Lilith sits across from me at the Firehouse coffee shop. Her eyes dart through the ugly wall art as she nips her brownie.
“Is that supposed to be a sunflower?” she says. “I mean, do they let anyone show artwork in here? Two hundred bucks for that piece of crap!”
I cup both sides of my porcelain mug as she reapplies her lip gloss and pretends to play with her phone. She’s deliberately avoiding the topic of last night. Yes, she’s taken me to every party I’ve ever been to, and I should have returned the favor, but . . . How would I explain it? The invitation? Kurt?
“So, there was this party last night . . .” I venture. “At—”
“Carrie’s house,” she interrupts. “Yeah, I know.”
She grabs a handful of sugar packets and tears them open, dumping them in her drink. I count six packets before she tosses the rest aside and takes a sip without stirring.
“Look, I didn’t know if I could invite—”
“I thought this was supposed to be our best year ever,” she interrupts again. “Remember? You and me.”
“Yeah, I know . . .”
“So?” She stares at me and I don’t know how to tell her that I wanted this for myself. That I needed the space. That this is one of those invisible places I’m not ready to show her.
“You’re right, I should have . . .” But then I think of that kiss and Kurt, and I don’t want to apologize for making room for that. I roll my shoulders and try again. “I kissed Kurt,” I say, taking a sip of my drink and hoping that will satiate her.
Lilith doesn’t react and coffee burns my tongue.
She’s supposed to be excited about this. Wasn’t that the whole point of her pushing me to lose my virginity? So we could talk about these things?
I drag my spoon across the table and punch my foam. “I like him,” I admit. But all I get is red fingernails wrapped around porcelain. “Or—” I backpedal. “Maybe I got caught up in . . . Maybe it’s nothing.”
“Don’t do that,” she says, putting down her drink. “You’re allowed to like him.”
My cup rattles against the saucer and I realize I want her permission. That telling her I kissed Kurt is a notch on my bedpost that I’ve been waiting to tell her I have. Thinking it might bring us closer, and make me more like her.
Only, I really do like him.
Lilith pulls my hand away from the rattling mug and flattens my palm against hers. It’s soft and soothing.
“It’s good that you like him,” she says, tracing the lines of my palm like a fortune-teller, her fingers swirling. Waking the skin. Our eyes meet and her gaze is kind. I need this part of her. I need someone I can trust with this. “What was it like?” she asks, fingers tracing the belly of my wrist. “To kiss the Kurt Medford.”
“Soft,” I whisper, trying to be brave and share this with her.
“Did you like it?” A machine hisses beside us, exhaling froth and steam.
I nod.
“What did he taste like?”
“Salt,” I whisper. “And skin.”
I close my eyes and hear the music. Hear the guitar. His, and then that second one laying in on top of the first.
“Did you want to touch him?”
Lilith’s fingertips flutter like the wings of a firefly. Yawning open. Beating in. And in my mind I see her in the firefly field with that boy on top of her. Suddenly her hands on me feel too daring.
“Lie with him? Open your le—”
I pull away and her hand smacks against the table, her fingers curling up like the legs of a bug.
“What?” She looks at me sharply.
My eyes jet through the coffee shop, embarrassed that someone might be watching. Not sure what kind of voyeuristic stunt Lilith is pulling. There are things we don’t talk about and things we shouldn’t talk about.
“What are you doing?” I pull my arms back, and she shakes her head.
“Nothing,” she says defensively. “I do that shit all the time. When did touching you become a thing?”
I stare at her, realizing how much she doesn’t know me. How much she’ll never know about me. How the space we don’t talk about defines us.
“You weren’t just friendly touching me.” I try to keep my voice down. “You were touching me.”
This weird smile crawls over Lilith, and suddenly I feel manipulated. Everything seems heightened somehow, that kiss in front of Abe, the one when we were young, every time she’s touched my hair.
“Seriously?” she says, her eyes becoming dark slits. “You’ve been more than happy to let me be your surrogate boyfriend for the last four years. And what, now that you’ve actually kissed a boy, it’s a problem?”
“You’ve been my surrogate what?”
“Get over yourself, Marion! You think the way I touch you is something normal friends do?”
Cold reeds though me, and this feels like a trap.
“We’ve been friends for—”
“Forever. Yeah, I know,” she says. “Why do you think I keep pushing this whole virginity thing? Because you’re in desperate need of affection.”
“What are you talking about?”
She looks at me boldly. “You like the way I touch you.”
