Fifty First Times

  “I do have something to celebrate, don’t I?” My neck and cheeks flushed with pride, remembering how awesome it felt to open that letter that told me I’d been accepted into the USC Psy-D program. A doctorate of psychology would pave the way for me to work with young women who hated their bodies as much as I used to.

  Luckily, I hadn’t been as ballsy as I’d been depressed.

  “Yes, we must celebrate,” Tal murmured, pushing the tray to the side and crawling toward me on the bed, letting his hands walk along my sides on the mattress. I kept the sheet clutched to my boobs and smiled as I lay back. He pressed his lips to mine, and lowered himself over me. When he did, our teeth clacked together, and we both pulled back, laughing.

  “See?” he said, resting on my side and pushing a chunk of wavy caramel hair away from my eyes. “Even when we’re clumsy, it’s still sexy.” His hand slid around my waist and grabbed my hip, pulling me close to him—one of his signature moves I adored. His mouth dove to mine again, and I smiled against his lips. After a few minutes of relishing the feel of his fingers tangling in my hair while his tongue teased against mine, I let my body fall back on the bed and smiled up at him. He propped his forehead against my temple and a happy hum vibrated through his throat. Lord, he was so sexy. I didn’t even care about morning breath—I just wanted to taste those lips on mine again. I pushed my fingers through his hair and tried to pull him back to me.

  “Anna,” he said, pulling back to keep the space between us. The way he said my name was hypnotizing, and he knew it. I was under his spell. “You’re going to be here at USC another two years and so am I. And I’m fucking lonely in this condo all by myself.”

  “Not with me here.” I giggled again, smacking a kiss to his mouth. “I’m here all the time.”

  “So why not make it permanent? Your lease is up in two months.”

  My heart kicked again, racing completely out of my control and definitely not in a good way. Even if I’d wanted to keep my eyes from flying wide open, I couldn’t have. I pushed up from the mattress, still clutching the sheet to me. “You want me to move in with you,” I half whispered. It wasn’t a question. I was just trying to wrap my head around it.

  But Tal looked steadily into my eyes, seemingly unfazed. “You don’t have to give me an answer yet. Just think about it.”

  Suddenly, the dreamy glow of the room turned to something uncomfortably warm. I racked my brain, trying to think if I had any study groups on my schedule for a Sunday afternoon, or if I had promised to have coffee with any friends. Anything to distract me. Then I remembered.

  My hand flew to my cheek. “Shit,” I said, scooting to the edge of the bed, my sheet in tow. “I have a show at two. I almost forgot.”

  Playing the guitar was a hobby, but playing and singing my covers and original songs at one of the hippie USC coffeehouses was one way my therapist suggested I get back out there after what happened last year. Turned out that my self-confidence had been shittier than I’d thought. I should never have let myself hate my body so much that it spiraled into what it had.

  Shut up, I scolded myself. You’re slipping back into blaming yourself.

  I took a deep breath. I could almost hear my therapist’s voice in my head, telling me that there was a lot coming at me at this moment, reminding me to deal with it one thing at a time. Tal let out a short chuckle, but his eyes never left my face. I knew Tal well enough to know that laugh was hiding his stress. God, I hated to hurt him. But I just couldn’t stomach the idea of living with him until I knew for sure that I loved him. I knew I couldn’t love him until he knew everything about me. And he wouldn’t know everything about me until I got the courage to tell him.

  He was going to hate me for lying to him.

  Our first morning-after, I had propped my head up with my hand on the pillow next to him. The goddamn thing practically grinned at him, and even though Tal was always polite, I could tell it bugged him. Maybe scared him a little. Everyone knows that pink scars are recent ones. So he’d asked. Gently, of course, but it still made my stomach roil when his eyes followed the pink streak curving across my golden skin.

