White is for Virgins (64 page)

One breezy July afternoon, I was driving around with Lily and Nick, looking for some place to hang.

“OHMYGOD,” Lily exclaimed, her face pressing up against the window.

“What?” Nick and I asked at once.

“It’s the carnival!” She pointed to a giant Ferris Wheel and a cluster of colorful machinery off in the center of town. “Oh my God, I can smell the fried dough as we speak.”

“
Wanna go?” I offered nonchalantly.

“Like you even have to ask,” she laughed.

I signaled right and headed for the fair while Nick and Lily whipped out their phones and started texting more people to come join us.

Within half an hour our three-some had morphed into a seventeen-some.

“Do people really have nothing better to do in the summer?” I wondered aloud, getting in line for tickets.

“Guess not,” someone smirked behind me.

I know that voice from somewhere…

I looked over my shoulder hesitantly.

The guy I saw was staring right back at me intently with a playful look on his extremely tan face. I didn’t know what to make of his presence. We weren’t exactly friends.

“Miss me,
Em?” he asked jokingly, motioning for me to move up as the line moved up.

“No offense, Justin,” I muttered, “but not really.”

“I figured,” he said truthfully. “We didn’t exactly hit it off.”

“
Ya think?” I smirked, finally in front of the ticket holder. “20, please.”

“That’ll be 25 dollars,” the girl said behind the Plexiglas.

“What a business,” I muttered, looking down at the scarce amount of dollar bills I had. “Um, can I actually just have 10, then?”

“She’ll get 20,” Justin insisted, reaching his arm around me and handing the girl a fifty dollar bill. “And I’ll get the same.”

“Are you sure?” she confirmed, evidently trying to be funny. Or maybe she was just flirting with Justin.

“The tickets?” Justin asked expectantly.

I bit down on my lip as she frowned and carried on with her job. Justin handed me my set of purple tickets and I followed him off to the side while we waited for everyone else to buy their stuff. Lily was out in search of fried dough.

“Thank you,” I told him, “for these. I shouldn’t have let you buy them, though. I don’t really even want to be here.”

He grinned. “It’s no problem. And don’t worry, you don’t owe me anything. Even if you don’t want to be here, you deserve to have some fun. 10 tickets wouldn’t get you shit around here.”

I laughed at that one. “It’d get me at least one Ferris Wheel ride,” I shrugged. “I’d live.”

“Well now you can ride it twice, maybe even three times,” he said, winking flirtatiously.

I shoved him. “Same old Justin.”

“Some things you can’t change,” he shrugged, shaking his black hair out of his eyes.

“Yeah, evidently.” I gave him a smile, returning the one he’d been offering me from the start. It was only fair.

“Hey!” Lily yelled, biting into her sugary treat and motioning for us to join the rest of the gang. Justin went over to Nick, and I found my place next to Lily as we all stood together and made plans for which rides to go on first.

“What’s that about?” she asked, eyeing Justin.

“I honestly don’t know… he bought me my tickets ‘cause I was short ten bucks, and then he started joking around and stuff. No overly nasty jokes, no asshole-ness, no evil look in his eye.”

She shrugged. “I think it’s ‘cause of what happened like right after graduation.”

I nodded for her to tell me more.

“I heard he came home one night completely trashed, like, drunk, high, obnoxious, all that. His mom had to help him over to the shower and spray cold water on him all the while he was yelling and swearing at her and basically making her feel like shit, right? Get this, though… his little, like, eight-year-old brother was playing with his new camcorder and he caught the entire thing on camera. Watching that video and seeing how disgusting he was, I think it gave him a real good smack in the face.”

“Just the one he needed,” I mused. “Oh my God, that’s crazy.”

“Yeah,” Lily agreed. “Go have fun with him,” she encouraged, playfully nudging me with her elbow. Justin was in fact calling me over. “What’ll it hurt, right?”

I got up and walked over to him with a hopeful attitude. He’d bought me my tickets – I needed to use them.

“So are you only into Ferris Wheels?” he asked as we started walking together. The group had kind of split up.

“You think I’m a softy?”

He smiled knowingly. “I think you’re a softy.”

“You think I can’t handle some of these rides?”

“Some?” he smirked.

“We’re using up every ticket, then,” I said, rising to the challenge. I grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the ‘Spooky Maze’ that was set up.

He ended up getting us more tickets as we proceeded to go on every possible ride.

The night ended with the entire crew reuniting on the Ferris Wheel. It had gotten kind of chilly, so Justin and I sat close in the cart. It stopped at the very top, rocking back and forth almost unpleasantly as more people got on. I didn’t mind the screeching or the rocking, though.

“Justin?” I asked, leaving the view of the night sky to look at the boy next to me.

“Hmm?” he asked, seemingly surprised. We both noticed just how close we were; how close we’d been the entire day.

“Not to sound forward or anything,” I sighed, “but why haven’t you tried to kiss me?”

We stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, hanging thirty feet from the ground in a rocking, rusty yellow cart.

He chuckled, breaking the spell.

“I’m serious,” I said, trying to deny the smile that was forming on my lips.

“
Em, trust me, I would’ve done it a long time ago if Fox wasn’t my friend,” he admitted, scratching the back of his head.

It always comes back to him.

“What does he have to do with anything?” I asked, staring forward at the lake in the distance. The moon’s reflection danced across the water. “He’s on a different continent right now.”

I can’t even say his name.

“That doesn’t change that you’re his girl,” Justin reasoned softly.

That got me a little defensive. “I was never his anything.”

“Sure looked like it at prom…”

It always comes back to prom, too. Really now?

“Looks can deceive,” I challenged.

“Where’s this going, Emery?” Justin asked suddenly. “Are you saying you want me to kiss you?”

I looked at him again, thinking his question through.

Did I want him to kiss me?

My heart ached as I realized the answer.

“No.” I smiled sadly and rested my head against his shoulder as the wheel started turning again.

***

It was well past eleven by the time I got home.

“Emery!” my mom yelled excitedly from the kitchen. At least, I hoped it was
excitedly.
Sure sounded like it.

“Hmm?” I called, taking my shoes off by the door and walking over to where she was.

Everyone was gathered around the table. I noticed pizza boxes and two-liter soda bottles.

“What is it?” I asked curiously.

“We got the apartment!”

“Mom, that’s great,” I grinned, returning her quick celebratory hug, “Where?”

She let my dad take that one. “Well, when we were looking at places we started thinking about you, and college…”

“Yeah…” I took the bait hesitantly.

“It would cut dorm costs in half if you lived in state,” he finished. “So…”

“We’re moving to Massachusetts?” I guessed, not sure if I liked the idea as it rolled off my tongue.

“We start moving next week,” my mom nodded.

“I have to quit my job?” I asked aloud, more to myself than anyone else.

“Honey, it’s practically right by the border, you can still see all your friends and Nina,” she said reassuringly.

I was nodding to please my parents; they didn’t need any more problems or grief about their decisions. But inside certain thoughts were sinking in.

I was going to lose Holly sooner than I’d thought… my last tie to Fox.

I need to move on. Literally.

***

The day before the move I visited Nina to say goodbye. I tried to say it, but she wouldn’t let me.

“’Goodbye’ is for forever. It’s final,” she reasoned, cradling baby Andre and smiling. “And there is no way in…
hell,
” she whispered over the sleeping baby, “that you’re never coming back. What’s a thirty minute drive, eh?”

I laughed, despite my eyes getting watery. I hated that I was getting emotional – it seemed like every time I was getting strong again I fell apart. “Nina, who’s going to help you out at Red Cross?”