I own Mica and the mistakes—that's about it. Oh, and Mr. Fleenor and Mr. Burnett, but who cares about them?
The First Kiss
The first time Ryan really kissed a girl, he had just turned twelve.
He didn't plan it. He didn't even expect it, and afterwards he couldn't quite explain to himself how it happened, or why, or even what, finally, it really meant.
There were twenty-two minutes left before school dismissed for spring break, and Ryan sat alone on the splintered gym bleachers, absently playing with his father's chain. Since his mom had given it to him for his birthday two weeks ago, he had carried it every day. He never wore it, but he often fingered it reverently in the safety of his pocket, occasionally slipping it out to study the links or test their strength with a furtive pull.
Sometimes he'd look at the empty circle where a medallion had dangled. It was twisted, its seal broken, and Ryan wondered what force had wrenched it open, whether it had been torn apart in rage or accidentally, or maybe a combination of both. He wondered even more why it had never been fixed, and what symbol once hung there.
Just yesterday, Trey had caught Ryan examining the open link. He had moved closer, squinting at the chain speculatively, his lip curled.
"Know what I think, Ry?"
Ryan cringed. He didn't want his brother's opinion, but he knew he was about to hear it anyway.
"I bet Dad wore a fucking bottle cap," Trey said, nodding sagely. "You know, to remind him of his one true love. He always was such a sentimental S.O.B."
Ryan had narrowed his eyes, breathing hard. "You're not funny, Trey. And don't talk about dad like that, like he's dead or something."
"Yeah? Well, not trying to be funny," Trey retorted. "But you need to face reality, L.B. And shit, dad may not be dead, but he sure as hell is 'or something'."
Ryan shoved away the memory of his brother's remarks. He had his own ideas what the missing medallion might be. Some kind of cross maybe. Or an ankh. Or it could have been an astrological sign. What was his dad's anyway? Taurus the bull?
Or perhaps—Ryan's covert hope—his father had worn a simple oval with an inscription that, if Ryan could only read it, would answer all of his questions
But the chain kept its secrets; it refused to reveal anything.
All around Ryan's solitary figure surged the chaos of what Mr. Fleenor, the principal, optimistically called the "Spring Fling." In fact, the event was less a dance than a surrender—a tacit admission that nobody really taught or learned on the last day before break, so why go through the motions? From one corner of the gym, a disc jockey—actually the custodian, collecting an illegal stipend for running the sound system during work hours—blasted borrowed CDs, while student council members sold chips and generic sodas in the hall. Most of the kids stayed out there; they clustered around the concession tables, gorging themselves and gossiping and trying to sneak a freebie or two when the teachers weren't looking. Inside the gym, a few students surrounded the DJ, bobbing up and down, occasionally executing a random turn, and shouting along with the lyrics. Security guards circled the perimeter of the room, alert for any obscene dance movements, guarding against potential fights, occasionally confiscating a CD that hadn't been pre-screened for profanity, and making half-hearted attempts to stop basketball games that bored kids were playing with wadded-up sweatshirts tied into rough spheres.
Ryan heard a shout and glanced up just as one of the improvised balls headed into the stands. Instinctively he snatched it in midair and lobbed it back to a player, who flung it triumphantly through the hoop. "Hey, Atwood!" the kid yelled. "You get credit for the assist, man! Wanna play?"
"Nah," Ryan called back. "Another time, maybe."
He looped his chain around his forefingers, swinging it so that it glinted as it moved in and out of the light. At the sound of his voice, one of girls crowding around the DJ's station looked up. Theresa, Ryan realized, in the middle of a circle of friends. She raised an arm, waving an invitation to Ryan, but he slouched down, staring at the blistered toes of his sneakers, pretending not to see her, hoping to be invisible.
No way was Theresa going to get him to dance.
Ryan hadn't wanted to be here in the first place. When the P.A. stuttered to life during his social studies class and the principal invited students down to the gym, he never stirred. His classmates spilled out of the room, but Ryan stayed in his seat, gazing out the window, wondered idly if the dark clouds on the horizon would actually produce any precipitation.
Rain, Ryan mused, might be a welcome change.
Sometimes the steady southern California sunshine depressed him. Ryan couldn't articulate why, but somehow he equated that golden warmth with the nebulous "potential" his teachers always claimed he possessed: both of them bright, empty promises that beckoned and teased, but never led to anything permanent.
No matter how hard Ryan tried to believe in other possibilities or how hard he worked, his world never changed.
