Forever for a Year(93)

“I’ll tell you everything forever, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Just never hurt me ever again, okay?”

“Never,” I said. “Never, ever, ever.”

*

A while later, we were both so cold, so we stood up and we walked all the way to his house. His dad was out of town, but Lily and his mom were reading in the living room.

“I’M SO HAPPY!” Lily screamed and ran and leaped into my arms. Even though it had only been three days since I found out Mrs. Santos was having sex with my dad, it felt like five lifetimes. Plus … I had cheated. I was like her. Gosh. Maybe I would try to kill myself like her someday. But I don’t think so. That sounds so impossible no matter how sad you feel.

Trevor’s mom said, “You two look cold and dirty. Why don’t you clean up. I’ll take Lily out for pizza. We’ll bring you back a fresh pizza in about an hour. Okay?”

“But, Mom, let’s wait for them so they can go with!” Lily said.

“I think they should be alone, Lily,” his mom said.

“Thanks,” Trevor said. Mrs. Santos took the still-protesting Lily by the hand and led her toward the kitchen and out into the garage.

*

I followed Trevor up to his room. We went into his bathroom and started kissing and took off each other’s clothes. We got under the hot shower and he was excited and I wanted to have sex with him more than ever in my life and we tried but it was really hard to make the angle work standing up so then we tried to lie down in the tub and I was on bottom and it was super uncomfortable except it was also amazing to be having sex in the shower with the love of my life. We didn’t use a condom. Can you even use condoms in a shower? Duh. Obviously you can. But neither of us would have ever stopped to put one on. We wanted to be together forever, and you can’t stop to put a condom on if you want to be together forever. That makes no sense, I know, but it made sense at the moment to me.





82

Trevor passes a test

Carolina and I are back together.

It’s great.

It’s better than any other dimension of existence in which we are broken up or where we had never met.

But it’s not better than the dimension where she never cheated. I believe her that she didn’t plan on kissing him. Didn’t really kiss him back. Didn’t really touch him. I do. Maybe I have to. But I do believe her. Carolina has talked a lot since we were back together about telling each other every single thought that goes through our brains. She said it would prevent me from hiding stuff from her (like our parents’ affair and stuff) and it would prevent her from ever hurting me again. It would be pretty nutty to talk about telling each other every thought and then lie about what happened with Alexander Taylor. So yeah. I believe her. I still hate her sometimes when I think about it. But I believe her.

So. Yeah. Being with Carolina is better than not being with her. I love her. So f*cking much I double over from feeling how much I love her sometimes. But I can feel this really angry voice in my head that wants to yell at her every time I see her. I don’t do it. It goes away after we kiss and I smell her. I’m just saying it’s there. This voice. And I don’t know how I’m going to get rid of it. If there was a way to go to other dimensions, one where Carolina never cheated, I’d go. In a heartbeat. Even if I go to one where she did it but I never found out, I think I’d go. Because knowing she betrayed me feels like it’s never going to become unknown. Never forgotten. Never even made smaller in my head. It’s just going to tick, tick, tick away like a bomb until it explodes. I hope it doesn’t explode. Because I love Carolina so much and if it explodes, it will probably kill us both.

*

Two weeks after we got back together, I took the driver’s test, passed, and got my license. My dad and I went car shopping and he bought me a Ford Edge. It’s nice. I got a blue one. I always liked black best, but Carolina didn’t want me to get a black truck so I didn’t. I’m super spoiled and lucky. My parents are totally screwed up, but all kids’ parents are probably screwed up and not all kids get a new car for their birthday. I wish I was so cool and strong that I could tell my dad I didn’t want a car. But I’m not.

Carolina and I drove downtown to celebrate, just the two of us. On the way home, she said she wanted to give me my birthday present but that I couldn’t drive on the highway while she gave it to me. That’s when we pulled off to drive on neighborhood streets without much traffic. She undid her seat belt, leaned over, and unzipped my pants. Eventually I had to pull my pants down. She used her mouth. You know, road head. I had never really thought about it before but now I don’t know if I can ever be in a car with Carolina without thinking about it.

*

One week after my birthday and three weeks after we got back together, Carolina came over after my first indoor track meet. I had run well. Won the freshman mile. Coach Pasquini said, “You seem even tougher now,” and patted me on the head.

It was March 16. Carolina had been strange in texts the past couple days. I worried she didn’t love me as much anymore. I hadn’t been the same since we got back together. I tried. I tried to be so nice. But it’s hard to be nice sometimes if you’ve got that angry voice inside you, and Carolina was the one who put it there. Or made it come back. But when she came over on that Saturday, you could tell she loved me still. She was scared. But different than I had ever seen her. She could barely look Lily in the eyes, told Lily she was sick, but I knew she wasn’t.