“A blossoming but otherwise-normal young woman learns some odd lessons – and some not-so-much – about life & love during her Senior year.”

---

I’ve got a junkie heart in a cage of bone
I’m a scientific wonder, a sober son
I was born blue-blooded
So I’ve never made a cent on my own
…Will you remember me, after I’m gone?

– “Will You Remember Me” by Jann Arden

*

A Prologue

Once upon a time, in a place not unlike that of your own adolescence, there lived a girl. There was nothing particular about this girl that stood out on first glance: just a plain high school Senior. Nothing special, nothing significant. She would blend in to a class of her peers like a chameleon, sharing the faces and features of those in her own circumstance. Her grades were impeccable. She came from a middle-income upbringing, and fate had chosen her to live the quaint, “normal” life of a juvenile from the suburbs.
Having said that, we open the curtain to our story in a frank moment of passion between our heroine and a boy, in his bedroom. She did it because she wanted to. She did it, because no one was watching her. Only him. And there was no judgment in his eyes: only pleasure. Pleasure that she was giving him. For underneath her perennial exterior beat a fiery heart, felicitous for stoking. It made her feel confident & powerful. Older. And as she carried on and his undulations became vulgarer & his complexion reddened, she managed to tune him out – in the same way an extra’s face in one’s dream is distorted – and became solely & absolutely concentrated on the task at hand, no pun intended. Because this was what this was all for, wasn’t it? At the end of it all, wasn’t this really just for him? And plus, she couldn’t stand this old music he had playing in the background, and the sooner she was finished the better. So depressing! What did he say it was? The Smiths? Who they Hell were THEY?
“Oh fuck that’s so good baby, give me more of it like that, yeah… shit…

She had no desire to become pregnant. There was a girl in her grade who everyone watched like a celebrity trial: from those first public cries of fear in the cafeteria, to when her baby bump began to show, to when she returned after a month’s absence only to push her pram around the school’s half-empty corridors to special classes. Our heroine didn’t want to be like that, with strangers scrutinizing her and making assumptions. But that girl was so plain about all of it, like there wasn’t anything else to talk about. No one knew who her baby’s daddy was: that was the only real secret she kept. No, our heroine attracted attention in a different, more obvious way. Because despite being ordinary in an unfussy, homespun way, she was still a girl in the inescapable midst of becoming a woman. In that way, she felt like a part of something: like she always had a community behind her, of girls all going through the same thing. That empathy. She knew she was privileged to be White & attractive so she never felt a need to be more overt than that to anyone.
The boy was close now. His face contorted in that way she saw the boys in the movies do, as he whipped his hands around the back of her head & held it down.
When he was done, she stood up, spat the cum out of her mouth and on to his face, and left. Pig! She was already dressed, and by the time he composed himself she was gone & he was too blind to chase after her. He just rolled around in pain & the fast-crystallizing ooze. The boy’s name, haplessly, was Chance.

Another conquest, if she could call it that. Chance wasn’t a particularly smart kid, but he had a big, thick, full head of brown hair that she had always wanted to run her hands through. And he had a penis. Shame about that pathetic, patchy stubble on his face that he called a beard. He meant well. It wasn’t like she was a slut or anything. She wondered how many times she had asked herself if she was, laying there like she was on the same childhood bed with the lights off, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars her father had stickered onto her ceiling who knows when: arranged like constellations. She wasn’t sleeping around with the entire football team. It was just something she enjoyed doing, sometimes, with certain boys she liked. She had other interests, didn’t she?
She played soccer: she was even good enough to be on the Rep team, but she said no. Too much time away from schoolwork and her real friends. She had to have other things she was interested in, didn’t she? She started to think of boys again.
She thought of Leonardo DiCaprio. The stars started to look like his face.
She looked at her clock. It was after 2 AM. She wondered where the time went and rolled over & pulled the covers up and around her neck.

