“Mom.”

  The robot shifts curtly in the chair.

  “You should take off for the day. It’s nice out. Enjoy your Sunday.”

  My mouth agape, I stare at the graying blonde hair pulled tightly into a pony tail at the base of her neck. There’s more gray strands than blonde now, and I don’t remember the gradual fade. It feels like it changed all at once, or maybe I just haven’t stopped to notice—too busy surviving in my own bubble.

  I should go…let her enjoy her Sunday. That’s what she means. But we’ve had so many Sundays. Eventually, they have to run out.

  “Mom,” I wait again.

  The robot flattens her pen on the counter then spreads her fingers, palms pressed against the gray Formica. Shoulders rise slowly.

  This is how a human breathes.

  “Mom…”

  “I’ll see you at home.” She cuts me off. Her head snaps forty-five degrees, enough for me to see the flexed line of her jaw. She’s thinner than I remember. I haven’t looked at her enough. I should hug her. Touch her.

  “Okay,” I croak out.

  I’m a fucking coward.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was a longer ride than I thought it would be.

  Sundays are also for bike rides, and it’s usually just to and from the store, but today I had to go screw things up. I asked a question. An innocent one dripping with all sorts of inferences and gateways to more questions and more feelings and…fucking feelings!

  I left Zoom wanting to scream, but we don’t do things like that. Not the Wakefields. We bottle shit up. So instead, I peddled hard and fast—in the opposite direction of home—to the only place that seemed to be right.

  The Yards.

  Maybe I knew he would be here. I’m still not sure if I’m glad he is. But he is here, and so am I. We’ve seen each other. I skidded to a stop on my banana-seat bike and literally leapt from it, letting it crash to the ground; ever since, I’ve just been standing in the garbage-strewn dirt-and-rock lot staring at him a hundred feet away.

  Jesse is sitting with his back against one iron beam and his body balanced on the other about six feet from the ground. His legs are pulled up and his elbows are steady on his knees. There’s a wind whipping up dust and turning it into miniature tornadoes all around us. One is headed right for me. I brace myself and push my hands into the back pockets of my jeans, ready to feel the grit of the sand along my bare arms, neck, and face. My eyes flutter for protection as it passes, and when I lick my lips after its done, I taste the stale dirt.

  I should leave. I want to cry, but I don’t quite know how. I want to scream, but I never have—not over this—not with my frustrations. I want to express things to someone…anyone. But I want to punch this boy who ruined my fucking band day and who has some serious shit of his own going on…and who, for whatever reason, owns more of me every goddamned day.

  He kicks his legs down and places his palms on the beam between his thighs.

  I shift my feet, digging them deeper into the gravel beneath me.

  Jesse rocks back and forth a few times, swinging his feet, his black jeans lift and show off his mismatched argyle socks. The laces are undone on his black Vans and they flap wildly in the air as he holds between his knees and swings back hard enough to kick both of his legs up and over the bar for a dismount. He lands in a partial run, the fall maybe more than he expected. Maybe not. Maybe he’s always falling.

  He’s a hurricane.

  Rabbit hole.

  His steps toward me are slow and deliberate, the saunter of a drunken Johnny Depp pirate. The closer he gets, the more clarity I see in his eyes. It’s calm Jesse today. Sweet Jesse, maybe.

  Sorry Jesse, for certain.

  My mouth twitches, caught between my want to fall apart and my anger at myself that I want to smile and don’t deserve to. He stops about a half dozen steps from me, maybe fewer. No words. He doesn’t say “hi” or “sorry.” He just stands there, fingers halfway in his front pockets, thumbs out, arms loose and relaxed while he looks at me and raises one side of his mouth.

  “Kiss me,” his eyes flicker with his command. It comes out soft and sweet, a short nod of his head in an attempt to draw me near, get me to walk the remaining few feet.

  I laugh out once.

  “I don’t want to.” I shake my head in a barely noticeable movement.

  “Liar,” he calls me out, smirk growing.

