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Chapter One 

FIRST TIME

Three things I know this second: I have morning breath, I’m naked, and I’m waking up next to a boy I don’t know.

And there’s a fourth thing now. It’s ridiculously bright in my room. I drape my forearm over my eyes, blocking out the morning sun beating in through my windows, when it hits me --- a fifth thing.

These are not my windows.

Which means this is not my bed.

My head pounds as I turn to look at this boy whose name I don’t remember. He’s still asleep, his chest moving up and down in time to an invisible metronome. I scan his features, his nose, his lips, searching for something, anything that rings a bell. A clue to connect me to him. But remembering last night is like looking through frosted glass. I see nothing. But I can hear one word, loud and clear.

Leave .

The word repeats in my head.

Leave.

It’s beating louder, commanding me to get out of this bed, to get out of this room.

Get out. Get out. Get out.

My heart hammers and my head hurts and there’s this taste in my mouth, this dry, parched taste, this heavy taste of a night I don’t remember with...squeeze my eyes shut. This can’t be this hard. What’s his name?

Remember, Goddamn it, remember .

Carver.

His name is Carver.

Deep breath. There, no need to panic, no need to be all crazy-dramatic. I’ve got his name. Another breath. The rest will come back to me. It will all make sense, so much sense I’ll be laughing about it any second. I won’t be able to stop laughing, because I’m sure there’s some perfectly reasonable
explanation.

As I look at the matted bedsheets twisting around this boy and me, snaking across his naked waist, curling around my exposed chest, a draft rushes through the room, bringing a fresh chill with it. That must be it. It’s chilly . . . it’s cold . . . it’s January. Maybe it was snowing ---  we went sledding, I took a spill, changed out of my ice-cold clothes, and then crashed here in Carver’s room.

No, it’s Carter.

Definitely Carter.

I’m naked in bed with a boy and I can’t even get his name right.

This boy, this bed, this room, me --- we are like clumsy fingers on the piano, crashing across the wrong keys, and over the jarring music I hear that one word again.

Leave.

I slide closer to the edge of this too-small twin bed and dangle my naked feet until they touch the standard-issue Themis Academy carpeting --- a Persian rug. His is crimson and tan with interlocking diamonds. I don’t want to see a carpet like this again. Ever. I stand up slowly so the bed won’t creak.

Then I grab my clothes from the floor, collecting underwear, jeans, tank top, purple sweater, pink socks, and black boots, all scattered on the diamonds of the carpet. I’m cold without them, freezing even, and I’d really like to cover up my breasts. I spot my bra in the indentation of a cheap red pleather beanbag. My adorable, cute, black-and-white polka-dot bra thrown carelessly onto the worst piece of furniture ever invented.

He threw my bra.

The room tilts, like I’m on one of those fun-house walkways, angling back and forth. Only it’s not fun, because fun houses never are.

They’re distorted.

I snatch my bra, pulling it close to me, and get dressed quickly. As I yank up my socks, I notice a trash can teeming with Diet Coke cans. Carter doesn’t even recycle? Way to pick a winner, Alex . Then I freeze, seeing something worse, far worse. Two condom wrappers on top of his garbage, each one ripped down the middle, each one empty.

I close my eyes. I must be seeing things. It’s the morning, it’s hazy, the sun is far too bright.

But when I open my eyes the wrappers are still here, Carter’s still here, I’m still here. And nothing adds up the way I want it to. I zip up my boots in a flash, obeying the voice in my head shouting Leave now! Carter’s still sleeping, his mouth hanging open unattractively. Small lines of white crust have formed on the corners of his lips. His blond hair is sticking up in all kinds of directions.

I step gingerly across the carpet, spying a small black bag near the closet door that looks as if it holds shaving lotion and stuff boys use. I don’t want to open it and know what else is in there --- tweezers? Do boys use tweezers? I don’t want to know what they’d tweeze --- but I hate the way my mouth tastes right now, because it tastes like last night. I grab my coat, then crouch down by the black bag and slowly undo the zipper, tooth by metal tooth. I hold my breath, look back at Carter. He shifts, flips to his other side.

Don’t wake up. Don’t wake up. Don’t wake up .

I reach a hand into the bag, feel around for a tube of toothpaste. I pull it out, uncap it, squirt some onto my index finger. I scrub it across my teeth, erasing the sour taste, erasing the evidence, and drop the tube into the bag, the cap falling next to it. And at that moment Carter wakes up.

“Hey...,” he says, not even groggily. He’s just awake, plain and simple.

“Hey,” I mumble. I don’t usually mumble. No one is a mumbler at Themis Academy.

He rubs his chin with the palm of his hand.

A hand that touched me.

I wonder if I thought he was good-looking last night. In the morning he’s not. He has white-blond hair, a sharp nose, pale eyes. Maybe he was funny is all I can think. Maybe he made me laugh. Maybe he’s a riot and I laughed so hard my sides hurt. I place my right hand on my waist, hunting for the physical evidence.

