Ship It(45)

Then, because neither one of us can go more than thirty minutes without talking about Demon Heart, we start gushing about it. There’s just so much we agree on, like how the show balances emotional stories with action so well, and how Heart has the most tragic backstory of any character on television, and how the elaborate mythology just keeps getting more interesting the more we learn about it. And we’re both dying to know what happens in the finale that’s just around the corner. Will Smokey and Heart finally make their peace? Will they be able to defeat the Commander and send him back to hell? Will Smokey be able to forgive himself for his mistakes? Will they cry? (We both hope they cry.) It’s cathartic to finally get to talk about all this with another person, instead of just online, and Tess knows just as much or even more about the show than I do. Our dinner flies by, and our server is bringing the check before I even realized how long we’ve been sitting there.

After dinner, we still have plenty of time left on our parking meter, so Tess and I walk down to the path that runs next to the Willamette River. It’s cool but not cold, with a breeze coming off the water, and clouds overhead threatening to sprinkle on us at any moment, but there are a lot of other people out for an evening stroll as well. No one’s afraid of a little rain in this town. Tess pulls a knit shawl out of her large fabric purse to wrap around her arms; meanwhile I’m over here in my faded Gore-Tex jacket I’ve had since sixth grade. I swear to god, who wears knit shawls besides grannies and Tess? I don’t know, but I love it.

The lights of the city reflect off the dark waves of the river. Portland’s bridges repeat into the distance as other pedestrians and bicyclists pass by us, bundled up in their rain jackets and hats. A gay couple in their twenties passes us in the other direction, holding hands. One of them gives us a little smile. Did we just trip his gaydar? For the five-hundredth time I wonder if Tess thinks this is a date.

I wonder what it would be like to kiss her.

Then I wonder where that thought came from.

I’ve imagined kissing people before. I used to picture myself marrying my old middle school librarian, Mr. Washington. He was tall and thin, black and bald, and I would picture our life together—working side by side in the library, then going home to our cottage where bookcases line every wall. I would pick out his next book and he’d pick mine, and we’d share a kiss before settling into our individual armchairs with mugs of cocoa to read for the evening.

I used to spend my lunches in middle school reading in the library rather than eat in the cafeteria. Mr. Washington seemed to always know when to give me a kind word, and when to leave me alone. On my last day of middle school, he hugged me and told me I was going to be okay, I just needed to make it to college, and then he forgave my overdue fines. I waited until I was back in my bedroom later that day to cry.

The next year, there was a boy, Curtis, in my trigonometry class who would ask me for help on problems, and I would whisper explanations to him. Curtis was a senior, and I was a freshman, and he would improvise compliments about Mrs. Newton’s elaborately quilted vests under his breath that would make me laugh. “Now, Helen, how did you pull off that saddle stitch on the center panel?” he would say, mimicking an old woman’s voice. His jokes were quiet, just for me. He had unruly dark hair and he was trying to grow a mustache and beard, but it was coming in patchy. I thought about what it would be like if he gave me a ride home in his muddy old pickup one day so I didn’t have to take the bus, if he told me he thought I was hot, not just smart. If he kissed me right there in his truck, where anyone could drive by and see that yes, a boy liked me, and yes, a boy kissed me, and yes, I could be loved. And I would blush and run into my house and he would watch me go, yearning.

But Curtis never offered me a ride home. He just stopped coming to class one day. I overheard someone say that he had joined the marines and dropped out of school, but I don’t know if it’s true.

Then, of course, there’s Kyle Cunningham. That one, I don’t have to imagine.

It happened on the long afternoon Kyle and I spent sharing a beanbag in the basement of his family’s farmhouse this past fall, his hand on my leg as we watched Netflix and ate popcorn and peanut M&M’S. It felt good, being that close to him. He smelled musty, like earth and maybe horses. He had taken off his hat to lie down with me, and his dirty hair stuck up in every direction in a messy look I had found endearing. When the episode ended and Netflix asked us if we were still watching, I said, “Another?” and he turned to me and whispered, “How about this instead?” Then he kissed me, the slight prickle of his would-be stubble scratching my chin, his lips warm and wet and needy. He tasted like chewing tobacco—sweet and bitter.

I remember thinking over and over, I’m kissing someone. I’m kissing someone. I’m being kissed right now. This is kissing.

It felt like how kissing looks, like two people pressing their lips together. I thought of Curtis, and whether he would have kissed this well. He probably would have stopped to make a joke, and we would never have gotten back around to kissing again. But Kyle Cunningham was persistent, single-minded. Still kissing, Kyle slid his hand up my leg, up, up, until he was cupping my crotch. Then he just kept his hand there, still, like he was holding a grapefruit. I frowned into the kiss and burrowed my butt deeper into the beanbag chair, away from his hand, but he followed me, kept it there. Then he squeezed.

I broke off the kiss and wiggled away from him.