  I stare into his blue eyes, cloudy with the day. It’s humid out, even with the slight winter chill. His eyes look like a storm. Mine are just black. Sometimes my deep brown matches my heart, and I know that’s the color they are right now.

  “Yeah, I know. But fuck you.” I challenge him, and his eyes flare with this new tone I cast. My chest is vibrating with tummy nerves and the patter of my heart and adrenaline. My feet have started to float, my chin lifting in part defiance and preparation for my lips that so desperately want to be kissed. How can I want to kiss him? I’m still mad at him. I just don’t know exactly why.

  “You mean fuck them,” Jesse finally says, and I laugh out the saddest laugh of my life.

  I nod, and my right eye burns with the welling tear. I rub it, smearing it on my skin.

  “Yeah, I do,” I say, stepping into him.

  He meets me halfway, hands finding their perfect home on either cheek, thumbs under my eyes, long fingers into my hair, mouth on mine hard and fast. He walks me back two or three steps, and I lean with the force as I inhale him and his kiss. I wrap my hands around his wrists and taste him. There’s a sweetness to his lips, like sugar or honey, and I let it soothe me like medicine.

  My hands drag from his arms to the buttons and holes of his flannel shirt, and he lets go of one side of my face to pull his arm free from one sleeve. I help him work it off, then the next one, and he tosses it to the dirty ground, where it crumples and blows into a ball by the weeds. His biceps fill up the sleeves of his plain, white T-shirt. My hands gobble up the bottom and drag it up his body until he lets go of my face and stops kissing me long enough to pull it over his head and throw it to the ground along with his other shirt.

  His lips find mine again in a breath, as if searching for a source of life and oxygen in this dry-ass desert of life. His fingers move to the torn hem at the bottom of my well-worn purple work shirt. My imagination was nothing compared to this. His hesitation is short-lived this time around as he runs his thumbs along the bare skin of my tummy briefly before tugging my shirt up. I raise my hands and let him pull it from my body.

  He doesn’t bother to look at me; I don’t bother to blush for once in my life. He sees with his hands, sees the deep-blue bralette that hugs my pale skin, raised goosebumps disappearing the moment my body fits against his hard, ribbed chest. One hand cradles the back of my head while the other scoops me up into him. I wrap my legs around his waist with his hold. I grip at his hair as we kiss so hard I feel the scratchy surface of his chin and jaw drawing lines on my face.

  Jesse turns and walks us back to the iron beams, setting me on a platform that’s the perfect height to his waist. His hands loosen from under my thighs and he runs them around to the tops of my legs, up the length of my jeans to the waist and the button. I lean back as he pulls the snap free and my back arches as he drags the zipper down slowly. I stretch my arms up above my head against the cold of the dirty metal I’m resting on and Jesse hovers above me, one knee between my legs for balance. He slides it forward just enough to put pressure on my center and my eyes flutter shut, my teeth gripping at my swollen bottom lip. He leans forward and pulls it free with a possessive but gentle suck.

  Bold and angry—fueled by the toxic mix of my future, past, and all of those things that come with being seventeen—my hands gently urge him to take his kiss down my neck to the center of my chest. He leaves hot, wet nips along my skin along the way, working his hand behind my arched back and lifting me even higher as his teeth tug at the delicate lace of my bra, his hot breath warming the hardened peak of my breast underneath.

  I leave my arms tethered with this invisible force above my head, wishing and hoping Jesse does something more. I arch into each kiss, each suck, until his chest rumbles with his own impatience. Finally, he forcefully rolls the lace of my bra up my chest and over my head. I grip the discarded undergarment in my palms, squeezing tightly as his lips finally meet the hungry and tender bare skin the material was barely hiding.

  The ends of his hair blow in the wind and tickle my skin while his mouth works less delicately, biting on the pink skin while his tongue trails along my curves. The clang of a loose piece of wire bangs on one of the towering beams above my head, but other than that, we’re in complete silence, hidden in this wasteland just off a road nobody travels on in a city that was never truly built. The thought of being out here still excites me, though—the fact that if someone did wander closer, they would see us—see me.

  They would see Jesse in me.

