Usually Dom’s idea of “personal space” entails texting me every five seconds and sitting very close to me on the couch but not so close that our bodies are touching. (“What! I’ve given you a whole cushion. It’s not like your tushy is very large, Pickle. You don’t need a whole love seat, don’tcha know.”) So it’s surprising he hasn’t bombarded me once over the course of Miss Rosa’s entire field trip. Or really even tried to talk to me since our fight, come to think of it.
Anyway, I’m starting to feel sort of guilty about giving him the silent treatment. So on the way back from Maze of Terror, I text him saying I’m out with NVCG, finding closure “on my own terms” (he’ll like that)—and also, I’m sorry for not telling him sooner about NVCG, but I was mad at him about our fight because I’m a teenager and “sometimes I have hormones” (he’ll understand that, too)—and can I please stay out past eight o’clock tonight—please? Maybe even ten thirty?
To: Dom (Mobile):
Ice cream+emotional debrief with my SUPPORT GROUP 2 discuss healthier coping strategies!! ☺
Really I just want to hang out with Davey.
Dom (Mobile) Received @ 5:30 PM:
THANKYOUFORTELLINGMEIHAVEBEENSOWORR
Dom (Mobile) txt cont.
IEDBUTWANTEDTOGIVEYOUSPACEYESTOICEC
Dom (Mobile) txt cont.
REAMITRUSTYOUSWEETHEARTTAKEYOURTIME
Dom (Mobile) txt cont.
XOXOXOXDOMMY
After “conquering” the maze, Davey and I head back to his place to debrief about what we’ve learned. We pull onto the gravel and jump out, and sure enough, there’s Marco Baseball, basking in the fading sun. He hears us walking over and lifts his head off his paws—his top lip stuck behind his crooked bottom teeth—then raises his eyebrows at my phone, which has started buzzing again. Apparently Dom has not finished what he set out to say.
Dom (Mobile) Received @ 5:40 PM
ALSOIMADEUSBRATWURST!!!SOIWILLPUTYO
Dom (Mobile) txt cont.
URSINTHEFRIDGE? ☹
“Did your dad just send you six texts in a row?” Davey asks, handing me a beer.
“No spaces still, but he’s learning to use punctuation.” I tell Dom “yes please” about the brat, then turn off my phone and stuff it in my backpack.
“That’s progress.” He wraps a scarf around my neck. “My mom refuses to text at all.”
“Cheers,” I say, and our full beer cans make the dull sound of bumping fists. I take a sip and wonder how many mouthfuls will make me drunk—and will I be able to notice? I’m not exactly an experienced party animal. The only other alcohol I’ve ever had was a couple of those tiny rum bottles, which I split with Ruth one night after we discovered them in the cabinet next to where her mom keeps the board games. I threw up after the first sip but that probably would have happened anyway because earlier I’d eaten a whole thing of cookie dough.
“So why don’t you tell me about your hand now?” I ask. I’ve been staring at his stitches for the past fifteen minutes, trying to think of a smooth, conspiratorial way to put this. But like all my questions, it comes out vomitous.
Davey sort of laughs—at my tone maybe, or at the very idea of telling me, I don’t know. “It’s not a very good story.”
“I don’t care.” I imagine him waving his men over some kind of mountain and catching sloppy sniper fire like a touchdown pass—or meeting some sadistic Afghanistani colonel and having to sacrifice his finger as ransom for a prisoner of war. “I won’t tell,” I add. I pinch my thumb and pointer finger together and run them across my lips. “Zzzzp!”
Davey squints at me. “What was that?”
“I was, uh, making a zipping noise.” I take a sip of Beast. “You know, like ‘zip the lips’ . . . or, ‘I promise I won’t tell’?” I reach for his good hand and try to finagle a pinkie swear through our mittens.
He smiles, breathes. “Okay. So, we were in the mountains, right? I’d just found out about Ruth and they weren’t going to let me come back. They said we had a war on our hands. ‘Sorry for your loss, son.’ There were probably other steps I could have taken, I don’t know, but I’d heard of other guys doing it.”
I put down my beer and pull my arms into my coat for warmth. It’s getting colder by the second. “Doing what?”
Davey blinks at me. “Shooting yourself, taking off a part of yourself. Hanging up your hat, or whatever . . . Punching out permanently.” He rubs his palms on his knees. “I’m not going back to the army because they won’t take me, okay? I got dishonorably discharged. I shot off my own finger. My parents both think I’m a lunatic fuckup.” He takes a long sip. “The end.”
I try to picture Davey taking aim at his own hand. Did he use a pistol or a shotgun-type thing? A bayonet? How did he protect the other fingers? Did he flatten his hand against a rock? Did pieces of the rock fly up and kill somebody? Did the finger only come off halfway, hanging from some skin and flesh, forcing him to yank it off like a Band-Aid? I have so many inappropriate questions.
