Tasting Never (6 page)

I
grab my backpack and haul ass out of there, pausing for just a moment
to vote on the next poll that the professor's pulled up on her
screen.

“
How
do you know so much about my tuition?” I ask as Ty drags me to
a small stone wall in the center of the courtyard. It's just about
knee high and surrounds a dry garden bed and an old tree. There's
gum stuck all over it, but I sit down anyway, folding my tiny, black
skirt under my thighs so that my bare skin doesn't touch any of it.

“
I
looked it up online,” he explains as he holds out his hand and
passes me a cigarette. “Among other things.” I take the
lighter out of the side pocket on my bag and light us both up.

“
So
you're stalking me now?” I ask, but I smile when I say it.

“
You
stalked Noah Scott,” Ty says as he takes a drag on his
cigarette and sighs like he's in heaven. They'll make you feel that
way, cigarettes will, like you're in paradise while they kill your
insides. I wish I could quit, but I can't make myself care enough to
go through that much effort. “Over twenty grand just to talk
about penises?”

“
I
have a scholarship,” I say as I sip my coffee.
Mmm. Still
warm.
“And financial aid.”

“
How?”
Ty asks casually, too casually. He's fishing for information. I
take a moment to consider my answer as I sweep my gaze over him.
He's still just as dark, as dangerous looking as he was at the club.
Even in the harsh winter sunlight, Ty looks perfect. His dark hair
is lying flat today, but it's clean and it shimmers like onyx,
speckled with flecks of color from the breaks in the leaves above us.
His sexy lips are smiling, but his dimples aren't showing, meaning
that he's probably putting on a front for me. His piercings are all
different today, all silver with white-blue crystals in them. They
compliment the gray T-shirt he's wearing over his bootcut blue jeans.
They're tucked into big, black work boots with the laces still
undone.

I
reconfirm my earlier assessment that while Ty is still hot, the ideal
male specimen, that I'm not interested, not like that, not anymore.
There's still a little quiver in my belly, an aching pulse down below
that tells me that my body still wants him, but I don't feel that
desperate frenzy to fuck like I do sometimes, that need to fill
myself so that I won't be alone, even if it's just for a second.
Maybe it's because Ty talks to me, treats me like a person instead of
an opportunity?

“
I
filled out the FAFSA and trolled the Internet for scholarships,
anything to do with … ” I almost don't say it.

“
You
can tell me what the hell a
FAFSA
is in a minute. To do with
what?”

“
Dance,”
I say and my voice comes out like a whisper, swirls through the air
with a cluster of dried leaves. “I had some videos of myself,
so I posted them wherever I could.” Ty doesn't respond until
he finishes his coffee. He wrinkles the cup up in his hand and makes
an impressive toss across the bricks of the courtyard. The cup hits
the rim of a garbage can and slides inside.

“
Show
me.”

7

I
take Ty up to my dorm room which is weird because I've never had a
guy in there, not once, not for any reason.

“
Cozy,”
he says, and I can't tell if he's being facetious or if he's telling
the truth. I sit down at my desk which is at the end of Lacey's bed
instead of at the end of mine. We switched spots because I like to
stay up late and type things, not stories or poems though, just
things. Lacey says the light of the screen from this angle isn't as
bad as it is from the other side. Ty understandably mistakes her bed
for mine and sits down on the pink and white comforter. “You
know,” he says as he pulls open the drawer on the bedside table
and peeks inside. Whatever it is that he sees in there causes him to
smirk wickedly. “When I asked if you were legal, I was
serious. How old are you anyway?”

“
Close
that,” I snap as his hand starts to venture inside. “That's
my roommate's stuff.” Ty raises his dark brows and stands up,
moving over to my rumpled black and red bedspread. Apparently, he
thinks it's okay to look so long as the stuff is mine and opens my
drawer next. There's not much in there, so I ignore him and search
for one of the videos on my laptop.
Why
are you showing him this?
I
wonder as I search through old folders looking for the last
performance I ever had filmed. My final performance, the one I did
right before I packed up some clothes and left my costumes and my
family behind, wasn't filmed. It was for one man's eyes only. “I'm
twenty-one,” I respond absently as I find the video I'm looking
for.

