In Too Deep (10 page)

“Hi, Lily.” I smiled politely. Who knows, maybe I just stole Jessica’s pained look. “How do you guys know each other?”

“Noah and I have the same Business Admin class.”

My world shook just enough to knock me off balance. He walked away from me that one morning headed to study for his Business Admin exam. Had she met him somewhere? Did he break our breakfast plans to be with her? Oh, God, I hated this feeling. I felt like I was teetering between sanity and insanity. I felt so weak, and I couldn’t seem to catch a break.

When the band got there, the party got a little better. Lily was nowhere in sight and Noah stood right behind me on the dance floor. With his hands on my hips, we bounced and thumped our bodies to the beat of the music. I didn’t know what it was about the reverberation of a drum beat and your guy’s hands on you, but mix that with five or six beers, and you have a good girl that wants to be a bad girl. I pressed my backside into him a little harder just for fun.

The last song ended with a group of girls squealing their heads off and pawing at the lead singer. I turned within the loop of Noah’s arms and kissed him on the chin. I tilted my head back and he looked down. I smiled and he smiled back. Wow. Those big dark eyes and pouty lips could almost make me forget all my insecurities. He ran his hands through my hair on either side of my head, knocking my hippie headband to the dance floor. Holding my head still, he leaned down and kissed me deep and passionately.

There you are.

He took my hand and we headed toward the lobby which was between the dance floor and his room. That’s when I remembered Stacy. I couldn’t disappear while she was with Mr. Drive-Thru, and I didn’t see them on the dance floor anymore. I stopped and pulled on Noah’s hand, gripping it tighter.

“I have to go find Stacy to tell her where we will be in case she needs me.”

“She will be fine. What do you think will happen?”

“It just wouldn’t be cool to desert her.”

“Whatever.” He threw the hand that was holding mine into the air as he let go.

I yelled across the crowd that I would meet him in his room, but my voice was raspy from yelling over the music all night. He wasn’t stupid, he knew what we were going there for. He would be there when I got there.

I found Stacy refilling her beer sans Hank. She had bumped into one of the girls that lived next door to us. Amy assured me she and Stacy would leave together, and Stacy promised me she had no plans to do anything with Hank. With that, I was off.

Noah’s lights were off. My stomach flipped. Was he in there with someone? I hit the switch and was relieved it was empty. I leaned my forehead against the doorway and tried to settle my mind and my stomach which was too full of beer to do any more flipping.

“Hey, you looking for Noah?” Brad’s voice startled me then made me smile. He seemed to be the nicest of the brothers. I liked him.

“Yeah. Have you seen him?” It was hard to not let your mouth fall open when you looked at Brad. His coal black curls sat loosely around his face in almost a bob style. He had crisp green eyes that pierced your mind, as if he were sending you messages and didn’t need your permission to do so. I assumed to the girls who wanted him, those messages started with the words, “I would like to…”

I broke his gaze when my pocket buzzed. It was Stacy. She was leaving with Amy.

“Yeah. I just saw him by the dance floor. Looked like he was looking for someone. Pretty sure he’s waiting for you,” Brad said.

Brad and I walked down the hall until some drunken slut carrying an open bottle squealed, threw herself at him, and they both fell to the floor. I don’t think he even needed to send her any messages. Quite honestly, I didn’t think she even cared. She would do anything he wanted after she kicked the bottle of vodka she just spilled all over him. I shook my head and went to find Noah.

How lucky was I that I didn’t have to look like an idiot to get my guy’s attention? Noah was leaning against the wall waiting for me…um…talking to Lily. The closer I got, the clearer I could see how close they were actually standing to each other. It was obvious I was struggling to even hold my guy’s attention for longer than four minutes. She giggled and never dropped her gaze from his eyes. He leaned in as he laughed, and it looked like he was moving in for a kiss. I froze.

