Running Away
you might never know that i want you to know what's written inside of
your head // and time as it stands won't be held in my hands, or
living inside of my skin // and as you fell from the sky i asked
myself why can i never let anyone in // i thought that i heard someone
say now // there's no time for running away now // hey now, hey now.
(-oasis)
When Seth refused for the third time to come home from Portland, Summer gave up. "You're a jerk," she said to him. "And I hate you."
"I hate myself," he replied, and hung up on her. How dare he?
"No one hangs up on me!" she yelled, except that obviously wasn't true, since Seth hung up on her. Fine. If he wanted to be with Luke and Luke's homo dad, instead of being in Newport with Summer and her smooth legs and pretty smelling underarms, he was welcome to it.
Fucking loser. She should have known better than to date a comics-obsessed dork.
She stared at the phone for a few minutes, tapping her fingernails against the plastic. That reminded her: it was time to change manicure styles. French was all well and good for school and whatever, but summertime demanded something more interesting. Maybe in a watermelon color. Maybe with an airbrushed watermelon design -- or an airbrushed picture of Seth's face, with a big red NO sign over it.
Marissa didn't answer her phone, so Summer called Holly.
"Do you wanna get manicures with me tomorrow?" she asked when Holly picked up the phone.
"Who is this?" said Holly.
"Shut up, bitch. I know you have caller ID," replied Summer. She hoisted herself up onto one of the stools that stood around the kitchen counter and crossed her legs. "I was thinking it's time for some summer airbrushing."
"Yeah... You know..." Holly paused, and Summer scowled at her reflection in the oven door. Her legs looked fat. She made a mental note to start buying slightly longer skirts.
"What?" Summer finally asked.
"What the fuck?" said Holly. "You fucking ditched me for a dork like Seth Cohen and now that his boyfriend from Chino is gone and he's gone you want to come back and be friends again? Get real, Roberts; that shit only happens on television."
Holly was the second person to hang up on Summer in less than fifteen minutes. Jesus Christ, what the fuck was wrong with people this summer?
Summer went through her address book and mentally checked off the people she didn't want to call, didn't want to talk to, didn't want to see, didn't want to be seen with, and ended up with... Ryan Atwood. Why was he even in her address book? Oh, because when he moved to Chino, Theresa sent her an email with their address and a little smiley face. Hm.
"Theresa?" she said. "Do you want to go get manicures? My treat, like a baby shower except for you."
"Oh, no, I couldn't," said Theresa. "I just --"
"Please don't tell me that you don't want to be seen with me," said Summer. She crossed her legs the other way. Was that cellulite?
"No, it's not that. I just -- can't afford it, really, and..."
"I said that I was paying. Do you want to insult me by refusing my baby gift for you?" Always play to guilt -- Summer'd learned that lesson exquisitely from her father, and there was no way it wouldn't work on Theresa. Catholics were full of guilt, all the time, and Summer would bet Theresa was feeling guilty anyway, for stealing Ryan away from Summer's best friend.
"No, I guess not. But, Summer, really -- I --"
"Shut up," Summer interrupted. "I will see you tomorrow. Wear pants that can roll up easy, cause I think I want a pedicure too. And you're pregnant, so having someone rub your feet will feel good."
"Okay," said Theresa, and sighed heavily.
"What?" said Summer. "What's wrong now?"
"Nothing," said Theresa. "See you tomorrow."
Summer hung up and jumped down from the stool and rolled her eyes. She examined her reflection in the oven door again; was that a zit? Fucking hell. If it wasn't one thing, it was another.
She spent the afternoon giving herself a masque and soaking in the Jacuzzi. Being a social maven was hard fucking work and she deserved a break. Plus she was still pissed at Seth and needed to think of a way to get him to fuck off and die without actually killing him. That night she dreamed about the time when he tried to give her a pedicure and ended up getting purple polish all over her feet and toes, and then she gave him a perfect manicure and he forgot to take the polish off before he went home. She woke up laughing and crying at the same time.