*

gasping, but somehow still alive

She was at her locker the next afternoon when Chance threw himself up against them in front of her, making a loud bang that drew her attention but didn’t scare her. He was wearing an all-black eye patch. Oh hey Blackbeard, I didn’t see you this morning.
“Because I was at the doctor getting THIS thing!”
Oops, sorry about that.
“I’m just so mad I don’t even know what to say.”
Then don’t say anything, you child. Gotta go! She shut her locker door and started to merge with the crowd all going to their next classes, but Chance trailed her like a dog. It was plain to see that most who passed noticed the eye patch. He tried to keep his voice down:
“Do you know what everyone is saying when they see me? They’re calling me a fag, because everyone thinks I got cum in my eye. How is that going to sound when I tell them that I actually got my OWN jizz in my eye because my girlfriend spat it out at me?”
She chuckled; so quickly that if one weren’t paying attention they would have missed it, and maybe never have gotten the opportunity to see it again. Chance was so flustered that he missed it. Well, first of all, I’m not your girlfriend…
“Fuck THAT you aren’t!”
Second, I don’t seem to remember asking you to choke me last night…
“Okay, I AM sorry about that.”
Mm-hmm…
“No, really! I am! Shit, come over here…” He grabbed her arm and yanked her into a corner, away from everyone, “Listen to me, I AM sorry. I just got caught up in the moment, OK? It was really good. YOU were really good…” She had to wait a second to let that sink in: how good was she? “I don’t want to lose what we have because I made a mistake.”
Chance, you aren’t LOSING me, because there was no WE to begin with. I sucked your dick. That’s it.
“So we aren’t friends anymore?” Hey Chance!
They turned and a group of skids walked by. Did your boyfriend give you a facial? Heh-heh-heh….

“You see?” She saw. “Anyway, like I was saying, I was really starting to like you. Getting to know each-other was fun.”
I’m late for class. I’ll see you later. She turned, only to have Chance grab her arm & hold her back again. Excuse me!?
“Tell me I’m going to see you again.”
You’re seeing me right now. Now let me go! She jerked her arm away and started walking in the opposite direction. He wanted to go after her. But he knew that he had fucked up. Again.

She should have just told him it was over. She left it open again. Why did she always do that? Leave it open? She shouldn’t be afraid to stand her ground. It was almost hypocritical of her, demanding her men be the man but not standing up for herself.
It WAS hypocritical. But whenever she tried to be friends with them later, they wouldn’t let her go. She was flattered by the infatuation, but scared of the reprisal. Boys could only think with their dicks. She would stop leading Chance on, and hopefully things would blow-over after a couple of weeks of being ignored by her: just like they did before, with some of the others. The cycle was only natural. And if they were lucky, maybe they could still be friends. The eye patch was pretty funny, though. She smiled as she walked down the empty hallway to her class.

*

i’m just tryna have a good fuckin time

Her parents were sitting down to dinner. A third place setting, waiting for their absent daughter. But she wasn’t absent. She was upstairs in her room, with the music blaring. Again. The bass stopped short of shaking what was on the table: just the table itself. They were eating and had stopped waiting for her a long time ago.

All her homework was done, still sitting open on the laptop that rested on her bed. School stuff was never a problem for her: she would blast through it as fast as she could and then never have to fret about it. But she wasn’t hungry. She felt careless. But it was a nervous energy, and she wanted to dance. “Come Get Her” by Rae Sremmurd played from her speaker dock. The rhythm and the lyrics did something to her: it took her over.
How does a stripper dance? She was never really interested enough to find out, but it had something to do with her ass, right? Shake her ass and her tits? For the boys, of course. Always for the boys. It seemed like everything they did for them was only ever that. She didn’t have any tits to shake, but she sprawled her arms across her bed & stood her legs as straight up as she could from the floor so her backside was as full & raised as it could be. She squatted, up & down, shaking what little fat she could muster out of her young, petite body. Why was her satisfaction always an afterthought? She turned and looked at the mirror that graced one entire side of her closet door. She wouldn’t be in a rap video any time soon.
She stood resting her hands on her little breasts over her thigh-length t-shirt. Her nipples were hard: hard enough that they poked through the heavy shirt, as she twisted the peaks between her fingers. She was turning herself on. But she wasn’t thinking of any boys, or any one boy in particular. She was thinking of a girl. Herself. Isn’t that the greatest display of pride, to be attracted to one’s own body? She cared less, and quivered as she brought herself to climax.

