Being Kalli (9 page)

I flash a cheeky grin and say, “All good. See ya round, yeah?”

“Maybe later?” he asks.

I shrug.

He seems saddened and watches me go. I don’t look back.

I’m proud
and hope I look cocky because I feel like a mess. Even more of a broken, dirty mess than I already am. Because I succeeded. I’m too ruined for Nate now. I always was and now I’m more so.

But I don’t feel the rush of pleasure I need to in the wake of what I’ve done.

Usually it takes the quiet after the party ends for that to happen. It’s the same pattern: I stumble in the door, collapse face-first on my bed, twist and turn, sometimes throw up. Feel so hollow someone could knock and I’d echo. Sleep.

Why do I always
feel so powerful giving my body away when the very next morning I am back to being nothing?

What if Nate and I didn’t have sex? If we just hung out
alone? Baby steps.

I think and it leads
down the same path.

T
he only thing scarier than me wanting to have sex with Nate somewhere dark and romantic where only him and I can share our laboured breathing is being alone with Nate in a dark room and not having sex at all.

I turn the corner out of the hallway, back to the dance floor, and bump straight into Scout. Her eyebrows are perked up and her expression shocked, so her words don’t surprise me.

“Now that’s one way to make things messy.”

I tut, shooing her question away with a face, like,
What? I’m confused.

Scout grips onto my upper arm, her fingers t
oo tight to throw off unless I, yeah, throw her off. And I’m sane enough to realise I don’t need more attention right now.

“Just drop it for now. I can’t think straight.”

It’s true. Scout’s Ginger-Spice-type tube dress is making me see glitter everywhere as it reflects from the disco ball, and my thoughts are jumbled since I successfully stuffed everything up. At the forefront is when Nate finds out about it. I wish I could stop time. I didn’t do it to hurt him, but my actions obviously will.

The topic of my event in the hallway isn’t dropped
. Scout tells me that guy bumped into her and told her we were pretty much fucking on the wall, thanks to Scout hearing sounds. She asks why the hell I went and did that, just as we find a couch and flop into it. Finally sitting, my body feels drained, in relaxation mode.

“You’re asking me?” I say to Scout. “I don’t know!” I throw my hands up in exasperation.

“I’m asking you. I don’t know what crazy thoughts went through your head to do
that
,
there,
with
him
.”

“Well,
Donovan offered me drinks. It just gathered steam from there.”

“You said you thought he’d be sh
it and you weren’t into him anymore. That’s all.”

Something goes
bing!
in my mind, as if I’ve been saved.

“I had to try,
ya know?”

Scout rolls her eyes.

“What about that girl, Steph,” I say, changing the subject. “What’s going on with her?”

The subject is dropped after that. Scout’s voice ups an octave, and her hands flutter in the air, and her expression is animated as she talks.
Gushes, is a better description. Truth be told, I’ve been waiting for Scout to start seeing a girl. She just doesn’t seem as into guys, though she always reminds me she’s straight.

I’m happy for her. Listening to all this gushing makes me
happy. We cross our legs and turn into each other as we let the crowd wash away. I’m engrossed, letting Scout’s voice lead the conversation until Donovan’s voice pops over my shoulder.

“I’m ready for it now.”

I startle at his voice and half spin back with my legs still facing Scout. “For …?” It hits me after I start speaking. “I’m talking. Seriously, right now? I’m hanging out with Scout.”

Donovan scoffs. “Really? You seem to want no privacy
, and don’t give a shit. I’m ready to go out the back again or whatever.”

“Donovan, leave before I make you,” Scout warns.

Donovan chuckles. “You? What could you do? You didn’t see Kalli all over me. So shut the—”

“No, but I could
kick your ass and I’ll make you leave.”

Nate.

Oh holy mother of all craps.

“Well, another time, Kalli. Say hi to round two for me.”
He winks at Nate, but that look evaporates as he looks behind Nate and sees Nate’s friends.

I’m barely offended. I asked to be treated like this. I am a hoe. I’m stupid for not thinking ahead to the scenario where Donovan wanted me to get him off.
The idea of touching him is suddenly repulsive. I feel sick.

It’s like I’ve cheated on Nate
even though it was clear we weren’t dating.

“Tha—”

“You okay—”

Nate and I cut off at the same time and settle for a half-hearted smile of acknowledgement.

I wonder how much he knows.

“S
o
,” Scout chimes in.

Right. She’s still there.

“On that note, I’m gonna find me my hot chickster.”

I didn’t mean for N
ate to catch my expression, but both out faces dropped at the same time. If he’s on the same wave-length as me, it’s
you cannot
go now
.

“
Oh, okay. Cool.”

“
Huh, well have fun, Scout.”

I’m relieved
. At least Nate and I didn’t settle for begging for Scout to stay, though I’m getting more and more curious about her attachment to Steph. Nate and I have to talk at some point in the future anyway.

She winks at us and leaves Nate standing in front of me. Of course, I happen to turn and face his crotch. Seeing that lump in his jeans
flushes me with hot shame. I’ll break out in an all-out sweat in the next five seconds if I stay so close. Maybe I could reach out, and jerk him off here. Show the girls to stay away, even just for tonight, while I figure out what I want.

I scoot back and say, “Want to sit?
” remembering I have to do something.

He looks back to his group. One guy is licking between his finger
s, two just smile, and the other picks at his chair.

I’m ruined. They know, Nate knows, e
veryone knows.

“Outside?”