“The guys I knew won’t even talk to me. I shoot them emails and nothing, no response. They think I’m pathetic.”
I wrestle my own fingers back through my coat sleeves and throw my arms around him, knocking his beer out of his hand and soaking both our coats with Beast. “I think what you did was brave,” I mutter. “Who has the guts to shoot themselves just to get home?” Our cheeks are touching, and he’s clasping me so tight I can feel his nails on my back, through all those layers. Jacket, sweater, turtleneck. The air around me vibrates, and I can feel everything—every muscle in his cheek, the slightest bit of his lip brushing my ear.
“You are very brave,” I whisper. I’m worried I might be misunderstanding—that at any moment he’ll pull away and say what are you doing? But then there’s this: the slightest movement from him, and I turn, and we knock heads—and suddenly my hands are on his chest and he is reaching up my shirt. I throw a knee over him, straddling his lap. My utility belt is pressing into him, and he spins it around my waist so that the pockets are in back, to pull me closer. His tongue is on my teeth, his fingers are struggling down the back of my pants—which are too tight, I realize—I wish I didn’t even wear pants, I wish society didn’t condone it. And the dogs are barking and beer cans are rolling off the stoop, soaking our knees and ankles—and I am trying so hard to be gentle, to kiss softly and passionately like in the movies. But I want more, I want his tongue to touch my taste buds.
Davey yanks away, his lip bloody. My stomach drops. I’ve bitten him.
“Sorry,” I blurt. Do we have to stop now?
He licks the blood off his lip and reaches for my knees. “I’ve seen worse,” he says, leaning in again. His tongue is metallic now—bleeding against mine. And my stomach is all hot soup and firecrackers—I feel like I’m dripping—because this might sound weird but I think tasting the inside of Davey’s mouth is probably the most exciting thing I’ve ever done.
“Kippy.” He kisses his way from my mouth across my neck, up to my ear, hugging me tight. I hold my breath, wanting him to say my name again—wanting his tongue in my mouth so badly I can barely sit still. “Do you think she’d care?” he asks.
I wriggle away, gasping like a person who’s nearly drowned. “Why?” I yell. “Why is it always about her?”
Davey shakes his head. “Wait, what?”
“Before you wouldn’t even say her name!”
“Kippy—”
“Do you even like me?” I feel like I’m going to cry. “Or are you just trying to . . . I don’t know, feel close to her.”
“Kippy.” Davey scootches toward me. “I shouldn’t have . . . I’m sorry—for a second I just felt guilty.” He squeezes my knee. “I want this—you—I have for so . . . it’s just—I just . . . I thought you could reassure me—it’s just for a second I thought, What if she could see us? You know—”
“Well, thanks, because now I’m thinking it,” I snap, struggling to my feet. I dust off my coat and yank my utility belt around my waist so it’s facing the correct way. “And I’m thinking that we—that I need to focus on this investigation more so maybe we should take a break.” I swallow, trying not to cry. “Is that what people say? ‘Take a break’?”
Davey stares at me, looking sad. “How should I know?” he asks. “I’ve been living in the sand for three years.”
I want to crawl back onto his lap and tell him to squeeze me as hard as he can until we both feel better. But now, like him, I’m imagining her seeing this. How does that even look? Me with her brother. Squashing him—but, like, in a sexual way. Spit everywhere and sucking face instead of crime fighting.
I’m possibly the worst friend ever.
“Kippy,” Davey says again. And even though hearing him say my name still makes my scalp tingle, I am traipsing toward Rhonda. The gravel is crunching underneath my shoes and I am stuttering good-byes.
Ruth here. If Lisa Staake comes up to me one more time in the locker room and says, “So how’s Colt?” I’m going to bash her teeth in. There should be some kind of respect for older grades. When I was a sophomore I’d have never had the guts to go up to a junior in my push-up bra and say that kind of shit. It’s like, yeah bitch, I know my boyfriend fucked you when you were, like, fourteen, now get off my nuts before I rip your tits off!
Sometimes I wonder if Colt is maybe seeing her again. I mean, he’s already cheating on me with Libby Quinn. I saw them kissing in the parking lot the other day. I’m biding my time to confront him about it, but part of me doesn’t even really care. There’ll always be something between us and besides, I know I’ve got the upper hand. Big Daddy says this whole town’s just too polite to ogle me like they want to. Sometimes it’s like there’s something huge inside of me. Like there’s something waiting to happen. Things are going to be so much better at college, I just know it. I can’t wait.
Still there’s something nasty about that girl Lisa. Like, you know she does it with everyone on the football team, but she pretends she’s some sweet virgin, and then when she gets close to me in the locker room it’s like she’s gonna bite. And I think she probably cried to her daddy about her and Colt hooking up. Colt said the sheriff walked in on them making out one time and probably guessed the rest. His knowing they fucked is the only thing that explains how often Colt gets pulled over and blamed for things he didn’t do. That whole Staake family is a bunch of dumb crooks.