Every day ended in darkness, every dream in disappointment.
Mr. Burnett was already in the hall getting ready to lock the door when he noticed the preternaturally still figure hunched over a desk. "Ryan? Ryan Atwood!" he called, his voice fusing concern and irritation. "Do your sleeping at home, all right? Now come on, let's go."
Ryan blinked, realizing belatedly that he was alone in the room and that Mr. Burnett was thrumming his fingers on the doorframe impatiently.
"The dance, Ryan?" Mr. Burnett prompted. "Don't you want to have fun with your friends?"
Fun was not a word Ryan associated with mandatory events, but he sighed, shrugged, and obediently joined the throng of students pushing toward the gym.
As they passed the exit doors, the thought of ditching briefly crossed Ryan's mind. It would be no big deal; he'd just be missing a dance, not a class, and anyway, Trey cut all the time.
"Shit, Ry, it's a proud Atwood tradition," he explained once, crumpling up a suspension slip. When Ryan frowned dubiously, Trey insisted, "You think anyone gives a fuck if you go to class? Besides, everything you really need to know you learn outside the damn school."
It would be easy to slip out of the building unnoticed, but Ryan abandoned the idea. He didn't quite trust his brother, and he wasn't looking to follow in Trey's footsteps.
At least not yet. Not until he figured out how much of Trey's rationale was Atwood bullshit, and how much was pragmatic truth—the ugly reality Trey believed Ryan should face sooner rather than later.
Anyway, Ryan figured he wouldn't have to participate at the dance; he could just wait out dismissal in the bleachers, removed from all the pointless activity. His strategy had worked, too, until Theresa spotted him. Without even looking, Ryan knew that she was glaring at him, hands on her hips, not fooled at all by his oblivious act. When he finally risked a glance in her direction, though, Theresa had turned away. She was talking with exaggerated animation to Gloria Colon and Mica Timmons, her whole body bristling with affronted pride.
Ryan grinned. He knew that at some point Theresa would get back at him for ignoring her. She'd shove him off his bike onto a thick, forgiving cushion of grass, or maybe she'd steal his pudding in the cafeteria—not the chocolate, which she knew he loved, but the butterscotch, that he thought looked and tasted like pureed cardboard. Ryan could always count on Theresa for two things: she never let him get away with anything, and she never let her retaliation hurt him.
Theresa knew exactly how to be a friend.
Maybe, Ryan thought, he should go down and say hi after all.
Mustering his courage—because getting to Theresa meant running the gauntlet of giggling, whispering girls surrounding her—Ryan started to get up, when his fingers, slick with sweat in the humid gym, lost their grip on his father's chain. He grabbed, catching nothing but air, then watched in horror as the necklace slithered through a crack into the garbage-strewn darkness below the bleachers.
"Shit," Ryan breathed, bending down to peer through the slit between tiers of seats. He could just see the coil of silver, tantalizingly out of reach, winking at him as the shadow of his body crossed a thin strip of light from the fluorescents overhead.
For a moment, Ryan crouched, breathing hard, wondering why he felt so bereft. The chain wasn't lost; he just couldn't touch it.
Except that it had belonged to his father—who also wasn't lost. But Ryan couldn't touch him either.
Handmade posters on the walls warned that going under the bleachers was grounds for suspension, and the administration had blocked the open sides with mesh screens. One barrier, Ryan knew, was intact, reinforced just last week after the smell of marijuana alerted his harried gym teacher to the spot where several students were hiding.
Trey had sneered when Ryan told him about the incident. "Man, kids in that dumbass school got shit-stupid since I went there." He rocked back in his chair until it was balanced on two legs. "What? They think teachers don't got noses? You don't smoke under the fucking bleachers during class. During class, you go under the bleachers to have sex."
Dawn had emerged from the bathroom while Trey was speaking, and as she shambled past she cuffed the back of his head, slamming his chair back to the ground. "Don't you go talking to your baby brother about sex," she ordered.
"I'm not a baby," Ryan objected, but nobody was listening to him.
"The fuck, Mom," Trey complained, rubbing his head. "That hurt. And shit, it's not like I was telling Ry how, just where."
Dawn's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but she had partied hard the night before, and her mind was too muddled to figure out what was wrong with Trey's excuse. "Well, okay then," she mumbled, lighting a cigarette. "But just watch it, mister."
"Right, Mom," Trey agreed. He leaned toward Ryan and whispered, smirking. "Yeah, and watching people have sex? You can do that down there too."
