The Music of What Happens(71)

“Not here,” he says, pulling slightly away. “We’ll get arrested.”

I pull him closer. “Don’t care,” I mumble.

He laughs. “Okay now, tiger,” he says. “I have a better idea.”

“Definitely call me that,” I say, still breathless, and he takes my hand, and even though the workout just started, he walks me out into the brilliantly scathing early morning Mesa air.





Mom is fast asleep when I bring Jordan in the front door. I can hear her snores coming from her bedroom, all the way out in the family room. For a little lady, she snores loud.

I open the patio door, take Jordan’s hand, and lead him out to the pool.

“Is this okay with your mom?”

I nod. It basically is. Not that she’d want to walk out and see us, but like she said: There’s lots of users and abusers out there, and Jordan is neither. He’s my boyfriend, and having sex with your boyfriend is nothing to be ashamed about.

If only my body agreed. I’m shaking. I hope Jordan can’t feel it through my hand.

I decide I’ll tell her in the morning, and I hope she won’t be mad.

Facing away from Jordan, I strip off my gym clothes. Part of me wants to watch him watch me strip, and wants to watch him take his clothes off too. But another part is feeling shy and tentative, very un–Super Max, and if I look at him, I’m afraid he’ll see it in my eyes.

When I’m naked, I turn toward him and dare to look in his eyes.

They are … alive. I’ve never seen Jordan like this. A little wild. It scares me a little even. I like it.

He pulls off his shirt. I’ve seen this before, in the desert that day. No definition yet. I don’t need definition. He’s perfect. His nipples, small, perky, and brown, stand out against his lily-white skin. He’s got a basic farmer’s tan, which is adorable on him, like his arms and lower legs belong to a different person than his trunk.

Normally I’d jump in, but it’s almost two in the morning and I don’t want to wake up Mom. I take his hand and lead him to the steps. We walk down into the water together. The cicadas are buzzing loud, which makes it sound like the nighttime is sizzling. The water is warmer than the air, which is to say it’s like a hot bathtub.

The moon gives me his basic shape, and I run my hands down his beautiful, alive body. He does the same to mine. I pull him close and sit him on my legs with him facing me. We kiss hard, like something on Animal Planet when two male animals are fighting for dominance. I kiss and then lick his bony shoulders, I bite his neck lightly and he whimpers. His hands are all over my chest, and then around my back, pulling me closer. I feel like laughing, and a little relieved, maybe, because the last time I did this it wasn’t anything like this, and maybe I’ve been scared that I’d never feel this kind of good. Like Kevin took something from me, because it was my first anything.

I had no idea that working out would awaken this whatever in Jordan. It’s scary and sexy and I want to be inside him, and I think we’re finally going to do that, and my heart pulses with excitement and my chest shivers with fear.

The unknown. What if it’s not good? What if it’s really, really good? What if it’s perfect? The thing moms don’t tell you when they give you the talk, and the things dads definitely don’t tell you, when they’re telling you about stuff, is how scary sex is. When I talk about it with Betts and Zay-Rod, we definitely don’t talk about what it feels like to be, like all out there, with your desires as uncovered and obvious as possible. Every inch of my body feels chilly and alive.

Jordan jumps off my lap and picks me up so that my legs are on his. He reaches for my butt and squeezes and I freeze just like that night with Kevin.

I dry heave.

Without even meaning to I push backward and do a dolphin jump, my chest and then my midsection above the water.

He jumps up and down, bounding toward me.

I submerge until my feet touch the bottom.

I scream water.

I scream out something that I didn’t know was in me.

When I’m all out of air, I burst to the surface, wipe my eyes, and Jordan is watching me, a concerned expression on his face. That just makes it worse. I want to scream again. My body is shaking and shivering despite the hot water, and I gasp and leap toward the side of the pool. I pull myself half out of the pool, I lean forward, and I punch down. Onto tile.

The pain explodes in my knuckles. White-hot fire that reverberates up my shocked arm.

I yell in agony.

Jordan is up and out of the pool in like three seconds. I hear the screen door open fast and slam shut, and I put my head in my hands and sob. I cannot control the tears. I can’t control anything. I can’t I can’t I can’t.

I don’t know how long later it is when the patio door opens again, and my mom’s voice belts out, “Max? Max? Mijo, what happened?”

Her hand is on the back of my neck. I am led, naked, to an Adirondack chair. I am dried off a bit with a towel. A cloth is wrapped around my bloody fingers. Shorts are slipped on me without my doing anything. And I know as certain as anything I’ve ever known that I need to talk about this.





“I think I was raped,” Max says.

“What?” I yell.

“What?” his mom yells.

She puts her arms around his shoulders and rubs. I sit on the concrete. I’m in my gym shorts but I didn’t have time to put on my shirt. Max is shirtless too, and there’s something especially naked about him, like I’ve never even close to seen before, with tears rushing down cheeks that are always so dry and typically raised in a wide, blissful smile.