Chapter 6

Summer – the teenager’s definition of it at least – was coming to a rapid close. The first day of school was a few days after my big fight with Elliott. I wondered if our romance was coming to an end too. I didn’t want it to end, even when I used my safe-word which I thought I’d never use, even when I made him leave my room, even when I didn’t go after him and try to make up, even when the next day went by and he didn’t come to talk to me, opening my door without knocking the way I loved. I believed that he still wanted to be with me too, but sometimes we don’t get a storybook ending where everybody lives happily ever just because that would be nice. Often real life, real emotions, and real problems get in the way of that happy ending.

It certainly would have been convenient for our relationship to end then. Nice and tidy, end it all with summer break, go back to school as a normal cheerleader again, enjoy my senior year as a single woman without a relationship to my nerdy step-brother to either keep a shameful secret or expose to the world and be a laughing-stock as a result. Elliott wouldn’t tell anyone, even if we broke up, so it was probably the last clean chance I’d get to end it on my terms.

Our parents wouldn’t have minded if we broke up. They didn’t come out and say it, but during that last week of summer it was clear that Elliott and I were having a bad fight. Linda and Dad hinted around that maybe this might be just the inevitable result of a romantic relationship with a boy under my own roof at age 17, and it might be a lot less worry to quietly end things while it was relatively easy. I’m sure they were worried about everything from teen pregnancy to us losing focus on school, even to us taking it tragically too far and getting in real trouble. I doubt it would have come to Romeo and Juliet, but our overprotective parents seemed to have that sort of scenario in the back of their minds.

Elliott and I talked that week as we saw each other around the house but it was awkward and we weren’t getting intimate up at all. I became lonely and started calling and texting my old friends, something I’d barely done over the summer with Elliott always down the hall whenever I wanted to talk, joke around, or just be in the same room as another human being. My friends were pretty sure I’d had a secret boyfriend by then and thought it must be an older man – my sugar daddy, they teased. Some even believed the idiotic lesbian rumor from spring. But they were still happy to hear from me when I started contacting them more.

Talking to my friends more also made me realize how being with Elliott had changed my life, and for the first time, I wondered if that change had been for the worse. I’d missed out on so many parties and girl’s nights out over the summer. I’d gone to a few, but I’d attended maybe six or seven over a three-month span where the other girls had done something together almost every night. Sure, none of it was earth-shattering stuff, it was just parties and expeditions to the outlet malls and hookups with cute guys, some of it was even perhaps not that stuff I should have been doing, but it was all normal teenage girl summer stuff, and I’d barely done any of it.

I had been obsessed with Elliott. I’d neglected my friends, I’d gotten into weird rape fantasy role-play and I started to worry that it had messed me up mentally. I knew Elliott had only the best intentions, okay he’d been horny too, but he’d never just been acting out of perversion to my detriment like a typical guy. Still, letting a guy pretend to rape you is undeniably a very fucked up thing. We’d done it with my full consent, and he’d been very considerate, even the time I’d had to use my safe-word – he did stop immediately after all – but what if getting into that headspace so many times had permanently warped me?

All of these things weighed on my mind that week, but the person with whom I would have talked it about normally was Elliott. I thought about telling Kaycee, my old best friend, but she had never totally forgiven me for the Ethan thing over winter break, where her boyfriend had come onto me and she’d gotten mad at me for it. I even thought about telling Linda about everything. She was a stable, respectable adult woman who might understand these things, but yeah, no, not gonna talk to my step-mom about my rape fantasies with her son! So that left me with nothing to do but write down the whole sordid story of our relationship here.

Elliott and I did sort of try to talk about it but couldn’t get anywhere. He apologized a few times but I told him he hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d stopped instantly when I used my safe-word, that was the whole point of it, right? To keep me safe while allowing us to act out the scenes? His engineer’s logical brain should have accepted that the system had worked correctly as designed, but he seemed to be as conflicted as I was.

I tried to alleviate his jealousy I kept telling him I was his girlfriend, but even that didn’t solve things. I even told him I’d never get a ride home from Noah again, but he said that wasn’t really the problem. I asked him what it was then, but he didn’t feel like talking about it.

