Friday looked like rain. That sneaky summer rain that waits for a still moment and sucks the air out of the world before it explodes the sky into water. For the first time in eons, Mom drove me to school. We sat in the van like strangers on a plane, making awkward small talk.
"You still talk to Bonney?"
"Who?"
"That Bonney girl you went around with. The pink haired girl, with the piercing?"
"I haven't talked to her since I started here."
"Oh."
Traffic light. Yellow. Red.
"Got lunch money?"
"Yeah."
"Where you get it?"
"Turned a trick."
"Watch your fuckin' mouth."
Green.
"Can you get out here? I got a pickup."
I opened the door wordlessly.
"Babe."
I looked at my mother. She had my face, under crayon makeup. She had that small town drawl that told you she had a dead-end future-something I would never, ever have.
"Let's go out this weekend. You and me."
Drop dead.
"I'm gonna be late." I said.
"Love you."
I slammed the door. Pictured it closing on her face. The clown stamp she'd leave on the glass.
You wondered why I lied to you Mr. Donquixote? Because I'm never going to be her.
~·~
"We're going to do things differently in this class," He said. I sat next to Law, my attention drifting outside. A big old granddaddy black oak shivered in the sudden breeze, a thousand leaves clicking dryly, like castanets. The world was tense and desaturated, waiting for the catharsis of rain. I knew exactly how it felt.
Law filmed Mr. Donquixote and the two exchanged a look-or rather, Mr. Donquixote shot him a look, one that seemed personal and Law simply gazed back at him, his face void of emotion. Mr. Donquixote accepted that he really didn't have a choice whether he wanted to be filmed or not, though he did go on to talk about permission. Permission was very important.
Remember that.
"I'm not a believer in tests or quizzes or any of that bullshit," our teacher said. Bullshit got my attention. I turned to him. Casual today. Jeans and a plaid shirt. He wore glasses sometimes, simple plastic frames, the narrow lenses emphasizing that crinkling thing his eyes did.
I was not the only girl in class who noticed this. Olive, a girl with skin the colour of butterscotch and eyes that were more like emerald stones, kept crossing her legs this way, then that.
Law held the camera on Mr. Donquixote.
I rolled my eyes.
"I'm only giving you one assignment this semester," Mr. Donquixote continued. "You're going to make a short film. Any genre, any style, any subject. It can be a documentary about your three-legged cat. It can be a classic sci-fi genre film." His eyes touched me, and I blushed. "Whatever. It's up to you. Minimum three minutes long, max ten. You can group up or tackle it solo. I strongly encourage you to group-that's how most films get made.
He leaned against the desk. I thought about that body atop mine on the long front seat of his car. Olive yawned, stretching her arms above her head. Cleavage shot.
"However," Mr. Donquixote said, looking straight at me, raising all the blood to my skin, "if you're some kind of mad genius, you can go at it alone. It's all up to you."
Olive narrowed her eyes at me, like a cat.
"This project is due by winter break. We'll watch and grade them together. You cannot ask me any questions about it. I've told you all you need to know. If you weren't paying attention, I'll post a copy to our class folder online."
Law turned to me, setting the camera down for the first time during class.
"So, I guess you've given me your undivided attention now just to tell me that I have no choice but to partner up with you?" I said before he could. He cocked a brow as if displeased with me calling him out.
"So," He began as he rose from his desk just as the bell rang. "you are learning something. Well done." He smirked down at me. It felt like he was praising me and mocking me at the same time under that gaze of his. I ground my teeth together.
I dallied, hoping Law would leave without me, but he waited, patiently so. Mr. Donquixote watched me, his face angled partially away, shadowed. Our gazes struck like flint and steel. The smell of gunpowder filtering in from nowhere. We burned.
~·~
Law grazed at his lunch, seeming distant as he bit into a rice ball. I allowed my mind to wonder off too, into the parking lot, moon-eyed. Here and there a dash of rain shot down, a meteor streak of water. The sky clenched, desperately holding itself in. There's something terrible about wanting something you've had. You know exactly what you're missing. You're body knows precisely how to shape itself around the ache, the hollowness that wants to be filled.
Jesus Christ, this was only the first week of school. No fucking way would I make it to winter break, let alone June.
"Remy,"
I glanced at Law miserably.
You know, he wasn't terrible-looking. He had character. Deep-set eyes, cool, steel-grey, intense. Hair that looked as if someone had taken liquid midnight and froze it so that it always looked windblown. He had a sharp Adam's apple and lips that flexed easily into a lupine grin.
