January 5th
It's times like these that I'm glad I write in my journal. When I'm confused.
After school, I went over to Christian's house for the first time. We were going to do homework. As we walked there from school, Christian sort of gave me this weird warning. Let's remember that I had to BEG him to let me come over. I'm really curious about his life. He edges around the band, and is totally closed off from his home life to me.
"Just remember," he said, "that it's just my dad and me, so the house doesn't stay very clean."
"It's fine. I've been to Ducky's house. You guys can't be worse than him and his brother." I thought that was a pretty convincing argument, since I've been to their house and found three month old milk in the fridge and neither of them knew it was there. Christian, however, didn't look convinced.
"It's a wreck," he said. "And... we don't have a lot of furniture. After my mom left, my dad sort of... he went a little crazy and sold most of our stuff."
"Oh... I'm sorry," I said.
"But he won't be there. He shouldn't be home until after seven, at what point we'll be gone. You don't want to meet my dad. He's a prick, and would... well, let's just leave it at that."
I was curious. Dad may be a pain sometimes (especially when Christian is involved), but I'd never say such things about him. But then again, after the divorce Dad didn't sell all our stuff. And from the little Christian has said, his dad is an alcoholic. But that's just what I've been guessing, since I'd never met him and Christian says so little.
"Anyway," Christian pushed on, his voice doing this "I'm trying to keep things light, but it's really not working" thing, "we can stay in the kitchen, which is gross, or we can go up to my room which is the only room that anyone goes into on a regular basis."
"That will work." At my house, on either coast, boys aren't allowed in my room, but this wasn't my house. This was Christian's and we could do homework in his room if we wanted to.
I had to admit, I was pretty curious about Christian. We've been dating for about six months now, and honestly, I don't know a lot about him. I guess we've just been on the same wavelength (most of the time) and details haven't seemed important. But all of a sudden, I'm dying to know.
"Have you talked to Mary Anne?" he asked.
I gave him a funny look. "Why would I talk to Mary Anne?"
"I don't know. Make amends? You haven't told me anything about what happened over Christmas between you two."
"It was nothing," I said. "And I mean nothing. We didn't talk, we didn't look at each other. We just acted like the other one wasn't there. The best time I had over the entire vacation was hanging out with Stacey, Claudia, and Cokie. With them, I was at least comfortable. At home, I was stuck with Mary Anne, suffocating me by ignoring that I existed. Mom and Richard could tell something was up, but even if they asked, it's not like either of us were going to say anything. I might be angry at her, but I don't want her throwing anymore unmanned objects at my head, thanks."
Christian sort of had to keep from laughing. He covered it up with a cough. "I'm just saying, she's your sister-"
"She is NOT my sister. She's my step-sister. I spent two years thinking she was wonderful and sensitive. Yeah, she's only sensitive to herself. If you step one foot out of her perfect Mary Anne order, you suddenly can't do anything right and you get stuff thrown at you. She's a horrible, wicked bitch."
I felt bad saying those things about Mary Anne. I know, I know. She hates me, and I'm not too happy with her, and those things are how I feel, and I felt pretty honest, but I still felt bad saying them.
Christian didn't try to lecture me or anything, he just took my hand and we finally got to his house. It looked pretty big for only two people living there.
"Five people used to live here," he said, reading my thoughts. "You'll get used to the echo after a bit."
"Echo?" I repeated.
"Walking around, talking. It's big spaces and no furniture. Lots of echo. Once you get upstairs where there's carpeting, it's not bad. Plus there's stuff up there." Christian unlocked the door and we went inside.
He was right. The living room only had a couch, a coffee table, and a TV. It was like someone just erased the other half the room. The coffee table was littered with beer bottles and dirty paper plates. I looked away so Christian wouldn't catch me staring.
I walked into the kitchen, which on a cleanliness scale made the living room look fantastic. I had to admit, this was WAY worse than Ducky's house. Maybe because all the walls and cabinets were white? Perhaps it just made it look worse than it was.
"Do you want a Coke or something?" Christian asked.
"No, thanks," I replied. Half of that was because I don't drink Coke. The other half was because I honestly wasn't sure what would be living on it.
Christian got one for himself. He tried to block the refrigerator, but I could see a twelve pack of beer sitting in it. I felt a wave of sadness for him.
We went upstairs to his room, which was, by far, the neatest room in the house. Which is saying something since it IS a teenage guy's bedroom.
"So," I said, looking around. "Now what?"
"Homework?" he asked. He dropped his backpack on the floor and sort of stared at it. He looked up at me with raised eyebrows.
I dropped my backpack too and kissed him. He stumbled backwards, against a wall and we both started laughing.
"Oh man, I've created a monster," he said. "A making out monster."
"Hey, in the five months we've been dating, this is exactly the second time we've had enough privacy to actually do this. You know, I'm not missing out on another opportunity."
"How can I resist that logic?"
"You can't." We went over to his bed, which was a little scary, but the last time we made out it was on a bed. But it wasn't HIS bed. There's a difference.
I wasn't really paying attention to the time, my mind was a little occupied. We did discover that if we've going to make out lying down, me on top is bad because my hair gets totally in way. It was really funny. I'm still new to all of this. I haven't asked Christian exactly HOW experienced he is, but he certainly seems to know what he's doing.
Anyway, I wasn't paying attention to the time, and suddenly Christian (who was very shirtless and rather sweaty which was really hot) jumped up.
"SHIT!" he said.
"What?" I sat up.
"He's home early. It's only six-thirty."
Well, six-thirty meant I should be home, but from the look on Christian's face, I wasn't going anywhere. Knowing that his dad was home, I buttoned up my shirt (was that moving too fast? It didn't feel too fast) and slid off the bed. "Christian?"
"We've got to get you out of the house without him seeing you," he said, not really paying attention to me.
"Are you not supposed to have people over?" I asked.
"That's not important, but..." he looked at me and his face was so confused. "Dawn, he's an asshole. He'll see you, young and beautiful, and he'll hit on you, and it won't be good. It'll be creepy and you'll probably never want to see me again."
"Let me decide that," I said. "Until then, let's figure this out. I don't care about your dad. I can ignore him and leave."
Christian didn't look convinced, but he agreed.
We went downstairs, and though he looked pretty sober, Mr. Delgotto acted like he was already drunk. "Hey, Cristo, who's the babe?"
"This is Dawn. She's leaving now."
"Aww, your little bunny doesn't want to stay for a drink?" He winked at me. I started to feel sort of ill.
"No, she doesn't. We're leaving." Christian practically shoved me out the door. He walked with me to the end of his sidewalk and then he sort of crumbled on the driveway. He just sat down.
"Christian?" I sat down next to him. By the time I was sitting, he was already crying.
"This is why I didn't want to you to come over. I didn't want you to see. My stupid drunk father, my shitty house."
"It's not you," I said, touching his face. "None of that is you."
"It could be. It practically is."
"But it's not. And it's obvious that you don't want it, so you won't have it. You can make those choices."
There was something in his eyes that I couldn't detect. But he smiled. "Thanks, Dawn. Thank you so much." He stood up, and then helped me up. "Want me to walk you home?"
"No, it's okay. Unless you just want to get away for a while."
He shook his head. "I guess I have to face this."
We kissed and I walked home. And now I need to do my homework, since I didn't do any of it there.
Later, 5th
Really, is that too fast? It feels right, it feels good, but is what feels good always what's right? What's too far? How will I know?
After everything that happened with Mary Anne, I'm wary about going to far, but... it might get harder and harder to resist.
