How Peyton got into serious trouble.
Hmm, she thinks. Dumb title.
How Peyton Gradually Ruined Her Life.
Better.
She taps the keyboard a few times, looking at the buzzing computer screen. She's supposed to be writing an essay, another one for English. Describe something that happened to you once. Try to use foreshadowing, tone, and setting to better describe it. Stupid English. Of course, she's wasting time typing what she really wants to say again.
Her fingers click-clack nimbly over the keys.
"Once there was a girl named Peyton who was really cute. Matter of fact, she was stunning."
She takes a moment to congratulate herself. Thank you very much, she says to the screen, blowing a breezy kiss. Hell, someone has to do it.
"She came home after practice at 6 o clock sharp. The house was always empty. There would be moths and bugs buzzing around the bare bulb on the porch. In the late fall, by that time it would be dark already so she'd hurry to unlock the door. She'd get jumpy, and deadbolt it. The house was quiet and dark. The green carpet was kinda moldy looking, the paneling on the cabinets was less than new and it was generally a mess. A single fluorescent bulb illuminated the gritty countertops and sink full of dirty dishes. So she would ignore it, and go lock herself in her room where it was relatively cleaner.
Peyton didn't eat because there was never anything to eat because her dad rarely went grocery shopping and she didn't really either. She just drew and did homework. The house was always deathly silent and she shut the curtains because there always seemed to be somebody outside. She would get bored and nervous, wandering around aimlessly, apathetically trying to surf the web, retracing her paths on the carpet, calling Nathan's cell and never getting an answer. Then she'd turn on the loud, jarring music just to block out the quiet, to block out the small creaks of the house.
So when Brooke called and proposed something stupid, she always went, just to get that deafening silence and throat-tightening loneliness as far away from her as she could.
And this is how Peyton Gradually Ruined Her Life."
She rereads the piece, face in her hands. Her hand moves unhesitatingly to the mouse to delete it. Suddenly, her whole body freezes.
What if she turned it in? What if she really did? What would happen?
Stop it, Peyton, she reminds herself harshly. You've already gone over this a million times in your head. You'd probably get in trouble.
She clicks the yes. Save the work? No thank you.
The screen goes blank.
Except that now he comes over sometimes. When he does, he turns on all the lamps and lights up the living room with his smile and praises her for keeping things clean and makes her smile; he checks all the locks for her to make sure she's safe, and puts down all the shades and even rigs up this little intruder scare alarm. And she feels better, but sometimes she wishes he wouldn't have to leave but she doesn't want to say that outloud and scare him because it is irrational.
He even watches movies she picks out sometimes. They're both kung fu fans, and they love Jackie Chan and watch the bloopers over and over and over. He's never brought horror movies though, because he has a hunch that after he leaves they might scare her. She seems to sense this and is grateful and amazed at his intuition.
Once they even do a duet on webcam together, a horrific rendering of Judy is a Punk, smacking their heads together during some impromptu headbanging and falling to the floor in laughter. When Brooke calls now, Peyton just says her homework's gotten harder and she's too tired, and can't afford to get another tardy slip tomorrow. Brooke usually shrugs it off. Nothing she can do about it.
She gives the Peyton Lucas thing two weeks max. I mean, c'mon. She's not getting any. She'll be sick of him soon, rationalizes Brooke. After all, doesn't she know Peyton??
But he comes over still, sometimes three times a week.
They sit by the couch, while the previews roll.
"Twizzler or Junior Mints."
"Twizzler. Switch."
"Milk Duds or Sugar Babies."
"Hmm……Sugar Babies. Keep the Duds. Starbursts?"
"Sure. Oh, take the Raisinets."
Pause.
"Raisinets? What the hell?"
"Sorry. I don't know."
Muffled laughing. He props two pillows up behind her back.
"Candy exchange all settled now?"
"Aye aye captain. What's this again?"
"Rumble in the Bronx."
"Classic," she nods. "All the elements are there."
"Hot Asian chicks in granny clothes."
"Check."
"Bad guys with buckteeth and slit eyes coming out of the walls."
"Check."
"Jackie Chan trying to speak English and failing miserably."
"Definitely check. Cult classic. Oh, the popcorn's done."
He springs to his feet. "I'll get it," she hears him say from the kitchen. She can't believe he's related to Nathan.
Unlike every other male she has ever known, he actually lets her watch the movie and she gets to see the end, unlike previous situations where she always misses it because she's in the bedroom. She remembers the first time this happened.
