The Way I Used to Be

IT BECOMES DIFFICULT TO avoid someone while simultaneously using them. That’s Troy. I know he’s had a crush on me these past three months. And I’ve been trying not to lead him on. Not too much, anyway. Still, he tells us about every party that’s happening in a thirty-mile radius. And I don’t tell him about how I had sex with his older brother back in September.

Not that I enjoy the parties all that much. But I enjoy losing myself. And there’s always someone there. Ready, waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Just like me. I’ve gotten good at picking them out right away. Finding that someone. Not a bad person. Someone who just wants what I want. To disconnect. For a little while, anyway. From themselves, mostly. I think. I wouldn’t really know, though, because it’s not like we ever talk about these things. It’s not like I really care, anyway.

That’s what I’m thinking about, lying on this lumpy futon next to some guy. The bedroom window is open, and the winter air flows in easily, cooling my whole body. I can almost see my breath.

“You’re that girl,” he tells me, propping himself on his elbow as he lights up a joint. “I didn’t even realize it when we first started talking.”

I turn to face him, and see that he’s looking down at me with a grin.

“What girl?” I ask.

“Let’s just say people know who you are at our school,” he tells me as he exhales a cloud of smoke. “People talk about you,” he says, his words slowing down. “A lot.” He offers me a hit, but I shake my head. I haven’t smoked pot since the playground with Troy. It turns out getting high really isn’t my thing. This is my thing.

The smoke begins to fill the room, making me feel dizzy. I close my eyes, and try to sink down into this moment a little deeper—into my body, my mind—so deep I can come out the other side and forget how I even got here. I can hear the muted shouting and music on the other side of the door. But it can’t touch me in here, somehow.

“You know,” the guy says, reaching over to brush my hair back away from my face, his voice pulling me away from this feeling. I open my eyes and try to focus on him. “I can’t tell if you’re really pretty,” he continues so sincerely, a soft smile on his face, “or really ugly.”

It’s like when you’re falling in a dream and you wake up, shocked back into reality by your body hitting the bed with a crash. That’s what his stupid, clumsy words do to me.

And in that instant an image forms in my mind, quick and fleeting.

Josh. I see his smile. Feel his sweetness. His arms around me. For just a moment—just a flash. It disappears almost immediately. As soon as my consciousness kicks in, he’s gone. But he was there just long enough and just clear enough to jolt me, to shock my system with a surge of fresh heartache. It leaves me with this sick underwater sensation, something dangerously close to drowning. Josh would never, ever say anything like that to me, not even after the way I treated him.

I sit up fast. I find my shirt and my pants. I get dressed. This guy lies there, watching me, smiling at me.

“Where you going?” he asks, taking too long to realize what I’m doing.

“Where do you think?”

“I don’t know,” he says slowly.

“Look, I realize you’re stoned, but you don’t say fucked-up things like that to a girl you just had sex with!”

“What did I say? I said you’re really pretty, didn’t I?”

“No, actually that’s not what you said!” Leaving in a hurry was easier in the warmer months. Now I have layers to keep track of—I pull on my boot laces with force as I tie them in a double knot.

“Oh.” He laughs.

I look at him before I leave. He’s just lying there shirtless, grinning, and oblivious. “You know, I can’t tell if you’re really mean or really stupid!”

He cracks up at that. “You’re so funny,” he’s saying as I’m closing the door on him, stepping out into the noise again.

Fuck off.

There are too many damn people crammed into this house. As I squeeze through the bodies, people look at me and I wonder if they all know me as that girl too. I find Mara in the basement. She’s sitting between Troy and Alex on a dusty old couch. Mara’s talking. Alex isn’t listening. She acts like she likes him when we’re at these parties—lets him put his arm around her shoulder, and she’ll touch his leg with her foot, kiss him good-bye before we leave—but I think she’s just using him too. The only time she even mentions his name is when she’s around Cameron. Still, after all these months of partying, they’ve only kissed.

“Hey,” I call to Mara, barely able to find an empty place to stand. “I’m going outside,” I shout, pointing toward the door.

“Wait,” she says, peeling Alex’s arm off her shoulder, “wait, I’m coming with you.”

