The Kiss Off (17 page)

Oh okay, that made more sense. A chill ran down my spine. What had I done?
Pornography
?

“So. Please, tell me you haven’t sent one of these sexts. Have you?” Her forehead furrowed with concern.

“No,” I said, faking a laugh at the ridiculousness of it. “No way! I’d never do that.” I shook my head, biting my lip so hard I think I made it bleed. “It was just, you know, discussion. Just a song.” The serious expression on her face mirrored the one I was sure was on mine. She played along, even though there was no way she could have bought my denial. My darting, panicky eyes were a dead giveaway.

“That puts my mind at ease,” she said with a relieved laugh. A fake relieved laugh. “Because honey, it may be a personal moment for you and the boy you like, but anyone could see it. Just think before you act okay, think about this: ‘is it something I would want my parents to see? My grandparents? The children I might have one day?’ Are you okay?”

“Yep,” I said, forcing a grimace-smile. At least I showed teeth. I was hyperventilating, and she looked on worriedly at the speed my chest rose and fell.

“Thanks for the talk.” I jumped up, flung the door open and strode out into the corridor before she said a word.

What-had-I-done-what-had-I-done-what-had-I-done.

I strode outside into the lukewarm sunshine, into the open space and leaned forward, taking deep breaths. Deep breath, deep breath. In…out, in…out, okay.

I called Ty.

“Hi-”

“Hey, you haven’t shown that picture to anyone, have you?” I said.

“What picture?” He asked, being all coy. “I don’t remember any picture-”

“I’m not playing here Ty, have you shown it to anyone?”

“No, I promise.”

“Not even the guys?”

“Not even the guys, why?”

“And you haven’t forwarded it anywhere, have you? Like to your email or your Facebook or something?”

“No, I swear, it’s just on my phone. Are you freaking out?”

“Maybe. Yes.”

“What’s going on?”

“Can you just get rid of it?” I said. “Delete it, right now. Please.”

“Why? I kind of like it.” He was smiling at me from somewhere across the continent.

“I should never have sent it to you, it was stupid. Really stupid. If it gets out-”

“It’s not going to get out,” Ty said.

“You don’t know that, you can’t know that for sure unless you delete it. So please,
please
delete it,” I said. “I’m not one of those girls, Ty.”

“What girls?”

I closed my eyes, my body clenching from the shame. “One of those slutty girls.”

“I know that, hey, Poppy, I
know
that.”

“And no one’s seen it but you?”

“No.”

“Okay,” I said. “Good. So can you please delete it for me?”

“Yes, yes I’ll delete it. As soon as I hang up I’ll delete it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Good,” I said. I exhaled loudly. We were both quiet for a moment. I had to fill the awkward freak-out induced silence. “Where are you right now?”

“We’re in Miami.”

“Oh, cool.”

“Yeah, I’m hanging to hit the beach, I hear they’re pretty epic here,” he said. “But we’re leaving tomorrow, so I don’t think we’ll get there.”

“Bummer.”

“It’s bullshit,” Ty said, sounding angry. “We’re getting fuck-all time off. I’m exhausted.”

“But it’s amazing, right? It’s everything you ever dreamed of?”

“It’s kind of intense,” he said. “But yeah, it’s amazing.”

“When you come home we’ll just chill, go to the park, see a movie. Relax,” I said.

“Sounds like heaven.”

The bell rang and students flooded the grounds, moving from one class to the next. “I gotta go to class,” I said. We made our goodbyes and I ended the call. As I walked back toward the main building I hoped that at that exact moment Ty was deleting that stupid photo from his phone, and all my worries were over. Guess I’d never know.

