grinning, too. There might still be darkness around me,
but when I'm with Ty, I'm standing in a spotlight.

“What
I love most about you,” I say and toss one out there for the
group to grin at. “Is your rhythm.” I snap my fingers
and I see that some of the ladies are smiling. The guys don't get
it, at least none of these ones do. “It's not about the size
of the hammer,” I say. “It's the pace at which you swing
it.” Ty laughs, and I'm happy to see his face bright. His
dimples are round and perfect, proving that the reaction I'm getting
is as real as any I've seen before. “But truthfully,” I
say. “The best part about you is your soul. It's a piece of
tortured beauty.”

“Thank
you Never,” he tells me and even if nobody else understands
what I mean, Ty gets it.

28

“
Grr,”
Lacey says as she leans back on her bed and drops into Trini's lap.
“I can't fucking figure out this formula.” Trini touches
her forehead affectionately, but doesn't say a word. She keeps her
nose buried in her chem book and sighs. I don't respond either.
Midterms are coming up fast and suddenly, time seems like this rare
but precious thing, something that slips away in the blink of an eye.
It's kind of sad because I've been spending these lazy afternoons
with Ty, just lying around on his bed and talking or swimming in the
pool at his apartment building, just random stuff like that. Telling
him my secret has improved my life drastically. I feel like we're
both sharing the weight of it now, and it makes it easier for me to
go to bed at night and get up in the morning. In fact, I haven't
cried
once
since my first night sleeping at Ty's house. I'm
over there a lot now which is kind of nice actually.

I'm
looking at a printout of paintings, trying to memorize artists' names
and dates. It's better than 'interpreting' the work, trying to find
a meaning for every little detail, but it's still unbelievably
boring. When the door swings open and Ty walks in, I barely notice,
determined to keep my nose to the grindstone.

“
Never,”
he says and something about his voice scares the shit out of me. I
look up and see that he's sweating, just soaked. His white T-shirt
is see-through now, and I can actually make out the spots where his
nipples are hiding beneath the fabric. It would be sexy if it wasn't
so terrifying. This is the first time I have ever seen him without
his piercings in. He just has these little holes in the spots where
they're supposed to go: on the left side of his lip, his nose, his
right eyebrow.

“
What's
wrong?” I ask as I set my study guide aside and touch the back
of my hand to his forehead. He doesn't feel hot, just normal, like
there's no way he could be sick. His eyes look okay, too, dark but
not feverish, and his skin is a bit washed out but not flushed. Ty
hands me a pair of envelopes from SHS.

It
takes me a second to realize exactly what it is that I'm holding.

The
results. The test results. The future direction of both our lives
depends on what's inside these white envelopes, what's printed on
this paper.

“
Hey
Ty,” Lacey says, but he doesn't even look at her. He can't
look at her because he's too busy looking at me. I stand up and my
computer chair goes flying, topples over and crashes to the floor as
I take both envelopes in my fingers and seriously debate burning them
right then and there. If I burn them. I won't ever have to know. If
I do, I can't move on. It's a tough decision but one with only one
obvious answer.

“
I
have to go,” I tell Lacey and she starts to protest.

“
You
told me not to let you so much as sleep, eat or piss during the next
few days, Never. Where do you need to go?” I turn towards her
and I bet I look like Ty now, sweaty and disheveled and all around
weird. It's easy to look like that when you're holding your life's
judgment in your hands. Every mistake I have ever made is going to
be tested, weighed; any punishment that could be exacted on me will
be doled out now. I could get through this clean, move on with my
life and survive, or I could find out that I'm destined to die. The
odds are not good.

“
I
have to go and learn my fate,” I tell Lacey and who the hell
could argue with that? Ty and I grasp hands, but I remain in control
of the test results as we walk through the hallways of the dorms and
pause in the elevator. Normally, we both like to take the stairs.
Today, it's just far too much effort. My mind is too busy
contemplating
what-ifs
and
what-nows.

“
If
I have something … ”

“
Then
we both probably have it,” I tell him, trying to smile though
this isn't exactly something that I should be smiling about.

“
If
I have something,” Ty repeats again. “Will you stay with
me?”

“
Of
course,” I respond without hesitation. “You're my best
friend.” I wink at him as we climb off the elevator and march
through the lobby of the building, like we're promenading death,
swinging it in circles in a crowded ballroom. Neither of us is
seeing straight or moving lithely, it just isn't possible with all of
this stress bearing down on us, threatening to crush us beneath its
weight. Some people might have torn open the envelopes right away,
taken the suspense away, but that only works if the results are good,
and Ty and I are pretty much positive that ours are bad. If we drag
this out, even tough it hurts, it might help keep us sane in the long
run. These last, few moments of not knowing are better than adding
more moments of fear or pain or despair. “Where do you want to
do this?” I ask him at least as we pass out the glass doors and
into the cold, gray of the November fog. It rolls off the bay and
hangs salty in the air, not exactly the most pleasant of weather. I
wish for sunshine with a fierceness that could kill.

“
My
place,” Ty says and he takes my hand and walks me the few miles
to his house in silence. When we get there, Ty hands me one of those
Djarum Blacks that I said I would never smoke and a cold beer from
the fridge. I take both without a word and sit down at his table,
the two white rectangles fanned out in front of me.

“
Should
we each open our own?” I ask because I'm not sure how to go
about doing this. I also know that I am never, ever going to go
through this again. I've put myself through hell and back and now
I'm paying for it. All those times I retreated to back rooms at
party, laid on my back for a guy whose face is now a blur, spread my
legs for a nameless shadow of a memory, I was hurting myself ten
times worse than the memories could ever do. Ty is the same way, so
he knows. I can look him right in the eye and think these things and
see it all reflected back at me.

“
Sure,”
Ty says because he doesn't know what to do either, and we're both
nervous for one another, both hardly able to breathe. “But you
have to tell me right away.”

“
Ditto,”
I tell him as we both shred the paper with shaking fingers, pull out
folded pages that mean everything and nothing all at once. Ty's eyes
fly down his page, take it all in before I can even unfold mine.
When he gets to the end, he rolls his gaze back to the top and starts
over.

“
I'm
clear,” he tells me as he hands me the page. “Never, I'm
clear.” I look down the list, at all the places where it says
negative
and am more grateful in that moment than I've been in
any other in my life. No matter what happen to me now, Ty will live.
Ty will be okay. This slows me down on my own results because in
light of Ty's, they don't seem so important. Somehow, that asshole
has made me care so much about him that I practically sob with
relief. Or I will, as soon as I know my own fate.

I
unfold my own letter, but before I can read any of the words, I close
my eyes in cowardice, pinch them shut tight and sit there in absolute
silence.

“
What
is it, Nev?” Ty asks, and I can hear in his voice that he's
desperate to know, maybe even more desperate than I am. He wants me
to be safe, wants me to live. I can see that getting his results
back did nothing to assuage his fears. They were all for me, always
for me. I take a deep breath, force my eyes open and my gaze down
and read the words.
HIV – negative. Chlamydia –
negative. Gonorrhea – negative. Herpes – negative.
Pregnancy test – not pregnant.

I
have just dodged the proverbial fucking bullet.

When
I look up at Ty, I have tears in my eyes. He mistakes this for
sadness and collapses to his knees. Right then and there he falls
for me in more ways than one. Ty McCabe makes a whole lot of
decisions regarding Never Ross in that moment that I don't know, that
I'm not privy to for some time to come.