We push our way against the wall of bodies, weaving through the cases of beer stacked up on the floor of the kitchen like a maze. As I open the front door and step out into the cold, a welcome silence rushes over us, and I feel like I can breathe again.

“What’s wrong?” Mara asks.

“Nothing.”

She eyes me closely. “No, there’s something.”

“It’s nothing. I was just hanging out with this idiot—he said something kind of mean to me. It’s okay, though. I mean, whatever. I’m fine. I don’t care.” I shrug, taking in a deep breath of icy air, allowing it to fill me before I release it.

“What did he say?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I tell her, looking up at the sky.

“Let’s go,” she says.

“Really? You don’t want to stay? What about Alex?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says with a laugh. “I don’t think he’ll even notice, honestly.”

We drive to this twenty-four-hour Denny’s that’s right in between our town and Troy and Alex’s. It’s only ten thirty. I order a big breakfast and Mara gets an enormous banana split.

“Tell me what that guy said to you?” Mara asks me again as she picks the cherry off the top of a swirl of whipped cream. “I really wanna know.”

“Fine. It’s kind of funny, actually. He said he couldn’t tell whether I was really pretty or really ugly,” I finally admit.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me, right?” Her face is caught between a smile and a frown.

“No. Those were his exact words, Mara.”

“That’s heinous!”

“Yeah.” I laugh. “But what’s worse is the way he said it—so sweetly—like it was a compliment or something! Not exactly the kind of thing you want a guy telling you right after you sleep with him.”

“No, I guess it’s not,” Mara agrees, her laughter fading. “Do you—do you do that a lot, Edy?” she asks me awkwardly, looking down at her banana split, like she’s counting the scoops of ice cream over and over: vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry. “I mean, with guys you don’t know?” she finishes.

“Sometimes.” I shrug. “I mean, it depends, I guess.”

“Do you think—I don’t know, do you think that’s such a good idea? I mean, that’s kind of dangerous, isn’t it?”

I bite into a warm buttered toast triangle. I don’t know how to have this conversation with Mara. I don’t know how to explain it. “Is it any more dangerous than getting wasted with a bunch of strangers?”

Her mouth drops open slightly. She’s obviously insulted that I would even attempt to compare the two.

“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that—you know I’ve done that too—I’m just saying it’s kind of the same thing, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t think it’s the same thing at all,” she says, sinking her spoon down into the softening mound of strawberry ice cream. “Isn’t sex,” she whispers, “supposed to be special? You know, with someone special?”

“Says who? A lot of things are supposed to be special that really aren’t.”

“I guess, Edy,” she says, not convinced.

“Besides,” I continue, “it’s not like there are all that many special people just hanging around anyway.”

“Still, I feel like I should tell you I’m concerned or something, tell you to stop doing that.”

“I know what I’m doing.” I reach across the table and steal a spoonful of her chocolate ice cream. “No cause for concern, I promise. It’s honestly not a big deal. Really.”

She shakes her head and shrugs, returning her attention to her banana split. “Do you think Alex and Troy are ever not high?” she asks, trying to change the subject.

“Not that I’ve ever seen,” I say with a laugh.

“They’re nice though, at least,” she points out.

I nod. I take another spoonful of ice cream. “I did something kind of not nice to Troy, Mara.”

“Oh no, did you have—you know—with him?” she asks. “When?”

“No, not with him. I kind of slept with his older brother,” I confess. “At that party way back, at his house—it was really his brother’s party. I’ve been feeling guiltier and guiltier about it every time we see him.”

“Why did you do that?” she asks.

“Well, I didn’t plan on it, or anything. It didn’t mean anything. I never even spoke to him again after that. What—why are you looking at me like that?” I ask her, her face more horrified with every word I say.

“Sorry. I’m not judging. I’m just surprised—I just didn’t know that had happened. That’s all.”

“Well, it did happen. But it didn’t mean anything. I don’t even know why I’m telling you, actually.”

“No, I want you to tell me. I don’t want you keeping all these secrets from me.”

“I don’t keep secrets from you,” I lie.

“Okay.” She pushes the banana split across the table. “You have to help me finish this—it’s melting.”