  Months ago, I’d done an Internet search for “good excuses for my scars.” A knot inside my stomach had untwisted when I found a site with a ton of suggestions, then quickly tucked them in the back of my brain just so I’d be prepared. Given that I lived with two of my best friends in a little house from the thirties, the “I knocked on the plate glass in our door really hard and the window shattered and a huge shard got stuck in my forearm” excuse worked decently enough, and I was almost certain he’d believed me. That was a relief in the moment, but turned into a bigger burden every day.

  The lines that marked my arms were grownup scars, but I couldn’t be grown up enough to tell him the truth. I certainly didn’t feel grown up enough to move in with him—to love him—if I couldn’t tell him that truth. The worst part was that none of it was Tal’s fault—he’d only ever been understanding, patient, and kind. But, the longer we dated, the more I realized that my internal scars ran just as deep as my external ones.

  Tal was right—my lease ending didn’t just mean the end of my rental agreement. It meant I was growing up—graduating from undergrad, moving into a career. Maybe it was time to try being honest with this sweet, sexy guy I almost-loved. Maybe if I found the courage to do that, I could let myself love him.

  I took a deep breath, standing up and motioning for him to come hug me. I snaked my arms around his waist, loving the way his lower back muscles moved under my hands. With my cheek pressed against his chest and his arms holding me tight, I blew out a shuddering breath. Even though my stomach flopped, I said it anyway. “Talk tonight?”

  He kissed the top of my head, then my cheek, a move so full of love I wanted my heart to burst with it. Maybe it would. Tonight.

  TAL ONLY CAME to my shows occasionally, for a couple reasons—the songs were almost always the same, first year law students always had a ton of work to do, and it honestly didn’t bother me if he wasn’t there. Playing was something I did for me, something that helped me even if I didn’t share it with anyone. Old Blue, my robin’s-egg painted guitar, and I had a special relationship. I’d strummed my anger and pain out on her, and I know it wasn’t pretty, and she still helped me make beautiful music for a few listeners once or twice a month.

  Getting through another show. Ten points. I smiled wryly.

  Points had been running through my head ever since I was a little girl—twelve or thirteen—and had started to curve out. Suddenly, the curve of my butt and the pooch of my stomach were topics of conversation; things that ran in the family, things we could work on.

  Mom said that she wanted us to start that weight loss program so that both of us could get healthier. Together. That day, the points started. A low-fat turkey sandwich got me points. Eating the blueberries she carted around with her in a portable cooler had so many points! Ice cream subtracted a kabillion points so we would never, ever be eating that.

  Slowly, it started to feel like everything had points. Going for a run got me points. Going up a bra size lost them. Getting a date to prom got me points, as did wearing heels to prom. Not getting kissed because my date was gay lost them.

  As I went through college, I tried to say, “Fuck you” to those points a little more every day—that’s why I’d done the nude photo shoot last year. But look where that had gotten me.

  There were just a few post-brunch stragglers left in the shop after the show. I smiled and gave Old Blue an affectionate pat as I lowered her into her case, rolling my wrist and stretching my shoulder when I stood up.

  “Looks like you need a massage,” Tal’s smooth tenor said from the middle of the room. I grinned as he headed toward me and hoisted Old Blue’s case over his shoulder, circling my shoulders with his other arm and pulling me in for a slow, sweet kiss.

  “Let me take you home,” he said in my ear. “I’ll take care of you.”

  The way he said ?
??home” sounded so full of love and angst at the same time that I thought I would burst. Make a joke, Anna. Make it light.

  “Mr. Carroll,” I said in mock scandalized voice. “Are you propositioning me?”

  He chuckled. “I made an early dinner, staying warm in the oven. And I got a new movie.”

  “And?”

  “And, yes, I’m hoping to make out with you and get my hands on that gorgeous body of yours. But if it’s just for that shoulder rub, I’m fine with it.”

  “Okay.” I smiled and pressed a quick kiss to his shoulder. “But food first.”

  “Food first.”

  TAL’S KITCHEN WAS no less deluxe than his bedding. Bright blue and white tiles made a backsplash mosaic over granite counters, and I sat perched at a small solid-wood table, watching him toss a fresh salad, then pull some beautiful-looking mac and cheese out of the oven.

