“Quinn strong-armed me into it.”
“Really?” His eyes kind of flick over me, but not in a perverted way. Just in the normal way that a guy looks at a girl when he’s about to say, “You don’t strike me as someone who’s easily strong-armed.”
“Well, I was kind of drunk at the time.”
“Ah. I know how that goes.”
One of the Carson girls is standing on a chair, pint glass in the air. Everyone is shouting and happy, and I can’t concentrate on more than snatches of conversation.
“Blow jobs.” “Six tries.” “The best rucker in the universe.” “World Cup.”
Quinn grinning her widest grin, wiggling her fingers, saying, “Some of us don’t need a cock to get off.”
Gwen pours and pushes a glass in my direction. “Drink!”
When she turns away, I tell Scott, “Just so you know, I’m not drinking this whole thing. I have a quiz tomorrow.”
“That’s fine. I’m not drinking, either.” I look at his glass and see that he’s got water instead of beer. I hadn’t noticed. “I’m the designated driver.”
“Is this, like, your job?” I ask.
“No, I get paid to assist the coach during the games, but now I’m just here because a bunch of these girls are my friends, and I don’t want them to get themselves killed on the way home.”
“That’s good.”
He smiles. “It’s not like it’s a hardship. You want me to get you some water?”
“No, thanks. I’m good.”
He lifts his own glass and clinks it into mine. “To your first game of rugby. Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
“Wait, whose first game?” one of the Carson players asks.
Scott points at me. “Carrie’s. She never played before today.”
“Ladies, we’ve got a virgin in the house!”
Before I know what’s even going on, I’m standing on top of a table, and forty women are singing to me.
Oh, rugby women are the biggest and the best
And we never give it up
And we never give it a rest
And we build a better ruck
And we give a better fuck
And no matter who we play, we can never get enough
Out in the field! Down in the scrum! Rugby women will make you come!
My throat is so hot, but I’m smiling.
It is impossible not to smile. I feel strong and fast, bruised and shaken, surrounded by affectionate solidarity.
I feel normal again, like I used to, before everything went off the rails.
In Massachusetts, there’s an office building where it’s someone’s job to erase Caroline Piasecki’s vulva from the Internet. If it works, in a year, that girl won’t exist anymore. She’ll be dead, and part of me will be dead along with her.
Maybe in the meantime what I’m supposed to do is grow into someone new. Find something green in me, feed it, watch it shoot up toward the sun. Turn into a girl who plays rugby and dances at parties and flirts with boys who are sunny and open and who don’t deal drugs or avoid discussing even the smallest details of their personal lives.
Rugby is awesome.
I’m so flipping hard-core, I can’t even stand it.
The first time I see the inside of West’s apartment, he’s not home.
I feel weird about it, but it’s not as though I snuck in. Me and Bridget ran into Krishna at the student center, and he invited us over with him and Quinn to watch bad TV and drink “even worse” alcohol. None of us could resist the allure of the mysterious “even worse.”
So here we are, sprawled out on a big leather sectional couch, sharing a bottle of butterscotch schnapps that Krishna produced from the depths of the coat closet, and watching reruns of What Not To Wear, which Krish has stored up on his DVR in numbers that kind of frighten me.
West is working at the library, but he should be done soon. I text him, Are you off yet?
Yeah, he replies. I’m walking home. You?
I’m in ur apartment, poking all ur things.
This isn’t true, but it gets his attention. DID YOU BREAK IN?
Yes. I keep a set of lock picks in my cheek.
Houdini used to do that. I find the idea repulsive, but I also sort of love it.
Very tricky. Are you really there?
Yes, K invited me. I like what you’ve done with the decor.
This is a joke, of course. It’s obvious what happened here: Krishna bought all the stuff he thought was important—the couch, the TV, the alcohol, a king-size bed I can see through the open door to his bedroom—and then he and West purchased everything else in the place for two bucks at a rummage sale. Probably they got their dishes in big paper bags marked 25 cents, because I’m drinking butterscotch schnapps out of a Flintstones jelly glass. I’ve propped up my sock-clad feet on a coffee table made of plywood and cinder blocks.
I put a lot of creative effort into it, West says.
I can see that.
If you find my collection of Pound Puppies, DON’T MOVE ANY.
Are they in the bedroom?
You could go in & find out. Look up.
Why?
I keep my stuffies in a hammock.
Smiling, I glance at the closed door to his room.
I could go in. I could sit on West’s bed. Touch the bedspread, whatever color it is. See what he’s put on his walls, what books are on his shelves, how much laundry there is in the basket.
I want to.
Are you in my room, Caro?
The question makes my throat hot—as hot as if he’d asked me what I’m wearing. As hot as if we’re cybering, which we’re not. Not even close. So why is it that when I take a sip from my jelly glass, the schnapps goes down wrong and I start to cough uncontrollably?
“What are you doing over there?” Quinn asks.
“Texting West,” Bridget says. “You can tell because she’s biting her lip and kind of hunching over the phone, like possibly Skittles are going to come out of it, or a rainbow, and—”
“I know that,” Quinn interrupts. “I just want to know what he said to make her choke.”
“Nothing,” I croak.
“Ooh, what?” Bridget asks.
“You two need to fuck and get it over with,” Krishna says.
“Shut up.” I am a genius with the witty retorts.
The door opens, and West walks in. Seeing me on the couch, he smiles. “Thought I was going to find you in my bed.”
I burst into flame.
Not really, but I might as well. It would be a better way to dispel heat than sitting here, flaming red.
“Not with those ears,” I say.
West snorts and drops his bag by the door. “Hey, Quinnie. Bridget. What’s Krish got you drinking?”
“Butterscotch schnapps,” Quinn says.
“Gross.”
“It is some broke-ass shit,” she agrees.
“I was just saying to Caroline about how the two of you need to fuck,” Krishna says.
“Again? You’re way too obsessed with who I’m fucking.”
“I’m not obsessed. I’m concerned. You’re a twenty-year-old guy with too many jobs and a permanent James Dean loner frown. If you don’t start using it to get laid, you’ll probably die of repression. And here’s Caroline—”