He raises an eyebrow, almost winks at me. Something about the gesture reminds me of a politician. “So, did you have a good time last night?”

Let’s see: I’m tiptoeing across your room, praying you won’t wake up, can barely remember your name. Yeah, I had an epic night, just fantastic. Care to tell me what transpired between, say, midnight and, oh, ten minutes ago? Wait, don’t bother. Let’s just pretend this never happened and we’ll never mention it again. Cool?

He leans back on the bed, rests his head on the pillow. “Want to go again?”

I narrow my eyes at him, crush my lips together, shake my head quickly. He thinks I’m easy.

“I have to study,” I answer, taking a step backward toward the door.

“On a Saturday morning?”

Everyone at Themis studies on Saturdays, yes, even on Saturday mornings.

I nod. Another step.

“But term just started two days ago.”

“Crazy teachers giving out homework already,” I say, managing two steps this time. What, you don’t have homework yet? Are you in the slow track? I want to say.

But he’s not in the slow track. There is no slow track here. I wonder if Carter is in any of my classes...Then I do the math. A junior class of two hundred, the odds are this won’t be the last I see of him.

If I were a conductor, I would wave the baton and make all this vanish.

“Know what you mean,” he says. “Spanish teacher assigned some massive essay already. I haven’t started it yet.” That’s one class where I’ll be spared. I take French. Dieu merci .

“I gotta go.”

“Okay, well, I’ll call you,” he says, making some sort of stupid phone-to-the-head gesture. Then he practically jumps out of bed. I jerk my head away because he’s still naked and I don’t want to know what he looks like naked. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice him reach for his boxers. He pulls them on as I wrap my palm around the doorknob, gripping it tightly.

I desperately want to leave, but I need to know for sure. “So, uh, I have to ask.” I stop, barely able to choke out the words. “Did we...?” I can’t bring myself to say them.

He smiles, looking as if he would beat his chest with his fists if he were maybe one species less evolved.

“Yeah, twice. After we saw the band. It was great.” He looks triumphant.

But I feel like I just tasted tinfoil by mistake, the awful accidental taste that makes you want to spit it out. I pull the door open and do the one thing I should have done last night.

Leave.

Because you’re supposed to remember your first time.

Chapter Two 

MAKE-BELIEVE

There’s this trick I have on the piano. When I reach a section of music that totally trips up my fingers and mangles my confidence, I call on the experts. I put the score away, close my eyes, and imagine I’m in Carnegie Hall. There’s no audience, I’m not even onstage. I’m sitting in the first row
next to Beethoven, Mozart, and Gershwin. It’s just the four of us. I tell them the problem. Then I wait patiently for their guidance. They’ve never failed me before.

As I slip out the back stairwell, I present them with today’s quandary, only this one is of the nonmusical variety. What we have, gentlemen, is a girl who can’t remember her first time. What we also have is a boy who says he had sex with her twice.

Please piece together what happened in a way that makes sense to the girl.

I listen in silence as they ponder, waiting for their answer.

But today they say nothing.

It figures --- they’re men, after all. Besides, Beethoven’s deaf anyway.

It’s up to me to piece this together and I know nothing.

Nothing. I turn the word over a few times. Nothing.

Maybe nothing happened. Maybe it was all just an honest mistake, just a misunderstanding. Yes, that’s what my composers meant to say. They meant to tell me Carter messed up when he said we did it. Carter goofed. Carter’s the one who can’t remember jack.

I walk faster across the eerily quiet maintenance lot, arms wrapped tightly around me, and say my new mantra --- nothing happened --- as I scan the grounds. I’m ready to dash behind a bush if I have to, dive into a foxhole, because my mission now is to return unseen. I’ll go the long way: cross the maintenance lot, pass the track field, then cut onto the quad as if I were leaving my dorm, not returning to it. I will not be caught. I will not have anyone think I’m doing the walk of shame. Besides, I can’t be doing the walk of shame, because nothing happened .

The more I repeat it, the more I’ll believe it. Nothing happened, I say as I pass the Dumpsters, then
the shed.

I reach the edge of the track field next and see the first trap --- a flock of girls running laps, clad only in skintight Lycra leggings and body-hugging jackets, carving out endless circles.

Their backs are to me for now, so I shift gears to powerwalk --- actual running would draw too much attention. I can’t tell who’s who from here, but I’m betting fellow juniors Anna Marie, Shoba, Caroline, and Natalie are out there. If I can traverse this back path around the field before they turn the corner, they won’t see me.

Of course, they are runners and I’m merely a musician, so they’re curving around the track before I’m even halfway along the edge of the field. I pull my coat collar up, cast my eyes down, and stuff my hands into my pockets, where I find sunglasses. I cover my eyes with them and now I’m just some press-shy teenage celebrity trying to avoid the paparazzi.

