Teeth(13)

“It makes my mother worry. And most of the time I don’t want to. Everything worth it comes to me eventually. There are a lot of things out there I don’t need.” She looks at me, her eyes slightly narrowed. She reminds me of the fishboy for a second, with that look on her face. “You wouldn’t understand.”

No, after three months of dying to get away, I don’t think I would.

But then she says, “And everything I want to know I can read about,” and it’s like a string yanks out of me and ties itself to her. She nods toward an enormous library as we walk past. It’s so stupid, but the way our hands linger the same way on the door frame, for a minute I feel like I can understand everything about her.

Books. Books I haven’t read with spines I don’t recognize. I want to go in. I want to sink into one of the gold armchairs and smell the dust from all the pages. I’ve read our house’s measly collection of waterlogged paperbacks four times each. Please. Please can we stop.

But we keep walking. I try to pull myself together. I’ve missed both books and girls, but I don’t think this is the time to try to bargain my way into both.

I realize it’s warm in here. I shrug out of my raincoat. Diana takes it and drapes it over her arm.

I say, “Oh. Thanks.”

“’Course. I’ve always liked raincoats. I like weather-specific clothing.”

“And you don’t go outside.”

“I also like Turkmenistan and I don’t go there either.”

“I have a weird thing with Argentina.”

“The bottom line is, there is a world outside waiting to kill you, and my mother has experienced more than enough of it for both of us.”

Whoa. “What happened to your mother?”

“A horrible injustice,” she says. “But a fascinating one. My room is right through here.”

She leads me in and shuts the door behind her. There aren’t any chairs, so I sit on the floor, leaning against the bed. It’s thin and gray, just like mine. This whole room is blank and pale, and the only accents are the stacks and stacks of books.

She moves her hands to the top of her head, twists something, and all her hair falls down to her shoulders. I think there’s glitter in it.

Her room smells like peppermint.

“Overwhelmed” seems like the wrong word, but it’s all I can think of. And I think there’s something wrong with me that what I most want to know right now is more about her mother. God, Rudy.

But she walks to me and sits down next to me on the rug. “I find you very interesting, Rudy,” she says.

“You do?”

I find myself really boring, most of the time.

She says, “I haven’t seen a teenager since Elizabeth Danziger used to babysit me. And I didn’t pay attention then, and she moved away years ago. And I’ve never seen a teenage boy before.” She stares into my face. Her eyes are so light blue they almost look white. “I’ve only seen pictures.”

“You’re really freaking me out,” I say, but I whisper it. Because her lips are so close to mine.

She grins.

But then she’s kissing me.

Her mouth is warm and soft. This feels more like drinking hot chocolate than kissing. Her lips and her tongue are everywhere, filling my entire mouth, and it’s suffocating and it’s a little fantastic.

It’s not that I’ve been an angel, and it’s not that I don’t like Diana all right, but I don’t think I’ve ever kissed someone I cared this little about. Here in this room, we could kiss, we could have sex, she could kick me out, her mom could discover us, and it wouldn’t really mean anything. Nothing would change. It’s not as if my life needs her.

There’s something freeing about it, and no amount of thinking can change the fact that I’m sitting here, my hand on her waist, her hand in my hair, with the unfleeting thought that I want her to swallow me.

And it’s so warm.

We kiss for a few more minutes—hours, in kissing-time—but I don’t get bored. I could keep doing this until we fall asleep. But she pulls away, rests her forehead against mine, and says, “Very good.”

Man, she’s a good kisser for a hermit. I say, “You must read a lot of books,” and she laughs.

“Just the right ones. I special-order them!”

God, I wasn’t supposed to get caught in this trap, she f*cking warned me, and now all I’m thinking is that I want to bring her outside, somewhere farther than the bottom of her house or the marketplace. I want to take her off this island and run away with her to Argentina.

Christ, I’m so easy. A girl kisses me, and all of a sudden I’m making plans to elope with her or some shit. I need to cool down.

While I’m taking even breaths in and out, she says, “So far this is nice,” in a voice like she’s making the decision for both of us. Which is fine with me.

So I say, “Thank you.”

“Do you have a lot of experience with girls?”

“You sound like you’re writing a report.”

“I’d never read about sucking the bottom lip like that.”

“Yeah, one of my . . . My ex-girlfriend taught me that.”

“Hmm.”

“Did you like it?”

“I didn’t mind it.”