CHAPTER 10

AND I BLEED WHEN I FALL DOWN

5 P.M. Saturday, that was the time we arranged to meet up. I wasn't asked to stop off for Chinese takeout, but I did anyway. It was my turn. I was in good spirits, humming a tune to myself as I sauntered up the road. But as I approached Sugar Tats, I heard yelling. Angry yelling. Ahead, the garage door stood open. The ruckus was coming from inside- a broad collection of insults and profanities, in Grace's voice. Was Eve in trouble again? Fearing the worst, I ran the last few steps.

When the inside of the garage came into view, I saw Eve standing off to the side, worried but unthreatened. I exhaled a sigh of relief. On the other end of the garage, a greasy, dirty Grace raged at her motorcycle, yelling and waving metal tools around while Odette lingered over her shoulder, attempting to console her.

"Fucking fuck-shit piece of fuck motorcycle!" Grace railed, bashing a wrench on the concrete floor to emphasize the point. She jumped to her feet and kicked the disobedient machine, which tipped over.

"Grace, honey...", Odette said.

Grace whirled on her. "Don't be all 'Grace honey' with me. This is bullshit! Is it not bullshit?!" she turned to me, of all people. "Is this not bullshit, Aaron?! Every day I ride this bike, and every fucking day it fucking starts. Sometimes it grumps a little, but it always starts! But today, today of all days, when I actually fucking need it to fucking get somewhere I can't take the bus to, today of all days it decides to fuck off and fucking break on me! Today! How am I going to fucking get to Julia's if my bike picks fucking today to break the fuck down!" She paused, breathing heavily, and after a moment looked straight at me. "What the fuck are you doing here?!"

"Uhh..." I said, meekly holding up the bag of takeout. "Bringing dinner?"

Grace stared at me, uncomprehending.

Approaching Grace from behind, Odette calmly took the wrench from her and spoke in a firm, motherly voice. "Grace, dear, why don't you take a walk around the block to cool down, and then call Julia to reschedule our little meeting?"

"Don't order me around, Odette," Grace said, "you're not..."

"Grace?" Odette said warningly.

"You're not...", Grace began.

"Graaaaaaaaace?" Odette said, giving her a stern look.

Grace opened and closed her mouth a few times, finding no words, then finally stormed out of the garage with a growl. We all watched her go.

"So, uhh… I guess dinner plans are off, then?", I asked.

"Postponed, at the very least," Odette said. She tossed the wrench on the couch with the sigh of a frayed woman and put her hands on her hips. "But you know, Grace raises an intriguing point. What are you doing here, Aaron?"

"Ah…," Eve cut in. "That's on me. I invited him over."

Odette raised an eyebrow. "On the night we'd planned to spend out," she noted.

"Um… yeah," Eve said, pulling her hood close.

"To do what?", Odette asked.

"Nothing," we both said. Too quickly. Odette was unconvinced.

"Evie, honey," Odette said, "I know you don't have much experience dating guys, but just hanging out at home every time is lame. You should go out somewhere- the movies, a concert, hell even the mall!"

"Well, this is cheaper," Eve said. "And we don't need someone to drive us."

"Oh?" Odette said. She gave Eve a sideways look, then looked at me and nodded knowingly. It was a moment before I realized that Eve had not denied this was a date. I glanced over to see her blushing furiously.

"A-Anyway!", Eve stammered. "It's no big deal, we were just going to have dinner and then watch some movies on the couch."

"And…?" Odette said.

"And… and that's it," Eve said.

Odette gave her a 'yeah, right' look.

Eve looked down at her feet and scuffed her sneakers against the floor. "And… maybe… have a few beers out of the fridge?"

Odette sighed and shook her head. "What movies?"

"Um…", Eve withdrew a pair of DVD cases from her jacket pocket. Prom Night and 13 Ghosts, I noticed.

Odette nodded approvingly. "Hmm. Well, Evie honey, I give you a B+ on your setup."

"What…?", Eve said.

Odette smiled. "Horror movies on the couch, nobody else home, excuse to cuddle up and be held during the scary parts- parts that get the blood moving. Almost foolproof."

Eve's eyes went wide. "It- it's not like that! Oh my god, Odette! Do you ever think of anything but..."

"Buuuuuuuuut..." Odette cut her off. "Getting him drunk too? Overkill. And not a good risk, in my opinion. Chance of getting too sloshed to perform, chance of morning-after regret, not to mention it's illegal at your age. Especially with Grace already pissed at you for your recent brush with the law, and double especially because those are MY beers in the fridge!" She yelled that last bit.

"Hey, it's okay…," I cut in. "I don't drink anyway, so..."

"Quiet, you!", Odette snapped. "This is girl talk!"

I'm pretty sure this was not what they usually call "girl talk", but I clammed up anyway.

Eve sighed. "Okay, I'm sorry," she said.

Odette put her hand on Eve's shoulder. "Oh, it's alright, Evie," she said sardonically. "It just makes it easier."

Eve looked at Odette strangely. "Makes what easier?"

