Everything But

The bottle of Gordon’s vodka was stashed so far back in their closet that they had to use a Swiffer handle to fish it out. Kat C. was supposed to catch it, but she misjudged the trajectory and it glanced off her forearm before thudding to the ground, half bouncing and half rolling to a stop at the pile of laundry by the foot of Samantha’s bed. 

“See? They’re useful.” Samantha smirked, jutting her chin toward the clothes at her feet. Wool turtlenecks with lacey bras still twisted inside them, clingy tops turned inside out as she’d ripped them off before falling drunk into bed. A thin haze of Parliament Lights and CK1 perfume hovered, concentrated over the heap but emanating throughout the room. Samantha’s signature scent. It was dirty and sexy and it didn’t care who judged. 

Leah sat, nested in a beanbag chair with a small hole in it from which a stream of tiny white polystyrene beads escaped every time she moved. Samantha had had sex twice. Well, way more than twice, but with two different guys, which Leah knew because Samantha had told Jen and Jen had told Leah. Samantha’s boyfriend went to Michigan and was on the tennis team. He wanted to come visit but Samantha told him she needed to “get her bearings” first, which, as far as Leah could tell, meant deciding which hot frat guy she was going to dump him for. 

“Who wants?” Samantha was already pouring vodka into shot glasses that were sticky from last Saturday night. Leah received one in the shape of a glass cowboy boot. She swigged and shuddered, felt carsick and coughed. Her guts burned, which she liked because that meant it was working.  

Kat R. passed her a carton of warm orange juice. “Can you guys pleeease get a new fridge?” she whined. Jen let loose an eye roll she didn’t even try to hide. Leah sipped, citrus not masking cheap vodka so much as lying on top of it, thickly, sweetness spurring more sting. Three of these and she’d be ready to talk to strangers.  

Leah hadn’t had sex with two people. Leah hadn’t had sex with any people. Leah had never even kissed a guy, which, as she’d endured through high school, had been like that allegory of the frog slowly boiling to death: not acutely painful, just dully nagging. She’d thought the water was only warm, and it wasn’t until she stepped into a world of Samanthas that she realized she was cooked.  

Perpetually untouched. That’s what she was. That secret, her secret, in the room with them now: her constant companion. She poured herself another glass boot of Gordon’s and downed it, then one more before choking down a gulp of juice. Her insides squirmed, pickling. “I told Adam we’d meet him at Phi Kap at nine,” she said to Jen. “We should probably go.” Her sweater was itchy. Little green fuzzies were rubbing off and clinging to her corduroy skirt. It was stifling in here. Fuzzies never stuck to Samantha. 

“Leah’s got a single tonight! You gonna put it to good use?” Kat R. grinned salaciously, trying to gin up a chorus of scandalized “ooooooh”s. Leah’s roommate Megan was in Madison for the weekend, visiting her own long-distance boyfriend. Unlike Samantha, Megan was convinced she was going to marry hers. When Leah had asked her if they’d slept together, Megan had replied, “Everything but.” 

Kat R. stood and stretched, her shirt sliding up to reveal a slice of eggshell-pale midriff. She rolled her birdlike wrists above her head, daring someone to comment that they could count her ribs. “Can I check my voicemail real quick?” she asked. Kat R. wore a gold necklace with her birthstone, opal. It was bad luck, she said, to wear opals if they weren’t your birthstone. She dialed the phone and pressed the opal into her sternum, hanging up too quickly for there to have been any messages. The stone left a red print on her skin. Kat R. bruised easily. 

***

Outside, autumn flirted with winter. Dried elm leaves crunched under Leah’s boots like molted insect exoskeletons. Her sweater was bunchy inside her pea coat, but it was officially too cold to go jacketless anymore. She and Jen stood next to an emergency blue light phone, its unearthly glow lending her friend a hollow, haunted look. Did those things actually work? Who would have the presence of mind to seek one out in an actual emergency? How scared would she have to be, she wondered, to use one herself? 

The campus shuttle sighed to a stop in front of them, its windows fogged with the buzzed breath of a dozen tipsy freshmen. Jen and Leah struggled out of their coats for the ride. “I love that sweater,” Jen said, smoothing her own top over her torso. It was sparkly black and puckered in the middle where a ribbon cinched it in a bow below her cleavage. Jen had a lot of cleavage. 

“It’s so itchy,” Leah complained. “I feel like I should have worn something sluttier.” 

“I bet Adam wishes you wore something sluttier.”

“Shut up! He’s like my brother.” Leah didn’t have a brother, but she if she did, she thought she’d feel about him the way she felt about Adam, i.e., utterly platonic. For someone who fell into unrequited crushes with abundance, Leah’s feelings toward Adam had never veered from hard-and-fast friend. “He feels the same way,” she added. He did, too. She was sure of it. 

Jen rolled her gloves into a ball, which she bandied back and forth between her palms. “You think Megan is losing the ‘But’ this weekend?” 