Lily saw me out of the corner of her eye, and when she looked, Noah looked. They both stayed really calm. No one flinched. I deduced from that, I was overreacting. If they were trying to get away with anything, they would have done the “uncomfortable dance,” trying to rearrange their positions and look less shady.
Whew.
When I walked up, I flashed Noah my “are you ready” smile and slid my arm around his waist. He just looked at me like he had no memory of our plans to go to his room together.

“What?”

I didn’t know one innocuous word shot at the right velocity could pierce your heart and steal your breath. With that one word he made
me
feel like
I
was interrupting
their
plan when in reality she was
really
interrupting mine. I just stared at him.

“Do. You. Need. Something?”

Are. YOU. Kidding. Me?

“Um.”

How can he make me feel so stupid? I am such an idiot, right, Lily?

“Stacy is heading home,” I lied. She already left.

His look intimidated me. I had to finish what I wanted to say before he shoved me further into the idiot hole.

“I wanted to make sure I was staying over tonight before she left.”

I knew I was staying over. But I wanted Lily to know. I wanted her to know I would be naked soon with the guy she was flirting with. My guy. I puffed up at that thought.

Yeah, bitch, he’s mine. Step back and leave… Please.
No, erase that “Please.” Why was it so hard to be justifiably firm? I can call you a bitch, I have every right. You are making him sway in the wrong direction. Leave. Bitch.

Wow. Even though all of that was in my head, it sure felt good to stand up for myself.

“No. You can go.”

I almost forgot that I asked him a question at this point.

“What?”

Please, please, catch me before I fall. Don’t crush me in front of her.

“I said no. Go home with Stacy. I will see you tomorrow.”

My feet felt like someone had filled my shoes with concrete. I flashed a fake smile, nodded and headed toward the front door. My goal was to get out onto the stoop without falling apart.

The thick wooden door slammed closed behind me with a deep growl. The guttural sound may have been the next nail in my coffin. I’m not sure I had breathed since the last words he spoke. I could see him and Lily through a window still standing in the same spot, same position. They say when you have an insurmountable task, you should take everything one day at a time, one minute at a time. I didn’t know how I would get home without falling flat on my face, dissolving onto the street, and sliding down the storm drain where I could be with my own kind. The ugly and the thrown away.

I walked home—one sidewalk square at a time.

Drowning is an awful way to die. Breathing is an involuntary process that keeps your body alive. Keeping your body from breathing when everything in your brain is telling it to breathe is a violent struggle. I was drowning. Holding my breath. My body was convulsing and flailing at the bottom as I begged my body not to breathe. I wanted to beat death, but every ounce of my being knew that holding my breath was only staving off death. I started to succumb to the defeat…

I sat on the curb outside our building and texted Noah two words.

im done

I felt empowered and lost at the same time. I needed to stand up for myself and let Noah know I was worth more than what he was offering, but I wasn’t sure he would fight for me. I walked into our place and locked the door behind me. There was a note from Stacy in the spot on the back of the steel door that we reserved for letting each other know of our whereabouts. She found Greg on the walk home and was staying for the night. I was to call her if I needed anything.

I undressed and threw on Noah’s Parker Hill High School t-shirt. I dug through the clean laundry pile which was shrinking at the same speed the dirty pile was growing. I found one pair of boy short style panties at the very bottom of the pile. That meant my to-do list the next day consisted of one thing—laundry.

I climbed between the covers and hit play on my iPod, praying for a deep sleep. A loud and demanding knock at the door stopped my heart. By the time I got to the peephole, I had run through all the horror movie murder scenes I’d ever seen that included the “mysterious knock at the door.” I was shocked to see Noah through the fisheye lens.

“Hey.” I think I spoke before I even opened the door but he didn’t need me to say anything.

He stepped in, closed the door behind him and turned the lock. His hands landed on my hips at the same time his eyes rolled. “You’re so fucking hot right this minute.”

“Am I?” I spoke through clenched teeth. I was so mad at him.