I nod and follow. I burn up seeing the same spot Nate and I sat at when I made that bet and gave him head. Thankfully, that memory must be too painful for him at the moment and we sit under a different gas heater at a different set of chairs.

The next amount of never-ending time is silent torture. We must look serious because no one drops in to chat, to offer a drink. There are no interruptions beside
s Nate and I trying to bury away from this tense moment without moving. Nate sits with his legs open, arms on either side of the chair, picking at the armrests. I keep my eyes down and follow every scratch, change of position, and noise he makes under my lashes where he can’t see me.

The gas heater is hot but I’m shivering regardless. The shiver is exactly like
the one I have when I’m sick, like that time I had the flu and I’d shiver despite having no sheets on me and it being the middle of summer. This is a shiver that goes all the way to my bones, that feels like my skin is going to slip right off me and I’ll die right here.

From shame.

From confusion.

Why am I feeling so strongly? I’ve never cared before.
And I shouldn’t. I don’t have feelings for Nate. He knew that, and didn’t ask me to go out exclusively.

I don’t owe him anything. Yet it feels the opposite.

After timing fifteen whole agonising minutes of silence and cutthroat tension, Nate dismisses me with a look I’ll never forget. Which is fitting, considering I cut his heart out.

Tonight, I didn’t just dress up as a whore
for this party, I embodied one.

At the same time I think,
Good, you slut, you deserved to be raped by Him
, Nate says, “Click, click.”

It sounds like
click, click forever.

I finally got to where I want to be. Public
sex, exposed and stripped. I proved I wasn’t attached to Nate.

Is it everything you wanted it to be, Kalli?
I don’t want to think about the answer to that but I feel it in my mind and in the shaken state of my body.

That night into that morning, I lie for hours, staring at the blackness of my ceiling. Thoughts don’t end and sleep won’t come.

How long w
ill Nate be mad?

Is Scout hiding the fact she’s
a lesbian? She’s never given an afterthought to female hook ups—at least not in gossip to me. Why is she so into
this
girl?

When
I hear a noise, I jump out of bed since I’m doing nothing else anyway. It’s from the twins’ room. Wide awake, I pad down there. I need the distraction.

“Tris, baby,” I say, crawling into position near him. I plonk him between my legs and cuddle. “You okay?” I say, lips to his soft hair.

“I saw it again,” he whispers.

“Saw what?”

He dips his head back so he’s staring up from under my face. “Mummy drowning me.”

I c
lamp my lips to restrain the cry that is begging to escape. Since it won’t go, I rearrange my arms, holding his knees in close, and holding him so tight to my heart that no monsters can scare him.

“From the pool?”

I feel him nod.

“Tris, Mum
… she’s different. She’s weird and crazy and mean sometimes, but she loves you and would never want to hurt you. You know Mum always wants you to have fun. That’s all she was trying to do.”

He starts whimpering. I flip him around and wipe the tears, then kiss both spots
on his cheeks. Why give us so much feeling? Why must we love so hard and feel so damn low? He’s a
child
.

“Sorry I cried.”

“Hey, I’m not like Mum. I don’t expect sorry for how you feel, ‘kay? Cry if you need to.”

So he does
, for a few minutes, until my soft lullabies stop his chest-stuttering sobs.

“I’m just scared to tell you something.”

“Don’t be, Tris. What is it?”

“I peed in the
pool. I was so scared and—” He hangs his head. “—and … it happened!”

For my little brother, I hold it in
. He cries and I hold him until his energy is spent and he can’t cry while he sleeps.

But me?
My tears sting my eyes and my chest builds with the pressure holding it. I don’t trust myself to just let it out because it will be this big, loud thing that will involve me waking Mum and punching her in the face, even though she still hasn’t been out doing drugs yet. I have to give her credit for trying.

But. But
friggin’ hell. Can’t she put her stupid antics aside and see she scared her son so much he pissed himself in the pool when he knows it’s wrong?

As I think,
Not everyone is like you. Not everyone needs to be as crazy as you
, I pause.

Think.

Isn’t that me in a nutshell?

The way Scout
reacted, you’d think I fucked up. Sure it was wild, but I was at a party, and there was shit going on all around me. It wasn’t just me. But after seeing her, I wondered for the first time if I’d regret what I’d done. Seeing Nate’s body all drained of hope that I can’t … just no.

Scout
had looked at me like she was saying
Normal people don’t do that
.

With Tris back asleep, I walk back down the hall to my room.

She’s right.

I fucked up.
Normal people don’t see one of their most important relationships falling apart and accelerate it by knowing you’re doing something stupid but doing it anyway. I
am
my mother’s daughter. Seth, Tristan and I are the most important people to Mum and I swear she unintentionally targets us.

I don’t want to be like that
, but I’m realising that’s what I am, too.

For a moment I consider tapping out a text to Nate
, but what would I say? Sorry would just be a cop out. Begging would only make him push me further away.

I do all I can and flop into my outline from before, staring at the
blackness of my ceiling once more.

And
I think about all the ways I think I like him. Yeah, like
that
.

• • •

In the morning, I wake up and check my phone first thing, as usual. My heart pounds, waking me in a second when I see I have a text.

From Nate.

I take a breath, push my morning hair from my face, then lunge for an elastic band and shove it in a high-top bun to get it out of the way. Then, only after my body is about to combust with the adrenaline coursing through me do I allow myself to read his text:

Nate:
Was going to tell you that I have a week-long shoot with one of my classes. I leave tomorrow.