When Ryan came home, he always did the same thing. First he sat on their stoop and smoked a cigarette. Then he went straight into the shower and stayed there for a half hour. Then he came out, with his hair combed and his face shaved and the grime from the day gone from underneath his fingernails. He sat politely at the table, ate whatever Theresa cooked, and was always really nice and really sweet. Sometimes he brought her flowers that he'd bought on the side of the road. Sometimes he brought her dessert -- ice cream, frozen pie, bags of candy. Once he brought her a small blanket. Then he always sat and watched television while Theresa knitted and proofread documents he brought from the construction firm he worked for. She would stand up and go to bed around ten, and he would sit on the couch and watch television and fall asleep watching television.
An easy way to get out of having to decide whether or not to fuck her. Like she didn't get a vote. Maybe she wanted to fuck Ryan. Fucking Ryan was always comfortable and always felt good and he was always considerate. Dependable. It was funny -- dependable was never a word she would have used to describe Ryan a year ago, but now he was... reliable.
Always good for an orgasm, a sweet dessert, a polite "Thanks for supper. How was your day?"
But that night when he sat down, Theresa said, "Look at my fingernails," and Ryan glanced up.
"Hm?" he said.
"My fingernails." She waved them in front of his face. "They're painted."
"Yeah," he said. "Nice."
"Uh-huh," she said. "You know how I afforded this?"
"Conservative spending?" he said, and put a forkful of rice into his mouth. He always mixed his rice with the pico de gallo -- had for as long as Theresa had known him. Sour cream mixed with beans, and bacon with maple syrup.
"Summer Roberts drove into the neighborhood and we went to Tlua's. Summer tipped Tlua's younger sister fifteen dollars for an eight dollar pedicure." Theresa waited for Ryan to react at all, but he just took another forkful of rice, tomatoes, onions, and a little too much cilantro this time.
"Okay," he finally said. He was frowning. "I think it's nice that you're getting out during the day -- someplace that isn't next door. Not that I don't want you to see your mother -- that's not what I meant. I meant --"
"Summer said she's looking for a secretary," said Theresa. "Do you know why Summer would possibly need a secretary?"
"Because she's lonely and wants someone to hang out with who isn't Seth, but can't just ask you to be her friend?" said Ryan. He didn't sound nasty -- he sounded too bland.
"Maybe," said Theresa, and sat back in her chair. Ryan didn't know that Seth was gone. Theresa had thought that Ryan would have called the Cohens at least once in the past two weeks. She didn't want to talk about Seth with Ryan. She didn't want to know. It was so clear -- and she didn't want it confirmed. She took a tortilla and nibbled on the edge. "Maybe not. It would be money."
"What would you be doing? Driving to Newport every day?" Ryan squished his beans with the back of his fork and stirred them into his sour cream.
Not reliable and comfortable and dependable: predictable. Hm.
Theresa sniffed, and took a larger bite of tortilla. "No, Summer wants to come here," said Theresa. "I think she's shocked that we're living in a house and not a tent in someone's backyard."
"I don't know anyone who has ever lived in a tent in someone's backyard. We're not destitute," said Ryan.
"Obviously," said Theresa. "We have so much."
She didn't mean to be cruel, but he shut down, his face going blank. He pushed his chair away from the table, stood up, said, "Excuse me," and went outside. A few moments later she smelled cigarette smoke through the kitchen window.
"Fuck," she said, and let her head fall back. Spending the afternoon with Summer had actually been fun -- most of the women Theresa grew up around were the same kind of ballsy, mile-a-minute, self-obsessed people Summer was, except Summer was also full of entitlement issues. Like, she deserved to have Seth come back for her. She deserved to marry someone rich and be taken care of for the rest of her life. She deserved everything she wanted.
It was strange to Theresa, but it was also... alluring. Who didn't dream of getting everything they'd ever wanted? No where on Theresa's list was an unhappy live-in boyfriend and a baby. She'd thought... she'd thought maybe, once, she and Ryan could be happy together -- she did want Ryan. But this wasn't Ryan, how could it be? And a baby?
