Why Girls Are Weird (24 page)

The fans in the room tossed the clumsy, lumbering silver balloons in a hushed, beautiful dance. They were like elephants suspended and slowed down in time—moving and bumping, hoping for contact, repelling touch.

“You have to walk through this thing,” Kurt said. I was nervous, so he pulled me by the hand into the room.

I saw our reflection in each pillow as it slowly floated toward us. Pillows were over my head; more were hanging out next to my feet. I kicked one accidentally and it bounced into another, and they both slowly floated away from me. Everything moved slower than the pace of life. It made everything seem quiet and small and still. I hesitantly reached out and touched one. It made a soft crinkle as my fingers slid over the smooth surface, my image distorted in the reflection of this exaggerated silver Pop Tart.

One pillow moved out of my way as the fan pushed it to my right. I looked up to see Kurt standing in front of me. I could see myself in the balloon to his right. I saw my face, red from the cold and smiling from the boy. I saw my arms reach for him. I saw him look down and then at me. I saw us hold each other by the waist. I saw us kiss.

I've never had a kiss that tasted as sweet as that kiss in that room with that boy. That feeling, right there, of everything falling into place—of mouths uniting two people who have been searching for so long for the perfect moment—I had never believed in it before. Standing against him, I was still the fastest-spinning object in the room.

We kissed as the silver clouds danced around us. We kissed as we moved to the couches in the lobby. We kissed until they kicked us out. We kissed every three steps in the street. We couldn't find the car because we were kissing so much. We kissed in an alley as the snow came down around us. We shivered into each other and held each other's skin under our clothes. It had grown dark and the streetlights illuminated our breath as it rose around our heads.

As we leaned against a brick wall, I pulled away to pull a stray hair out of my mouth. My face was wet and stinging from the cold. My jaw ached. My lips were chapped from the raw weather. We both giggled.

“You're a very good kisser.” I smiled.

“So are you,” he exhaled as he leaned in to kiss me again.

The next time we came up for air, he asked, “Are you okay? Is this all okay?”

I nodded, unable to talk. I was panting.

“If at any point this becomes not okay, you let me know and we'll stop. I don't want to do anything you don't want to do.”

“I thought you didn't use lines on women.” I smiled, surprised that I was able to fire enough synapses to crack a joke.

“You make me weak,” he answered.

With each kiss I got stronger. Every time his mouth moved on my neck or his hands gripped my sides I felt more confident that I could tell him the truth.

As we drove home, I made him pull over five times to kiss on the side of the road, headlights whirring past us in the dark. I wondered how I was so lucky. I was kissing him and still nothing had screwed it up. Maybe it was because he didn't know everything about me or because I was something forbidden. Right then I didn't care to find out the answer.

We kept kissing until we got back to his apartment. We kissed against his front door. I was ready for anything, wanted him to do everything. I wanted him to steal me and keep me in his apartment forever. I had to let him have all of me.

Once inside his apartment I took off my coat and said, “I'd feel better if I wasn't wearing this sweater.”

“You're hot?”

“No, it's Heather's.”

He looked me in the eyes. “I didn't even notice, Anna. I just saw you.”

It was time to tell him the truth. If he was going to have all of me, he had to know who I really was. I opened my mouth to say something, but he backed up. “I can't believe I said that,” he said. “‘I just saw you.' That's what I said. When did I become so cheesy?”

He kissed me again. Full and strong. I lost my words.

“When I'm kissing you I can't say anything stupid. From now on, whenever I say something cheesy, I'm going to follow it with something gross about myself. Here: ‘I just saw you.' I sometimes forget to brush my teeth before I go to bed.”

“I need to tell you something,” I said.

“Okay. Say something nice about me and then something awful about yourself. Something good; something gross.”

He couldn't have set it up any better.

“I think you're an incredible person. And I'm a liar.”

“Too vague. We're all liars.” He kissed the base of my neck and said, “Try again.”

I started falling to the ground as my knees weakened, my hands jutting out behind me to catch myself on whatever was closest. I felt him breathing into me, pulling me tighter to his body as he eased us to the floor. I wanted to tell him as much as I wanted to never speak again. “I think you're amazing,” I gasped. “And I need to tell you something about Ian.”

He pulled back from me. “Another rule,” he said, holding up one finger and wiping his mouth with his other hand. “No talking about Ian.”

“It's not like that,” I started.

“I don't care what it's like,” he said. “I don't want to hear his name. Is that okay? It's selfish, but I don't want to think about him while I'm with you. And I don't want to know that you're thinking of him while you're in my home. If we're going to keep doing this, I can't think about him.”

“It's just, I…Kurt, we're not together,” I said.

“I know. I know we're not together. I don't need you to remind me. I told you to stop if you didn't feel right about this.” He stood up. “We should stop.”

“No,” I said, standing up and grabbing his hand. “I mean Ian and I aren't together. I haven't been telling you the truth.”