Outside her window in the street below, Chance stood listening to the final chords of the song blaring down loud from her open bedroom window. He could swear that he heard moaning, too. He had to admit, he was a little jealous.

REALLY jealous.
Fucking ANGRY is what that made him: just WHO is that asshole banging his girl? The girl that HE didn’t even get to bang? That was how it all started for him: the rumours, here and there. And nothing bad per-se: just she banged this guy; she banged that guy; she did this thing with this other guy; and so on. Why should HE believe what other people say? He didn’t even KNOW her. They took a whole different set of classes.
But at a party one night, Chance saw an opportunity. He had seen our classically-beautiful heroine in the halls, but now here she was. He had a chance – ahem – to talk to her, if he wanted to, or could. He wasn’t sure at first. She looked a little wasted by the time he got to the party. And so many other guys trying to talk to her already. Word had spread. He was a nicer guy than all those others, wasn’t he? All he needed was a little help, then maybe – just maybe – he could live up to his name, for once.
And so, with that spark of masculine inspiration, the cogs began to turn in his teenage mind. What goes up, must come down, spinning wheel got to go round… That old stuff was better than the Top-40 shit they were playing at the party. She was looking pretty good in her dress: a burgundy romper with white canvas flats & ankle socks. Skater-style, they called it now. The weather had been pretty good lately and she had – from what he had permission to see – a pretty even tan from the line of her ponytail down her lightly made-up face & arms, down her legs… legs for days! The fantasy intensified. What a woman! But he swore that he would be a gentleman. He wasn’t going to take advantage of her. Unless that was what she wanted him to do? Phew,
Chance, relax. Breathe. A couple more bottles of beer & a joint outside shared with the parking lot crowd and he had muscled up enough courage to make a move. There she was, by herself in the sea of people, alone at last, on her phone. He stepped up to her. Hi.
“WHAT?”
HI.
“HEY, I KNOW YOU. YOUR NAME IS LUCKY, ISN’T IT? ARE YOU IRISH?”
NO.
“OH. CAN YOU DO THE ACCENT?”
NO, NOT VERY WELL.
“OH.”
MY NAME’S Chance.
“WHAT?”
CHANCE. MY NAME IS CHANCE.
“CHANCE?”
MY FAMILY IS FROM BRITAIN, AND THEY TOOK IT FROM THE FRENCH.
“OH, JUST LIKE THEY TOOK EVERYTHING ELSE?”
I SUPPOSE.
“HEY, WHERE DID YOU GET THAT BEER?”
IT’S MINE.
“HAVE ANY MORE?”
WHY, DO YOU WANT ONE?
“NO, GENIUS.” It didn’t click. She sighed heavily, “COME ON!” She had taken charge, and Chance was pulled along for the ride.

Back in the present, our self-defeated heroine had collapsed onto her carpet. The next song started: “Turn Down for What”. She smiled. And, since there was no one else around, it stayed squarely where it was birthed.
The advancing echo of footsteps from the bottom floor, up and to her door. A knock. “Honey? Everything OK in there?”
Everything’s fine, Dad.
“Are you sure? We heard a loud bang.”
I’m sure. Thanks for checking!
“OK. Don’t forget to eat.” She had a 30-minute shower instead. She wasn’t intentionally trying their patience.