The track girls are focused, feet smacking the dirt, arms hinging in perfect synchronicity at their sides. Then one of them breaks away, bursting ahead like a Thoroughbred on the final turn. I’m almost at the edge of the field, ready to make a break for the quad, when I realize it’s Natalie, shooting out like an Olympic sprinter.

Natalie, who’s built like Serena Williams. Natalie, who slaughters track records in the spring, who smashes lacrosse sticks in the fall, who could crush me with her thigh muscle alone, even though I’m no pip-squeak. I’m five-seven. But she’s over six feet and, really, what would I defend myself with? My long, slender fingers?

Her legs are a blur. She’ll spot me any second and my plan will be shot. Kinda like my reputation. She’ll see me, throw her head back, and grin cruelly because she’ll have a tasty piece of gossip. She’ll tell her friends and they’ll all blab about me in the caf when they go eat their wholewheat pasta and bananas and broccoli. And she’ll tell her boyfriend, that senior Kevin Ward.

Because there’s nothing better to talk about than who’s into whom, who’s doing whom, and who screwed whom. And in my case, all the circumstantial evidence --- the time of day, my messy hair, my day-old clothes --- screams that I’m someone worth talking about.

But I’m not. I swear I’m not. I picture banging my fist fiercely against a table before a judge, a jury of my fellow students, insisting nothing happened, insisting I wasn’t even with Carter last night. I briefly consider the possibilities of playing possum, just dropping down into a ball, lying completely still on the cold ground. But then I come up with a better plan, a perfect plan. Forget the nothing happened one. Because I’ll tell a new story; I’ll reinvent last night.

Where was I last night? Funny you should ask. When I went backstage to meet the band --- yes, they invited me backstage because they heard I rule the keys --- we hung out, chilled to some music, then jammed together, me on keyboards all night long. I just left the club now. I know, wild times. But good clean fun.

Now that’s a tale worth spreading. I should start the rumor myself.
N
“Hey, Alex!” Natalie’s voice calls out. “Nice clothes from last night.”

There’s no jamming with the band, no all-night music, just me in my boots and bedhead, and the whole girls’ track team now knows I didn’t sleep in my room last night.

I want to yell back, “You know nothing!”

But she obviously knows something. She was there. At the club.

And I’m the one who knows nothing. I’m the one who has nothing to say as I watch my quiet prep school existence seep out the door like an overflowing sink, the water trickling out, slowly creeping up on everything in its path, ruining books, furniture, rugs, and last of all my privacy, my little corner of the world here as the piano girl.

Water damage is the worst, they say.

Natalie streaks on by, ahead of the pack. Her teammates are focused on catching her. They don’t see me as I finally slip away from the field. But they’ll know soon enough; that’s how it goes with sports teams.

Sports. 

I remember now --- Carter plays something. He’d had practice for something last night before I met him. He mentioned this. I wonder if I tuned it out because my brain did its best impression of a sieve or because I detest sports. The great thing about Themis Academy is it’s not one of those you-must-do-sports-or-else schools. You’re not even required to play an organized sport.

I reach the main campus and survey the sprawling quad. It’s deserted. The lawn, cracked and hard now, but lush and green in the spring, is peppered with trees and framed by old buildings --- classrooms, dorms, and the cafeteria too, a building built in 1912. Themis was founded a year later by members of the Progressive Party, ironic because Themis is hands-off in the only way that matters.

The school looks like a mini college campus, with old brick structures, Victorian buildings, and Colonial-style mansions converted into halls of learning. Even McGregor Hall’s redbrick façade is laced with ivy that curls around the edges of the white windowpanes.

In front of McGregor Hall is a big bulletin board with flyers. I glance at them as I walk by. Casting call for The Merry Wives of Windsor (to be performed in front of the Faculty Club in a patented Themis special performance for teachers). Tryout for Coed Crew. But of course...everything is equal here. Then a notice for the Vegetarian Dinner Club, complete with cheese and crackers and carrots every night.

I see one more.

Join the Mockingbirds! Stand up, sing out! We’re scouting new singers, so run, run, run on your way to our New Nine, where you can learn a simple trick...

Then there’s a drawing of a bird on the corner, his watchful eye staring back at me.

It’s code -- all code --- because the Mockingbirds aren’t an a cappella singing group, as they pretend to be. And they most definitely are not having auditions for singers. No, the Mockingbirds are something much bigger and much quieter too, and it’s tryout time for them, as it is at the start of every term.

The Mockingbirds are the law.

I leave the bulletin board in my wake and walk briskly to my nearby dorm, Taft-Hay Hall, a redbrick building three stories tall. I make a beeline for the arched doorway, but there’s Mr. Christie, my history teacher and advisor, striding across the quad, looking as purposeful as I do. He has this crazy long-legged step, chin up, chest out, his reddish beard and mustache almost leading the way.

“Good morning, Alex. How are you?” he says, his voice deep.

“I’m fine, Mr. Christie,” I say as he nears me.

“You’re up early on a Saturday.”