"This," Odette said, and snatched the DVDs right out of Eve's hands. "You're plan was good, so I'm hijacking it. When Grace gets back, she and I will be claiming the couch. Hang out in your room if you want."

"But… why?", Eve stammered.

"Why do you think?", Odette said suggestively.

Eve threw up her hands in frustration. "When are you going to learn, Odette? She's not into you like that!" She grabbed at the DVDs, but Odette yanked them away. Eve tried again, and Odette pulled them away again, this time holding them high over her head, where Eve couldn't reach. Eve fumed. "Odie!," she whined. "This is some grade school shit!"

"Well, I'm feeling nostalgic," Odette said. "Play along, and I won't let your big sister in on the fact that you planned to drink underage."

"You have no right…," Eve insisted.

"Sorry, I'm invoking the law of the asshole," Odette said, cutting her off.

"What the hell is that?", Eve asked.

"It means that I do it because I want to, and if you don't like it, you get to call me an asshole," Odette said with a smirk.

"That's bullshit!", Eve protested.

Odette shrugged. "Call me an asshole."

Eve yelled. "I want my DVDs back!"

"Call me an asshole," Odette said, walking to the stairs.

"Odette is such an asshole," Eve said, biting into an egg roll like it was Odette's flesh.

"Yeah, kinda…," I said, finishing the last of my fried rice. Eve's room made a serviceable dining room, but only just. There were two seats- the desk chair and the bed. I didn't feel I had the propriety to claim the chair, and didn't want to get crumbs on the bed, so I ate sitting on the floor with a plate in my lap. Eve sat on the bed, leaning over the edge so that she wouldn't get crumbs on the sheets either. Through the walls I heard the loud boom of the sound effects on the TV. The walls kept out the sound of the dialogue, but the lower end of the register was a constant distraction. "Is she normally like this?"

"What, you mean a total bitch?", Eve said.

"Not a bitch," I corrected.

"Only when she hasn't gotten fucked in too long," Eve finished.

"Is trying to bed your sister part of that too?", I asked.

"Nah, that's just Odette being Odette," Eve said. She tossed the last bite of egg roll into her mouth and spoke while chewing. "She's had a low-level crush on Grace for as long as they've known each other, and every once and a while she tries to take it someplace."

"Oh," I said. "Do you think she'll actually… um… get there tonight?"

Eve laughed. "Aaron, let me tell you something about my sister: you sit her down on a couch to watch a movie, and she'll watch it as long as she has something to munch while she's watching. Once the food's gone, she has about half an hour before she gets comfortable and falls asleep. Doesn't matter how good or how loud or how funny it is, she's out like a light. And if she's had a drink or two, pffft. Forget it. The end result here is Grace dead to the world while Odette stews over it and hits the bottle until she's drunk as a skunk."

"Ah," I said. "Well hey, maybe that'll be our opportunity to take back the couch?"

She shook her head. "Nah. This is fine, actually, the fun stuff's all in here anyway. I just hoped to have some beer."

"Do you, uh… drink a lot?", I asked.

"Only once or twice ever, actually. I hated the taste, and Odette's example put me off drunkenness as a pastime. It's just that I thought I'd need..." she trailed off.

"Need what?", I asked.

"Nothing, it's nothing." She pulled her hood closer and stared at the last little bit of fried rice on her plate. I noticed belatedly that she still had her hood up; I'd assumed she was comfortable having her hood down in her room.

"Something on your mind?", I asked.

"A few things," she said, moving food around with a fork before deciding to just lay the plate aside on the floor. "Anyway, Odie's getting nowhere. She'll just have to accept that not everybody is bisexual like her."

I shrugged.

"Grace is straight as an arrow. Yeah," Eve added. "Yeah," she repeated.

"You sound a bit uncertain," I noted.

Eve nearly jumped. "No, no, I mean it! I just, umm..." she blushed suddenly.

"What?", I asked.

She dodged my gaze "Well, I just… thought you might have some kind of a reaction to that."

I shrugged. "It's none of my business, really. I mean, it doesn't freak me out or anything, if that's what worries you."

"Mmm," Eve nodded, twirling a lock of hair in her fingers. "does it arouse you?"

I looked at her to see if she was joking. I got mixed signals; her smile said she was, but her eyes were serious. Weird. "Well, uh… not really…," I said.

"Not ever?", Eve said teasingly. "I mean, I know about boys and their internet porn…"

My face was starting to burn a little. "Well... it uh... shows up in my searches on the adult sites sometimes, but it never held that much interest for me. Why do you ask? Are you into girls?"

"Um!", Eve said, almost jumping. "Well, I've never really met a girl I wanted to be intimate with… but, you know… if I met somebody with the right personality… I guess I might. How about you?"

I blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Do you think you could be attracted to another guy?", Eve asked bluntly.

How did we get on this topic of conversation? Why did we get on this topic of conversation?

"I, uh… never really thought about it," I said.

Silence.

"Well, then?", Eve said.

"Well, what?", I asked.

"Think about it," she said with a mischievous smile.

"Uh… okay," I said.

Silence again.

"Well…?", Eve insisted.

"Uh, I meant I'll think about it later…," I said.