*

fire up that loud

A few days passed. She didn’t hear from Chance – which was a surprise – and when she did see him, he avoided her faster than she could avoid him. Then on Friday afternoon, while she was walking home, a strange car she didn’t fully recognize pulled up beside her. She noticed Chance sitting in the passenger seat, but it was an older woman who got out of the driver’s side. “Hey you! Did you get a kick out of embarrassing my son?”
Who are you?
“I’m Patricia. Chance’s Mom. Did you give my son his swollen eye?”
So what if I did?
“Your little stunt on my son has cost his poor father and I weeks worth of pay to get his stupid medicated cream. That’s right Missy, we’re uninsured! Didn’t your parents teach you not to make assumptions before putting someone in hospital?”
Well what do you want me to do about it? Chance’s Mom pulled a folded-up piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it to her. Our heroine opened it up, to find a photocopied invoice. Almost a thousand dollars! That was a lot of money.
“I want you to give that to your parents, and try explaining to THEM that you almost cost my son his vision. And don’t think that we’re done with you yet.” She got back in to the car, and – just as she pulled away – our heroine just barely made out Chance giving her the finger. That little shit!

Back in bed, again. A thousand dollars! What was she going to do? She COULD do nothing, but then that would tempt fate. Could you imagine, Chance’s Mom showing up at the door to complain about her son’s injury? She doesn’t know how he really got it, does she? He probably lied to her. And if his Mom talked to her parents then she had no idea if the truth would really come out or not. What did Chance tell his Mom exactly? If only our heroine knew, then she could be prepared. Maybe she should call him…
No, that would be a mistake: make him think that there’s still an opportunity to reconcile. It would intimidate him. No, she needed to figure out a way to solve this herself.
She turned to her laptop and flipped on the webcam. The preview on her screen reminded her of her closet mirror. Couldn’t she be anyone she wanted to be online? She turned on the two other lamps in her room – one on her bedside cabinet & the other across the room by her desk – which flooded the room with light.
While she was at her desk, she looked up at the poster board with photos and keepsakes that she had been adding to since she was 12. Tacked up was a masquerade mask from her Grade 10 Soiree. It was black, with dark feathers flaring from the top like a peacock. She admired the photo that was next to it: the dress she wore was still so cute, even two years later. A polka-dot cami. All her friends went in these big, opulent outfits, with a million different charms all-over, and it was a pain for all of them to go to the bathroom. She laughed: they complained so much, but it was still such a fun night. It was also the night she lost her virginity to Will. He was so handsome in the suit, but so unsatisfactory when he tried to go down on her in the Community Hall bathroom. She untacked the mask and put it on. It still fit.
But did the dress? She opened her closet. Somewhere at the back, behind the seemingly-endless row of discount tops, was the soiree dress: wrapped in dry-cleaning plastic. She pulled it out, took the plastic off, and tried it on. She looked at herself in the closet mirror, and then back again at the photo. Had she aged at all? It was only a year ago. She twirled around in the dress and the wind carried the hemline with her.
She sat back on her bed in front of the camera. You could hardly tell it was her, unless it was her friends staring back at her from the photo, or save for the Shawn Mendes poster behind her bed. She carefully stood up on the mattress and peeled it off the wall, rolling it up and storing it somewhere safe.
There we go. She could be one of those Russian girls for all she knew. She took the rest of the night to do research and by the time she went to bed, she had used her emergency credit card to sign up for a membership to an online camgirl site. What time is it? Almost 3 AM! She guessed she would have to do her homework tomorrow afternoon then. Hopefully it wasn’t going to be nice out.