“Yeah, I think I’m developing insomnia,” I say, trying the ruse on for size. There’s got to be one lie I can tell that’ll fool someone. “I’ve been up for hours,” I add when he nods sympathetically.

He looks at me, all concerned. As if he knows the cure for insomnia. Like he’s a trained insomnia exorcist and he can tell me just what to do.

“A cup of chamomile tea before bed might do just the trick,” he says.

Right. That’ll fix everything, and while we’re at it, do you have anything that’ll help me remember losing it with a guy I don’t even know?

“I’ll be sure to try that next time,” I say, sounding all chipper and cheery.

He’s pleased, like he just did his good deed for the day and helped a student in need, and he can now go on his merry way.

I should be glad Mr. Christie didn’t notice, didn’t put two and two together, didn’t ask any more probing questions. Or maybe he’d already heard the story that I was up all night jamming with the band. It’s a cool story, he thinks, and I am his advisee, so he doesn’t report me.

Then I laugh silently to myself as I pound up the stairs into Taft-Hay Hall, my boots clicking on the stone steps. Because of course he believed me. The teachers, the headmistress, all the freaking administration, they never think we’re up to anything. They think we never skirt the rules here at perfect, progressive, prestigious Themis Academy.

We’re above the law, that’s why we came here. Right . . .
N

Chapter Three 

AN EDUCATED GUESS

I don’t go to my room. I go downstairs to the basement. At the bottom of the stairs there’s a bin for lost-and-found, an enormous mound of hats, scarves, watches. Nothing ever gets found here. No one wants the stuff that’s been lost. But I need to see the bin right now because it reminds me of a night I can remember.

One night last year I dared my boyfriend at the time, Daniel, to try to assemble a whole outfit from the lost-and-found bin. He rose to the challenge, digging all the way to the bottom of the bin, where he found a pair of red plaid pants likely from the seventies. Then he unearthed a canary yellow
cardigan, a mismatched pair of Dr. Martens --- one black, one green, two sizes apart --- and a tattered baby blue mesh cap that was trendy once upon a time.

“No wonder that’s here,” I said. Then he pulled me close and kissed me. It wasn’t our first kiss. We’d been together for three months then. But it was memorable --- one of those kisses you couldn’t stop if you tried. I wanted to kiss him all night long.

So I run an experiment. I close my eyes and swap out the leading man. Daniel’s dark blond hair becomes Carter’s pale, almost white hair. Daniel’s shoulders turn into Carter’s. Daniel’s lips, his cheeks, his hands, they all belong to Carter now. And I’m kissing Carter like I kissed Daniel. I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, forcing Carter to fit, forcing this kiss to become Carter’s. But the puzzle pieces won’t fit. I don’t remember kissing Carter like this. I don’t remember pulling him close to me, wanting it, wanting him.

But even though I was crazy about Daniel --- he was the cellist here, and the way he held that instrument between his knees, the way he played it like he was caressing it, would make any self-respecting piano girl go weak in the knees --- I didn’t sleep with him. We didn’t go all the way that night at the lost-and-found bin. We didn’t any of the times we hung out in the summer.

We came close, very close, several times. Something always held me back, though. Daniel and I were connected in so many ways, two musicians after all. But except for the night in someone else’s plaid pants and yellow sweater, he always took himself a bit too seriously. And the thing that really gets me, that makes my stomach turn in all sorts of good knots, is someone who can make me laugh.

All I can figure is Carter must have been really fucking funny.

Then I flash on something: a fuzzy muted memory of laughing with someone else back at the club, well before I wound up in Carter’s room. Last night a whole group of us went to see Artful Rage, my absolute favorite band. They were playing in town, and juniors finally get Friday Night Out privileges the second half of the school year. My roommate’s boyfriend, Sandeep, smuggled vodka into the club. I remember having a drink or two and then...

Maybe I met Carter there, maybe Sandeep introduced us. Or maybe Daniel’s a dick for going away to college two years before me. He’s at Dartmouth now, and we didn’t even pretend to do the whole I’ll-still-see-you-on-weekends thing because the last thing a college guy wants is a high school girlfriend tagging along. But if he were here, I would have been with him last night and not Carter.

I open my eyes and glare at the lost-and-found bin for a minute. I have this sudden, intense desire to topple it, to spill all these unclaimed, unwanted clothes in a huge messy pile. I put my hands on the edge and push, but it probably weighs more than a hundred pounds so I can’t flip it over. I grab a handful of scarves and shirts and toss them on the floor, leaving a red scarf on top of the pile, like litter.

I head upstairs to my room.

T.S. is wide awake when I unlock the door. She’s brushing her short blond hair, sitting on the edge of her already made bed. She’s dressed in her soccer uniform. I notice Maia’s bed; it’s made too and her bathroom stuff is gone. She must be in the shower.

Then there’s my bed and it’s also made.

Only difference is I never unmade it last night.

