And I Don't Want The World to See Me

I woke up early the next morning. It was almost 5:30. I waited in my bed until 6 to get up and put shoes on brush out my hair quickly and grab my keys off the counter and close the door quietly and go to Steven’s house. I climbed the trellis. I thought about how roles should be reversed. He should be the one climbing to come get me but right now I had to escape my house. I pushed the window open only about half way before flinging myself inside. I accidentally slammed the window shut and walked quietly over to Steven on his bed.
“Steven?” I whispered.
He flipped onto his back in bed and rubbed his eyes viciously.
“Steven?” I whispered again.
“Jordan?” he asked upon opening his eyes and seeing me standing over him. “What’re your doing here?”
“Get up and put some shoes on. I want to show you something.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“You’ll see. Get up.”
He yawned loudly and sat up in bed sleepily. I pulled his boots from the closet and gave them to him and he slipped them on. He pulled a short sleeved shirt over his torso and climbed down before me.
I loved how I had this power over him. What I told him to do, he did. I liked how he was spontaneous like me and when I said the “You’ll see” it made it a game for him. He was just like me in so many way but also so different.

****

We drove for over three hours before we ran out of gas. We had passed a gas station about two miles back but I hadn’t wanted to stop, now I had no choice.
“Did you just let us run out of gas?” Steven asked.
I shrugged. “We’re here anyway.”
“You wanted us to end up at an abandoned bus?”
I nodded. “I used to come out here when I was younger and had just gotten my car and my license. When I just drove and drove until I ran out of gas.”
“So I’m guessing this is where you ran out?”
“Yep, first time. The gas station was closed so I spent the night thinking I was gonna be murdered but instead I got out and spent the night in the bus. It made me feel safer. We were the same in a lot of ways.”
“So why are we back here? What happened?”
“My brother accidentally spilled about me having a summer boyfriend and my dad and I got in a huge fight and I felt lonely.”
Steven stayed silent and wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer to him though the center council was in the way. We sat like that for a long time. I felt safer in Steven’s arms then I ever had felt it Matt’s or any guy before him and more comfortable with him than I’d ever felt with Justin, and he’s my brother. We sat for the longest time, it felt like an eternity until the sun peeked out from behind the trees behind the bus.
“Let’s go in,” I said suddenly but my voice was soft still, holding onto the darkness of the night.
“Ok,” Steven replied, his voice a whisper and louder only because of his deeper voice.
I opened and shut my door quietly, trying not to disturb the peaceful setting. I took it all in again, the Bus Scene. With it’s tall grass surrounding it and the rusted yellow paint on it’s exterior. We sat inside for hours and said nothing, all we had to say was in our eyes which were locked so tightly on each other’s.