  “Homemade,” I said. “I’m impressed. You still trying to butter me up?”

  “Well, it’s not that, exactly. I just want to be on my best behavior, because I don’t want to do anything to discourage you from giving me the optimal answer to my question. From earlier.”

  He sat down across from me and slid a plate full of food in front of me. As starved as my body was after playing that show, my stomach flipped over and over in an endless loop.

  “Tal, I want to talk.” The words came out in a rush, and with them came a bit of relief, especially since Tal’s eyebrows pulled together for a split second.

  He quickly schooled his expression back to calm and open, waiting to hear me. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. He took a slow bite of salad, chewing slowly. Giving me time.

  “It’s about my scar.”

  He nodded, taking a few seconds to swallow. “The one you got from that door. Yeah?”

  “Well, I . . . I didn’t get it from a door.”

  He nodded, keeping eye contact with me—and panic fluttered in my chest. What did that mean? Did he know? Did someone tell him? Did he Facebook stalk me to find out? Was there even anything on Facebook about it?

  My hands shook. I picked up my fork, then put it down again. “I . . .”

  Tal reached out and covered my hand with his. “You can tell me. Whatever it is, you can.”

  Did he know?

  “I tried to kill myself.” A momentary relief washed over me when the words fell out of my mouth. Tal breathed in deeply and closed his eyes, like he was trying to pull himself together. But I couldn’t figure out the emotion behind it. Sadness? Fear? Repulsion? A second later, though, his eyes opened, staring into mine, full of only patience and openness.

  After a few seconds, he just said, “And?”

  “And what? I’m crazy. I’m a crazy, damaged person who tried to kill herself. So you don’t want me to move in with you. You probably don’t even want to be with me.” I didn’t know whether I wanted him to agree or argue with me.

  “It doesn’t change anything,” he said. “You’re the same person you were this morning, and I still want to be with that person.”

  I felt stunned by his bald-faced indifference. “Don’t you want to know why?”

  “If you want to tell me. But if you don’t, I understand that you had a life before you met me. If you want me to know, I want to know, too.”

  Of course I wanted him to know. That was why I told him, right? All the same, the breath in my throat felt shaky as I got the whole story out. The photo shoot. The confidence I’d had when I got there. The empowerment of dropping clothing around my ankles piece by piece, then stepping out of them to do the bravest thing I’d done at college so far—to show my mom that even with a body like mine, I could do something beautiful. The article that came out in the USC magazine, about real beauty, and the pride I felt.

  And then, how it all came crashing down. The newspaper editorial that implied that girls like me, ones who occupied ten- or twelve- or fourteen-sized bodies, were gross and unhealthy. The pages and pages of comments using hateful slurs against us. The way it brought up memories of my mom counting my calories and weighing my food and constantly remarking that I’d gotten the bad genes, the ones that meant I couldn’t find a pair of jeans to fit my ass to save my life.

  The way that half-drunk frat boy assholes recognized me on campus and called me “fatty” and “pudge cunt” for weeks after.

  “So then,” I finished, “I got so down, so uncomfortable in my own skin, and so lost . . . even my mom thought it was stupid that I’d done the shoot. I felt like a fucking waste of space. Slashing my wrist with a razor just seemed to make a whole hell of a lot of sense.”

  The more words that came out, the more tears rolled down my cheek, silent and fat and unbidden. But Tal led me over to the couch and wiped every one away.

  He knew me well enough not to try telling me how beautiful and perfect I was, how it was what was inside that counted. He knew me well enough to know that I hated platitudes.

  When I finished talking, his hands moved to my shoulders and squeezed gently. I let my head fall back and made a small noise of pleasure. “Are you doing okay now?” he asked.

  I nodded. “I’m okay.”

  “Do you want to talk about it any more?” he asked, stopping to look into my eyes, to make sure I was telling the truth.

  “I don’t, if you don’t.”