Eve giggled. "Oh come on, Aaron, this is hardly fair! I answered your question, now answer mine!"

"Hey," I said, "This shit is a lot more taboo for guys than it is for girls, okay?"

"Why?", she asked.

"I don't know, I don't make these rules! I just try not to get smacked around by them," I insisted.

Eve laughed again. When she finished, there was silence yet again.

I sighed. "Serious answer?"

"Go ahead," Eve said.

"All I can say is I've never met a guy that I wanted to… you know… get with. But, when I think about it, I've never met a girl I wanted to seriously get with either. I mean, I've seen girls that get me… you know… hot… but never for longer than until I saw another hot girl. Except for..." I looked at Eve, who looked back at me with a very serious, very apprehensive look. I couldn't say it. I turned away. "-except for one. And she wouldn't have me."

"Oh," Eve said.

A long pause.

"But you know…," I said. "I guess you could say that makes me undeclared or something. You never know." I turned to her with a wicked grin. "Why, you know some smoking hot guy you want me to make gay porn with? Maybe Kevin?"

Eve's eyes went wide with shock. Then she laughed. "No, no, that's not my thing!"

"Are you sure?," I said. "I know some of you girls are into it. Especially the anime fangirls."

Eve shook her head no and waved her arms around negatively. "No! Not me!"

I chuckled. "Oh, doesn't feel so good to be on the receiving end, does it?"

"Fuck you, Aaron!", she said, still laughing.

"Well, you must be worked up about something," I said, "because your cheeks are beet red."

Eve grabbed a pillow and stuffed it over her face to hide.

We both laughed about it for a bit before settling down. When we did, we wound up looking at each other, smiling.

"Hey," Eve said, patting the mattress. "Come up here."

As I took the seat beside her, she leaned over the edge of the bed and retrieved a sketchbook. She opened it to the most recent page and handed it to me. "Check it out."

I took a look. On the page was a colored pencil drawing of two people, a man and a woman. The woman was another of Eve's self-portraits. The blue hair gave it away. But it was a lot more down to earth than her past works. Her bust was less prominent, and didn't distract as much. She was dressed in a dress and early-20th century beret, held a large-caliber handgun, and had a mean look on her face. She stood back-to-back with a slightly taller man in a pinstriped suit and fedora hat. The man held a tommy gun, which he aimed off-page to the right. He looked vaguely familiar, and after a moment I realized it was meant to be me. Eve and I as a pair of stylish depression-era criminals.

"This is us," I said.

Eve nodded.

"Hah," I said, smiling. "Bonnie and Clyde, played by Eve and Aaron."

"Do you like it?", she asked nervously.

"Hell, yeah! We're totally badass!", I enthused.

Eve made a half-laughing, half squealing sound. On the internet they call it "squee."

"Thanks!" she said. "I'm really proud of this one! I don't really know where it came from, honestly. I was just kinda doodling and thinking of you, and… well…. Inspiration struck. But I just love how it turned out!"

"It's good! It's real good! I think you really captured us. See, I told you you'd look good in a dress!", I said.

Eve laughed merrily.

"Think Miss Ross will accept it?", I asked.

Eve shook her head. "It's not for her, Aaron. It's for you."

I blinked. "For… for me?"

"I, uhh…," she looked aside for a minute, bashfully, then returned her gaze to mine. "I want you to have something to… just… something that shows what you mean to me."

I smiled. I didn't know what to say.

"I mean...", Eve continued. "It's just the whole romance of the outlaw couple, you know? I mean, the reality is not so great- the reality is they die young in a hail of bullets. But the romance is…," she gestured randomly, searching for the right word.

"Freedom," I said. "Taking to the road, nobody else but just one special person to watch your back. Nobody else to tell you what to do, or care what they think."

"You and me against the world," Eve said. She looked down, suddenly feeling vulnerable. "I know it's kind of silly… I mean, stuff like that never works out in real life. But even so…"

I interrupted her. "I'd do it," I said. Eve looked at me with surprise.

"I would," I said. "If that's what you really, really wanted- forget school, forget college, forget family dramas and money problems and everything else and just steal some poor loser's car and run away to the open road… it wouldn't be a happy life. It would be… hard, nasty, brutal, and short. But even so, if I could do it with you… maybe it would be worth it."

Eve stared at me, mouth open. Then she laughed, turned aside, brushed her hair aside. "Aaron… that's..."

But she couldn't put it into words. So she just sat there, looking straight into my eyes. Her own eyes glimmered blue, and she had a sweet, almost blissful smile on. I smiled back at her. Our gazes locked on each other for an eternal second.

A feeling passed between us. An impulse, unspoken but impossible to misunderstand. I was suddenly conscious of the soft warmth of Eve's hand resting on mine. When had it gotten there?

I don't know who started leaning in first. But I remember our faces moving closer. Closer. Closer still. Her face grew larger and larger in my eyes, until it was all I could see. I felt my lips parting slightly on reflex, and Eve's in response. Her lips glistened. Mine were moist. My heart was pounding. Eve smelled of flowers and soap. Closer. And closer. My eyes inched closed, until I was blind, nothing but the sound of Eve's breath and the touch of that same breath on my lips. So close. I waited. I waited with my heart coiled around itself like a spring, with time slowed to a crawl…

But nothing happened.

