When My Heart Joins the Thousand(21)

Once I start, I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know how it’s supposed to happen.

When I speak, my voice trembles a little, despite my effort to hold it steady: “I’ve never done this before, so you’ll have to let me know if I do anything wrong.”

His eyes snap open. “What?”

I realize at once that I’ve made a mistake. I bite my tongue.

“What did you just say?” he asks.

“Nothing.” I start to pull down his zipper, but he catches my wrist. I flinch.

He releases me, but immediately he sits up, looking at me directly. “You’re a virgin?”

“That’s irrelevant.”

“Please. Just tell me.”

I don’t know what will happen if I tell him the truth, but I can’t lie. I’ve never been a good liar. So I don’t say anything.

He covers his face with his hands. “Oh my God,” he whispers.

I wait for a few seconds, but he doesn’t say anything else. My chest is tight and uncomfortable. “Do you want to keep going,” I ask.

He lowers his hands slowly. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this. I thought—I mean, in the park, when you asked me if I wanted to . . . I thought you must have done it before.”

My chest isn’t tight anymore—it’s empty. Numb.

I’m almost relieved. This is a world I know and recognize, a world where the doors of human contact are closed to me. The reason doesn’t matter. The point is, it’s over. I turn away.

He says my name, but I don’t look at him. I pick up my bra and slip it back on.

He stands and reaches out to me. “Wait. What are you—?”

I step away. “It’s all right. I’ll go.”

I pick up my shirt. My whole body suddenly feels stiff, and it hurts to move, but I put the shirt on anyway. My head is buzzing oddly. I need to get out of the room. I need to go home, crawl into the bathtub, and wrap myself in blankets.

He says my name again, louder, but his voice is muffled, as if I’m hearing it through several feet of water.

I walk toward the door. He blocks my path. His unzipped pants start to slip down his thin hips, and he hastily zips them back up. “Listen to me! Please. If I’d had any idea this was your first time—”

“I don’t see why it matters.”

“Of course it matters! What sort of person do you think I am? Did you really think I’d just—” He stops, face flushed. “Maybe I should have told you.”

“Told me what.”

His jaw tightens. The flush in his face grows brighter. “I’ve never done this, either.”

I stare. Somehow it never occurred to me that he might be as inexperienced as I am. He’s older than me, for one thing. And while he might be an introvert, he’s definitely not autistic; his speech comes too easily, too fluidly. Suddenly I don’t know what to think or how to react. I never even paused to contemplate what this experience might mean for him. Or rather, I believed that he’d simply take advantage of the opportunity, assuming he didn’t find me too unattractive.

“You’re a virgin,” I say, though that’s already been made clear.

He looks away. “I know. It’s ridiculous.”

I study his expression, trying to glean something from it. “Why.”

“Why have I never had sex, or—?”

“No. Why do you think it’s ridiculous. You’re only nineteen.”

He sighs. “Well, you know how it is. Guys aren’t supposed to be virgins. We’re supposed to lose it like two minutes after we hit puberty, and if we don’t, there’s something wrong with us.”

“That’s absurd,” I say. “There’s obviously nothing wrong with you. You’re normal.”

He laughs. It’s a strange sound—empty and monotone. “Normal, huh?” His voice is low, like he’s talking to himself.

“Yes. Aren’t you.”

He ignores the question and starts to place his hand on my arm. I flinch, and he withdraws. I cross my arms over my chest and study the pattern in the carpet. For a moment, neither of us moves.

“Sit with me,” he says. “Please?”

I tug one braid. “Be careful. About touching, I mean.”

“I will.”

We sit side by side on the edge of the bed. My hands are clasped tightly in my lap, the skin around my nails whitened from the pressure. I don’t know where to go from here. The plan has gone completely awry, and I never came up with an alternative strategy, aside from just leaving and going home. This is uncharted territory.

“Will you do me a favor?” he asks quietly.

I swallow, trying to moisten my dry mouth. “What.”

“This will sound weird, but just look at me for a minute. Tell me what you see.”

I look.

His hair is a bit mussed, and his shirt collar is crooked, but aside from that, he looks the same as ever. We’re very close; close enough that I can see the little ripple patterns in his irises, like the veins in marble.

Eye contact is too intimate—it feels like we have our hands in each other’s guts, feeling around where it’s tender and bloody—but I force myself to hold his gaze.

“I see you,” I say. “I see Stanley Finkel.”