Remembering the conversation Ryan grimaced, but he desperately wanted to retrieve his chain, so he had to risk it. He had to crawl under the bleachers, no matter what might be happening there.
With the stealth he used to sneak out of the house when one of Dawn's boyfriends was around, Ryan inched his way to the side of the stands. He paused briefly, bobbing his head to the music, pretending nonchalance. Then he began inching back, one cautious step at a time, running his fingers over the wire, trying blindly to locate an opening. A sharp point jabbed into his flesh, and Ryan's eyes widened first in pain and then in triumph. Moving as little as possible, he slipped a furtive finger into the hole and ripped the screen until he could pull it back. Then he cast a quick glance around, dropped to his knees, and ducked underneath.
Quickly, so he wouldn't have time to think about sex and secretions, and what he might be touching, Ryan crept toward the section where he had been sitting, trying to avoid the worst pieces of garbage in his path. Once there, he sat back for a moment, scrubbing his palms on his jeans. The floor under the bleachers was gritty and disgusting and Ryan dreaded having to put his hands back down in the dirt.
So far, this "fun" dance was everything he hated: noisy, filthy, and filled with the threat of worse things to come.
Ryan leaned forward gingerly, hoping he could spot the chain before he had to crawl any more. He squinted into the striped darkness, and then breathed an exultant, relieved "Yes!" The necklace lay a little distance away, amid crumpled candy wrappers, a piece of paper folded into a tight triangle, and—Ryan cringed—a pile of used Kleenex and something that looked wet and rubbery. He shuffled on his knees and then bent over, stretching an arm as far as he could. His finger touched a link, almost catching it, when something, or someone, suddenly pinched his ass.
In one dizzy movement, Ryan jerked up and away, spinning wildly so that he smacked his forehead on the underside of the seats above him and landed in a clumsy tangle of limbs, facing Mica Timmons.
"Cute butt, Atwood," she observed, nodding with admiration.
Ryan blinked, momentarily stunned both by the blow to his head and the sight of Mica's appraising smile. When he whirled around, he automatically assumed he'd find Theresa smirking behind him, and his lips were already pursed, indignant, ready to spit her name.
Theresa was the only person Ryan knew who might touch him that way. He didn't know Mica at all, except by sight and locker-room reputation. But Mica didn't waste her time and attention on sixth-graders, so Ryan couldn't imagine what she wanted under the bleachers with him.
His anger dissolved into wary confusion.
"Did you follow me?" he hissed, trying to figure out how to reclaim his chain and his dignity at the same time. It wasn't possible. He'd have to turn around again, a move suddenly risky and discomforting.
Mica shrugged, removed the wad of gum she was chewing and stuck it on the wood over her head. "Sure," she admitted easily. "The dance is way lame, so I decided to see why you were sneaking down here. And then I liked what I saw. You may be short, Atwood—and yeah, young too, I guess, but you got it going on."
Ryan swallowed, speechless. Trey would unleash a ready comeback, but Ryan wasn't even sure what to feel. Flattered? Offended? Embarrassed? Angry? A little bit—and he was only guessing about this unfamiliar, electric emotion—aroused?
Ryan knew about sex, of course. He'd seen enough on TV and in his brother's impressive stash of porn. Besides, despite Dawn's warning, Trey talked all the time—well, bragged actually, or maybe lied—about his own experiences. And occasionally, although Ryan tried to ignore them, he heard graphic noises from his mother's bedroom, had to clench his eyes shut against unwanted glimpses through doors left ajar.
"You don't talk much, do you?"
At the sound of Mica's voice, Ryan jerked to attention and flushed, wondering how long he'd been staring at her, his mouth half open and his breath audible. He scrambled to pull himself together, folding his body in tight.
"That's okay, though," she continued, unperturbed. "Most guys talk way, way too much. You seem, like, really mature for your age, Atwood. Cute too."
Mica grinned, her eyes crinkling at the edges, and after a moment Ryan offered a shy half-smile in return.
At fourteen--she'd already been held back twice, and was well on her way to failing again—Mica was, by middle school standards, an older woman. And even by Trey-standards, she was well developed, a fact that she advertised, wearing tops that revealed both midriff and cleavage, but only when she stretched or bent over, so she almost never got sent home to change.
Mica scooted closer to Ryan, her skirt hiking up as she made herself comfortable on the filthy floor. She settled down cross-legged, pulled some lip gloss out of a purse shaped like a poodle, and busied herself recoating her lips. Her body completely blocked Ryan's way out of the bleachers.