Back at school on Monday, she chose to wear the dress. It wasn’t getting any use just sitting at the back of the closet so it wasn’t such a big deal for her, but it was for everyone else, and she made a big splash coming through the big double doors at the front of the building with the early-year Grad decoration arched around it. The only boy she somehow didn’t manage to see that morning was Chance: he eluded her at every opportunity. Finally, at the last break of the day, she spotted him coming out of the Men’s bathroom and chased him down. She stood in front of him – not letting him pass – until he talked to her. His eye patch was gone, but his eye was still red & inflamed. That didn’t stop him from being smitten, especially at her exposed legs. “What do you want?”
What did you tell your Mom?
“That you hit me.”
What? She poked him in his sore eye, and he winced.
“Ouch! I told her that we had a fight, and you hit me!”
How could you get an infection from someone punching you? Did I, like, not wash my hands?
“I don’t know! And I don’t have to! My parents don’t come in with me to doctors’ appointments anymore. They think I’m old enough to do it on my own.”
So you think you’re a big boy now, is that it?
“Hey, I could have told them I fell on some poison ivy. They don’t care.”
Then why is your Mom threatening me?
People passing were starting to stare. “Take it back.”
Take what back?
“Take back that we’re not together, and I’ll get you off the hook.” She poked him again. “Shit! That isn’t healed yet, you know!”
I don’t want to be with you, Chance. Especially if you’re turning out to be such a creep!
“Have it your way!” He started to walk away.
Hey, wait! I’ll get your Mom the money. You just have to tell her that I need some time. Chance didn’t answer. In fact, he looked a bit ashamed as he scowled away. Our heroine felt a little sad too, but she pressed nobly forth to finish her day. It couldn’t end fast enough: the relentless gawking was getting a bit much for her. Is this how they would look at her online? Like a pack of wolves? Even the women were staring in that judgmental way they did to that pregnant girl. It was the last time that school year she would wear that dress to class, or anything nice.

*

water keeps rollin on past just the same

An Intermission

And with that, we are more than halfway through our heroine’s story. At this point, we feel the need to jump forward: to gloss-over some of the lesser-details that permeated the lives of our characters.
To some – such as the youth – a day could feel like it lasts an eternity. Adulthood doesn’t have the same consistency. Agency takes the place of choice. Time becomes temporal. When you’re young, sitting cross-legged in the grass staring at clouds with the one you love can be timeless: talking about nothing for hours, probably sounding like an idiot while you do. For our characters, the days continued as they did, but none as important as those documented in this story.

Months went by. The seasons changed. Our heroine had her birthday, punctuated by a big surprise party that her friends hosted for her. That was nice. Chance didn’t speak to her much though – maybe the occasional “hello” punctured by the reply of the wind as she walked passed – but he pined for the early days when they were still friends: before the night she made her gracious offering that went unreciprocated.
She didn’t go through with her plan of becoming a camgirl. No, that was an impulsive decision: a red herring. Turned out that Chance’s Mom had played a bit of a bluff, and didn’t go after our heroine for the money as quickly nor as aggressively as she thought she would have. Instead, she made the responsible decision to get a job: a normal job for normal pay, presumably. Sure, it would take a lot longer to pay his Mom off with the fortnightly cheques, but she wasn’t that concerned. Maybe give her a bit here, a little bit more there: just enough to get her off her back. What would our heroine’s parents think if they found out she was having sex so young? Not young anymore. That was a pretty good excuse, in her eyes.
She became a hostess at a hip restaurant in the downtown district. Bussing there & back for her shifts was a pain – especially in the mandated skirt & blouse she had to wear – and the work wasn’t much better. It was boring. She was only just old enough to serve alcohol, but was underage when she had applied. So the “stupid” hostess job wasn’t anything more than dealing with take-out orders & helping customers to their table. Everywhere she walked, there was an older scoundrel drooling over her, and every time she was able to get through the disconcerting emotions with a smile & a positive attitude. She HAD to be positive, because she HAD to be working, just like she HAD to go to school. She didn’t HAVE to be working: she could be mooching off her Dad like her half-brother from his last marriage. Our heroine was so-far unimpressed with her transition to outward maturity, and made a point to promise herself to quit once she made enough to pay back Patricia.
That is, until her first paycheque. Then it all made sense to her, especially with the recent minimum wage hike. Out of the five hundred that she made, four stayed in the bank and she kept the other hundred in her wallet: just in case she ever needed it. She never needed it before. She never had any expenses: the school paid for her bus pass and her parents paid for her clothes, and the house, her food… the list went on. Guess she was more like her half-brother than she thought. But she was 18, and he was almost 30. When she told her parents what she was doing with her free time, there was none of the eye-rolling or patronizing that went on when her brother called asking for money. Instead, there was a gleam in their eye. She resolved to try & do better herself. So she quit, and got a job the next week at McDonald’s. It was as easy as that. Turned out, one of her friends also worked at that location, and – in a twist of fate – they were put side-by-side at the prep station. It was as fun as she had possibly hoped working could be.