***

At the bus stop that afternoon my mind was taken off my whole regretful sexting debacle when Vanya told me something completely shocking. Mads wasn’t there because she was going home with Dev, and weirdly, Cam wasn’t there either. He hadn’t been at school all day. Was he sick? It’s not like I asked her where he was or anything, I had just been standing there, taking off my sweater because the afternoon was warm and feeling more and more like springtime was on the way when Vanya brought him up. Not me. Just so we’re clear. I was stuffing my sweater in my backpack when she said “Did you hear that Cam was in a house fire last night?”

I think my head turned in slow motion, I felt my eyes widening and everything, and I must have stopped stuffing, my sweater dangling half in-half out of my bag. Van stepped forward and shoved it all the way inside for me, before it fell onto the grimy cement.

“What are you talking about? Are you being serious?”

“How did you not hear about it? Everyone’s been talking,” she said. “Francesca told me in English. She looked awful and was all shaken up because last night her boyfriend Jarrod’s house burned down, and Cam was sleeping over for some reason.”

“Is he…?” I said. I couldn’t breathe. “Are they…?”

“They got out, everyone’s fine,” Vanya said quickly. My heart must have stopped beating because it started again – really, really fast, thumping against my rib cage. I was breathing fast, too, and took a few breaths to calm myself down. “But I bet there was a lot of smoke inhalation.”

As the bus pulled into the curb and we all walked forward to the doors, I hoped he was okay, was he at the hospital? Was he at home? I didn’t know what to do with myself. I climbed onto the bus and surprisingly found two empty seats, so I sat down with Vanya who pulled out her Geography homework, double-checking it. I stared out the windows as the bus pulled away, the breaks exhaling and we headed homeward bound. Could I call him? No, that would have been weird I hadn’t called him since we were dating. How would I talk to him? Maybe I should text him. I stared at my cell phone clutched in my hand, but did nothing. No. If Francesca was telling everyone, he was probably inundated with texts by now. And maybe I’d be waiting all night for a reply. What if he couldn’t reply? What if he was in the hospital with third degree burns and his mom and dad were watching through the window, his mom crying and leaning on his dad as they wondered if their baby boy would survive. No, that was stupid. Vanya had said everyone was fine. But I had to know. I didn’t even notice the buildings, the trees, the cars and people go by. I was too lost in thought.

I didn’t go home. I said goodbye to Van at the bus stop and walked straight to Cam’s instead. It felt weird, standing on his front doorstep again. The last time I had been there, it had been for dinner with his family and then Nikki had come over after to watch movies with us. Because I had suggested it and Cam had said he didn’t mind, he liked Nikki. I pushed the thought from my mind, pressed the doorbell and waited.

I had a sudden thought and my eyes widened. Oh my God, what if Nikki was in there? Of course she was in there, her boyfriend was in a house fire and was lucky to be alive. I backed up and was on the first step off the porch when the door opened.

“Poppy?”

I spun around. Cam stood there, wearing a white tee shirt and pajama bottoms with rocket ships on them.

It was a bit of an understatement to say he looked surprised. Flustered, more like it. “Poppy, hi,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“So you’re alright,” I said.

“What?”

“The fire. I heard all about the fire last night, how Jarrod’s whole house burned down. Is that true? Did the whole entire house burn down?”

“Yeah, it did,” he said with a small, amazed smile. “Especially the kitchen – completely toasted. The inside of the pantry must have been fire proof though, which was weird. Come in.” He stepped aside, holding the door wide.

“Oh, I shouldn’t,” I said.

“Why not?”

We stood there in awkward silence for a moment before I finally decided to enter the house. There was no getting out of it, really. I walked in, sliding past him, careful not to touch him in any way, uncomfortably aware of how close my body was to his. I looked at him fleetingly through my eyelashes as I passed in front of him, feeling the warmth of his breath, his skin, his boy smell with an unexpected hint of cinnamon. He didn’t used to smell like cinnamon, but he did now. Within half a second I was past and in the foyer, Cam closing the door behind me.

“Want a cookie?” he said, leading me through to the kitchen. “Mom made some, they’re cinnamon and entirely awesome.” He picked up a cookie from the cooling tray and held it out to me. Ah, explained the new boy smell.