He watched, fascinated, as the edge of her nail delicately outlined her mouth. "It's cherry flavored," Mica reported, seeing Ryan's eyes on her. She flashed a test smile and held out the tube. "You want to taste?"
"Jeez. No," Ryan protested, flinching. "What do you think—I'm gonna wear that stuff?"
The tip of Mica's tongue flicked out and then disappeared. "Guess not," she answered thoughtfully. "So . . . you could just kiss me."
All along, Ryan had been vaguely aware of sounds seeping in from the gym—disembodied voices, eerie laughter, the erratic wailing of different songs. But suddenly he couldn't hear anything anymore. It was as if everyone had vanished, leaving him alone with Mica. Only the music remained, but now Ryan sensed it in his nerve endings and skin: heavy bass throbbing through the floorboards, pushing into his body, pulsing through his blood.
"You want me to kiss you?" he asked, his voice catching just slightly.
"Sure. You know how?"
Ryan swallowed an automatic Trey-inspired lie.
He could say yes, but then Mica not only would expect him to kiss her, she would expect him to do it well, and Ryan suspected that kissing, like scoring in soccer, could maybe be done by accident, but for any real expertise, it required practice. So why even pretend? Long ago, Ryan had learned that truth was the only thing worth offering and worth receiving; lies just evaporated into the air like poison gas, sickening everybody who breathed them.
Besides, Ryan was a terrible liar. On the other hand, he was very good at evasion.
"I didn't come here to kiss you, Mica. I came to get the chain I dropped."
"Oh. Okay."
Mica cocked her head, twisting her fingers through her thick, black curls. Then, abruptly, she crawled past Ryan, blew the used tissues away so her hand didn't touch them, and grabbed the chain. Settling back on her heels in front of Ryan, she lowered the necklace ceremonially over his head.
Once, on television, Ryan had seen Hawaiian women wearing grass skirts and bras do the same thing, only with wreaths of flowers. Recalling the image, he found his gaze drifting towards Mica's breasts; they were high and round and he could just glimpse a shadow playing between them that made his groin muscles clench.
Mica straightened the twisted links and patted them into place on Ryan's neck, her hand unexpectedly warm and welcome against his skin.
"Okay, you got your chain back, Atwood. Wanna kiss me now?"
Ryan listened for a tease or a dare in Mica's words, the warning that a "yes" would ruin him, but all he heard was invitation. He glanced down at her bare knees. They were a deep smooth brown, except for one tender pink area under a half-peeled scab, and they pressed against Ryan's own legs through the denim of his jeans. In this position, it didn't matter that Mica was two inches taller, two years older. She and Ryan seemed to fit perfectly.
And she had retrieved his chain for him.
Maybe, in some way, he owed her a kiss.
"Okay," he whispered, sucking in a shaky breath. He waited, sure that Mica would make the first move—it had been her idea after all—and then realized that she was just sitting, watching him. Her lips looked poised and moist and practiced, but under her lashes, Mica's eyes seemed to have changed.
Maybe it was a trick of the shadows, the way fragments of light glanced off her face and then died, but just for a moment, Ryan thought he recognized a flicker of yearning, the half-buried hurt of loneliness.
He had seen eyes like that before.
Carefully, Ryan touched one tentative finger to Mica's cheekbone, then slid his hand around to the back of her head, gripping her hair to steady himself. He leaned forward, licked his lips, touched them lightly to hers. Their noses bumped and Ryan shifted his face, first right, then left. He was surprised to hear Mica whimper deep in her throat, shocked when he started to rock back, thinking the kiss was over, and her tongue pushed into his mouth.
Ryan froze. For a heartbeat, the little boy in him recoiled, mentally swiping his mouth with the back of his hand, scrubbing away the alien spit.
But he had said it himself; he wasn't a baby. He wouldn't behave like one.
Besides, something in him enjoyed the sensation.
Ryan opened his mouth wider, perhaps just to breathe, but then, incredibly daring, his own tongue awoke and twisted around Mica's, tasting cherry—that must be the lip-gloss—but something else too. Cinnamon, he thought—her gum had been red—and a hint of another flavor, delicious, but darker and more dangerous.
Probably that was just Mica.
Or maybe the future. Because Ryan knew there was no going back now.
"Ryan and Mica, what do you think you're doing in there? You come out here right now!"