Chance, on the other hand, did not have a good go of summer’s rearing head. The girl he liked wasn’t talking to him anymore, and he hadn’t moved on yet, like it seemed she had. His grades were suffering and – unlike the object of his affection – his free time wasn’t preoccupied with a job, but rather extended periods of self-loathing. His parents’ complaining was insufferable. He was laying in his own bed one night, months in to his distress, staring at the naturally-uneven plaster on the ceiling that would form images in his mind the same way it would to one looking at the clouds, or at stars. All he could make out was her face. And there wasn’t even anything special about her anyway. Other than she would talk to him, and she was funny, and she was cool, and pretty…
Pretty to him. She had the thin body that he liked, and when she looked at him he felt the urge to push her long hair out of the way so he could see more of her eyes, with that smile. A thousand-dollar smile. He hadn’t seen it in a long time. He thought of her eyes as she was going down on him. He thought of choking her. You’re an idiot! You’re such a fucking idiot! What were you thinking?

He thought about that first party again. She was a good time: a little brash, maybe – he certainly wasn’t used to it, and he wondered where it came from – but he was coasting on angel wings. She must have had fun with him too because, when she started to collapse on her way to the bathroom to throw up, she had no problem letting him pick her up & put her in his car to take her to his place. It was for the best anyway: the college kids had showed up, and things were about to get ugly. Chance didn’t want to think too hard about it: if her reputation had spread to the whole High School, then odds were the College guys knew too. They left at a good time. “wher we goin?” You’re going to crash on my couch.
“izat ok?”
Of course it’s OK. You should have someone looking after you. They drove for a bit. She had never been out his way before and she rolled the window down & stuck her head partially out to admire the unfamiliar sights & sounds of the east side of town.
“im not sleeping wit you inf thats what ure thinking” She was falling over in her seat.
I didn’t think we would.
“tho u r pretty cute”
Thank you.
“but izz a secerkt”
A secret? I know I’m cute. How do you think I got you into my car?
“ah dunno iz not ure penis size”
Well, stick around and you might be surprised…
“whoa hwoa whoa there buddy nothins happpenign here k?”
Sorry, I was just joking…
“surrre you were”
I’m sorry.
“stpo appolgozing!”
Uh, OK?
“im serriouz! if youre thinkignfd about apolgozing to me one more time, den u might aas lwell pull the car over rite now!”
No no no! It’s OK! I won’t.
“u better not. cuz ill kickl your ass, boy.” What a lippy little girl! He laughed. She must have been offended by that: “pulll over…”
I can take you home if you want instead…
“i sade pull overr…”
I’m not just going to leave you here to wait for a cab…
She started to dry-heave, then it clicked. He pulled over and narrowly avoided the inside of his filthy – but dry – car getting very wet. And stinky! Thank goodness her hair was tied-up! But she did look a little pathetic, hunched over her knees on the passenger seat, so he held her pony tail. When she was done, she faced forward to catch her breath, shutting the door. There was some vomit from her bodice up, and she didn’t look terribly impressed. Are you alright?
She looked at him silently & sarcastically. Alright then. Are we going to your place? No? My place then? Still nothing. My house it is, then. Plan unchanged.
Chance turned the radio on, and between his chicky’s mess on the side of the highway & home, Free Fallin’ started playing. Such an overplayed song: so much so that our 2000s-and-onward music trivia heroine knew the words, even in her mess of a state. Her mood elevated with the snap of a finger and she started singing. Loud! SO loud! Loud enough that Chance got caught up in it all, and they karaoke’d together until the song was over. Then some old song by some band called The Doobie Brothers. Chance knew the words, but by then she stopped talking again. So childish! But that didn’t matter. They were both children. And in the four minutes it took for the song to start & stop, he thought he had fallen in… shock, love!
When they arrived at his house, he helped her inside, and as soon as her ass hit the sofa she was asleep. Chance got a bucket and a warm facecloth to put beside her & decided to camp out at the foot of the couch with a self-made mattress of loose cushions. He had a few drinks himself but he didn’t realize he was so tired until he, too, fell like a ton of bricks onto the makeshift cot. He had an erection. Yeah, she was hot, but they were both wasted. He was too tired to make anything work properly anyway and within minutes he, too, was asleep.