Leah had been wondering the same thing. With a noncommittal “ha,” vodka grated at the back of her throat; maybe she should have eaten something before they left. Her back bumped against her seat as the shuttle lurched to a stop in front of McMillan Hall. Enter: giggling girls in beanies and barn coats, towered over by boys in baseball caps. Long arms exposed to the elements in t-shirts with the logos of sports teams. Imagine those arms around you, those hands tipping up your chin. Imagine being one of those girls, who’d been kissed by one of those boys, or a boy like him. Just imagine. 

“I wish Adam was in demand by better frats,” Jen complained. 

“Yeah.” Jen wasn’t wrong. “Should we have gone to Delt with Kat R.?”

“God, no. She’s so pathetic. Someone’s gonna be eating her feelings tonight, better lock up the granola!”

Just because it was mean didn’t make it not true. The shuttle trundled forward, and now the vodka surfed Leah’s bloodstream, little boozy vessels rafting her through her cardiovascular system, lighting up the highways and biways with well-being. Magic, really. “And the diet cheese,” she grinned. “Don’t forget the diet cheese!”

It was religious, this feeling, a new friend next to you, everything suddenly so funny, the funniest anything has ever been. Both of you laughing at someone who wasn’t there to get her feelings hurt, in a lovely warm bus with everyone heading to a version of the same place. So un-alone. 

Jen’s curls curtained her face. “Can I tell you something?” Leah nodded. “You can’t tell anyone.” Another nod, solemn. Jen picked up a glove and flapped it back and forth before she spoke. “I’ve actually never hooked up with anyone.” 

Fireworks, cartoon hearts. A rush of warmth, explosion of vodka-joy. Leah’s secret threw its arms around both her and Jen and squeezed. “Me neither!” 

“No,” Jen said. “I’m being serious.” 

Leah had never felt closer to anyone, couldn’t imagine ever being. “So am I!” 

“No, like not even kissed.”

“Me. Too.”

They stared at each other, effervescence in their veins. Their blood was champagne. Their confession, a vow. The background chatter of drunk coeds was the Hallelujah Chorus. This night was holy.  

***

Warm beer in a plastic cup, mostly foam. In the crowded basement, beer caught the baton from vodka and sprinted. Leah’s limbs were loose. Adam said something but she couldn’t hear him, the music was so loud, like it was playing inside her body. “You’re too tall!” she yelled up at him, giggling. His flannel shirt hung open like a set of plaid curtains. Jen grabbed her hand, and Leah let herself be led out to the dance floor. 

I get knocked down! But I get up again! 

They belted and bounced, threw their heads back and their hands up. 

You’re never gonna keep me down!

The sticky floor throbbed underfoot. She and Jen and their secret, singing: 

Pissing the night away… Ooooh…

Suddenly, Leah’s back was soaking wet. She whirled around to meet a sheepish shrug, empty plastic cup dripping dregs. She recognized this guy, he was in her Sociology seminar. Jeff? Josh? 

“Matt,” he said. “Sorry! Here, take mine.” He held out a full beer, sloshing some on her shoes. A new song came on. I like the way you work it. She stuck a finger into the frothy head and watched the bubbles dissolve around it. 

Behind her, Adam’s presence. A boy-shaped block of displaced air. Like a brother; her friend. He would tap her on the shoulder, draw her away to make fun of the drunk dancers. Next to her, Jen swayed, and their secret kept the beat. They would stay a while, and the buzz would wear off, and then they would leave and get fries to dip into milkshakes on the way home. It would be comfortable. And safe. And it made her a little sad. 

Leah pulled her finger free and sucked off the beer. The guy, Matt, grinned. She guzzled the entire cup with one breath. Let it fall to the filthy floor, then without looking back wove her way deeper into the scrum of bodies who also weren’t done drinking or dancing for the night. 

***

It was like fly fishing, Leah though thickly, the way Matt would drift away, then lasso back like she had him on a line. Her eyes were dry, her contacts thin flakes she had to blink hard to keep centered on her pupils. There was a beer in her hand, but she felt like it had stopped working. 

The crowd had thinned. What time was it? Matt snagged her view again, danced closer. So did she. The space between them felt charged now. Heavy. There was a pull. Matt’s hands were on her waist. She slid hers around his neck, which was damp. The base thumped, thudded. His face was very near to hers. Their heads played around each other’s, dipping and dodging, two magnets that could only get so close. Her breathing took on a new quality. Like they’d entered a different plane, with different air. A room within the room. 

“We’re leaving.” Adam was there, then, in the invisible doorway of this inner chamber. The dance floor was almost empty. Crushed cups and wisps of haze from a fog machine— had that been there all night? 

Matt let his hands fall from her hips but stood close, his body touching hers in a warm seam along her side. She wanted back in their private sanctum. Everybody else get out. 

“I’m gonna stay a little,” she said. Her secret shifted, sidled closer to Jen. The fake fog had a weird, chemical smell.

“I’ll get her back,” Matt said, “don’t worry,” and the phantom walls of their room fortified, the two of them on one side and Adam and Jen on the other. 

Jen nodded. “Let’s go,” she said to Adam, who stood for one long beat before he turned and followed Jen away. 

***

October air dried her sweat into a cold, salty film. Oh, shit, had she left her coat? Leah touched her skirt pocket and felt a hard rectangle, at least she had her ID. The beer had made things blurry, but otherwise she felt surprisingly sober. 

