Open House(14)
“What’s going on?” he asked, his voice stronger than Haley had expected.
Liv took a long breath and told him about the found bracelet.
PART II
EIGHT
Emma
Ten years ago
Noah’s kissing me in my dorm room, but all I can think about is what a mess I’ve made. I never even had a boyfriend in high school, and I didn’t even lose my virginity until this year. Twenty-one is pretty late to lose your virginity, but I seem to be making up for lost time by sleeping with two different guys, and then stupidly going and kissing Josie’s brother, Chris. I’m going to break things off with the other guy I’ve been sleeping with, because Noah’s the one I really want, but trying to manage it has made me even more anxious than ever.
“Emma,” Noah whispers. I kiss him back, trying to focus on him, because hooking up usually gives me a break from my sadness, but it’s not working this time. I keep flashing back to the night I kissed Chris a few weeks ago. We were so drunk, and we just kissed, but if Josie finds out, she’ll never speak to me again. The only other memory I have of that night isn’t even my own; it’s the video Josie showed me of all of us sitting around Noah’s apartment, and I still shudder when I remember her expression as she shoved her phone at me. “Look at my brother,” she said, and on the video you could see Chris’s face as the camera panned across Noah’s living room. You could see him watching me like he was waiting for something. He tipped his beer to take a swig, his eyes never leaving me. But you can tell on the video that I never saw him staring at me because I was too busy smiling up at Noah, who was telling some elaborate story.
“Look at how much Chris likes you,” Josie said as she forced me to watch, her pupils made small by the glow of her phone. “It’s so obvious. Remember what you promised me, Emma?”
I had no idea Josie was filming all of us that night, and it made me sick to watch that video. All our desires out on display.
Focus on Noah, Emma, please.
Noah’s fingers trace patterns over my shoulders, my collarbone, my chest. He’s the one I really want to be with, and I should be able to pay attention to him, but I can’t control my thoughts lately—they go wherever they want, meandering along a dark path until I either get drunk or fall asleep. I feel the scrape of his stubble against my skin, and I think about how rough and warm he is compared to Josie. Whenever she and I get in bed to talk or watch movies, she’s always freezing, always shoving her cold toes beneath the sheets and pretending she doesn’t realize they’re pressed up on me. It’s weird how much more intimate hanging out and talking with Josie feels compared to hooking up with anyone, even Noah. He doesn’t really know what to say to me, or how to listen to the things I try to tell him. Mostly he’s just interested in the stuff he’s telling me about himself or his family, like how his sister just had to drop out of Dartmouth because she couldn’t cut it there. Noah said she embarrassed their family, which made Josie laugh and say, Sounds like you and your family have no idea what the word embarrassing means.
Noah pulls me closer, and I try to shake Josie from my mind, my closest friend, but she’s in this room like a ghost, a figment of my imagination. Even when Noah starts whispering in my ear, I still can’t pay attention, and it’s the same way in my classes. Nothing I do lately seems enough; even my art sucks. Every time I go to paint something, it comes out wrong.
Noah. His hazel eyes are on me now, first locking onto my gaze, and then having their way all over my skin.
Did he start this? Or did I?
The thing about Noah is that he’s just so good on paper. You take one look at him and you know he’s the captain of some sports team (Lacrosse? Crew? Does it matter?); that he drinks protein shakes after lifting weights; that he’s summered in Nantucket since his mother was pregnant; and that he thinks everything is all about him, but in an innocuous way that he’ll hopefully grow out of just in time.
Josie sees it, too. “God, Emma, he grew up eating lobster at family picnics in Martha’s Vineyard. He’s nothing like us,” she once said.
Right. Martha’s Vineyard: not Nantucket, apparently. I have no idea what the difference is, and if I ever do, maybe it will mean that something has gone irrevocably awry.
But Noah’s upbringing doesn’t bother me, not even if mine is middle-class and boring in comparison. I like that he’s so all-American without really knowing it. I think he actually considers himself something of a rebel, which used to make Josie and me laugh.
We don’t laugh as much now. Noah, Josie, and I used to pal around together last year at Yarrow, but then this year I started hooking up with him, and Josie’s been so annoyed at me every time I hang out with him, saying that he’s stealing me away from her. And now there are these secrets piling up between us. I guess I used to think college would be a continuation of my formally safe teenage life, but it’s not. I don’t know if that’s because of things I’m doing, or if this is just what college is like for everyone. I guess guys hook up with more than one person all the time, but my Catholic upbringing isn’t dying easily. I’m nearly paralyzed with anxiety and shame, and I’m lying to everyone I care about—including my sister, whom I’ve never lied to before.
Noah pushes my camisole higher. “You want this, don’t you, Emma?” he asks. I don’t think he means to be cliché. I can sense the currents running beneath his skin, even if he can’t express them in anything other than words that don’t suit him.