What the hell was she going to do with a baby?
Summer drove out to Chino the every day that week, her car continually stocked with magazines, video tapes, DVDs, CDs, citrus peels, fizzy bath bombs, scented candles, and truffles: everything two girls needed to have good afternoons together. On her way, she played a tape Ryan'd left in her car months ago when she'd given him a ride home from the Crab Shack on her way to see Seth. It was hip hop, and she'd come to really like it -- well, just a little. But a little was enough. It put her in the mood to go to Chino, like she was going native, almost, but without the poor skin care and unkempt yards.
"Hello!" she hollered when she got out of the car. The first time she'd gotten lost looking for Theresa and Ryan's house -- she had been looking for an apartment building, or something shabby and drab. But they lived in a small bungalow sort of place, which was falling down but not ugly. Theresa had a good eye for design, and hung scarves over the worst places on the walls.
She couldn't hide it all from Summer, but Summer wasn't going to say anything. Shit, she had manners. She was from the O fucking C, where manners ruled.
Well, not really, but that didn't mean she still couldn't be polite when she wanted/needed/had to be. And making Theresa feel bad wasn't the point. The point was to have someone to hang out with. Why exactly she'd told Theresa she needed a secretary, she wasn't sure. She just... blurted it out. On the other hand, Theresa had party planning skills, could bake, could add, and didn't mind hanging out with Summer. So she was poor. It wasn't. It wasn't.
It wasn't like being poor was a disease; Summer couldn't catch it. Otherwise she'd have caught it from Coop and Ryan a long time ago. Right? Right.
"Hey, Summer!" Theresa leaned out the kitchen window. "Come on in -- it's open."
The door squeaked as Summer opened it. Her arms were full of all the stuff she brought, and she dumped it on Theresa's kitchen table and went back for more.
"What's all this?" asked Theresa. "Summer, I can't keep taking things from you --"
"We have an agenda today," said Summer. "As my secretary, you have to go through these magazines with me and help me pick out a new haircut. This hair? Is so over."
"Okay." Theresa was resting her hands on her stomach, like pregnant women on television did, and it looked funny and made Summer feel funny. She turned away quick, and looked around the kitchen. Peeling linoleum, pictures of brown people on the refrigerator, a basket on the counter of limes and avocadoes and oranges.
"So do you make your own guacamole?" asked Summer. "I mean, that's your people, right?"
Theresa laughed, and Summer looked over her shoulder. "Yes," said Theresa. She was turning a bath bomb over and over in her hands. "I make my own guacamole."
They ate all of the guacamole, and Theresa made more, and they looked through the Italian Vogue and the French Vogue and the British Vogue, and Eve and three months worth of Jane. The first day, Theresa had showed Summer how to work a coffee machine. The second day they did the toaster oven. The fourth they made cookies. Theresa kept saying they should go slowly because Summer couldn't learn everything about the kitchen at once. Like Summer cared about learning about the fucking kitchen? Theresa totally didn't get that it was just something to do -- a way of killing time until Seth came home and-slash-or school started again and-slash-or something else happened that wasn't boring as fucking hell.
The day before, Theresa showed Summer how to press tortillas. This day was loading dishes into their mini-dishwasher.
"I am never going to need to know how to do this," Summer declared. "I have maids. I will always have maids." She dropped a dish into the dishwasher crooked. Theresa braced herself on the counter and bent down to fix it, which made Summer scowl. "Don't you do that; you're pregnant!"
"I'm not an invalid," snapped Theresa, but her face was pale when she stood back up.
"Sit down and put your feet up," Summer directed, "and I'll finish this."
"If you put them in crooked, I'll only have to redo it," said Theresa, but she sat down, and stayed pale. Summer wiped her hands on a towel and opened the box of truffles.
"Eat," she said.
"No, thank you," said Theresa.
"Eat!" Summer held the box under Theresa's nose. "Come on, this shit costs fifty dollars for an ounce. Don't you want some?"