I hate my made bed right now. I wish the comforter were tangled up in the sheets, wish it were proof I’d slept here all night long, like both my roommates did. I brace myself for the inevitable inquisition from T.S., but instead a devilish smile fills her face. “Look what the cat dragged in!” she says.

I bet she’d been bubbling over, just waiting to use her cat-dragged-in line, and that’s distracting her from asking other questions, like Why are you coming home at seven thirty in the morning when you’ve never done that before and tell me everything, absolutely everything?!

But the mere thought of cradling my pillow, tucking my feet under me, and sharing with my best friend every single detail of my first time makes me queasy. Oh my God! Can you believe it? I had sex for the first time, with a guy I don’t even know! And I don’t remember it! Wow!

After holding out on Daniel for six months, I threw it all away on a guy I met one random night. There must be something seriously wrong with me, like a defective computer where the hard drive crashes. This unit no longer works properly, sir. Please repair it and make it normal again.

I lie down on my bed with a pink-, orange-, and purple-patterned bedspread and place my hands beneath my head, pulling my messy brown hair, badly in need of a brushing, into a mock ponytail. There’s silence for a minute and I picture a tennis ball sputtering away, rolling to a standstill at the edge of the court.

“So...,” T.S. says, raising an eyebrow. “Did you have a good time last night? I heard you had a blast after you started Circle of Death.”

When she says those words, a memory races up.

“Nine of Diamonds!” Carter shouts, then brandishes the playing card for the group to see. There’s a bunch of us crowded around a coffee table. “Rhyme time!” He strokes his chin, as if in deep contemplation. “Coral, C-O-R-A-L.”

Then voices chime in. “Oral.” “Floral.” “Laurel.” “Moral.” “Quarrel.”

“Damn,” I say loudly. “That was my word.” Carter leans in close. “Guess you’ll need another rhyme.”

I look at the ceiling for a second, thinking, trying to pull another word into my brain. “I got it! Choral! Like Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the Choral Symphony?”

“Nice try,” Carter says. He gives me a look, kind of sweet, almost a wink there too. “But I don’t think homonyms count in Circle of Death, and coral was my word.”

I slam my palm on the table .

“Drink, drink, drink, drink,” they all say in unison .

Sandeep takes his cue and fills my red tumbler with orange juice and a splash of vodka .

I take it, drink it down in one gulp — I am tough, I am cool, I am invincible. Vodka doesn’t burn my throat, I’m not even drunk, I’m totally sober. I’m back from winter break, we finally have Friday Night Out privileges, I just saw Artful Rage rock out in their live awesomeness tonight, and I am still on a mad music high. So I lean closer to Carter, my leg brushing up against his, my thigh near his thigh .

“The Ninth Symphony is my favorite piece of music ever written. I love Beethoven,” I say to Carter. Or maybe it’s a slur. “He’s my boyfriend.” Then I laugh, like a drunk person.

A thin coat of slime, muck covers me. I flirted with him. I came on to him. I wanted this to happen.

“Are you okay?” T.S. asks. “You just kind of spaced out there for a second.”

“I’m fine,” I say quickly, then ask, “you weren’t there for Circle of Death?”

“I left after the concert. I had to work on my blog and get to bed by ten thirty,” T.S. says. “Don’t you remember?” she adds quizzically.

“That you’re religious about going to bed early when you have practice with the Williamson girls’ team? Yeah, that’s been etched on my brain since freshman year.”

“The Williamson women’s team,” she corrects, because evidently the second you graduate from high school and move on to college you’re deemed a woman, no longer a girl. Anyway, the Themis girls’ soccer team practices with the nearby Williamson women’s team every other Saturday in the winter to help each team keep up their skills in the off-season. “But what I meant was, don’t you remember starting the game?”

I ignore her question. “So, where did we play the game, oh-roommate-who-knows-all?”

“Sandeep told me you started the game in the common room over at his dorm.”

Even though Sandeep is T.S.’s boyfriend, she doesn’t use that word. She calls him her “relevant other.” He calls her his “lady friend.” They think their nicknames are cute and countercultural. Not surprising for someone who refuses to use, let alone acknowledge, her full name. She tells people T.S. stands for Thalia Svetlana because it sounds so ridiculous. She’s been saying this ever since our freshman year, when we were first paired up as roommates. She says it seriously too, so everyone believes her and instantly gets why she’d go by T.S. instead.

“Hmm . . .”

“Hmm, what?” she asks. She stops stretching and sits down next to me, her regular routine suddenly taking a backseat.

“Hmm, nothing.”

“So what happened with Carter?”

I sit up straight, ramrod straight. “You know him?”

“I don’t know him. But he plays water polo.”

Water polo boys are cocky assholes. Slick, showy, insincere, bred to be bankers. They’re like junior frat boys.

“He’s a wing,” she adds. I give her a blank look. “That’s the position he plays.”

“Right. How could I forget how you know the roster for every single Themis sport?”

“It’s one of my many adorable talents. Anyway, Sandeep said you went back to his room. That’s where you were last night, right? In his room, fooling around?”