“Thanks,” I said, taking it from him. For half a second our fingertips touched. “So tell me about it. The fire.”

“Oh right, yeah, I was at Jarrod’s place and his parents were out for the night so – not that we told this part to the cops – we were kicking back with his dad’s slab of beer, and the tequila his mom kept in the top of her closet and Jarrod had a couple of spliffs, too. We were playing
Kill or Be Killed
on his PS3 and I was beating him for literally the first time ever. And, I dunno, I guess we must have sacked out at some point, I don’t really remember, but the next thing I knew the house was on fire. There was smoke everywhere and, well, it was getting kinda hot.”

I smiled at that. He smiled back, encouraged, and continued. “It was the kitchen that was on fire. Jarrod must have gotten up while I was sleeping to fry some food and that ass hat left the stove on with a panful of oil sitting on top of it. What a douche, right?”

I nodded. “Total douche.”

“Anyway by the time the fire started he was passed out and I couldn’t wake him up so I had to drag his bony ass out of the house by his shirt. Except of course
then
he woke up all disoriented as I was hauling him down the front steps and thought I was attacking him, that’s how I got the shiner, you see?” He pointed to his eye which was a bit puffy and bruised, but not too badly. I hadn’t even noticed. “So I punched him right back and kind of broke his nose.”

“No way.”

Cam grinned. “He deserved it. I mean, he set the house on fire. Anyway so I got him out of the house and we called the fire department and everything, and then I realized…” he rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the floor, sheepishly. “Well, I didn’t have any proof of my high score, so…”

“You did
not
go back into a burning building to rescue a stupid PlayStation,” I said. “Did you? Tell me you didn’t.”

“Well…”

“You are such a moron,” I laughed, broke a chunk off my cookie and tossed it at him.

“Hey, I was drunk alright? I didn’t get the PlayStation in the end, anyway. I was about to unplug it when their stupid little Shi-Tzu started yapping at me, yapping at the fire.”

“Oh my God…”

“I guess she couldn’t get out or something. That dog hates me something fierce though, look at what she did to my hand!” He held up his hand which was wrapped in a white bandage. Another thing I hadn’t noticed, what was wrong with me? I saw the whole picture of Cam was okay, and didn’t notice the little ouchies? Cam looked at his bandaged hand too. “I guess you can’t really see what she did to my hand, but there are stitches under there.
Stitches
. She bit me big time for saving her life. And Jarrod punched me. That was the thanks I got, can you believe it?” He tried not to smile, but it crept onto his face anyway.

We just stood there looking at each other. I didn’t know what to say, and took a bite of my cookie.

“You’re right, they’re good,” I said. I could feel him still looking at me, but I couldn’t meet his gaze. I just…I couldn’t.

“Well I’m glad you’re okay. I should-”

“So how are things with what’s-his-face?” he said.

I didn’t want to answer, I didn’t want to talk about my boyfriend, didn’t want to say things were good. “They’re…” I shrugged. “You know. How about you, how are things with…what’s her name again?” I gave a sarcastic smile, which he matched.

“That’s funny,” he said.

“Mmm,” I said. Nikki. And being here in his house, and he was going out with her, it was too much. I scrutinized my fingernails, scratching off some navy polish from my thumb. My voice came out small. Tiny, even. I was surprised he even heard it. “I can’t believe you’re going out with her.”

“Poppy,” he sighed. “You broke up with me, remember?” I didn’t answer. “You were all pissy about something and you dumped me. What did you think was going to happen?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t mean it!” I shouted, surprising even myself. I looked up at him with a huffy sigh. It was true. I didn’t want to admit it, but if he was going to get all finicky about it, technically I
had
broken up with him. But he wasn’t supposed to move on so fast. He was supposed to know I was being stupid and wait for me to apologize. But for some reason he hadn’t read my mind.