"You paid fifty dollars for a box of chocolate?" Theresa was disbelieving. Summer rolled her eyes.
"This box was two-fifty," said Summer. "Eat it."
"No, I could never. Two fifty! That's -- that's so much money! That would pay my utilities bills for two months, at least!"
Summer sat down in front of Theresa on her knees, and pulled a chocolate out of the box. "Eat," she said, and held it up to Theresa's mouth. Suddenly it was very very important that Theresa eat expensive chocolate. If Summer had champagne, she would give Theresa champagne -- the French kind, which was the only kind, of course, because everything else was just wine with seltzer in it. Or might as well have been, anyway.
Summer continued speaking: "I have been eating this chocolate since I was old enough to eat chocolate. The first time I had it, my mother fed it to me from her fingers. It's the first memory I have of her, really -- her hands, her pale pink manicure."
Theresa opened her mouth, probably to say something, and Summer put the candy on her tongue. Her fingers brushed the sides of Theresa's cheeks -- wet and rough, like Theresa chewed on them. Her lips were dry. Summer didn't wipe off her fingers -- just picked up another piece of the chocolate and popped it into her own mouth. Her fingers were wet with someone else's spit -- not even when she was dating Cohen would she have let someone else's spitty fingers into her mouth.
Ew.
Theresa chewed and swallowed, and looked down at Summer, one hand on her belly, the other on the table.
"Thank you," she said softly. "Ooof!"
"What? Oh my god, did I kill you with chocolate?" Could poor people die of eating expensive chocolate? That didn't sound likely, but neither did Summer dating Seth Cohen, and look how that turned out. Shit. On the other hand, Summer didn't die of eating poor people food like rice and beans and tomatoes.
"The baby --" Theresa took one of Summer's hands and pulled it against her stomach. "It kicked."
"What?" said Summer. "They kick?"
"They are alive," said Theresa. "There -- feel that?"
"Ew!" Summer pulled her hand away from Theresa's stomach and the strange bulges and the weird movements, and scrambled back. She lost her footing on the uneven linoleum and fell backwards, and crawled away on her hands and feet. "That is so gross."
"It's just a baby, Summer. You were one once too."
"Never," said Summer. "That is just -- ew."
Theresa smiled at her, then looked down at the floor. "Oh, god," said Theresa. "Two hundred and fifty dollars of chocolate on my floor."
Then she burst into tears and left the room, and Summer stared after her, totally shocked. Was that a pregnancy thing? It wasn't like they couldn't get more chocolate if she wanted it.
"Hi," said Ryan. He kissed the top of Theresa's head. She didn't turn to look at him from her seat on the couch. He was freshly showered, and smelled like the soap Summer had brought over the day before. Every day Summer came with some new rich person's toy -- bath bombs and hair bars and citric acid face masques, spelled with a QUE instead of a K to make it seem like a classy thing to do, to put mushed up oranges and cucumbers and lemons or whatever on your face.
Two hundred and fifty dollars worth of chocolate truffles from France. Jesus Christ.
"Hello," she said.
"Um." Ryan sat down next to her on the couch. "Did you... cook today?"
"No."
"Okay." He stood up again.
"I don't have to cook every day," she snapped. "It's hot and I'm tired and the stupid baby was kicking all afternoon and --"
"Is the baby old enough to kick? I mean -- it's only been -- a month."
Theresa looked up at Ryan. "Babies start kicking around week 20."
"Week 20? But that's --" Theresa watched Ryan do the math in his head.
"Ryan, it's been like three months. More."
"I know -- I guess. It just. Seems. Real? I dunno." He shook his head and squinted at her. That was always what he did when he didn't want to talk about something.
"It is real." She stood up and walked into the bedroom and closed the door.
"It is real," she repeated to herself. "Shit. This sucks." She touched her stomach tentatively. "Nothing against you, baby, but I wish you didn't exist."