She had been thirteen. John Connell invited her over on a Sunday, and popped in When Harry met Sally because she'd wanted to see it. John Connell was cute, boy-cute with a laissez-faire attitude that he inherited from his businessman daddy; he applied it to every aspect of life. The girls all swooned, but Peyton wasn't sure really. She guessed she liked him. But Brooke and Lila had pushed, pressured her to say yes, took her out shopping, made her buy underwear with lace on them for "good luck".
She didn't feel good but she went, fearing reprisal from John if she didn't. Last year he'd written Maimie Vandross up on the bathroom wall with "for a good time, call" next to it. No boy had asked her out since. She'd put on her lace underwear, which drooped a little in the back on her skinny behind. Brooke had curled her hair into ringlets, and Peyton had tried to seem disaffected. She succeeded to the point where Lila looked enviously shocked. Lila had never been over to a boy's house without his parents home. Brooke took her mom's Chanel lipstick and smeared it on Peyton's lips, and put mascara on her eyelashes.
They were halfway into the movie when John put his arm around her shoulders. Awkwardly, but grinning, he'd kissed her temple. She turned her head to look at him, a little shocked, and then he'd just kissed her. His mouth was a little wet, and pushed hard on hers, but she liked it a little. They'd kissed for a few more minutes and it was getting nicer, when he stuck his tongue in her mouth. She had wanted to bite it, but she remembered Maimie and just let him kiss her. He'd sort of propped her up against the armrest on the couch, and leaned into her. His body was heavy on hers, and she could hear his hard breathing. His hand fumbled up under her shirt, and then she'd jumped up and they knocked heads. He swore. She'd whispered sorry, and then said she had to go home, and ran down the street to the corner. She'd walked the rest of the way home, two miles on the leafy streets with old houses, and sniffled all the way.
She knew it was stupid, but she kinda wished her first kiss would be something she'd like to remember.
From then on, she'd never finished a movie.
She watches the credits roll with a wet gleam in her eye, almost undetectable. But he can sense it, although he does not look for it. Slowly, he finds her hand on the floor and wraps his fingers around it, pressing his palm to hers, watching the screen. She looks up at him quickly, suspiciously, defiantly. He just smiles.
So she leans back and thinks about what it's like to hold someone's hand. How it feels warm and dry and firm, safe. Something trembles and thrills inside her, and she looks down at her own hand curiously, as though amazed something so simple could make her so nervous.
When he presses the remote, the movie screen shuts off, leaving them in darkness.
They can both feel their hearts beat erratic rhythms. She wonders what he'll ask. She wonders what she'd give. For the first time she doesn't want to throw this away so quickly. She's scared if she does, he'll never want to just hold hands anymore. So when his lips seek out hers, they are unmoving, and he quickly pulls back, puzzled. He tries once again, softer, lighter, a bare touch of a kiss. This time she can't ignore the sweet shiver that slices through her, and her lips barely open, pressing into his, thin and pale against the warm, full ones caressing hers. For the first time, she lets herself taste the little kissable dent, the soft curve, the damp, open space. The darkness is cradling them as they sit there, caught in a long, personal kiss that engulfs them entirely and brushes raw, painful things inside both of them. Her knees softly pull up to her chest and her lips are the only thing she'll give but he doesn't mind.
This is enough for tonight.
When they part, the air between them is charged and silent. They both grin, covered by the blessed darkness and she presses both of her hands to her heart in a strange, odd, movement, as though pushing it back inside her chest like the old fashioned actresses.
"I should go," he whispers.
She walks him to the door, and later curls up in her bed, smiling for the camera, touching her lips, her head laid on her outstretched arm. Her fragile legs curl up to her chest, the bruises visible on her knees. She stretches out slowly, her hair slowly cascading over the side of the bed, arching her back a little, running fingertips lightly over her ribs. Her smile is faint, at a corner of her mouth, and her eyelids are lowered and seductive, eyes smiling in an innocent paradox. She looks like a thirteen year old who might have just been kissed for the first time, luxuriant in the new sensation, touching her ankle, her mouth, incredulous and deliriously in love with herself and the world.
She stares dead on at the camera, slowly turning on her side, letting her hair fall in her eyes, letting a strap slide off her shoulder, smiling her secret smile for him. She ignores all the catcalls and im's popping up on the screen, all the chat invites, everything but the eyes she knows are watching her. She stretches out on the bed, unfolding like a butterfly, knotting her hands in her hair, releasing them, letting them hang languorously over the edge, slowly moving towards the camera.
For you, she whispers, and she knows he's heard.
The screen once more goes black.