“I need to slide these panties off you right now.”

“What about Lily?” He obviously hadn’t gotten my text.

“Gracie, she followed me everywhere. I couldn’t shake her. I actually hoped you’d get mad so I could have the excuse to come after you and get away from her.”

“Noah. That doesn’t make any sense. We could have just walked back to your room together.” His excuse sounded completely bogus. Maybe he had gotten my text and he was withdrawing his jackass move.

“But maybe I like your place better. It’s quieter here and there are more places than a bed to fuck.”

“Is that what you like to do to me, Noah? Just fuck me? Why don’t you
make love
to me anymore?” I tried to remove his hands that were now inside my panties and tightly grasping each of my ass cheeks, but he was too strong.

“I can make love to you, Gracie.” His mouth was on mine before he finished saying my name, and he was walking me backwards to the couch.

“Show me, Noah,” I whispered in desperation against his wet lips.

He growled. When the backs of my thighs hit the armrest, he broke our kiss and pushed me backwards onto the cushions. My hips stayed propped up on the arm, and he stood between my knees. There was a fire in his eyes, and I could see there was something smoldering in his jeans when he unzipped and stepped out of them. He peeled my little black boy shorts from my hips and slid them down my legs. He dropped his boxers, took off his shirt and stood there in front of me in all his naked glory.

“Make love, you said?”

I nodded.

“Let me show you.”

And that’s when he proved to me once again that he no longer remembered how to make love, he only knew how to fuck. I wiped away the tears that streamed down past my hairline, the ones he didn’t even notice. To get through the next five minutes, I pretended I liked it that way. I didn’t. Inside I was screaming.

Fifteen

Mid-November, Fall Semester, Junior Year

“Want to try?”

I looked at Brad with obvious offense. I couldn’t believe what was happening.

“No. Thank you, Brad. I need to go.” I pushed his hand out of my face and scanned the room of stoned Sigma Chi brothers, who probably thought I was such a baby. But I didn’t care. Noah knew my stance on drugs, yet invited the guys in when they came to his door prepared with small baggies of marijuana and what I soon learned was a water bong.

I watched Brad suck a huge amount of smoke from the top of a transparent red tube. The bubbling sound the water made took my attention off the other guys who were smirking at my tantrum as I stormed toward the door.

“Stop it, Gracie. I told them you were cool. Now, look how you’re acting.” My back was against the door and he leaned into me with his hand resting above my head. He was talking just above a whisper so no one could hear but me.

“Noah, why did you even let them in? Can’t they smoke that somewhere else?”

“It’s no big deal, Gracie. It’s just pot.”

“Do you smoke it with them? Have you been doing drugs, Noah?” I glanced over his shoulder when I realized my voice was significantly louder than a whisper at that point. But the stoners passing the bong were so totally out of it, they heard nothing.

“Settle down. It’s not a big deal. You’re not going to pull the ‘innocent’ card are you? Because that card has been void for quite some time, Gracie.”

My heart sunk, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I knew exactly what it meant.

“Come on, Gracie. You’re not that pristine little girl anymore. The one who knew nothing about anything faded away a long time ago. Now you can be fun and a little reckless and stop pretending.”

My heart was clenched so tight, I thought I might pass out. What was he saying? Instead of him seeing me for who I really was, for how my heart spoke, he was gauging my worth on the things I’d done up until that point. Things I’d done solely because of him. Some that I regretted. Maybe he was right. I let him pull me away from everything I believed in.

“You think I’d be more fun if I smoked pot with you? Noah, what about that is attractive to you?”

“If you did this for me, that would be hot.”

“What?” I looked at him like he was speaking another language.

“Gracie, if you would put your halo away for just one second, you’d see it’s really not that big of a deal.”

“That’s not what you said, Noah. You said it would be hot if I did this
for you
. For you?”

“Yeah, if you sacrificed your ‘good girl’ thing, just because you were doing it for me, that would be so incredibly hot.”