And when my eyes blinked open, I saw Eve withdrawing. Her hand left it's perch on my own like a songbird flying away. She clapped that hand over her mouth, squeezed her eyes shut in agony, and shook her head no.

"What's wrong?", I asked, searching my thoughts for a possible reason. "Is it… is it my breath?" I blew into my hand to smell it.

Eve laughed. But the laugh was hollow. Again, she shook her head no. "No. No, Aaron, it's not that. It's…" she trailed off. After taking a breath to steady herself, she sidled back to sit cross-legged at the very edge of the bed. "Aaron, there's some stuff you should know about me."

I hiked my legs up on the bed and mirrored her cross-legged pose. "Go ahead," I said gently. "I'm all ears."

"Well…," she began. Then she hesitated. Maybe not sure where to start. "Did I ever tell you how my parents died?"

I shook my head no.

"We were in a car wreck," she said. "A really bad one."

"We?", I asked.

She nodded. "I was there. In the car with them. My parents… we had a difficult relationship. In fact, they hated me. They hated… they hated the decisions I made, the things I did, the things I wanted to do." She spoke slowly, with frequent hesitation. These recollections were clearly painful. "They always thought I was living my life wrong. They told me that I was stupid, that I was nuts, that I was doing it to spite them. They never understood, never tried to understand..." she was getting choked up. I reached out to take her hand, as I had many times before, but she waved it off and composed herself.

"That night in the car…," Eve continued, "I don't remember where we were heading. It must have been someplace I didn't want to go, because we got into a shouting match, all three of us. They got on to how I was… making all these mistakes, that I would ruin my life just like Grace. And I yelled at them, Grace wasn't ruined. And they yelled back… something, I was barely listening, but I yelled right back at them, as loud as I could, 'Grace doesn't need you, and neither do I! We'll be better off without you! I wish you would just die!' A-And then..." She clenched her eyes shut, sniffled and swallowed hard.

"And that's right when the other car hit us. Ran a red light and smashed right into the driver's door. I remember… it all happened so fast. I saw the light from his headlights, heard a car horn blaring, and then… there was a crashing sound, the car's frame crumpled, I screamed, then we were spinning around, rolling, I remember when we came to rest the car was upside-down, I was hanging from my seatbelt, there was blood… everywhere, all over everything..." She stopped. She was silent for a long time. Eve was hurting so bad inside to recall this, and I wanted to say something, do something, but I had nothing. She had watched her parents die. You can't play that off with a lame joke.

"Two dead on site. My dad, and the other driver. Mom died on the way to the hospital. I was the only survivor. I had a crack in my skull and a concussion. I was unconscious for two days, when I came to I was in the hospital, hooked up to those bleeping machines. I saw Grace sitting by my bedside, and as soon as she saw me open my eyes her face lit up. She called for the doctor, told me I was going to be okay. And then I asked her 'Where's Mom? Where's Dad?' And she just froze up, and broke down crying, and..." Eve brought her hand to her face, fighting back the tears. "And you know what the worst part is? When they told me that my parents were dead, the first thing I felt..."

Eve choked on her words, and was silent for a very long time. When she did speak, it was a tiny squeak barely higher than a whisper:

"I was glad."

And now the dam broke, and the tears flowed freely down her cheeks. She sobbed and sniffled and tried to go on, her body and her voice shaking. "The first thought through my head was that finally, finally I wouldn't have to deal with them hating me, judging me anymore. And then a second later I was like 'What am I thinking? What kind of monster am I?', and I felt horrible, but I couldn't forget it." She looked straight at me, and my expression must have been stunned. "Can you tell me that's not horrible, Aaron? Can you look me straight in the eye and tell me that's not fucked up?"

I was a long time answering. I wanted to tell her something reassuring… but all that came out was the truth.

"No," I said. "No, I can't. It is fucked up."

Eve lost what remained of her composure, and bend over double, weeping freely, her body curled almost into a ball. She sobbed, and I could do nothing about it.

"But Eve, everybody has trouble with their parents," I told her.

Eve shook her head. "It's not the same, Aaron. It's not..."

"Yes it is!", I interrupted her. "The specifics change, sure, but the problem is always the same: they want us to grow up happy, but they don't understand what happiness means. So they badger and berate and try to mold us into something that's their idea of what we should be, when all we want to do is live our lives on our own terms. My dad..." I stopped short. Bury the past, I thought. Bury the past. Bury it.

But when I saw Eve looking at me expectantly, I knew I couldn't keep silent.