  That thought flashes through my head and drives electricity to my core. I’ve never had thoughts like that before, at least not so direct—so forward.

  I’m still a virgin. Barely. But still one nevertheless. I don’t want to be one anymore. I don’t want to be one right now. I’m not saving myself for anyone. The passion has just never been there. Not like this. And I want this…now. Probably for lots of wrong reasons, but I just don’t care because something in my heart is beating louder than it ever has. That has to be happening for a reason. All I care about is how it feels to have Jesse kiss his way down the center of my chest to my bellybutton, his hands wrapping slowly against either side of my zipper as my hips rise and his chin presses down with a hot fog of a kiss against my pelvis.

  He tugs, and my jeans clear my hips. He pulls more and they turn inside out as they roll over my thighs, his hands following the smoothness of my skin.

  Jesse steps back enough to pull them completely free, and I bend my knees and squeeze at his hips with the insides of my legs as I spare a glance at him. He’s taken with lust, too, with being a boy on the brink of man, with being shunned and angry and broken. But he’s still sweet—I see it in his eyes. He steps into me slowly and lifts his chin, a silent ask if I’m ready for more. I bite at my lower lip and hum, lifting my own chin and tilting my head back with the arch of my back. The back of his hands run along my cheeks like feathers, his fingers toying with loose strands of my wild, curly hair. He grows steadier and surer when his palms meet my neck, and his thumbs drag a slow line along either side of the divot.

  I swallow.

  Warm, masculine palms paint their way over my chest, thumbs raking over pebbled tips, slight fingernails scratching down my ribs, fingers curling into the lace band of my panties, and then he begins to pull them away along the same path as he did my jeans. I lift my hips and his knuckles brush against my soft and tender and most intimate skin. My knees fall open as he pulls the cotton over them, leaving it hung on my right ankle as he anxiously kisses at my inner left thigh, palms holding it to his mouth like a feast.

  My insides wrestle with the heat forming within and the cold air washing over my damp skin. I’m wet. I felt it on my panties, and I know he feels it now as he touches me.

  “Ahh,” I whimper, the first sound I’ve made since I told him to fuck off then lunged for his kiss. I cry out again when he sinks a finger inside me, then two. His right hand works my body while his left hand trails up my chest to my cheek. His fingers scoop under my neck and he lifts me up toward him until I’m sitting, legs straddling his body where he stands, his mouth suffocating mine. I give him my oxygen willingly. I let him drown me in euphoria until my hands find the courage to unsnap his jeans and reach inside.

  He’s so hard. So hot. And I’m on the verge of orgasm. I don’t want to wait, but I also don’t want to waste it. I want more of him before I fall over the edge. I run my hand up and down his length, urging him millimeters closer to me every time until eventually his hand falls away from my center and he takes himself in his own grip. Our lips part, heads pressed together while we pant. I feel the tickle of his lashes against mine while he studies this moment, and I brace myself for his ask—for him to give me an out. I don’t want it. I want this to happen. He looks up and forces my gaze to his. His hand gentle at the back of my neck, his eyes search mine for hesitation—for a no.

  I am only yes.

  I lick my lips, and he steps back long enough to pull a condom from his wallet, tearing the wrapper with his teeth and sliding it on quickly. He shifts so I feel him against me, and I lean back just enough to move my hips forward. I feel Jesse’s heat trace the sensitive ache between my legs and I force my eyes to stay open, pinned to his. He steps forward a little, a small push that breaks through, a sharp burn that he soothes with the pad of his thumb, pressing it against my skin just above where he’s entered me. He presses harder, until I feel my pulse beat between my legs and I wrap them around him. He leans in, entering me more.

  My lips tremble, and he squeezes at the back of my neck, eyes questioning if he should go on. I wade in doubt for exactly one breath. Rag’s warning echoing in the distance of my mind, I erase it by moving forward into him on my own, by taking him completely and grabbing his bottom lip between both of mine. I scrape my teeth against his skin as I suck and then let go and feel the stretch my body makes to fit to him.