  “I’ll talk about it whenever you want, but like I said—you are the same person to me that you were this morning. The girl who plays Old Blue in front of people without flinching and loves herself and has amazing career ambitions and is only occasionally morose.” I giggled and punched him on the shoulder.

  His face turned serious and his eyes sparkled into mine. “That’s the girl I fell for.”

  Suddenly, the air all around us felt heavy—like this moment was important, somehow. Maybe it would happen now. Maybe telling him about the attempt would push me over the cliff from almost-love to oh-my-God, head-over-heels, can’t-be-apart, crazy love.

  He threaded his fingers through my hair, and I waited for my fluttering heart to explode into that all-consuming emotion. His lips pressed, warm and wonderful, against mine and . . . it didn’t.

  Love didn’t burn through me, but an insatiable, desperate heat did. I definitely wanted to get in his pants, no matter how sore my arms and wrist were after an hour-long gig. After a few torturous moments of some serious making out, I inched my fingers under his shirt, then the back of his shorts, grabbing his ass. He laughed into our kiss, sending deep, luxurious vibrations through my mouth and the heat shooting through my core.

  “Take me to bed” sounded especially sexy coming from my post-show raspy voice, and Tal obliged, hoisting me over his shoulder and tickling my ribs as he made a mad dash for bed.

  And, at least for that night, everything was okay. Still not perfect, still up in the air, but okay.

  TAL’S ALARM BLARED from across the room—he had to put it there, or he’d never get out of bed—and I had to push him out of bed with both hands to go turn it off. He made a grunting noise when his feet hit the floor. I’d been smart and stashed my camisole under my pillow after Tal tugged it off last night. I unballed it and shimmied into it beneath the sheets.

  The sound of his bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor combined with the sight of his bitable ass made me want to drag him back into bed, but I was still sleepy. I could wait until he came back to me.

  The alarm silenced, he dove back into bed, right on top of me. I squealed and wasted no time pinching and squeezing him where I wanted . . . until I realized that, at the edge of the light-blocking curtains, a sun that had risen hours ago was making a bright border.

  “Oh, Lord,” I moaned, grazing my teeth against one of his pecs.

  “Yes?” he said, grinning.

  “I have an abnormal psych midterm today. I can’t stay in bed.”

  “Are you absolutely sure about that?” he asked, kissing a trail under my jaw and down my throat, flicking his tongue against my skin every
few seconds.

  “Unfortunately.” I moaned, returning the kisses to his forehead and rolling off my side of the bed.

  “Okay, then I want you to make it up to me,” he said. He just had to lie there in bed, looking delicious, with his chin propped up on his hands.

  I held the sheet around my bottom half while I felt around on the floor for my panties. Finally, I found the small lacy pile. “What are you looking at?” I asked as I stood up and realized he was staring at me.

  “You’re just beautiful, that’s all.” He sounded so . . . happy. With me, first-thing-in-the-morning gross, awkwardly rummaging around in his room, with a sheet pulled around my bare ass.

  I fumbled for my glasses on the nightstand and shoved them onto my face. “I’d better put these on, so I have something equally beautiful to look at while I get dressed,” I mumbled.

  “Aw, this old mug? Beautiful?”

  “Yes, I love your gorgeous face.” My face flushed at saying that word—“love”—that at the same time teased and scared me. I loved things about him—but did I love him? The feeling danced around my brain, eluding a permanent home there, waiting for me to grab it and wrestle it into place. But I didn’t know if I could . . . didn’t know if I wanted to.

  To mask the weird things I was sure my face was doing, I turned to his dresser, opened a drawer, and threw a clean T-shirt at him. “Don’t put this on till I leave. That’s an order.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. He turned over and stepped into his pajama bottoms—a shame—before rolling out of bed, finding my jeans, and handing them to me.

  I stepped into those and turned around to strap my bra on—totally necessary for a chesty girl like me—and then pulled another one of his old lacrosse T-shirts over my head. “This is the best it’s going to get for today—I don’t have time to hunt for my shirt in here.”