“
Twenty-two,”
Ty says as he stands up and stretches. “So that means you
have, what, a year and a half of school left?”

“
Supposedly,”
I say as I click the video and open it to full screen. I lean back
in my chair and watch a girl who was me, but isn't anymore. That
girl, the one in the turquoise top and the hip scarf, she's long
dead, and there's no way to bring her back. I wonder if my mom or my
sisters ever watch this video and think of me? I think of them all
the time, video or no.

Ty
kneels down next to me and puts one hand on the arm of my chair and
the other on my desk. His breath tickles my fingers and make them
twitchy. Suddenly, I have this crazy urge to brush the hair from his
forehead.
What
the fuck is wrong with me?
I
look back at the screen and try not to frown. In the recording, I'm
doing my mother's homegrown version of tribal belly dance where one
lead dancer cues the other girls in the group with subtle motions,
telling them what move comes next. It's all improv; nothing is
choreographed. It gives the dance a more organic look, like it's
something from wilder times where women might've dance around
campfires and worshipped goddesses whose names are like whispers on
the wind.

I'm
wearing a big, black skirt that hangs so low it touches the tops of
my henna patterned feet, and a scarf with big, silver tassels that
swing wide arcs around me as I spin. My hair is its natural copper
color in the video, not black and red like it is now. I dyed it to
match my bedspread. At the time, it seemed as good an inspiration as
anything. At least my comforter was always there, night after night,
holding me, cradling me tight. What else could I ask for?

“
You're
fucking beautiful,” Ty tells me honestly as he watches the
video, brown eyes flickering across the screen, tracing my every
movement. I don't blame him; I was prettier then, skinny and lithe
and muscular with a flashy, blue zircon belly ring in the shape of a
butterfly. Watching this video makes me remember why I don't dance
anymore. I was perfect that day and even better the next. If I
dance now and mess up those memories, I'll never forgive myself. I
open my mouth to tell Ty this because for whatever reason, I want to
spill my guys out to him, when Lacey walks in the room with a pink
shopping bag on one shoulder and a blue one on the other. Her
girlfriend is standing right behind her, giggling, but stops as soon
as she sees Ty. Then she switches her attentions from Lacey to him.

It's
hard to resist a man like Ty McCabe, even for someone as emotionally
shallow as what's-her-name.

“
Hey
there,” she says, and Lacey goes from smiley to scowling,
twisting her skinny lips into an angry frown. Ty doesn't respond to
her right away. First, he reaches over me and wraps his big hand
around mine, moving the mouse to the pause button. He clicks it and
stands up suddenly.

“
Hey
there yourself,” he says with a naughty smirk that bugs the
hell out of me for whatever reason. “The name's Ty,” he
tells her as he moves aside so that Lacey can throw her bags on her
bed. She's on the verge of having a temper tantrum, but nobody
notices but me. “Mind if I grab yours?”

“
Renee
Foster,” she tells him with the very same smile she was using
on Rick at the frat party only a few days prior. See, I told you
girls like Renee want to marry guys like Rick and have kids and
pretend to be happy, but they secretly want to fuck guys like Ty. I
tap my fingers on my desk and feel irritated. Why, I can't guess,
because he doesn't belong to me. I don't want him to belong to me.
Maybe I just don't like Renee?

“
Nice
to meet you, Renee,” he says with a dimpled smile and the two
of them shake hands. I'm happy to see that he doesn't touch her hair
or let her kiss his jaw like he did with me. “You must be
Lacey's girlfriend. I've only heard good things.” Renee's
face turns pasty white and she whirls on Lacey with a glare that
could kill. She says nothing, but her breath huffs in and out like a
wild animal. Ty and I both seem to know when it's better to stick
around and when it's best to leave because we both move towards the
door and around Renee at the same time.

