The Sea of Tranquility(70)
Author: Katja Millay

“Why’d you have me draw it?”

I feel like every single person I know wants a confession from me tonight.

“I’m going to walk in that house right now and give you your damn picture back so I never have to hear a f**king word about it again.” I start toward the front porch and the motion sensors kick the lights on.

“You didn’t see her face.” He’s not talking about the picture anymore. He’s talking about at Drew’s when I walked away with Leigh and he’s wrong. I did see her face and it was awful and it would be nice if everyone would let me forget it.

“What is it about that girl that makes everyone think they have some sort of ownership or obligation to protect her?” Me, included. “In case you haven’t noticed she should probably be the one protecting all of us.”

“Drew and I maybe. Not sure about you.” He’s kicking an invisible rock back and forth with his foot and I start looking around for one of my own.

“Fine, Clay. Tell me what to do.”

“You’re asking me?” He’s shocked. So am I. “You do realize that g*y teenage boys and straight teenage girls are not interchangeable, right? Same strategies don’t really work.”

“I get it. I’ve never done this before.” I’m trying to figure out how I got to the point where I’m standing in my driveway, asking Clay Whitaker for advice. How is it that with everything that’s happened in my life, this girl is going to be the thing that undoes me?

“You’ve never done this before?” he asks with more than a little disbelief.

I look at him like the insulting idiot that he is, especially in light of what he thinks I was doing last night with Leigh. “I’ve done that before. I just haven’t done this before.” I motion back and forth between myself and the direction of Nastya’s house even though he probably has no idea what I’m doing.

“You’ve never just gone out with a girl?” He laughs but I’m not seeing the humor and I make sure my expression tells him so. “OK, not funny. Seriously, why don’t you just ask Drew for advice?” He considers that for a moment. “Scratch that. Never mind.” He walks over and leans up against the door of his car. “Okay, then. What does she like?”

“Running and ice cream. And hitting things. And names.”

“Names?”

“Don’t ask.”

“Well, the whole sweat and adrenaline rush from the running might be nice for foreplay but I don’t think it’s going to play well on a first date. You’d be better off going with ice cream. Very chaste. Like her.” He smirks.

“I thought you were going to be serious.”

“I was being serious.” He stops and I can tell he’s trying to decide something. “How do you know so much about her anyway? She doesn’t even talk.” It’s almost like what I said to Mrs. Leighton, but Clay’s intentions are different.

“Already did the ice cream thing.” I ignore his question.

“Then it looks like you’re down to hitting things.”

CHAPTER 37

Nastya

Is it sad to be going on a first date at eighteen years old? I thought about texting Josh to cancel at least six times today. At one point I finally did text him that I couldn’t go because I had nothing to wear. He texted me right back –

Nothing sounds good c u at 4

So now I’m stuck. The only thing that makes me feel better is that Josh seems to be as socially inept as me. Except that he talks. So I guess he gets the edge. But still. I really need him. I don’t want to mess this up. It’s bad enough that my brain is a cesspool; I can’t imagine the hellhole my heart would be if he wasn’t in it.

Since wearing nothing isn’t really a viable option, I’m back to square one. I have absolutely no idea what to wear. My fashion sense isn’t lacking. It’s nonexistent. I went from recital clothes to recovery clothes to repulsive clothes. I’ve never done normal. I don’t even know what that is. This is where the female friend thing would come in. I would have sucked it up and written a note asking Margot to help me, but the whole idea was kind of last minute and she had plans this afternoon so she’s not even home. Which means my closet and I are on our own.

My closet is of no use to me. It may actually be laughing at me. It’s true. I hear it. Other than the sundress I wore yesterday, I’m out of options in the normal department. I look at my clothes. Black, black, some more black. I don’t want to wear any of it. I don’t want to look like Nastya Kashnikov tonight. I don’t want to be a Russian whore. I don’t want to look like Emilia, either. Maybe for tonight I could just be someone else. Some third girl I haven’t met yet.

I realize with a craptastic amount of horror that I am going to have to go to the mall. I throw on one of the eight variations of tight black t-shirts I own and a pair of jeans and head out.

Only I don’t end up at the mall. I end up at Drew’s. The God that I have recently come to think might hate me is smiling on me today because Sarah isn’t home. But then neither is Drew. Mrs. Leighton opens the door. I look at her stomach which seems to have grown exponentially since the last time I saw her.

“Hey sweetie,” she says and she’s the only person on Earth I don’t have the urge to smack for calling me sweetie. She lets me in after explaining that Drew and Sarah went out on a friend’s boat with Mr. Leighton. She pours lemonade and we sit at the breakfast bar and stare at each other.

“Oh!” she says after a few minutes, and I’d gotten so accustomed to the quiet that I almost fall off the stool. She grabs for my hand and I yank it back out of instinct before I can think about it. I feel like a fool but she ignores it. “I just wanted you to feel the baby kick,” she says reaching for my hand and letting me meet her halfway. She places it on her stomach and it’s the weirdest feeling in the world. I almost expect an alien to burst through her abdomen at any moment.

“Feel it?” she looks at me expectantly. I pull my hand back. I can’t help but see the hurt on her face but I’m too afraid I might start crying and I can’t keep my hand there anymore. “Sorry,” she says. “I just get a little excited. You’d think the third time around it wouldn’t be a big deal, but it never gets old. It’s my favorite part.” It would probably be mine, too, but I won’t ever get to find out. Maybe I never would have wanted one anyway, but the deciding would have been nice. The piece of shit who took my hand took that, too.