Push(43)

“I changed my mind about opening that damned box,” I say to him. “I don’t want to. At least for now.”
“Okay,” he says, “do you want me to do something with it? Like run it over with the car or take an axe to it or something?”
I laugh out loud. “No. But thanks for the offer. I think I’ll just put it in the closet with all the other boxes he sent me and try to forget about it. But, if you want, you could run Michael over with the car. Or take an axe to him.”
“If I could, I would,” he says with more seriousness than I expect. “In fact, part of me wishes he would show up here again so I can pummel the crap out of him.”
I take a sip from my beer and look up at him. He is very serious. There is no doubt in my mind that he would take Michael down if given the chance. I don’t know what to say next, so I put down my beer and reach for him. His lips are warm and soft, and his tongue is slippery and cold. He tastes like beer. He tastes like a man. David holds me against him for a long time, kissing me softly and running his fingers up and down my spine. His touch strengthens me in a crazy, bizarre sort of way. It makes me feel less needy. More confident.
When he pulls away, he touches my hair and my cheek and asks me if I just want to go to sleep. If I just want to stay at his place for the night.
“No,” I say. “Fuck it. I want to open the box.”




chapter Twenty

Emma—Age 16

Michael and my mom just got back from Singapore. I only know that’s where they were because I saw the baggage tags, not because they told me. They were gone for six weeks. I had six weeks of paradise. Six weeks of respite. But now they are back—and all hell has broken loose. And once again, hell is in the form of Bobby Sarson.
Bobby and I are together now, even though I was pissed off at him for not standing up for me in the locker room at my Sweet 16 party. He apologized to me at school the Monday after and said that he left because he was scared Michael was going to kill him. I told him half-jokingly that Michael was only interested in killing me and that he had nothing to worry about. And so for the past five months, Bobby and I have been going out. At first, I tried to hide Bobby from Michael and my mom. He would climb into my window at night when I was supposed to be doing my homework, or we would meet somewhere after school, or hang out at one of his friends’ houses. But after a few weeks, I started thinking it was bullshit. I am sixteen years old. Why should I have to hide my boyfriend from my parents? But even more than that, I wanted to tell them because I knew it would piss Michael off.
It sounds weird, but I have discovered that I like pissing Michael off. I like watching him go off the deep end. It probably makes me a sicko, but I get a very real sense of satisfaction in watching Michael burn. If he is going to punish me, then I’m going to make it worth my while. It is a game now, between Michael and me. I come up with some crazy-ass stunt to piss Michael off, and he comes up with some crazy-ass punishment to make me pay for it. Yes, it is twisted, but truthfully, I finally feel like I am exacting some sort of revenge. Like I am somehow getting even simply by driving him to the brink over and over again.
Our little game started the night they found out I was screwing Bobby. My mom and Michael were sitting in the kitchen together when I waltzed in and told my mother I needed her to take me to the crotch doctor. I needed her to put me on the pill because I didn’t want to wind up having Bobby Sarson’s love child. They both sat there, staring at me. My mother’s mouth and eyes open wide, Michael’s nostrils flaring like some animal ready to charge. When neither of them answered, I added that Bobby and I were tired of stealing the condoms from the drawer next to their bed. Plus, I said, it was kind of creepy to see all the lotions and shit they have in that drawer. “I mean, you are my parents, for Christ’s sake,” I said.
Michael jumped up from the table and smacked me hard across the face. Despite the sting of the slap, I smiled. A sense of fulfillment came over me. A realization that maybe I had passed on to them a small bit of my own humiliation. Michael screamed at me to go to my room. He said he would deal with me later. My mother dropped her face into her hands. I turned on my heels and walked down the hallway, knowing that the slap was not going to be the most painful part of my punishment.
And so, every day for the next two weeks, I had to go to the drugstore after school. Michael waited in the car while I went in and bought him and my mom a pack of condoms from the pimply clerk. Then he took me to church, where I would spend an hour listening to my Sunday-school teacher—who probably never even had sex—talk about the dangers of premarital relations. At the end of the two weeks, I had to give a special presentation to the entire youth congregation and all of their parents, professing how I chose to compromise my own chastity by screwing around with lots of boys, and how God has now shown me the right way to live my life. It made me want to gag.
The good thing was that, a week after my church declaration, my mom did end up taking me to the crotch doctor and putting me on the pill. I don’t think she ever told Michael about it, though.
* * *

So here we are, four and a half months later. Bobby Sarson is in my house, and he is the reason that Michael is yelling at me. Again. When my mom opened the front door to let the taxi driver unload their suitcases, I was standing by the television, fiddling with the DVD player, and Bobby was sitting on the couch. They never tell me when they are coming home. I mean, sometimes they’ll say two weeks or four weeks or whatever, but this time I got nothing. I write the checks out for a lot more money than I used to, so I don’t really worry about it. They don’t seem to either. And so it is Saturday, and Bobby and I were just about to watch a movie and order a pizza. I know that I am not supposed to have boys at the house when they are gone but, really? If they are on the other side of the f*cking world, how will they ever know? This is not the first time I have done it, but it is the first time I have ever been caught. And it is with Bobby Sarson. The one whose dick my mother saw me sucking in a men’s locker room. The one that I was screwing with their condoms. The one that I am taking the pill for. The one that started this game between Michael and me.