The Opposite of Loneliness Essays and Stories(13)

“Yeah.”

“Cool.” I stayed leaning in the doorway, remembering the basement parties I’d attended in eighth grade. When we’d sip on Evian bottles of vodka and gag through truth or dare.

“Do you want to jump on the trampoline later?” He was still facing the screen, sliding and clicking his left hand as he typed hard with the right. “I got all the snow off on Tuesday.” I looked at his mop of brown hair, glowing slightly green from his monitor.

“Ugh, I can’t,” I said, walking toward his desk. “I promised Sam I’d go over.”

“Okay.” He took a swig from a root beer by his keyboard.

I couldn’t leave. “Wait, so who are you fighting? Is that a troll or something?”

“It’s an Ogre. But my usual character is a Blood Elf.”

“Nice,” I said. “That dude reminds me of Avatar.”

“Not really,” he half scoffed. “Are you going to be here tomorrow?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I’m coming home in the morning.”

“Nice.” I waited. He killed something that looked like a fanged bull. “So how’re Mom and Dad? Bothering you enough?”

“I guess.” I was annoying him at this point. “Mom’s obsessed with my homework.”

I laughed. “What about Dad?”

He waited for a minute until he started clicking again. “Um, the same. He’s kind of drinking a lot.” I hadn’t expected this. But I knew he was smart and it was stupid to think he didn’t know what was going on. I waited by his computer for a few seconds until I punched him in the shoulder and walked toward the door.

“Keep the lights on in here,” I said, pausing in the doorway to hit the switch. “It’s creepy if you hang out in the dark.”

“Okay.” He stayed looking at the screen as I went into my room to change into sexier underwear before I left for Sam’s. Then I was gone.

That night we went to the lake and walked out to its center, where we passed a spliff and talked about the fate of humanity. Sam had a lot of opinions about the universe shrinking back up and banging again but I didn’t really have a view one way or another. I liked listening to him, though. The ice was thick enough to hold the fishermen’s trucks but there was still something sexy about lying down where we used to canoe. I went to college in Ohio, but Sam’s school was just down the street. The weed urged me to ask him if he ever came here with anyone else, but it started to snow a little so I leaned backward instead. He did too, and our noses touched.

“This is good,” he said.

“I know.”

“I wish it was just us.”

“I know,” I said.

We waited there for a while until our heads cleared and our butts froze. He didn’t need to explain what he meant because he knew I knew he was talking about everything.

When we got back to his house we took a shower and fell dizzily asleep before our hormones could even take over.

The next day I dragged him with me when I went back to my house. He wanted to stay at his place for the day because he had a bigger TV and his parents weren’t home. But I told him that I’d left at lunch and gotten in late and besides, we’re always at your house and you know it. When we pulled into my driveway my dad was shoveling the steps, which was surprising. He had on a giant windbreaker and we could see the spots where it darkened under his arms. I felt the familiar twist of sympathetic embarrassment and then embarrassment that I’d felt that in the first place.

My mom came out from the computer room and we all talked in the kitchen for a while. She lingered even after my dad went back out to shovel, rearranging papers and mentioning cool articles she’d read online. She was watching us, and I knew she was soaking in our every expression.

“What do your parents do, Sam?”

“They work at the school.”

“Addie tells me you’re studying science.”

“Yes, ma’am, at least for now.” He looked teasingly at me and I reached a hand at his stomach, pulling his shirt so he moved closer and put his arms around my sides. I meant it as a gesture of trust, to show my mother we were comfortable around her. But she looked at us for a second, lost, and then went to check something on her phone.

“I need to make a call anyway, so you two can go upstairs.” She was moving now, looking in the pantry and opening some drawers. “But thanks for talking to your old mother.” It was an honest joke and she stopped her motion to smile.

“I love you,” I cooed, laughing as we moved out of the kitchen.

“You don’t.”

“I do! I do!”

Winter break passed us with trips up the stairs. We slept in wearing woolen socks and woke up sweaty. Most of the time I slept at Sam’s because his feet poked out the end of my twin-size bed. My mom was usually asleep by the time I drove over there, but I could tell it bothered her anyway. I knew because she’d mention breakfast foods I might like around nine. I think my dad found the whole thing vaguely inappropriate; he was uncertain how to respond to his daughter wrapped up in something serious. But he liked Sam okay and whenever he came by I made sure they had at least ten minutes to talk about hockey. One night when Sam was staying over, my dad walked in while we were watching Planet Earth. It was episode two and our interests were shifting from vampire squids to my bed, but my dad asked if it was okay if he joined us. He was drinking and had a bowl of sugar-free Jell-O.