Forever for a Year(82)

For instance, I started walking through the halls between classes as if I were an alien. An alien with a computer in my head. I was here on earth studying humans. Downloading all this information so I could take it back to my home planet and report on whether we should take over the world or leave it alone or just blow it up. I was a goddamn brilliant alien spy. I was the James Bond of alien spies.

Yeah.

See?

Deranged.





73

Carolina has a talk with her mom

So, gosh. I mean. Really? Okay. B-minus in biology. Fine. My worst subject. Okay. I mean … but a B in history? I LOVED history. I was GOOD at history! But it was my other class with Trevor. (Well, and health. But everyone got an A in health. Except Trevor. He was smart. But not book smart. How could I marry someone not book smart? Never mind. That’s mean. Trevor was brilliant. No one knew it. But I did. I think.) My mom was right. I let a boy distract me. Yes, I loved him and he was my first of everything and my life was so much better with him—all that!—but shouldn’t I be able to still get straight As even when I’m in love? I mean, if it was a PERFECT love I would have gotten PERFECT grades. That sounds dumb. I’d never say that out loud.

Forget it. Forget it. I just was not going to see Trevor as much this semester. I was going to make sure all my grades were perfect. I know I said I’d be happy being married to Trevor and living in the suburbs and not being a famous CEO and just being with him and having kids, but now I thought I should have both. I wanted Trevor and I wanted to be a famous CEO of a huge company that all sorts of girls like me—and boys too!—looked up to as a role model. But I would never tell anyone I had sex so young. I couldn’t believe I’d had sex already. I wished I could go back in time and just wait a week until after my birthday. WHY COULDN’T I HAVE WAITED A WEEK?

I was one of those girls. I was so smart and then I met a boy and I became so dumb. That had to stop. When I was a famous CEO and someone asked when I lost my virginity, I was going to say eighteen. That sounds so much better. Trevor would be the only other person who knew the truth, and we’d be married so he would lie for me. My gosh, I was going to be a role model who lies. It didn’t matter. They don’t ask CEOs when they lost their virginity. I couldn’t believe I was thinking about this.

Whenever I wasn’t with Trevor, I thought we should not have sex again for a long time. Like a year. Like really wait. But then when we were alone, I’d just want to be close to him and so I didn’t stop. I wanted him to do it. It was starting to feel good. Not amazing. I mean, it felt amazing to be so close. But it was still not making me go crazy like girls in porn videos. We were wearing condoms every time now because we only hooked up in his basement again and that’s where he kept them. It made me feel better. My period was one day late in January, and it almost gave me a heart attack. So maybe as long as we wore condoms it’d be okay that we were having sex so young. Maybe. I don’t know.

It felt so right when I was with him and so wrong when I wasn’t. It was very confusing.

*

My dad was spending more and more nights out at campus. My mom looked depressed again. But I didn’t think he was cheating. I knew he wasn’t. He would never hurt us again like that. He’d been so amazing since freshman year started. He would never want to ruin that. So I thought my mom just wanted to be depressed. On a Sunday night when it was just the two of us, I said, “Did you know Trevor’s mom tried to commit suicide?”

“Carrie! You shouldn’t say things like that,” my mom said. She still called me Carrie whenever she talked without thinking first.

“It’s true.”

“Even if it is, it’s not our business.”

“Don’t you think we should talk about things?”

“Not about other people’s things,” she said.

“Do you ever think about killing yourself, Mom?”

“Of course not, Carrie! How can you say that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I would never do that.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s wrong.”

“Why’s it wrong?” I asked.

“Oh my gosh!” she screamed, and sounded just like me. “Are you sad? Is something wrong with Trevor?”

“No, Mom! I’m fine. I’m worried about you!”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re sad again now that Dad’s not around as much.”

“I like having him here. It’s okay for me to be sad when he’s gone.”

“He’s not cheating again, Mom. I know it.”

But my mom didn’t say anything. She just nodded. Her face lost color.

“He loves you, Mom.”

“I know. But I want you to know I would never, ever hurt myself. And that it’s okay to be sad, Carolina. Because if you know it’s okay to be sad, then you know being sad is not a reason to hurt yourself.” My mom never talked like that. I liked it. I wanted her to keep talking like that. Except we just sat there for a bit in silence, her reading and me studying. But ten minutes later, maybe more, she turned to me again and said, with this very calm voice that made me calm even though I didn’t even know I wasn’t calm, “Carolina, I haven’t always done a great job of communicating what I am feeling with you. Especially when things first came to light with your dad last year. I know you think you have to take care of me, and while I really do appreciate how much you care about me, I want you to know that above anything else—above my job, above your dad, anything—being here for you, being your mom, is by far the most important and greatest thing in my life.”