Mari

IT’S WELL INTO JANUARY and she still hasn’t heard from Julian. She doesn’t have language and literature this semester. She doesn’t dare to go to his classroom after class. She’s been waiting for him to call. He’ll call. He has to call eventually. Because he wants her all the time.

But he doesn’t call, not even after the first week of February.

Mari calls him once. On a Monday night after six o’clock. She sits on her bed and listens to the plastic charm knock against her phone as her hand shakes. The phone rings seven times. Julian doesn’t answer. She puts the phone down on the bedspread. The light on the phone goes off. That stupid bear logo appears on the display. She knows Julian isn’t going to call her back. She can see her own reflection in the window, the way her face twists just before the tears come.

ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, the thirteenth of February, Mari puts on mascara, a flared skirt, and boots.

After her last class of the afternoon, she walks down the hallway to Julian’s classroom and stops in front of the door. Students are still coming out of the room. She waits for all of them to leave.

Julian is wiping the blackboard, doesn’t turn around until she’s quite close to him.

Mari’s afraid to look at him. Afraid that his face will immediately show her what she fears. But when he turns around, all she sees on his face is that familiar calm.

“Hi,” he says.

A mere statement. A firm nod of the head and one neutral syllable.

“Hi,” Mari answers.

Just saying hi exposes her uncertainty and fear, all her helplessness and desire not to be rejected. She can hear it herself. There’s nothing she can do but admit it right away: all that matters hangs on that desire. She’s so close to tears that she wants to run away.

“Why haven’t you called me? Or answered my calls?” she says.

“Yeah,” Julian says slowly, sitting down on the edge of the teacher’s desk.

He looks out the window and sighs. Mari can tell already.

“What do you think about this situation?” he says.

All she can answer is, “I want to be with you.”

“You’re sixteen years old.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Her voice has started to tremble. A large tear rolls down her cheek.

Julian comes close to her and takes her in his arms. She presses her head against his shirt. Everything about him is so familiar and yet so strange. She starts to cry even more.

“Don’t cry, sweetheart,” Julian whispers.

He takes her face in his hands and kisses her cheeks. He kisses both of her eyes, then her lips. First lightly, then more deeply. She presses herself against him and eases her hand into his pants, feels his stiff penis.

“Wait, let me close the door,” he whispers.

Behind the locked door, they do it again. Julian takes off her boots and stockings, lifts her onto the desk. He pushes himself into her and she thinks that maybe he’ll want to be with her as long as she lets this happen, that she has to keep letting this happen over and over so that he’ll remember her skin, and everything, and not want to let go of her even for a minute.