"My Dad… I loved him. And since he died, I've been trying to forget him. I've told myself it was so I could move on, but the truth of it is… Eve, my dad was a good man, and he was a good father, or at least he tried to be. But it's also his fault that Mom and I are in the state we are today. Not because of how he died, but because of how he lived. He wanted us to be happy, and the way he did that was by buying things. He was really into the whole 'keeping up with the Joneses' lifestyle, our house was just full of status symbols and expensive crap. That was happiness, to him. It was having all the stuff that made the neighbors jealous. But it all cost money, and he got most of it through debt. Credit cards, car loans, mortgage, second mortgage to redo the house. And he kept it all from us. We never realized just how far we were living beyond our means. Maybe he thought that once he got that raise, that promotion, whatever, he'd be able to pay it off.

"And then he got sick, and… he died slow. He died really, really slow. He wasted away, day after day, every day a little weaker, a little worse. All that time, the money that was supposed to go to the debt was going to hospital bills instead. It was a death spiral, and by the time we even realized it was happening, everything was already gone. Mom and I, we're basically broke right now, living off Aunt Diane's charity, and there's still a lot of debt left over. All that... stuff. All the happy memories of fun with it, time we'd all spent together, the three of us, all of it evaporated. And I have to wonder, did it ever really make us happy, or were we just blissfully ignorant of how shallow it all was? Fake happiness?"

I ran my hands through my hair and sighed deeply. "I loved my Dad, Eve. But if I'm honest, I also hate him. Hate him for leaving us with such a mess. Hate him for showing us the good life and then taking it away with him and leaving us with the bill. Hate him because I'm stuck cleaning up after his mistakes. Hate him most of all because I trusted him to take care of us. To be a dad."

I turned to Eve, who was looking at me without knowing what to say. "Eve, what I'm trying to say is... it's not your fault that your parents are dead. And if it's wrong for you to despise them, then everybody else in the world is just as wrong. We all have to deal with the fallout of our parents' mistakes. And we all wind up hating them for it. That doesn't make you a monster, Eve. It makes you a human being."

Eve shook her head. "Aaron… it's not the same."

"You didn't kill your parents, Eve," I said. "It was just a crazy accident."

Eve tried to interrupt me. "Aaron, it's not..."

"They happen every day, all over the world- people die for no reason…"

"You don't understand..."

"Of course I don't!", I snapped, startling her into silence. "I can't understand, Eve! I don't know your parents, I never even met them! I wasn't there. But I am here. And what I see here and now is a beautiful, confident, sensitive, passionate young woman. The most beautiful woman in the world! And you have nothing to be ashamed of, Eve. Nothing! Not because you smoke weed or pull pranks or get into trouble or whatever it is they didn't want you doing. All of it, even the ugly bits, they only make you more beautiful. More real. More Eve. If your parents couldn't see it, then they're the ones who were wrong!"

Eve sat there, looking at me, her lips trembling. "Aaron… you don't get it. It's none of that. There's… there's something wrong with me, maybe not wrong, but if you knew it… you'd hate me."

I shook my head. "I could never hate you, Eve. Never."

"You would, Aaron," she said. "You really would."

"Try me," I dared.

Eve was still for a moment, just looking at me, considering risks, weighing outcomes. Then she broke my gaze and hung her head. "I can't. I'm sorry."

I slumped backwards, catching myself on my hands before I could collapse on the bed. Stared up at the ceiling. Useless. "God, Eve, I wish I could show you how beautiful you really are. I wish I could show you how you look through my eyes."

Eve said nothing. We just sat there, both of us, slowly drowning in an impotence of silence.

Abruptly, a look of realization crossed Eve's face. "Maybe you can," she said.

I sat up and watched as she rummaged through some things beneath the foot of the bed. After finding a small pencil case, she sat up, took her sketchbook, and handed pad and pencils to me.

"Draw me," Eve said.

I hesitated. "Um… are you sure? I mean… it's been awhile, I'm probably not as good as I used to be..."

"Try," Eve said.

"Well…," I said. "Okay, I'll give it my best."

I'd done okay in art class, but that had been last year. And I didn't have the passion for it that Eve did- I couldn't possibly equal her work. What if I made her look ugly, and myself like an idiot?

Eve sat across from me, looking at me straight on. I took a sharpened charcoal pencil from the case, and cautiously sketched a rough outline of Eve's head. I looked back up at her and considered. "Sorry, but can I ask you something?"

"What is it?", she replied.

"Could you take down your hood?" I said.

She hesitated, a nervous look in her eyes.

"It's just that it's difficult to draw someone with their face obscured. Plus, well… I think you look pretty with your hair down," I said with a small smile.

She returned my smile. After a moment's further hesitation, she drew the hood down. She also smoothed out her hair a bit, so that it fell around her shoulders.

"Turn, um..." I said, gesturing over my shoulder. "Not, like, profile, but..."

"Like this?" she said, turning her head slightly.

"Perfect," I said. "Just hold it like that."

An amateur artist, somewhat out of practice, drawing a portrait of an aspiring professional for her own critique, is a whole lot of pressure! But as Miss Ross used to say, I didn't have to invent the image, just draw what I saw. And seeing Eve there, with bright eyes and waves of hair and a small smile, sincere yet vulnerable, I was inspired. I called up what I'd learned last year and put it to work. It didn't have to be a perfect likeness, it just had to represent her as I saw her.