*

would you mind a reflecting sign?

We return to the present day. The Grad celebrations around the school were in full swing, and you could finally feel the anticipation that comes with an approaching event. Our heroine caught Chance in the hall and approached him. He looked a little lost when he saw her, like he needed to look away or find a scapegoat to get away from her, but it was too late. There she was, in front of him. His eye looked like new. Hey.
“Hello.”
Your eye is looking a lot better.
“Uh, thanks? The medication worked.”
I have a question for you. What’s your last name?
“You don’t know?”
No, I never had a cheque made out to someone in your family before.
“It’s Kentucky.”
Your name is Chance Kentucky?
“That’s right.”
I thought you said your family was British.
“How can you remember that but not remember my birthday?”
It was your birthday?
“Yeah, like a month ago now.”
I don’t remember you ever telling me when your birthday was.

That stopped the conversation dead in its tracks. So your Mom’s name is Patricia Kentucky?
“Yes, what’s wrong with that?”
It sounds fucking stupid.
“Hey, don’t call my Mom stupid! You don’t talk to me for six months and then you insult me? Fuck you!”

The bell rang. Well, this conversation is going EXACTLY how I had pictured it going. I got your money.
They both instinctually moved at the same time, out of the middle of the hallway and into another nook, hidden in plain sight. “You got the money?”
Are you deaf?
“Don’t tell me you finally got a job?”
Well that isn’t really any of your business, now is it?
“As your friend, I would like to know.”
Too bad! I’m just giving you the courtesy of knowing that I’m going to pay your Mom off soon, and then we don’t have to ever talk to each other again, if that’s what you want. I’m going to class now, bye! She started to walk away, when Chance went for her arm. Expecting it, she yanked it away. So predictable.
“You know I still like you, right?”
You have a funny way of showing it.
“Listen, it wasn’t just that you sucked me off.” He looked around him. The hallways around them had emptied, “I’ve never met anyone like you before. You’re smart, and funny, and I get all nervous when I talk to you and I never get that way around anyone else.” He paused.
Are you finished?
“Wait wait wait, don’t go yet. Sheesh, this is a lot harder than I thought. I really like you, OK? That’s what I’m trying to say. I like you. And I know you like me too, cause I can see you blushing. OK? I like you. I liked you when I first met you at Rob’s party and I had to haul your drunken ass back to my place before the frat boys started making a scene.”
I only remember the hangover from that night.
“Yeah, I’m sure you do! And then you just disappeared the next morning, and I got all worried, but then I saw you at school on Monday and you acted like it was just a normal weekend for you, no problem. It was never about the sex. Maybe right at the beginning, but you were actually a cool chick, and I liked hanging out with you. The times we hung out after the party were fun. And I’m really, genuinely sorry about what I did the last time. I was in the zone. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Could you give me a second chance, please? I mean, I know all the best places for stealth in the building if we ever want to talk, but could we actually, you know, start talking in front of people again? Like a normal couple? I know you’re way out of my league, but you don’t need to be embarrassed around me.”
She was speechless. That’s really nice, Chance. But I have to go now. Can you text me your mailing address? He agreed. She could have left and gone home to bed, but English class was as good a block as any to take a nap. She patted him gently on his chest and walked away, leaving him to wallow in the ambiguity of her answer.