She assumes that’s all I did. She knows me, knows I never slept with Daniel, knows I would never sleep with someone I just met. She figures Carter and I just made out.

I wish we just made out.

Nothing happened, my brain says quietly. But my head roars, protesting my game of make-believe again. I can feel this vein on my forehead pulsing harder now, practically popping out. I hate that vein. It’s so ugly and it’s so prominent when I get excited or riled up about something. I sometimes even notice it in photographs. I lie back down on the bed, press my fingers hard against my forehead, trying to forcibly push the headache out. I never get headaches, but now there’s a jackhammer on my skull.

“That’s where you were last night, right?” she repeats. “That’s what Sandeep told me after you left.” She says it like a statement, but it’s more of a question. She’s waiting for the answer, her green eyes boring a hole into me.

“Alex...” Her voice is low this time, nervous.

“Yes, I was there last night.”

I was there with Carter and those two condoms. The proof. The evidence that doesn’t lie. Carter used two condoms last night and thought it was great. He used two condoms with me last night. With me. There is no pretending, there is no nothing happened. We didn’t just make out. We did it and I can’t undo it. I can’t even block it out because I’ve been tagged now by Natalie, marked for the rumor mill.

I should have just slept with Daniel. Then at least my first time would have mattered.

“You had me worried. I was picturing you wandering the streets or something.”

Wandering the streets would have been wholly preferable. Hell, being homeless would be better right now. I can see myself sitting cross-legged on a sidewalk, hunched over beneath an awning, my psychedelic comforter wrapped around my shoulders. Passersby toss me dimes, nickels, sometimes a quarter. It’s a rough life, but at least no one knows me.

“So do you like him? I saw you guys chatting at the concert, but then I left.”

“What did you blog about last night?” I ask, changing the subject as I fix my eyes on the exposed brick wall in front of me. The other three walls are cream-colored, conducive to studying, Themis says. I glance down at our carpet. It’s thicker than Carter’s and has a fl oral pattern in peach and beige. I take some small comfort in this.

She shakes her head. “Nope. I want to know if you like him. Are you going to see him again? Are you going to go out with him?”

I picture Carter’s crusty white mouth, his sharp nose. I picture my simulated kiss downstairs by the lost-and-found bin. My stomach twists. “No.”

“Why not?” she asks.

I say nothing.

“What, did he smell or something?” she presses on.

I shake my head. “I just don’t want to see him again.”

“That’s a bummer,” she says. “You didn’t have a good time with him?”

“I have no idea what kind of time I had with him.”

I didn’t mean to say that out loud. I don’t want her to know I was so drunk, or so stupid, or so out of it, or so something that I can’t remember. T.S. doesn’t get smashed, she doesn’t lose control. She sets rules for herself, then adheres to them. It’s the athlete in her. She’s rigorous and disciplined about everything. I’m only regimented about music.

“No idea?” T.S. asks. She pulls away from me a bit, making room for what I just said.

“No idea,” she repeats. “What do you mean no idea ?” I shrug.

“Are you saying you don’t remember?” she asks.

I flip over on my belly; the right side of my face is against my pillow. Immediately, her hand is on my shoulder. T.S. tries to right me, but I resist, staying facedown.

“Do you remember any of it?” she asks.

“Not really,” I say, muffled into the bed.

“Alex, not remembering a night with someone isn’t good.”

More silence.

“You kissed him, right? You made out with him, but that’s all, right?” T.S. asks anxiously, like she’s leading the witness, like she wants me to say yes.

Yes, I’m dying to say. Yes, that’s all.

But I can’t say that, so I shrug faintly.

“Look at me,” she commands.

I place the pillow over my head this time, my face now pressed into the bedspread. T.S. won’t stop though. She tugs at the pillow. I’m no match for her. She’s strong, so she pries it off me.

“Alex, you’re not three. Cut the crap and look at me.”

I turn back over, facing her. Something in her voice reminds me of the time I learned her real name last semester. It was a Saturday morning in October and she had woken me up. “I’m late,” she whispered. “How late?” I asked. “I was supposed to get my period yesterday. I’m totally freaking out because I was stupid. We did it without a condom once. Just once,” she said. Her shoulders were shaking and she twisted a strand of her hair tighter and tighter. “I’ll go get you a test,” I said. I didn’t have any weekend points then to go off-campus, but I didn’t care. I ran to the nearest drugstore a mile away, bought her a test, and held her hand when she peed on the stick. She covered her eyes and made me look at it first. “Negative!” I told her. Then she said, “My name’s not Thalia Svetlana. It’s Tammy Stacy, but don’t ever call me that.”

I never have.

“Did you have sex with him?” she asks again.

I picture the condom wrappers.

“Yes.”

“Wow, you had sex for the first time,” she says, nodding slowly.

I say nothing.

“And you don’t remember it,” she states heavily.

“Evidently not.”

“That’s...,” she begins, and then her voice trails off.