She shakes her head, a miffed laugh escaping from her throat. “Go ahead and deny it, Marion, like you deny everything. Be my guest. But don’t for a second pretend that you didn’t like it.”
“Are you a lesbian or something?” I ask, and she shakes her head calmly.
“No, but maybe you are.”
“What?” I cough, my head buzzing. She isn’t actually saying this right now, is she? I grip my coffee mug, and hot liquid spills onto my fingers.
“Or maybe you’re not,” Lilith says, raising her hands defensively. “All I know is nobody touches you, Marion. Nobody but me. I’m the only person you let do that.” She lowers her voice. “Look, touching isn’t an issue for me. But it is for you. Why else would you break up with Abe? You two were perfect for each other. If you wanted a nice, innocent romance, you could have had it, but you kicked him to the curb. Why do you think you did that?”
“I, I . . .” My brain is spinning. “I wasn’t ready.”
“Which is exactly why I do it, Marion. For you. So you can figure out how to be ready. Only it’s not some kinky sex thing for me, okay?” Her eyebrows pinch and she looks at me thoughtfully. “Though, it might be for you.”
“Kinky what?”
“It turns you on.”
“No, it doesn’t!” I look around sharply. No one’s looking at us, but it feels like we’re under a microscope. “That doesn’t make any sense.” I lean in to whisper. “Why would you do that?”
“Because you need to be touched, Marion. We all do. I thought if you realized you could be turned on, you would go out and get it from a guy or whomever . . .”
“I’m not into girls.”
“Fine, you’re not into girls. I don’t care. The point is, eventually you’ve got to lose your virginity and get this from someone who isn’t me.”
“I’m not like you, Lilith!”
“You mean someone who can actually deal with her own sexuality? Yeah, I know that.”
I glare at her, furious.
“What were you doing just now?” I demand. “Asking me about Kurt?”
Her lips stretch tight like she can’t believe she has to keep explaining this to me. “You want him, don’t you? You can tell me you don’t all you want, but your skin, your body, it wants him. Doesn’t it?”
I can’t breathe. I feel like she’s thrown me inside my mason jar with the dead bugs and screwed the lid. Tight and suffocating.
“That desire is in you!”
“You kissed me in front of Abe and those—”
“Because that gets boys hot, Marion. It got you hot too, but not because you were kissing me. Because you want to be kissing Abe.”
That isn’t true! Only, it is. I did want to be kissing Abe. I’m so confused and I don’t know what to make of any of this.
“That’s fucked-up,” I say finally.
“Yeah, it is.” She looks at me plainly.
“You’re—”
“Oh no.” She cuts me off before I can blame her again. “It takes two.” She purses her lips, but then her gaze softens. “Look, I understand that you don’t have anyone else. And as fucked-up as you may think it is, I want someone else to touch you. I want you to know how good that can be. I was just trying to be someone you could explore with until you figured out whatever it is you need to figure out.”
“I didn’t need you to—”
“You did.” She pushes her chair back to stand up. “You do.”
The room feels like it’s full of steam and I’m drowning in dead bugs and foam. Lilith grabs her coat and pushes away her chair.
“If you don’t want to be touched anymore, fine,” she says. “If you think this”—she gestures to the table and my hands—“crossed some kind of line, fine. You just had to say so.”
I stare at her, and this whole conversation feels too loud. It’s too public and exposed. I’m furious at her. Furious that she thinks this is about me. Coffee spills onto my napkin, the brown spreading over the white, bleeding.
“I can’t believe—”
“Don’t,” she interrupts, and I clench my hands into fists. “Just go home and . . .” She clutches her purse to her chest. “I don’t know, just, figure out what you want. And figure out how to ask for it.”
My mouth falls open, and I notice people staring.
“I’ll see you at school,” she says, walking to the exit. The door chimes as she goes, leaving a shrill echo with her disappearing footsteps.
I blot the spilled coffee on my tabletop with the soiled napkin. The effort is fruitless, but it’s the only thing I can do. Everything Lilith has said makes my head spin. I didn’t want her to touch me. Did I? Not like she implies I did. It was just something safe, part of the intimacy of knowing her my whole life. I didn’t want more.
I never want more. I don’t want anyone to touch me.
No one.
I swallow and know that isn’t true. I wanted that kiss with Kurt. I like Lilith’s touch when it’s a comfort and she’s not pushing boundaries. Only that’s not what Lilith does. She likes to cross every boundary she can find, and this is another one of her games, manipulating everything. She didn’t do this for me.