She could hear Ryan through the door, hear the fridge open and close. Maybe he would clean up the chocolate she and Summer had left there. She had cried, Summer had made comforting sounds and looked uncomfortable. She had napped, Summer had loaded the dishwasher -- really badly, but she did it. Like a peace offering?
Theresa would have preferred oral sex. Maybe if Ryan wanted to make a peace offering, he'd do it in the form of orgasms. There was something about being pregnant that made Theresa feel swollen and hot for sex all the time, like she wanted someone to touch her thighs and tongue her clit and squeeze her nipples, all at once. She could even live with Summer squeezing her nipples while Ryan licked her clit.
Hah.
Ryan had never been squeamish about talking about sex, but if she went up to him and said, "Lick my clit," he probably run away like someone had killed his dog or something.
Someone had killed his dog -- Theresa remembers. His mother had taken the dog out for a walk and let it run in front of a car or something. Maybe she doesn't remember that well. But it happened. People were always hurting the things Ryan loved -- even the loved objects themselves.
Theresa looked down at her stomach and balled her hand into a fist. One good punch; she always did have a good right hook. One punch, and the little six inch baby was gone, and no one would be the wiser. Teenagers miscarried all the time. The first pregnancy was always a big risk. She read the pamphlets. So did Ryan. And he'd be relieved to be relieved of his duties to her, duties that probably weren't even his duties anyway.
And Summer would stop coming over. And Theresa would move back in with her mother and live in that frilly room and have to pretend like for a while she wasn't her own person, all grown up and ready for the world.
Maybe that would be nice.
"Okay," announced Summer. "I am sick of this shit, Seth. I am so officially over you."
"What?"
"Oh, Luke? What the hell are you doing answering Seth's phone?"
"Summer?"
"Who else would it be, the tooth fairy?" Summer bared her teeth at Theresa's bathroom mirror and wished she had some dental floss.
"How's everything down in Newport?" Luke sounded eager, like an overgrown puppy or a little bear cub or something. If they could talk -- which they couldn't. But Luke could barely talk too, so it was an even playing field or whatever.
"It's the same," said Summer. "It sucks and everyone is annoying."
"How's Marissa?"
Summer rolled her eyes. "Marissa is pickling in a vat of vodka," she replied. "And her mother is fine too."
"Julie Cooper is one --"
"Shut up, Luke. Can I please talk to Seth -- like now?"
"Sure." Luke put the phone down and Summer could hear pop music in the background. Wherever they were, it had a shitty sound system and an even worse DJ.
"Hello?"
"Seth Cohen --"
"Bye, Summer."
"Listen, I am officially over you!" she yelled. "I am going to start sleeping with other people! I am going to sleep with the next person I see!"
But she was talking to the dial tone. "I hate you!" she screamed, and would have thrown her phone at the mirror, but it was Theresa's mirror, and that would have been rude. So instead she snapped her phone shut and spun around and let out the loudest scream she could.
"So," said Theresa. Summer opened her eyes to see Theresa lounging against the door.
"Sorry," said Summer. "I mean, he's an asshole, but this is your house."
"Yeah," said Theresa. "Here or the bed?"
"What?"
"You said you were going to sleep with the next person you saw." Theresa shrugged. The collar of her shirt caught on the small gold crucifix she always wore, just like Madonna used to be, except less ostentatious and actually Latina. "I'm here, you see me, and what better way to get back at Seth than to sleep with the girl his boyfriend knocked up? Plus I haven't gotten any since... well, Ryan." She licked her lips and cocked her head and Summer wasn't sure how she was supposed to feel about this, but something in her stomach twisted a little, and her throat felt tight. "Come on."
"You sound a little too logical about this. You see sex? It's not logical. It's passion. It's sweeping you off your feet and losing your head exciting. It's not, like, revenge. Duh," said Summer. She tucked her phone into the pocket of her jeans.
Theresa leaned forward. "Logic can be passionate," she said coolly, and stepped closer to Summer. Summer was trapped against the sink. Theresa's little belly poked into her, and moved. Ew.
"Theresa, I have this rule that I never sleep with pregnant women."