  He grunts, but it isn’t gross or embarrassing. This isn’t the porn the boys sneak on their phones in the back of the band bus or the things I wish I could un-see from parties Sam drags me to. This is a slow, careful gift from a boy I find dizzyingly perfect despite all of his crazy. He doesn’t pretend to be something he isn’t. He’s a genius, he’s a wreck—he’s my first.

  His hips rock slowly, his movement inside of me cautious until I begin to welcome his thrusts with careful ones of my own. Every time he pushes into me, it feels like he falls deeper inside. It feels less like the first time. It feels familiar and better and like I will never be able to get enough.

  Jesse presses his thumb against my center again as he moves, and I feel the build from before begin to climb again. The waves come slowly at the start, like ghosts I worry I won’t get to see more of until—without warning—they take my breath away. The rush of pulses is unstoppable, and everything I have ever done with any boy ever before was nothing compared to this. It was kid love. This is sex. I don’t regret a single moment of what we’ve done out here in the wide open of our own runaway place to hide, not even the way Jesse pulls out and finishes without a condom on rather than inside of me.

  Euphoria lasts for nearly a minute, then sweat begins to grow cold and reality forms panic in the pit of my stomach.

  This is sex. I just had sex.

  Jesse sits back on his heels; tired steps lead him to the side for a casual lean against one of the beams as he zips up his jeans. They hang low on his hips, and I gawk at the V that cuts along his stomach muscles and dives into his pants. He wasn’t wearing boxers under there. Underneath that denim is just him, and he’s still hard.

  I draw my knees up as I sit, trying to cover myself from his view. What was hot and intense moments ago feels invasive now.

  “Can you…” I flit my fingertips toward my discarded clothing.

  Jesse grins on one side of his mouth. It takes him an extra second or two to respond physically, his legs eventually uncrossing before making slow strides toward my clothes. He picks my ugly work shirt up first, and I struggle my legs into the panties I held onto as he approaches.

  “Thanks,” I say, tucking my chin to my chest, my cheeks red and my heart pounding with the realization of what just happened.

  I can’t go back.

  I don’t want to.

  But I don’t want to be here, like this. It’s not how I expected any of the after to feel.

  Jesse teases me by dangling my shirt on his finger and he stretches it forward just out of my reach. I let go of my legs with one arm and reach for him. He jerks away, and my forehead dents with hurt.

  “Jesse, don’t.”

  He chuckles at first, but then something washes over his face—sweetness and regret. He steps closer and begins to gather my shirt in his hands, nodding for me to dip my head so he can help me get dressed. I’m tentative in my response, but I lower my gaze and let him guide the wrinkled collar over my head. He straightens it as I tuck my arms through the sleeves, my pulse calming when I’m covered.

  I start to slide from the beam to gather the rest of my things, but Jesse pinches my chin lightly, lowering his own head enough to meet my eyes with his.

  “Ari…was that?”

  “It’s fine.” I try to brush his arm away, but he holds my hand quickly in his and brings my attention back to his eyes. He plays with my fingers nervously. He had to have known that was my first time. I cried a little, unless that’s normal.

  I try to look away, but he follows my gaze and makes his own unavoidable. I finally slip down to the slight space between where he stands in front of me and the beam, my toes landing on his shoes. His hands rest on my hips, and his nose dips down to brush against mine playfully though the look in his eyes is quite serious.

  “Your first time shouldn’t have been out here,” he says.

  I smile on half my face and lift my shoulder, but he shakes me side to side gently.

  “You should have loved me first,” he says next, and my half smile deflates almost completely. I blink my stare from his lips to his eyes. My chest grows heavy. Those words are also in the song he wrote about his dad.

  His eyes scan up my face to my forehead and he reaches to sweep some of the loose curls from my eyes, tucking them behind my ear. He tilts my head down enough to press his lips against my forehead where he whispers the warning again.

  “You should have loved me first.”

  I slide my arms around his body and let my face fall into his chest. His heartbeat is steady. I press my ear to him in an attempt to sync my rhythm with his. I don’t ask out loud, but I feel like somehow my inner question is echoing in his mind too.