****

Steven wanted to take me some place he felt safe like I’d shown him. He said there wasn’t a story behind it like mine. That he just walked around and found it behind a sand dune. I handed him the keys to my car and curled up on my seat, holding his hand tight and close to my stomach as he used the other one to steer.
“Can I tell you something?” I asked.
“Sure,” Steven replied.
“I haven’t told anyone else about this except for Orangey-Purple.”
“Who’s Orangey-Purple?” Steven asked.
“An orange teddy bear with a purple bow that I’ve had for almost eleven years except someone ripped the bow off and now he’s just orange but I never gave up on his name. I sleep with him every night.”
Steven nodded.
“Do want to hear the story?” I asked.
He nodded again.
“Ok, so it was me and my mom and Justin and my dad and my grandparents on my mom’s side and we all went out for dinner at Larry’s. This happened five years ago, in case you were wondering. Anyway that morning my mom and me were sitting on the couch and she was tickling me to death and I was screaming and giggling but Justin was trying to watch a movie. He hit me really hard with a pillow which hurt so bad I almost cried. But then when we went to dinner, he purposely hit me in the face with a menu when he was handing it to my mom. I was fed up already because he had already hit once that day so I can’t remember if I punched or slapped his arm but whichever it was was supposed to make it even so I didn’t want me to hit me back so I cowered into my mom’s arm begging him not to hit back and that it was fair that I hit him back but I already knew he was going to him me back. And he did and it almost made me cry so I went to hit him back and knocked over his soda. It was one of those small things that happens that pushes you over the edge, ya know?”
Steven nodded and I squeezed his hand tighter in my two hands and pulled it closer into me. He whispered, “All too well.”
“Well so than I started crying and everyone tried to fix it and I tried not to let anyone see I was crying and my mom made me switch spots with her so I was on the outside and she was in the middle. And than she started yelling at me and I mumbled something along the lines of ‘he started it by hitting me’ and she said yeah but blah blah blah I can’t remember and I said ‘and he hit me this morning too’ and she said ‘oh, grow up, Jordan’ like she just wants me to let him beat me up. I don’t know about you but if ever have a daughter I want to teach her to fight back.”
Steven nodded again and I felt warm inside that he was listening and understanding. Two things Matt never did.
“So my grandpa sat across from he and he said how he liked how I stood up for myself and it made me feel so special. All my life I’ve been wanting approval from my grandfather because he was important to me and he was the only person who ever made me work for their respect before I actually made friends for myself so this made me feel so special and I started crying again.”
It’s weird because I can get through the whole story without tearing up but that part always gets me.
“Than the next day, I had to go with my grandparents on my dads side to dinner with my mom and dad and Justin again. I was still so miserable about the day before that I barely talked all dinner. Than we got onto some subject which led to another which led to the day before and in my defense I said ‘yeah, well he started it’ and my mom retorted ‘yeah, but who spilled the soda?’ and I’ll never forget the feeling of worthlessness that I felt when she said it. I just wanted to crawl in a hole and cry myself to death. It just made me feel so useless to that family that I was going to cry again but I didn’t. That night I brought the storage unit out from under my bed and dug out Orangey-Purple and spilled all my secrets to him. I cried myself to sleep for a whole month because of that and I never told my mom or dad or even Justin because the first words out of their mouths would always be ‘grow up, Jordan’ or some variation of it and that’s just not fair. And, if they did care, they would use that sympathy that made me feel like I’m being mocked, that ‘oh, Jordan, you know we don’t mean that’ with that look in their eyes that says they don’t really care.”
Steven nodded a last time. “I know. Your going to win though, you know?”
“I know,” I said and pinched my bottom lip between my thumb and forefinger. I didn’t need to say it out loud to know that he was talking about life. He knew I was a serious game player and I would make sure I won at being a better wife, a better mother than she ever had been.

****

When we had finally arrived at the cave behind the sand dune I had told him in detail what had happened the night before.
“Maybe I have a blanket in the trunk,” I said as soon as I stepped outside and wind whipped sand into my hair and face. Under the shield of my trunk I dug for the fleece purple blanket in there from the Fourth of July.
“The sand won’t reach us in the cave,” he informed me.
“Yeah, but there’s probably sand all over the floor and I don’t enjoy that,” I retorted.
When we finally made it in the cave there was barely any light but just enough to see the outlines of each other’s bodies. I threw the blanket down we laid side by side on it until I put my head on his chest and he enveloped me inside himself. The sound the wind made just outside sounded like an inexperienced player of a wind instrument.
I looked up into Steven’s eyes and he looked down into mine.
“Hey, Steven, can I tell you something?” I whispered once more.
“Sure,” he replied, just as silently.
“What would you say if I wanted to go all the way?” I asked, my voice stayed level because I was completely serious. “Right now.”
I saw a light flicker behind his eyes but it was soon masked. “Only if you wanted to.”
I leaned in to touch my lips to his, he didn’t even meet me half way like normal. He was waiting, waiting to see if I was serious. And once my lips touched his for the first time, it was like something inside him released. He kissed me eagerly and his hands gripped my waist and he pulled me on top of him. Once he started going I did too and than we weren’t even thinking. His shirt, my shirt, gone before I could even blink an eye. My bra gone almost as quickly. His pants down by our feet, mine went next followed by my panties and his boxers. He flipped us over and lined himself up and pushed into me, I let out a loud moan. My arms wrapped around his neck and he thrust into my faster and harder. My mouth was open, I was moaning uncontrollably along with a few grunts on his part. I could feel my skin tingling all over and my blood coursed through my veins fast. Just as I came I let out a tiny scream but Steven never stopped thrusting. He pulled out just in time for his juices to spill out all over the blanket.
We lied silently holding each other for what felt like an hour before Steven suggested we go back to the car. We dressed quickly and I folded the blanket skillfully so it wouldn’t get to anything in the trunk and I could wash it when we got back into Jersey because I was sure we weren’t in Jersey anymore. We ran back to the car and I threw the blanket into the trunk and hopped in the back seat with Steven. He laid on his back with his knees pulled up so he could fit and shut the door and it took a few minutes to situate ourselves but finally I ended up on my stomach with my head just barely under his chin and where his hips started inclining to his knees was were mine bent. It wasn’t exactly comfortable but it was what it was and I was thankful for that. The wind outside the car was similar to that of the caves but now I could describe the wind as the sound of our erratic heartbeats; unsteady and changing direction almost every second.