Matt followed her up the front stairs of her dorm, waited as she took three attempts to swipe in. He caught the door behind her, trailed her down the hall, into the internal stairwell. Inside, it was quiet. Like the city after snow. 

The safety lights outside her window stayed on all night, so Leah’s room was low-lit with the effect of a grocery store after hours. Unbidden, the thought of Megan in Madison intruded. Did she still have the “But”? Was she in a dark room with a boy right now, wondering how far they would go?

Leah stood in the middle of her floor, between the beds. Her breathing, Matt’s breathing, the residual echo of frat party music a tinny ringing in her ear. She should say something, she thought. She should make conversation, or at least thank Matt for walking her home. Relieve him of duty. She readied herself to speak, and turned right into Matt’s mouth. 

It was already open, no preamble, no lead-up. Really, it was less of what she’d imagined a kiss would be, and more like CPR: mouth-to-mouth. Leah had worried she wouldn’t know what to do, had practiced on her hand, tongue delicately fondling the webbing between her thumb and pointer finger. Innocent, then eager. Inviting. 

This, though, had no arc. No build, no rise. It was just… happening. After all that, Leah thought. Oh well. She’d crossed the Rubicon. She’d never been kissed, and now she had. Her secret shrank wordlessly through the wall, no longer hers to hide. 

Was Matt enjoying this? His mouth was the only thing touching her. She reached up and grazed his shoulder, no real reason why, maybe to draw him in and maybe to push him away, maybe just to do something new. As if cued, Matt shuffled forward, toward Megan’s bed. Leah let herself be guided backwards, to sit. Matt leaned, pressed her down, one of his knees on either side of her leg. The pink floral comforter was plush under her back. Megan would absolutely lose her shit if she knew.

At the hem of her sweater, Matt’s hands lurked. Then they were under the wool, over her bra. She arched her back to aid his fumbling, shrugged free of confines as his palms found her breasts. She felt mostly heaviness. Hands like hunks of meat. 

It wasn’t obligation, exactly, that drew her hand to Matt’s zipper. She just felt like their bodies were having a conversation, and it was her turn to talk. She didn’t meet Matt’s eyes, and he didn’t seek hers. His smell was stale, kind of musty. She wasn’t sure what to do with her hand. Beneath her, he moved, and she grazed flesh, thin flesh, very warm and very soft but impossibly hard at the same time. It was, she thought, entirely alien. 

The touch was an alarm. A warning: too far. Leah pulled her hand free and sat up, sat back. Matt slid out from under her and stood. “Bye.” She said nothing in response. What was there to say? 

In the bathroom, fluorescent lights were artificial suns, turning deep night into noon. Leah used five pumps of Samantha’s apricot face wash; she needed to slough Matt’s scent off her skin. She felt her secret watching her from the doorway. It had been her silent comrade for so long. She hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye.

A retching sound in the stall behind her, liquid hitting liquid with a sickening splash. The toilet flushed, someone sniffed. Leah only realized she was lonely once she knew she wasn’t alone. 

Kat R.’s legs were so thin that her knees looked like knuckles. Her chin was sharp, and in the bright yellow glare, Leah could see that her face was covered in a fine, furry fuzz. She blew her nose into the wad of toilet paper in her hand and winced. “G’night,” she said, her chapped lips stained dark, her voice raspy and raw. 

The door swung closed. Night loomed long, and Leah wasn’t tired. For the first time ever, she wished Megan was around. She wanted someone else to share her air. 

***

 “He’ll call you,” Jen said, stirring chocolate milk into her Lucky Charms. The dining hall was blessedly muted, everyone obeying the post-party imperative to keep things to a dull roar. “He’ll definitely call.”

“I don’t think so,” Leah said. She didn’t want him to. She kind of wished Matt would vaporize, vanish. Un-exist. Not that she’d take back what she’d done. Not all of it. She was mostly relieved she’d gotten the kissing in. Just… everything but that. 

Adam sat down but said nothing. “Good morning,” Leah prompted. She wanted things to be regular. To be right. She met his eyes, the color of maple syrup. They searched hers, like they were looking for something that hurt. 

“I told him he owes you an apology.” 

Home fries, wet sand in her windpipe. She coughed. “What?”

“He took advantage of you. You were really drunk.” 

Leah thought of Matt’s hands, and her own. Where they’d gone, what they’d touched. No advantage had been taken. Had she even been that drunk? 

“I’m OK.” Not a denial. Let him think what he thinks, she thought. “I don’t want to talk about it.” A little dramatic, a little distressed. Leah could feel her own memory curling at the edges, taking on a different color. Adam was recasting it. Like heavy hands that pried beneath her sweater, she would let him. 

Jen said something funny. Samantha announced she was never smoking again. Adam said he couldn’t wait for Megan to get back, he really needed her Econ notes. Kat C. had a cappella practice, so she didn’t have time to finish her omelet. Kat R.’s opal necklace glowed iridescent in the sun. October ebbed. Secrets supplanted secrets. Leah was different, and she was exactly the same.