*

all the bad boys are standing in the shadows

Her new chequebook hadn’t arrived in the mail yet but she wanted to make good on her claim. She had the bank draft a money order for a thousand dollars to the name that Chance had given her: Patricia Kentucky. What a bad, overused joke: the terrible name. Even the skeptical bank teller was eager to get one of her parents in on the transaction – or con – but our heroine was insistent: even going so far as to say that she was old enough to know what kind of privacy she was entitled to. That got the teller off her back, and surprised them welcomingly that such a young girl was so knowledgeable. She had already agreed to herself to give his Mom the cheque in-person instead of mailing it, so when she left, she hopped on the bus that would take her across town to Chance’s house.
She hardly ever went out this way, and the architecture was altogether unique and familiar at the same time. Maybe her parents had driven through here when she was younger? She looked at the sights out of the bus window and felt a warmth from the promise of happy but hazy memories.
She thought of Chance. He wasn’t such a bad guy, just dopey. And his cum didn’t taste very good. Thomas’ did. Not that any of that mattered. He would be a different boy once he reached adulthood. And she would be a different woman. She contemplated a life without sex. Asexual? Never! Nothing felt better than an orgasm, except – perhaps – that she was the one giving it. It made her wonder why she should ever need men again? All they give you is misery & ejaculate. Can you still masturbate and be considered asexual?

Here she was.
There was Chance’s piece-of-shit black Corolla in the driveway. And there was his Mom’s car, parked beside his. So she did know whose car it belonged to. Come to think of it, she was only ever here at night. Only even here twice: once after Rob’s party when she called a cab & left first thing in the morning and the other when, heh, funny. The night in question. Neither time she had asked for the tour. And he never took advantage of her. That she can remember. She wasn’t shaking with fear as she approached the front door and rang the bell.
Chance answered. “Hey!”
Hello.
“This is a surprise. What are you doing here?”
Well why don’t you invite me in? Then we don’t have to talk about your pinkeye in front of the whole neighbourhood.
“That’s a good idea.” He swung the door open all the way and she stepped inside.
Is your Mom here?
“She is, she’s just out back.”
I have the money for her.
“You know, you could have called me. I could’ve come picked you up, if you wanted to give it to her yourself. You didn’t have to come all this way by yourself.”
Chance’s sincerity touched her heart, and this time, it registered right away. She smiled. This is so weird, isn’t it?
“You’re telling me.”
“I think weirdness follows you.”
And you’re telling me that you want to hang out with this weird, sex-obsessed girl all the time?
“Well, yeah. Who wouldn’t?”
She kissed him on the cheek. She guessed they were back together after all.

*

An Epilogue

Chance’s Mom acted like she had completely forgotten about the money, but was eager to take it when our heroine flashed the money order. Something about a pretty young girl with cash on the side didn’t make anyone bat an eye, like an unemployed goth with new tattoos. More like a stealthy bank robber in construction clothes. His Mom thanked her and congratulated her on handling the situation like a “mature adult.” Such used to be her weight to bear: nature over nurture. Not anymore.
Chance and her stayed together for the rest of the school year, and the ensuing summer. Not forever. Teenage romance shouldn’t last forever, even if we all want it to: they went to Prom together, and spent some long – sometimes intimate – nights together when she wasn’t working, or getting ready for College. And then they moved apart the following September and steadily detached down different paths: ones that held more significance than something as simple as an orgasm did in their youth. She was using sex as a placeholder for the greater calling of her freedom from innocence. Now it was an afterthought as work, home, and family began to take precedence. They met other partners. Our heroine thrived, and made her parents proud. Chance Kentucky redeemed his spirit. The mistakes of their youth were forgiven.
The Earth continues to spin. And so long as it does or til the end of her days – whichever comes first – our heroine lives happily ever after.

The End

//jf 7.14.2021

---

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com. All respect & credit for the title idea to Ms. Arden, however indirectly. I suppose if I credit one specifically then I need to credit them all, in order: The Smiths; Rae Sremmurd; Lil Jon (and his small army of ghost writers who were able to come up with that three-line masterpiece); The Doobie Brothers (sorry Bros, just the one who wrote “Black Water”); Blood Sweat & Tears (sorry all 176 present & former members, just the one(s) who wrote “Spinning Wheel”); and the late Tom Petty, as well as his legally-bound estate. No, these songs were not necessarily the ones that I, personally, grew up with, nor are they my favorites. //jf