The old me would have slept with him, probably. He had that mature air about him that didn't totally come across as bullshit. But there was this voice in my head that asked why a teenage boy like him hadn't tried any moves on me.
Whatever it was, I was glad that he didn't.
"What?" I said.
There was that wolfish grin. "You've got a crush on Mr. Donquixote."
My belly tightened. Crush was an understatement of the year. But it might be good to know how it looked to an outsider.
"Why do you think that?"
"Because you've been walking around with that I-want-to-be-fucked face all day."
I laughed. Not too full blown. "Oh, you know the face?" He didn't answer but his expression hadn't faltered. "Olive has a crush on him, too."
Law scoffed, slowly leaning over the table. "Would you fuck him?"
Decision time. Do I let Law know the real me, or do I make up a persona for him, a suit of armor I can take on and off? As if there was a choice. As if I wasn't burning up inside with this. Every time I opened my mouth, flame licked up my throat. I could have razed villages, kidnapped princesses.
"Yeah," I said. "I would."
His brows rose. "Have you? With a man that old?"
I smiled enigmatically, plucking a chicken nugget from my tray and biting it.
"You don't even know what old is." I said. "Mr. Donquixote is probably like, 29 maybe 30. That's nothing."
Law smirked darkly, knowingly.
"He was in high school before you were born."
My heart paused. Little factoids like that really cut to the bone of reality. "So?"
"Which means he would have been sleeping with high school girls when you were just a child."
"What is wrong with you?"
Law blinked at me. The cogs behind his eyes churning as if I had asked him the meaning of life.
We sat in utter silence before Law sighed, his chest expanding then deflating. Armor up, I stood from the table. "So, what do you want me to do?" I huffed. Law's gaze slowly trailed up from his tray.
"Nothing."
"I thought-"
"Do nothing."
~·~
I was waiting at his car when he came out. Some teachers stay late on Friday, catching up on papers, making plans to hit the bars together. Mr. Donquixote headed for his car exactly fifteen minutes after the last bell.
I could tell when he saw me, the hitch in his step, the quick, guilty scan for witnesses. In the student lot kids yelled and honked as they took off for the weekend, but the faculty lot was quiet. I sat on the hood of his car, one foot propped on the fender beside it. A tiny, distorted version of myself swirled in the hubcap chrome: creamy legs below my cutoffs, old black canvas sneakers. The silver sky wrinkled with storm clouds.
He stopped in front of the hood. His hand tightened on the strap of his messenger bag, his knuckles white spurs.
"Do you need to talk?" He said in a muted voice.
I shook my head slowly. His chest rose and fell with his breath. He went to the driver side, unlocked it, stood there unmoving.
"We can't do this." He said, but it sounded like he was talking to himself.
I hoped off the hood and he got in the car. But he just sat there, keys glinting in a limp hand. The he turned and looked at me through the passenger window. My eyes skipped to the dashboard then back to him.
There was something very boyish about him at that moment, despite the five o' clock shadow, the blue rivers of veins mapping the back of his hands, the entire adult world he was part of. He looked lost. Maybe it was hypocritical, but the boyishness I barely tolerated in guys my age was exactly what drew me to him. He was like me: not fully part of the adult or child world. An exile, watching wistfully from the outside.
Something sharp and cold struck my shoulder.
A car drove past and we were utterly still.
Another icy dagger, this time hitting the crown of my head. Then it all came at once, the sky exploding into water.
Thank you, Jesus.
Mr. Donquixote sat there watching me. He didn't take his eyes off mine for a second, even when my hair plastered itself to my face and my shirt turned to cling film. I stood there motionless, expressionless, knowing I was going to win.
He leaned over and opened the door.
I got in.
Rain drummed on metal, a hundred wild heartbeats surrounding us. Mist came off my skin as if I was some ethereal creature. Our bodies faced forward, our faces angled toward each other.
"I missed that smell," He said, a smile playing on his voice. "Your smell."
Everything solid in me evaporated, leaving only breath. I weighed nothing.
He started the car. I felt the engine rumble in my belly. I was very thin, transparent piece of skin, everything going right through me. A sheet of nerve endings. I pressed my palms to the seat and drank in the smell: the old leather of the seats, the new leather of his skin, and, startlingly, me. My presence suffused his car. Rain and orange oil, the creamy body lotion that was coming off on the seat. I wiped wet hair out of my face and Mr. Donquixote caught my hand.
I waited, wide-eyed, ready for anything.
His fingers curled around mine, painfully. His whole arm was rigid. Tension corded up into his neck, his jaw. No words. Just that crushing grip.