Theresa rolled her eyes. "Give me a break, Summer. It's not even real."
"It's real enough that it's moving," said Summer, and shrank back.
"You said you were going to."
"I meant men. With penises. That flop around."
"I don't flop around." Theresa stepped closer, and put her lips against Summer's. Summer kept her mouth tightly closed. Theresa's breath smelled like chocolate and something spicy. She licked Summer's mouth.
"Your lipgloss tastes disgusting," she murmured.
"You shouldn't be tasting it," replied Summer.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Summer swallowed hard. It wasn't like she'd never kissed a girl before -- you didn't go to Newport parties and stay lesbo-free for long. But this was a real kiss, not for boys, and Theresa's tongue was rough, and her hands around Summer's wrists were strong, and her skin was as dark as Summer's, and bumpy, and her face was full. Summer's eyes flicked from Theresa's mouth up to her eyes, dark, full of -- something.
Summer twisted out of Theresa's grip, and was moving away, was leaving the bathroom, she was, except her lipgloss just felt too heavy and sticky, so first she reached for a tissue, and wiped it off. Theresa's hand was still on her other wrist, squeezing tightly, and Summer pushed her. She moved. Summer pushed her again, and she moved again, and then it was Summer pinning her and Summer kissing her and Summer licking her lips and making her moan, and Summer holding her wrist.
They were, like, making out. In the bathroom. In Ryan's house. And he was gonna come home any minute, because her phone call to Seth had taken way longer than she'd expected -- or maybe not. She wouldn't have minded seeing Ryan. Wasn't that, like, Freudian?
One of Theresa's hands, the one Summer wasn't holding -- gripping, not holding; they weren't walking anywhere or anything -- moved up Summer's back, taking her tank top with it, and pulled it over her head. It got stuck, because it had a built-in bra that stayed where Summer put it, but Theresa tugged hard, and messed up Summer's hair, and then she was almost naked in Ryan's bathroom with Theresa touching her breasts.
Seth had never bothered to touch her breasts -- he just went straight for the penetration. Like that was all of existence? Probably for him it was. Too much pornography ruined young seducers.
"Pay attention," said Theresa fiercely, and shook her, and Summer blinked rapidly.
"I'm paying attention," she said, and ran her fingers over Theresa's breasts. Theresa shuddered and gasped like Summer had put a finger inside her or something, so Summer did it again, and again, and then pushed Theresa's thin shirt up and out of the way. Theresa wasn't wearing a bra, and her boobs just bounced there, and were paler than the rest of her, and Summer scratched at them. Theresa pressed against one of her thighs. She was wearing loose pants, and Summer could feel how wet she was through them, and through her jeans, and she braced herself with her head on the door, her face in Theresa's neck, one leg threaded through Theresa's, and rolled her nipples. Theresa let out a moan, then another, and her hips moved, and Summer opened her mouth and licked Theresa's neck, then started to suck on it in time with Theresa's hips.
Theresa's shirt was soft like her pants, but felt like sandpaper against Summer's nipples and skin. She shivered a little. Theresa's breath was hot on Summer's neck, and damp, and her tongue was poking out, just a little.
It was so obvious when Theresa came, because she shrieked a little, and slumped onto the door and away from Summer, and started shaking.
What the fuck was she upset about? Summer should be the one shaking! Especially since Theresa's live-in apparently-not-lover had a mean habit of punching people and then throwing them into pools. There weren't any pools nearby, so that meant Ryan was going to punch her and then throw her into, like, a construction site or something, and no one would ever find her body and she'd be like Marilyn Monroe -- died too young because of a stupid conspiracy.
Theresa let out a long breath. "Thanks," she said, and stood up straight. "I needed that."
"You did? I thought you were -- you know."
"I am. You know. Straight? Yeah. But getting off is getting off." Theresa fixed her shirt. Her nipples were way hard. Summer looked down, crossed her arms over her own chest.
"So you were just using me?" she asked indignantly.
"Weren't you using me?" Theresa sounded altogether too rational.