“
That
was totally uncalled for,” I hiss at him as soon as it closes
behind us. Shouts echo out and down the hallways. Luckily, most
people are in class right about now so there isn't a crowd around to
hear.

“
What
was?” Ty asks, going for a cigarette even tough there's a
No
Smoking
sign
just a few feet down from where we're standing. I stare at his
perfect head, silhouetted against the white wall and for some reason,
I just want to hit him. I don't know why, I just do.

“
Go
away,” I tell him as I snatch the cigarette from his hand. He
looks at me for a long time, just stares at me. “Get out!”

Ty
reaches out, takes the cigarette back and disappears down the
hallway.

I
don't see or hear from him for a week.

8

I'm
at a stupid, fucking party with Lacey again because I'm so mad at
myself for kicking Ty out of my dorm that I can barely think about
anything else. I don't have his number or e-mail or address, and
he's been virtually impossible to find. I've searched
Ty McCabe
on just about every social networking site, plugged it into just
about every search engine. All I can think is that I've driven my
first and only real possibility at a friend away, and now the hunger
is back, the gnawing loneliness that brings unbidden tears at night.
It's whispering at me, telling me what I should do to ease that ache.
If I don't obey it, sooner or later it'll turn into a scream. So I
do what I do best and give into it.

I'm
hitting on a guy in a black sweater with hair that looks uncannily
similar to mine – black with a red streak in the front. He's
talking about how much he loves motorcycles and I'm nodding and
picking lint off his sweatshirt with a smile. Lacey's standing
beside me fuming because Renee won't talk to her anymore. She told
me that Renee called her a
damn dyke
and even had the audacity
to slap her. I asked Lacey if they'd ever slept together, but she
wouldn't give me a straight answer. Doesn't matter anyway, I
suppose, because I'm in no place to help anyone else with their love
life. I don't even have one of my own.

I
slide my hands down the bright blue fabric of my dress, pleased at
the way it frames my breasts but disappointed at how much it bunches
around my midsection. I'm a lot curvier than I was in that belly
dancing video, and it's starting to get to me. I've probably watched
it a hundred times since Ty left, and I'll probably watch it a
hundred more before I'm done. I feel somehow that it's not over
until he sees the end, until he sees my mother make a fool of herself
on the stage and set into motion the events that drove me away from
my home and into the arms of the real world, emancipation, and a
series of shitty jobs that almost killed me.
At least I was never
a whore like Ty,
I think bitterly and then suddenly just feel sad
for him. That empty, gaping, lonely spot in me is crying out for
attention.

“
Hey,
want to go somewhere?” I ask the guy in the sweater. I think
his name is Jason or something, but I don't say it aloud in case I'm
wrong.

He
raises his eyebrows and says, “Sure thing, beautiful.” I
grit my teeth and pretend I don't hear that. I hate that term,
beautiful.
It's so condescending that it makes me sick.

“
Hey
Never,” says this girl who I know only briefly because we have
a lab together. “Your boyfriend's here.”

“
My
boyfriend?” I ask as I drop Jason-or-whatever's hand and push
through the pulsing, vibrating throng towards Shanay. She's pointing
towards something, but it's hard to see because there are people
everyone, just this big, massive, thrusting, sweating wall of them.
Some of them are dancing, others are halfway to a home run, and some
are just singing, voices heavy with liquor and pot. I kind of hate
it here, but then, I had nothing else to do tonight. I finished all
the books on my
to read
list and felt all the emptier because
of it. One contemporary romance novel after another slid down my
throat until I was convinced that something was wrong with my life.
Those girls always get what they want in the end. I'm envious of
them. I want an ending like that, too. “Boyfriend?” I
ask Shanay. She doesn't really know me, not the true me anyway, but
she's aware that I do not date. Not for real.