The voice startled Ryan. He shook his head slightly, a swimmer emerging from deep water, reaching for something solid, and blinked over Mica's shoulder. She had dropped her face to his neck, sucking at the skin under his chain, but at the sound of Theresa's imperious whisper, she stopped.
"Guess we better go, Atwood," Mica murmured. "I think the dance is over."
Ryan closed his eyes as she crouched down and crawled toward the opening; then he crept after her, his gaze resolutely on the ground. He and Mica waited silently under the bleachers where Theresa was standing, tapping a foot furiously, until she flipped her hand once, indicating that it was safe to emerge.
As they stood up, Theresa's eyes raked scathingly from Mica to Ryan. "I thought," she said deliberately, "that we were friends." She tossed her head and marched away without a backwards glance, her steps echoing in the near-empty gym.
Ryan looked after her, unsure whether the words had been directed at Mica or at him.
Mica shrugged. "Guess Theresa's pissed," she observed casually. "Anyway, pretty good for your first time, Atwood. Let me know if you want to do it again." She paused, smiling significantly. "Or, hey, maybe you should let Theresa know." Mica strolled to the door, then stopped and tossed the container of lip gloss back to Ryan. "Here," she called. "You keep it. Souvenir."
Automatically, Ryan caught the small tube and pocketed it.
All the way home, Ryan tried to figure it out—Mica, Theresa, the kiss, why he felt branded, why he loved the burn—but it was too complicated. His fingers around rolled his dad's chain, safely back in his pocket, but it provided no answers.
He was still puzzling the whole situation hours later, sitting on the couch in front of a blank TV screen when his brother came home.
"Hey," Trey said, with a lazy salute. He started to slouch past Ryan then did an elaborate double-take. "Whoa!" he exclaimed. "Check it out! Little brother has a fucking hickey!"
Ryan looked up, alarmed, and clapped a hand to his throat. "What?" he stammered. "No, I . . . Do I? Come on, Trey, I don't." He hunched his shoulder, trying to hide the spot from his brother's scrutiny.
"Holy shit, you so do, L.B. How the fuck do you like that?" Trey cupped his hand and slapped Ryan lightly on the cheek. "Little Ryan Atwood is growing up. You just better keep away from my women, bro . . . So, how was it?"
"Good," Ryan said, his lips curving in a secret smile. "It was good."
"Shit, I can see it was. And hey, Ry," Trey predicted, "it only gets better." He added loud slurping and sucking noises for effect.
Ryan's face burned, and he ducked further down on the couch as his brother continued to inspect his neck. Neither boy noticed their mother slouch woozily from her bedroom, whiskey in one hand, cigarette in the other, until her voice split the air.
"What the hell is that?" Dawn demanded sharply, slamming the bottle down on an end table. "Get over here, Ry. That better not be what I think it is."
"Jeez, Mom," Trey drawled, goading her with faux-innocence. "What do you think it is?"
Ryan hissed a warning, poking his brother hard as he got up, but Trey just wiggled his eyebrows, amused.
"It's nothing, Mom," Ryan claimed. He squirmed as Dawn knelt and yanked at the neck of his t-shirt to examine the bruise more closely. Her fingers were rough, and a ragged nail scratched a weeping red line across his neck.
Dawn's voice was fierce and unsteady. "You are too damned young for this, you understand me, Ryan? I don't care what your goddamned brother tells you. You got--" Her breath caught and she suddenly wrapped Ryan in a tight booze and smoke-scented embrace. "You got time," Dawn concluded brokenly. "You're still my baby, Ryan. You understand me? You're still mine."
Ryan went rigid. He shot his brother a beseeching look, but Trey just plucked the cigarette dangling dangerously from Dawn's hand and muttered, "Shit, Mom. Kill the kid, why donchya? Fucking train wreck. . ." He shook his head in disgust, pausing before he left to whisper, "You're on your own with this one, L.B. Just, next time, don't let the girl fucking mark you, all right . . .?"
Ryan watched Trey leave. Then, very gently, he patted his mother's damp hands, trying to ease himself out of her grasp, but Dawn's arms tightened convulsively. Her stale-sour breath was hot against his cheek, and Ryan could feel her crying as she chanted, stumbling over the words, punctuating them with sloppy kisses, "Too young. You're too young, Ry. You're my . . . baby. You're just . . . you're still mine."
Treasured and trapped, Ryan couldn't move.
He didn't feel too young.
Inside, where it counted, he felt very old.