It took only a few minutes to sketch an image of Eve's head and shoulders. I held it up, compared it to the subject, and saw that it was good. Well, acceptable, at least.

"Finished," I said. "And I think I did pretty well, if I do say so myself."

"Okay," Eve said. "Let me see, then."

I passed it over. She took it and looked. In her face I saw first surprise, then disbelief, than perplexity. "Aaron…," she said, "this… this isn't me. It looks nothing like me."

I took out my phone, put it in selfie mode, and passed it over to her. "Look at it next to the original," I suggested.

She took the phone and looked at herself in it, like a mirror. Looked back and forth from one to the other several times. Tilted her head so that the phone would reflect her from the proper angle. She blinked as the truth came into focus. "How… how did you do that?," she asked. "How could you see that?"

"I just looked," I said softly. "And then I drew what I saw. That's you. That's Eve. The lovely woman I see whenever I look at you. The only person who can't see it is you."

She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She hugged the sketchbook to her chest, a smile on her face and tears in her eyes. "Aaron… Aaron, you're..."

The sentence hung in the air, unfinished. Finally, Eve took in a large breath, and let it out. She laid aside the phone and sketchbook. Wiped the tears off on her sleeves. Clasped her hands together in front of her, eyes closed, still smiling, almost like a prayer. "Don't freak out," she said. "Don't freak out..."

I had no idea what was going through her head right then. But with knowledge of what came next, I can imagine her thinking that she would have to share this with somebody, sometime. And if not me, if not here, if not now, then when?

Taking another breath, she got up from the bed. I moved to follow her, but she stopped me. "No, just sit," she said. I took a seat on the edge of the mattress. Eve moved a few steps away, then turned to face me. "Aaron…," she said. "The other day, when I told you I wanted to just be friends… the truth is…." She stopped. Apparently, it sounded wrong. After a moment to gather her thoughts, she started again: "Aaron… ever since I've known you, I…." But that, too, didn't sound quite right. Embarrassed, she turned around, to face away from me, and caught her breath again. She was shaking all over.

"Aaron…," Eve said, "I want you to see me."

There was the sound of a zipper being drawn down.

"I want you to see all of me," she said.

Eve's iconic cat-eared hoodie slid down her arms and fell to the floor. Behind it was a light gray tank-top that exposed her arms up to the shoulders. Her voice trembled with what was either nerves, anticipation, or- most likely- both. "So… just sit there," she said. "Don't move. Don't speak. Just let me show you."

Obediently, I sat bolt-still and said nothing. Eve took hold of the top and pulled it out of her jeans, before lifting it over her head. She wore a plain bra, light blue, underneath. Below it, her back was smooth and unblemished. She dropped the top to the floor, then took a second to straighten her hair. As I watched, she fumbled to unhook the bra. When she got it, it slid off her shoulders to the floor. Slowly, she turned around, as if on a turntable, letting me see her exposed chest. As she turned, her eyes fell on me…

And she brought her hand to her mouth to restrain a sudden laugh. She hadn't expected to see me topless when she turned.

"Well, I didn't feel right sitting here fully-clothed while you'd be naked," I said.

Eve smiled. "You're sweet, Aaron."

"I try," I said. "So, what do you think?" I said, puffing out my chest, arms akimbo. I wasn't exactly centerfold material, I knew. I didn't work out, and it showed, though I wasn't pudgy either. I had a small tuft of hair in the center of my chest, largely because shaving it just made it itch until it grew back.

"Mmm," Eve said, "Not too bad. Not like I can complain, I mean…," she gestured at her bust. Her breasts were, as she feared, rather small. But they were shapely, and the stomach beneath them was slim and fit, showing neither bone nor bulge. Pleasing to the eye. My eyes, anyway. It was getting the blood moving. To places that should be obvious.

"They're petite," I told her, "But that's not bad. Watermelons on a slim figure like yours would look weird. You need the right breasts, not the biggest ones, and those are… pretty close to right, I'd say."

She giggled and brushed aside a stray lock of hair, before biting her lip. "There's… there's more," she said.

I nodded and drew an invisible zipper across my lips.

Eve leaned down to take off her shoes. She leaned far enough to give me a good view of how her breasts looked when dangling. She undid the laces easily, and then sock and sneaker came off at once. One foot, and then the other. Then she turned her attention to her jeans. The belt unbuckled easily. The button was just as simple. Her hand touched the zipper, and she hesitated. After a moment, she turned around again, giving me a view of her from behind. There was sound of a zipper opening, and then she slid her pants off. Light blue panties wrapping a small bottom came into view. Tight, I thought. Tight is good. She slid the jeans all the way to the floor, again leaning forward to give me the best possible view.

After stepping out of her jeans she stood, still bent over, with her legs pressed tightly against each other. An awkward pose, I thought. I heard her take a breath. "Okay," she said, to reassure herself. "Okay…." Without pausing, she took hold of her panties and slid them off the same way. Bare girl-ass was before me, the curves flowed into her slim, pressed-together legs to give it the shape of a heart. I am not an ass man, but tight was most definitely good.