"No! Well, maybe a little. But mostly not."
"Come here," said Theresa, and Summer stepped closer. There was a wet spot on her jeans.
"Ryan will be home soon," Summer whispered against Theresa's mouth.
"But he's not home now," said Theresa, and kissed her, and there was totally tongue involved, and it was like real making out and so weird, and Theresa's hands were hot on Summer's back, too warm, or Summer was too cold.
Theresa sank to her knees and tugged on Summer's jeans. All the days not to wear skirts. But Summer did not ever once have the thought that Theresa would be trying to fuck her in a bathroom or something, so it wasn't like she could have planned an outfit around it.
Theresa's mouth closed over Summer through her thong, and pressed hard, and held Summer's ass really tightly, so tightly that there would be bruises or something later. Summer leaned over her and braced her elbows against the door. It was cold and too hard. Summer's hair hung down and kept getting in her face. Theresa wriggled a finger into Summer -- her jeans were around her ankles, and it was too hard to balance, and she was going to fall, except if she fell, this would stop, and there was no way Summer wanted it to stop.
Her tits felt huge, like there were weights on them, pulling them down, and they brushed Theresa's head, and the whole thing was just not normal at all and didn't make any sense, but it was happening, and there was so much pressure.
When Summer came, she banged her head against the door and her legs quivered and the muscles in her thighs shook so hard, she would have fallen over for real if Theresa hadn't grabbed her around the waist.
"Oh god," said Summer between gasps.
"Not bad," said Theresa, and licked her lips.
"Oh god," said Summer again.
"Theresa?" Ryan's voice, right outside. He knocked on the door. "Theresa, are you okay? Is Summer here?"
"Yeah!" Theresa called. "She was just feeling woozy. We'll be out in a second."
"Uh, okay," said Ryan. Summer heard him walk away, and let out the breath she'd been holding.
"Oh god," she whispered.
"Whatever," said Theresa. She pressed her mouth against Summer's one last time, and then stepped away. She checked her face and neck in the mirror, made sure her shirt was smooth. Summer watched her, then pulled up her own pants, looked for her shirt on the floor. Theresa was holding it. Summer pulled it on, fixed the bra, plumped her boobs up, and took a deep breath.
"Fuck Seth," said Summer.
"Or not," said Theresa, and they laughed, and Theresa twisted the doorknob.
Theresa laid in bed and stared at the ceiling. Ryan snored softly beside her. She fingered her crucifix with one hand and her clit with another and felt kind of sacrilegious, but she'd had sex with a girl that afternoon and god hadn't struck her down or anything.
"Hey, Jesus," she said softly. Ryan grunted. She smiled. "Hey, Jesus," she said again. "What's up with this, huh?"
But Jesus didn't answer. Theresa turned over, and kept her hand between her legs. She rubbed herself slowly in a circle, and thought about Summer's skin. It was darker than her own, even though Summer was the whitest white girl Theresa'd ever met. Except for Marissa of course. There was a piece of work right there. Nice enough, but so fucked up.
Like Theresa was one to talk? Of course, knocked up and fucked up were two different things.
If Theresa was really fucked up, she would snuggle up to Ryan while he was dreaming of Marissa and make him fuck her while he was asleep. She'd never done that, not yet, but oh she wanted to. What the fuck else was she supposed to do? Let Summer come over every day with her magazines and her soaps and her SUV full of groceries and make Theresa pick out hair styles and put on makeup, and then let Summer eat her out in the bathroom every day before Ryan came home?
Not a bad idea actually, but it wouldn't work if Theresa's stomach got bigger and bigger. Which it would. She could always throw herself down the stairs. Or get some fucking cojones already and get an abortion. It wasn't like god could hate her even more than he already did.
"Can you?" she said out loud. "Can you hate me any more?"
"I don't hate you," Ryan whispered, and slid his arm around her stomach, and splayed his hand over where the baby was, and put his face in her hair.
"Well I hate you," she said, but not loud enough so anyone could hear her.