“You mean you guys are on a break or something?” he asked.

I took a breath, ready to explain everything, ready to lose everything just to have all of the confusion over, when he said, “I don't want to know. I'm this guy you're allowed to be with because you're mad at him or you need attention or whatever the excuse is. You're not with him right now and that makes this okay for you. I get it. Don't justify it to me. I want you here. Please don't say his name anymore. I want you. I don't care about anything else. We'll deal with it tomorrow. If you want me, tonight I want you.”

He pulled me toward him again and moved his hand to my breast. He kissed my collarbone as he whispered into the skin of my neck, “And Chinese food makes me gassy.”

We climbed into his bed. He was on top of me. Our bodies weren't used to each other.

“You're on my hair,” I said.

“Sorry,” he panted. He moved to the right. “Ow!” he yelped. “That's my arm.”

“Sorry,” I whispered, and moved my elbow.

We both wiggled to fit our bodies into each other. He was tall, and when his hips moved against mine his head was well over me. I pulled myself up to kiss his neck, but I couldn't reach his face anymore.

“Hey,” I said quietly.

He snapped his head down to kiss me and his chin hit the bridge of my nose. My eyes watered from the sting and he rolled off me, asking if I was okay.

“I'm okay,” I said as I held my face in my hands. “Am I bleeding?” I held my head back for him to inspect.

“No blood,” he said. “I'm so sorry.”

“It's okay,” I said. “You know, this is why dogs do it like they do. They get just as excited but do less physical damage to each other.”

We started out slower and got better at it. By the time the night rolled around we were very, very good at it. We screamed over the sirens as ambulances passed. We talked and kissed and made love over and over. I had orgasms that made me blind. The arches of my feet were aching from having my toes clenched for so long. I kept craving more and more. I couldn't believe myself. All of those quick fantasies I'd been having over strangers were surfacing and he'd answer my cravings instantly with complete satisfaction. He hit every aching spot inside of me. I couldn't get enough of him.

 

I don't know when we fell asleep. I opened my eyes as the morning light crept into the room. He opened his eyes soon after. We stared at each other for a few seconds. We never said a word before we started kissing again, making love in the dim light, our bodies still aching from the night before. Quiet and hungry. Hushed and bittersweet. There were bruises and muscle cramps. My hips groaned at the weight of him, but I welcomed the pain. I wanted to feel him on me for weeks. I wanted him to leave a permanent mark.

We were quiet in the morning, knowing that our time was running out. There wasn't anything we could say to change the fact that I was about to fly very far away and he was going to stay here and what had happened between us was quickly coming to an end. My stomach felt hollow from the unexplored, the missing, the potential of us that might never be realized.

As I walked into the living room I noticed for the first time a shelf full of
Simpsons
figurines. “Oh!” I involuntarily said.

Kurt looked caught. “I didn't know if you saw those before.”

“No, I didn't. Are they Heather's?”

“No, they're mine.” He smiled.

“Can you tell me that they are Heather's so I can pretend you don't have a shelf full of Homer dolls?” Collections creep me out a bit, frozen people on display like that, but that these were from
The Simpsons
was an extra warning sign. It was possible that Kurt was one of those people who compared every funny thing that ever happened to a
Simpsons
episode. He'd speak like Comic Book Guy when a restaurant got his order wrong. He'd quote Ralph Wiggum lines when he was confused.
Simpsons
fans are their own kind of breed. It's like
Star Trek
except they think it's cool. They don't see the similarities.

I figured I owed him a few lies and secrets.

My insides were curling in regret as I reached the door of my rental. As the ambulances charged past us, screaming in urgency, Kurt held my head to his chest to guard my ears from the sirens. When the noise died down he kissed me and whispered, “Get out of my life.”

“Everything is going to be okay,” I said. “Things aren't exactly what you think they are. If you'd let me tell you.”

“Don't, Anna. Don't say anything that's going to hurt. Just stop talking and leave. Give me a few days, okay?”

“But this is important,” I said.

I wondered when I'd hear from him again. The romantic in me almost wanted to never see him again, have him be a one-time thing that got me over my self-esteem issues and helped me regain some confidence. A fling with a boy who showed me there were guys out there who could make me very happy. Just a boy in a city far away who was fated to spend one incredible night with me.

“It can wait.” He kissed me one more time. “I don't want this to turn sappy, so I'm going to go. Wait. First: I've never had as much fun with a woman in my life. And I have zits on my ass.”

I tried again to speak, but stopped when I saw the tears in his eyes as he said, “Go.”

I drove quickly, hating every mile that grew between us, smoking every cigarette I hadn't thought to smoke while we were together. I made it to the airport with an unmistakable feeling overwhelming my body. It wasn't until I boarded the plane that I could name that desire, that craving, that instinct he made me feel all over.

I was thirsty.