Finally she stood upright, still facing away from me. She held her hands over her crotch, despite the fact that she was already facing away from me. Suddenly, she was trembling again. "Sorry," she said. "Just… give me a second. This is the hardest part." Her shoulders rose and fell with a deep, bracing breath. She slid one leg to the side, and then, too quickly for second thoughts, she spun around, throwing her hands wide in a gesture that said "ta-da!" But if she felt like saying something like that, she couldn't. I noticed her face first, and there was no "ta-da!" there either, just an apprehensive look. Her body was tense, all over. Not understanding, I nevertheless traced my gaze down her body, through the hills of her perfectly proportioned bust and the flat, easy plains of her stomach and around the small bud of her navel to…

I blinked.

A puzzled expression came over my face and I blinked again. That was… unexpected. That was not how a girl is supposed to look naked.

"Uh…," I said, uncomprehending. "Is that, uhh..."

Eve's voice was shaking. "A- A penis. Yes, it's… that's what it is." She swallowed hard.

I looked again. That was a penis. I hadn't seen very many in real life, but that was definitely what it was. On Eve. A girl. My mouth hung open. I tried to speak, to say something, but I couldn't. My brain had locked up. Does not compute.

"Is… is it… okay?", Eve stammered. "Is… is it ugly? Is it gross? Is it…? Aaron…?"

I didn't know what to say. My mind ran itself in circles. My jaw flapped, but no words at all came out.

Eve looked back at me, anxiety rising in her face like a pot in the process of boiling over. "Aaron… Aaron please, don't… don't look at me like… Aaron, you… you have to…", she clapped her hands over her face. "Oh my god… Oh my god, Aaron, I… I'm sorry. I didn't… I shouldn't… I knew this was a bad idea. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just…," Her voice was frantic, approaching the point of panic. I wanted to go to her but I was frozen, paralyzed by confusion and indecision. "Aaron, I'm sorry," she said, backing up, eyes darting to the bathroom door. "I just… I thought… Aaron, please Aaron, just… don't hate me."

It happened in a second, in a space between seconds even. Eve turned and tried to bolt for the bathroom, and the next thing I knew I was on my feet, holding her by her arm. I didn't remember rising from the bed. I remember I said something, probably her name. She looked at me with a look somewhere between agony and absolute terror, her still-beating heart balanced on a razor's edge. I didn't understand. None of this made sense. The room was spinning. Up was down and in was out.

I looked straight into Eve's eyes- into those shimmering, shining, beautiful blue wishing-well eyes. I didn't understand anything, but from out of those eyes I drew the one thing I knew with absolute, unquestionable certainty.

I loved Eve.

I. Loved. Eve.

That idea became my northstar. The stable and immutable point amidst the spinning circles of the cosmos. The bright beacon by which I could navigate my way home.

I loved Eve.

I lunged forward and kissed her. Kissed her full on the lips with everything in my heart and soul.

Does a kiss have a language? Can it speak? It's an idea I'd never considered, but in this kiss Eve spoke to me in a language that defied words. At first there was panic, shock, fear. That faded in a moment. Then there was conflict, a primal need to flee battling against a yearning desire to stay. The accumulated anxiety of a hundred awful memories and a thousand but-what-ifs. This dissolved, slowly. I drank in her pains through that kiss and purified them, feeding them back to her as tiny, unspoken reassurances. Then there was cautious, trembling desire, a need that compelled her hands to hold my face, and mine to hers. And finally, there was peace. The tension in her muscles melted away, until they reached a state of relaxation. There was calm. Serenity.

Belonging.

We parted, and I looked on her. The world was no longer spinning. The room was still, and my feet were steady on the ground. Eve's face filled my field of vision, more beautiful than I'd ever seen her before. Her cheeks were warm, her hair smelled of flowers, and I could still taste her lips on my own.

"It's okay," I told her. "You surprised me, that's all. I wasn't expecting it, and for a minute I didn't know what to do. But that's okay. Loving somebody… it means letting them surprise you. And now, I guess it's my turn to surprise you. To surprise both of us, really. Eve… I don't care."

I didn't realize how beautiful those words sounded until I said them. They made me giddy. I actually laughed. "I don't care," I repeated. "I absolutely, positively do not care! I don't! It…," I took a breath to regain my composure. Eve had tears in her eyes, but not sad ones. "It wasn't your body I fell in love with, Eve. It was you. The beautiful woman under the skin."

The tears started running in rivers from her eyes. "Aaron!" she cried, and threw her arms around me. She held me, and I held her in return. We held each other so tight, it felt like we would never let go. Her body was soft and warm against mine. She sobbed into my ear. "Aaron," she said. "Aaron, I love you! You're so wonderful! I...", but she couldn't put it into words. It didn't matter. Words weren't needed, now. After she withdrew I wiped the tears from her cheeks. Her face was ecstatically giddy. I felt almost lightheaded myself.

We kissed again. But this was a simpler kiss. It was hot and breathtaking. Passionate. Primal. Desirous. This time, when we parted, our mouths hung open. I felt her breaths on my lips, and those breaths were sultry, heavy, and deep. Eve pursed her lips, moistening them, and there was a suggestive glint in her eyes.