“That’s what?” I ask.

“That’s” --- she tries again --- “odd.” Then she shakes her head.

“Odd?”

She doesn’t answer. She just looks at her watch. “You know,” she begins, going for a kind of casual tone, “our game doesn’t start until ten thirty. Why don’t we see if Casey wants to come visit?”

Casey is my sister. She’s a junior at Williamson so we were never at Themis at the same time. She was a big-time soccer star when she was here, and now she’s a big-time soccer star at Williamson, so she and T.S. know each other pretty well. The weird thing is Casey took a few years off from playing, stopped right in the middle of the season in her senior year at Themis. Maybe she got bored with it for a spell, but she started soccer again, came roaring back last semester at Williamson, better than ever.

Now T.S. sees my sister way more than I do during the school year. They discuss plays and strategies, since T.S. will be captain of the team next year. She wants to take Themis to nationals and then land a soccer scholarship for college, even though she doesn’t need one. (If football players can get a free ride, she damn well wants one too.)

“Casey,” she says quietly into the phone. “Can you come
over?”

I could be wrong, but I don’t think T.S. is calling Casey right now for the secret to landing the game-scoring goal each time she hits the field.

Chapter Four 

BLACKOUT

“We never just hang out with Casey before your games,” I say as T.S. pulls on sweatpants over her soccer shorts.

“Change your clothes,” she instructs, reaching for a pullover fleece next. “You can’t go out in the same clothes you wore last night.”

“Why are we going out? I thought Casey was coming here.”

“She is. But we’re not meeting here. We’re meeting in the Captains’ Room.”

“What the hell is the Captains’ Room?”

She gives me a look like I’m stupid. “In the athletic complex. For team captains. She still has her captain’s key.”

“From four years ago?”

“When you get a captain’s key, you keep it for life.”
N
“Where’s your key, since you’re captain next year?”

“I get it in a ceremony at the end of the year.”

“Of course. Anyway, why don’t we just meet here?”

“Captains’ Room is quiet. Plus it’s reserved for soccer right now, so no one else can use it.”

“But she’s not the Themis soccer captain.”

“She was a captain. She supersedes current captains if she wants use of the Captains’ Room.”

“Yet another thing about jocks that makes no sense,” I say as I toss last night’s tainted wardrobe into my laundry bag and pull on my robe. “I’m going to shower first,” I say, and walk to the bathroom.

I turn the water all the way up, hotter than usual. The near-boiling water stings my skin, but I don’t step away. I stand under the showerhead, close my eyes, and picture the reddish-pink splotches that must be forming on my skin. I lift my face to the hot stream, letting the water pelt my face. Then I turn around, feeling the burn of the heat on my hair, my back, my legs. Several rounds of shampoo and soap later, I am done and I am red.

I return to our room, pull on fresh clothes, and administer the fastest blow-dry I can manage as T.S. fidgets, eager to be on our way. I twist my mostly dry hair in a ponytail and pull on a cap. One look in the mirror tells me I resemble something close to a lobster, but that’s far better than the way I looked before.

“C’mon. Let’s go before the hallways get crowded and everyone wants to chat,” she says.

“I really don’t want to run into Carter. He could be at the athletic complex.”

“There’s no water polo practice today.”

“So? He could be like you, practicing on off days.”

“One, if he were like me, I’d know him better. Two, the pool is in a separate building, so let’s go,” she says, opening the door.

“I don’t want to see Natalie. She was at the track field earlier. She saw me walking back to my room and obviously knows something is up. She was all snarky and nice clothes, Alex.”

“Natalie Moretti?” T.S. scoffs, shutting the door behind us.

“Yeah, the Amazon.”

“She’s just a track girl. So what?”

“You disparage other female athletes now?” I ask as we head down the back stairwell, though T.S. sometimes does. She has her own caste system for all the athletes, all the teams. Don’t get her started on it; she can go on all day and night.

“Well, track is just sheer speed. Soccer, that takes speed and skill and finesse.”

Like I said . . .

“Speaking of soccer,” I begin, “let’s get back to why we’re meeting my sister. Why did you call her? Why is she coming? Why are we meeting in secret?”

“We’re not meeting in secret,” T.S. insists as she pushes open the back door and a blast of cold air hits us.
N
“I would have to say meeting in the Captains’ Room is pretty secretive. What’s the deal, T.S.?” I’m half-tempted to use her real name, but a promise is a promise.

“There’s no deal,” she says crisply.

“Then why is this so urgent?”

“Let’s talk about other stuff right now,” T.S. says as we walk across the quad to the gymnasium. “Like our spring project. I think I know what I’m going to do mine on.”

I relent, knowing I’ve lost this battle. “What are you going to do yours on?” I ask as we pass McGregor Hall.

“Stereotypes. I did a blog post on it. I even talked to Casey about it last night.”

“About your blog?”

“About doing my spring project on stereotypes. Whether there is any truth to them. When we can lean on them, when we can’t.”