Our conversations remained superficial. I was afraid we were drifting apart, but neither of us had the balls to sit down and really talk about it. A rather unfair situation don’t you think? I don’t even have balls!

It was the very last day of summer break. I had pissed off my store manager by requesting 12 hours of work a week going forward once the school year started, but Dad insisted and I figured the bitch could just fire me if she couldn’t understand that school was more important than selling halter tops to tweens. She agreed to my request but gave me a crazy 9-hour shift on the last day of summer break as revenge. I’d never worked a shift that long in my whole life. Oh, boo-hoo, I know, it’s nothing compared to what Dad and Linda work, but I’m 17 years old.

I worked it though. As much as I complained, Dad did instill a good work ethic in me. The day was, of course, a complete shit-show. Every spoiled teenager and their Karen of a mom had descended upon the mall to shop for back-to-school clothes at the last second. I think my boss knew what this day would be like since she was in her thirties and had worked at this store since I was a toddler (not even kidding). She’d picked people who were on her shit-list to fill out the day’s schedule and was probably off somewhere laughing at our misery. Welcome to the working world, huh?

I worked the morning behind the register then got to work on the floor the last few hours with Noah, who of course was working that day too. He looked pretty good. He’s about Elliott’s height but skinny, with shaggy blond hair. A real surfer type, with a square jaw and blue eyes that always have this far-away look. He was rocking that casual stubble-beard thing that all teenage guys try but most can’t pull off. My female co-workers joked that he looked like one of the beautiful, vacant-faced male models in our store’s posters. They all had crushes on him and I knew a couple had already sucked his dick. On my life trajectory before Elliott, I might have been just like them.

As the shift wore on, I found those thoughts creeping into my head again about whether the changes in my life in the past year had even been good ones. Elliott was a great guy but what had all of his intelligence and good intentions accomplished? Our relationship was a beautiful mess at best, but sometimes it just felt like a mess entirely. That afternoon was one of those times. Why couldn’t I have normal relationships with vapid, attractive boys like an ordinary 17-year-old girl? I’d never be in love with a guy like Noah, but I’d never be in a week-long crisis over my relationship with a guy like him either. He was the anti-Elliott, and a guy like that starts to look appealing when a girl’s been beating herself up for a week.

So that’s why I asked Noah for another ride home after work. It’s why I agreed when he suggested we pick up dinner from a take-out place and eat it in a park across from the mall. It was a forested park with a mile-long paved walking trail which, despite being in the thick of suburbia, usually wasn’t very crowded. We went back to the first picnic table off the path and sat down. No one was walking by in the sweltering early evening.

“So what’s our school like?” he asked casually as we started to eat. He had gotten kicked out of private school so he would be doing his senior year at the same school as me and Elliott.

“Oh you know, pretty normal place,” I said, “A bit cliquey but I guess everywhere is, more or less.”

“What clique are you in?” he asked.

“Cheerleaders, duh,” I said.

“Oh, I should have known,” he laughed. It made me realize how little we knew about each other. He was just a cute face and hot body to me. Perhaps he was also an instrument to make Elliott jealous, or maybe even just to satisfy my self-destructive lusts.

“Do you play any sports?” I asked. We were eating chicken fingers, dipping them into a fattening sauce. I’d have to skip lunch on the first day of school to atone.

“Uh, soccer,” he said.

“Uh, soccer?” I said teasingly, “You sounded like you just made that up.”

“No I didn’t,” he said humorlessly, “I’m a winger. That’s offensive.”

“I’m not offended,” I joked.

“No I mean it’s an offensive position, on the offense,” he said, struggling to be clear as he missed my joke again.

“Oh, thanks, I’m just a dumb cheerleader,” I said playfully.

“Oh,” he said.

I laughed. Now that I had a real-life conversation with him, I was rapidly discovering that Noah was a male bimbo. It wasn’t like Elliott where our conversation was clever verbal combat.

“We don’t cheer for soccer, unfortunately,” I said, “Are you good at it?”

“I guess,” he said, “I got kicked off my team at a private school for smokin’ weed. That’s why I transferred.”

“Okay, I kinda figured. I won’t tell anyone,” I said, but not really caring.