He let go.
"Where do you live?"
~·~
It rained ruthlessly. I had no sense of time passing, of moving through space, only the zircon curtain clattering against the windows and the heat of his body so close to mine. I knew he was barely paying attention either because he almost ran a red. He slammed the brakes so hard the tires screeched and I caught myself on the dashboard, his arm tangling with mine.
"Killing us both is one way to solve it." I said.
He drove more carefully, his hands strangling the steering wheel. The closer we got to my street, the faster something accelerated inside me, a terrifying urgency. How could I stall? How could I wring more out of this moment before it was over?
He parked several houses down from mine. I didn't tell him to, and there was room in front of my house. My heart stuttered.
Car interior, afternoon, heavy rain, two people turn to each other. Raindrops crawl over the windows and paint shadows across their faces.
Action.
"Corazon," I said.
It was the first time I'd said his name since that night. It hit him like an electric shock, opening his eyes wider, stiffening his muscles. There was power in it and I wanted to play with that power. But not yet.
"I'm sorry I left that night."
"Why did you go?" He asked.
There was no choice here of putting on the armor. This man had already seen the real me.
"Because I was scared," I started. "Because you made me feel like being myself wasn't such a bad thing. Like it might even be...special. I didn't know how to deal with it, an I panicked." I grimaced, hearing my own words.
"This sounds stupid." My left hand lay on the seat. He covered it with his.
"No, it doesn't. You're being honest, so I'll be honest, too." His finger contracted. "This feels wrong, Remy. I'm your teacher. It's not just about getting caught, It's how our lives will get screwed up even if no-one finds out. Sneaking around, secrecy, paranoia-"
"You're seriously underestimating how much I like espionage. And it's just until school ends."
"Is that how you want to spend your senior year?"
"I don't want to spend it wondering what could have been."
His expression turned morose, inward-looking.
"Corazon," I said again, and he focused on me. "If I hadn't left that night, if this kept going...would you still think we should stop now?"
"I don't know."
"Do you really want to stop?"
"No," He said softly.
There was no desperate collision of bodies this time. We moved in small increments, my fingers lacing through his,my neck craning toward him. My gaze fixed itself on his jaw, the place just under his lower lip. His free hand came up and touched my mouth, traced it, fingertips pushing in, against my teeth. Again I grimaced. I saw him blur as I looked through my wet lashes. Unbearable. All of this restraint, everything furled and reined in, while the rain came down with pure wrath.
A car roared past, throwing a tsunami against his door. We both started. It must have broken the trance because then his arms were around me and I was on my knees, kissing him, pressing his back to the window. I tasted glassy rain and my own wet hair tangling across my face. He didn't stop me to fix his shot. He wanted me as I was, raw, unedited. His hand ran up the back of my bare leg, his fingers stroking the inside of my thigh. I gasped against his mouth. Rubbed my face against his jaw, hard, feeling the grit. Mark me, I thought. Give me something to take away with me. Something I can touch when I'm alone, remembering this.
When we stopped to breath he took my face between his hands. "You don't know what you do to me. I can't look at you in that classroom."
"You look at me all the time."
"And do horrible things to you in my head."
My blood was wildfire. I felt my swollen mouth, my sharp teeth digging into my lip, my dreamy half-shut eyes, and knew what I looked like to him. "Do them to me." I said. "Take me somewhere."
He gave a long, long sigh. His lips were shades darker than before, from my attention. "I want to. You have no idea how much I want to." Two fingers on my chin, pinching gently. "This moving is moving too fast. We should think it through. Think about how to be less conspicuous."
My face lit up with glee. "I can be discreet. I can be Harriet the fucking Spy."
His hands moved to my ribs. Palms cupping my breasts, rubbing my wet shirt into my skin. It chafed, but I didn't want him to stop. I wanted this. Imprint yourself on me, I thought. It felt like he held all of me, gathered there next to my heart, small enough to fit in his hands.
"I wish I could take you away." He said in a rough, eerie, whisper.
I shivered. "How am I supposed to make it through the weekend?"
"I was wondering the same thing."
We kissed for a while, soft, sweet good-bye, kisses. We traded numbers. We touched each other's faces, hands. The glass had gone opaque, glowing with fuzzy spots of colour, the way a camera blurs background lights. We kissed again. I tried to think of another excuse to stay in his car, and he smiled, reading my thoughts.
"I don't know what I'm doing with you." He said.
"That's okay," I said. "Just don't stop."
I stood in the rain, watching his car go, a string tied to it looped around my heart and pulled tighter and tighter until it sheared clean through.