"Say," I said, with a probably-goofy grin on my face. "Could I, uh…"

But I didn't get a chance to finish that question.

The loud bang of a door slamming against a wall announced an intruder. Eve and I hurriedly separated. She screamed, covering her chest and crotch awkwardly. I covered my own crotch as well, before realizing I still had pants on. Odette stumbled into room, looking queasy and holding a bottle of liquor in her hand. "Clear the way!", she said. Odette blundered and crashed her way towards the bathroom. Once there, she tripped over her feet, fell to the floor, and hurriedly bent over the rim of the tub.

"Odette, that's not the toilet…!", Eve said. Too late, as Odette vomited into the bathtub, ruining the mat.

Suddenly, Grace burst into the bedroom, looking like she'd just woken up. "Eve! I heard you scream, what… whoa!" Seeing us, she quickly stumbled backwards, turning to the wall, and Eve and I, both startled, jumped again.

"What the hell, Grace?!", Eve said.

"What the hell, me?," Grace replied. "What the hell, you! You're bare-ass naked with… What the hell, Aaron?!"

I had no idea how to answer. "What the hell… What the hell, Odette, that's what the hell! What the...",

"What the hell, YOU?!", Grace insisted.

"What the hell, YOU TOO?!", I threw back. "What..."

From the bathroom, Odette interrupted. "What the hell, everyon-uuuuuuuurgh..." Again she leaned over the tub and there was the wet splatter of vomit. "Beer before liquor, amirite? Should have known better. Urp!" She covered her mouth, unsure if another round of upchuck was coming.

With the mood killed deader than disco and a sloppily drunk goth girl now in the mix, I decided I'd better go. Eve and I both dressed, then Grace asked Eve to look after Odette while she let me out. I wanted to kiss Eve goodbye, but Grace was all but dragging me out of the room. So instead I waved from across the room and promised to text her later.

Minutes later, we stood in the garage. Grace took hold of the door handle, but didn't turn it.

"Are we okay?", I asked.

Grace let go of the handle and turned to address me. Her voice was firm, but even. "My sister is a grown woman. She has to make her own decisions. My job, as the closest thing to a parent she has left, is not to make sure she's happy, but to make sure she survives, physically and mentally. I'd ask if you're going to make my job difficult, but your answer wouldn't be honest even if you thought it was. You're young, and you have no idea how complicated a relationship can be." Grace took a good hard look at me. Maybe assessing me for signs of weakness. Then she continued. "You seem to be a good man, and Eve obviously trusts you enough to show you her secrets. Now it's your job to keep those secrets. Four people know about this- Me, Odette, Eve's doctor, and now you. Nobody else gets to know. Nobody. Not unless Eve chooses to tell them herself. I don't care how bad she hurts you, or how angry she makes you. And she will do both, eventually. There's no such thing as a relationship free of pain. Nobody. Knows. Understood?"

"Absolutely," I said, without hesitation.

Satisfied- or as much as she was going to be, anyway- Grace unlocked the door and rolled it up. I waved good night and walked out. At the sidewalk, I stopped and looked back. "Grace," I said, "I want the same things for Eve that you do. I can't promise I won't make mistakes, but… I'll always do what's best for her."

Grace looked at me, weighing whether or not she should say something. In the end, she just shut the garage door.

I stepped back and looked the building over. Up on the second floor, through the window, I saw Eve- sans hoodie, I noticed- looking out at me. She waved tentatively. I blew her a kiss, which made her smile, albeit forlornly. Then I turned and walked away.

Quite an evening, I thought as I walked. I'd expected movie night and hanging out, with a remote possibility of make-outs. Instead I got Chinese food and true confessions, then Eve did a striptease for me and we kissed.

We kissed.

I put my fingers to my lips. They were still moist. Run my tongue over my lips. They still tasted of her, even. We kissed.

Laughing maniacally, I ran to the corner, jumped at a lamppost, and rebounded off it in lieu of a simple turn. It was around eight o'clock- just past sunset, in April- and the shops along Main street were still open. A handful of shoppers were milling about, walking to or fro with purchases while being distracted by a teen-aged male in a t-shirt and dark clothes dancing his way down the sidewalk like a loon.

I barreled my way down the street, whirling awkwardly to music that was only in my head and doing random dance steps from wherever or whatever. Passing by a laundromat, I made gun barrels from my index fingers and blasted away at the windows with intangible bullets, "Pew pew pew!" I sidestepped nimbly away from a lady walking a dog. Jumped up on a lamppost and swung around it like Fred Astaire. Pedestrians gawked. They probably thought I was on drugs, but nope. I got this high on nothing but joy. Eve and I had kissed. It wasn't my first kiss, but it was AWESOME. I was so psyched I could dance all night. Hell, I felt like could dance forever. I danced all the way down the block.

Then I barreled into an old lady with a granny cart, knocking her groceries all over the place. I stopped to apologize and help her up, but instead wound up running down the next block, chased by her very angry middle-aged son.

After outdistancing him, I took it slow and careful the rest of the way home. There were crazies on these streets.