He nailed it. That’s what I had been doing for most of our relationship. I looked into his eyes hoping to see a glimmer of hope for us. Maybe he was right. Maybe trying to hold on to my goody-two-shoes attitude was what was driving the rift between us. Was I kidding myself to believe I was still the same Gracie? If I had become a different Gracie, she would have different standards and maybe she would think smoking pot with her boyfriend was just another way to share something together.

“Dude. Noah. You want any?” Brad held up the bong that had made its way around the room and nodded his head in its direction.

“Yeah.” Noah started to turn to walk back over to where we had been sitting. He turned back to me and held out his hand. He really wanted me to do this. The smile on his face was one I hadn’t seen in a while. It was right between sweet pleading and naughty flirting.

“Noah.” I tilted my head a little and bit my bottom lip.

“Fine.” He dropped his hand and shook his head as he walked over and took the bong from Brad. I watched him flick the lighter into the valve at the bottom and then he sucked in a deep breath, pulling sadistic smoke fingers up through the water and into his lungs. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back as he held it in as long as he could.

When he opened his eyes and looked back to where I had been standing, I was gone. But when he passed the bong to the right, I took it in my hands and snapped for him to give me the lighter. A smile spread across his face as he exhaled what was left of the smoke through the left corner of his mouth.

“Here, let me light it for you.” As bizarre as it seemed, I felt a connection with Noah at that moment that was different, new.

I placed my mouth over the top of the tube and watched the flame singe the crushed leaves in the valve. I looked up at Noah and he nodded, gently coaxing me through the process, teaching me, guiding me. I exhaled through my nose to make room in my lungs for one more thing that threatened to pull me apart at the seams. I sucked as much in as I could. I closed my eyes to concentrate on not choking the smoke right back out. A few staggered chokes busted their way through my pursed lips but I kept most of it in. I passed the bong to my right, and Noah took one of my hands in his. I looked into my lap at our clasped hands and slowly exhaled the last of my resolve.

“I have to go.” I stood and choked out a little more smoke. I had to grab the arm of the couch to keep from falling on my way to the door.

“Gracie.”

I kept a steady gait down the long hallway to the front door. If Noah really wanted to stop me he would have been able to catch up before I walked outside. I walked a block before looking back, hoping he was walking out the front door of the house. No one. No one was coming. And I had no clue as to the direction my life was going.

By the time I knocked on Jake’s door, my brain was floating. Not like being drunk. It was really like floating. I didn’t like it. A long talk with Jake was what I needed.

I jumped into Jake’s arms as soon as he opened the door. But as soon as the top of my head was nestled into the side of his neck, he must’ve smelled it. He took hold of my arms and pushed me back. Still holding my arms he tried to hold my gaze but I couldn’t. I was stoned. The way I felt standing before him at that moment was my gauge for what I had just sacrificed.

“Gracie.”

He knew. The tears rolled from my bloodshot eyes. I kept my head down but lifted my eyes to see his face. He closed his eyes and slowly shook his head.

“Jake. I need your arms around me again.” Jake had helped me through so much since the semester started. Jake and I had a long talk the day after Noah tried to make love to me as an apology for the whole “Lily” episode. Our conversation started via text because I was too embarrassed to go into those kinds of details face-to-face. But Jake soon came down to the apartment and I fell asleep in his arms after spilling my heart to him. There were no words for the unexpected comfort Jake’s arms gave me. I needed that again.

“Gracie, you didn’t…”

I looked back down at the floor.

“Gracie, you’re better than this. What are you doing?”

“Jake! Can I just come in? I just need you…”

“No.” His sharp words were out before I finished telling him what I needed.

“Jake?”

“Gracie. I just can’t…I don’t…I’m disappointed, Gracie. This isn’t who you are. I think you need to go down to your place and sleep this off. Call me when you wake up.”

“Jake.”