“And your conclusion?”

“I think they’re based on something. They start with something that maybe is a kernel of truth or was a kernel of truth at some point. Then they take on lives of their own.”

I picture a stereotype rising up out of bed, stretching its arms, arching its back, becoming bigger than itself, like a growth, a wart.

“Like your stereotypes about track girls. So what does Casey think? Is there something to them?” I ask as my hands grow colder and I push them into my pockets, wishing I’d brought gloves.

T.S. shakes her head. “Nope, she says stereotypes are wrong. She says they lead to irreparable harm. I say they are based in truth and we need to understand the truth, but sometimes break through them. So I choose to respectfully disagree with Casey.”

“Aren’t we all just so polite,” I remark.

“What are you going to do yours on?” she asks me, as if she doesn’t already know.

“You know! We’ve talked about it before.”

“I was teasing. I know you’ve been planning it since you started freshman year,” T.S. says. She’s right. I have been planning to do my project on

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the love of my freaking life.

“Ode to Joy,” the most famous part from the fourth movement, is the first piece of music I ever learned to play. That music is a part of me and I’m sure I would die without it. I would play it on an accordion, on a cheap little recorder, if those were the only options. I would whistle it if all instruments on earth were smashed.

The great irony is Beethoven slapped all pianists in the face with the Ninth Symphony. There’s not even a part for the piano in it. Trumpets, oboes, they get their glory days in the greatest symphony ever written, but not piano. But then along came the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt, who transcribed Beethoven’s work for piano. I have a crush on Franz Liszt for that alone. So naturally I’ll do my spring project on the Ninth Symphony. But as we near the gymnasium, I feel something like dirt in my mouth thinking of the notes in “Ode to Joy.” Because suddenly the song, my song, reminds me of Carter. I can hear it playing in his room. “You like this song, don’t you?”

“Hmm...?” I ask sleepily.

“You said earlier it’s your favorite piece of music ever written. I have it on my iPod --- you know, from the Die Hard sound track. I want to play it for you.”

I don’t say anything, just lean against the wall, then I’m sinking down. I hear it, the first note, E .

I can taste more dirt now, picturing his Al Green moves, his pickup-artist tricks, trying to get laid using my German composer. And it worked. I guess I’m that easy. One snippet of Beethoven and I’m spread out on a bed for the first time. Thanks, Ludwig. You’re a pal.

T.S. pulls open the door to the athletic complex and I lower my head, not wanting to see Natalie or any of the other track girls.

“You’re with me,” T.S. says calmly. “Don’t worry about Natalie or anyone.”

“What, am I your bitch or something? They don’t touch another jock’s property?” I ask as a girl with socks up to her knees ducks into the nearby locker room.

“Athletes’ code,” T.S. says with a wink. “Besides, she knows I could kick her ass.”

“Yeah right.”

We walk down a long hallway past coaches’ offices and supply closets and metal shelves of basketballs. At the end is a door bearing what looks like a coat of arms --- a navy blue shield, in the middle an illustration of a ball and a unisex face looking proudly in the distance. I shake my head, bemused at such a display. The endowment for the athletic department must be pretty sizable. There’s a crisp sheet of paper taped under the shield with today’s schedule for the room with times and teams marked off. 

T.S. raps twice, then says, “Forward here.”

The door opens, as if by magic, but on the other side is my sister.

Casey looks just like me. There’s no mistaking we’re sisters. We could almost be twins. She has brown hair like me, straight, but not silky straight, more like thick-hair straight. The kind you can twist around and pin up in a pile on your head. Her brown eyes are just regular brown, not chocolate, not caramel, not coffee-colored — just brown, like mine. She’s in her soccer clothes, but as usual she blowdried her hair this morning for a half hour and looks as if she just stepped out of a salon.

“Hey, Alex. How are you doing?” she says to me, putting a hand on my back and leading me into the lair of the captains emeriti.

I shrug off her hand. “I’d be better without the cloak and dagger,” I say, looking around. The room is tiny, the size of a small office. But there are three chairs, a coffee machine, several mugs, a sink, a microwave, a half-pint fridge, a basket with shiny red apples, a tray with tea bags, and a series of cubbies along one wall, containing cleats, composition books, uniforms, and changes of clothes. The walls are covered in plaques, awards, framed photos of teams.

“Besides,” I add pointedly, “why would I not be okay?”

Casey doesn’t answer. She crosses three feet or so to a high-backed leather chair. She doesn’t sit down, just rests her hand on the back of the chair. T.S. stands too, as if she’s waiting for a sign. I bet it’s some other part of the captains’ code. Do not sit until the captain sits. But I don’t need an invitation. I can pick my own chair in the captains’ inner sanctum, so I plop down in the chair next to Casey, pulling it a few inches away from hers, giving myself some distance.

“You think we can get some coffee here, or are these cups just for show?” I ask.

“We don’t have a Frappuccino maker,” Casey says playfully.

“I’ll make you tea.”

“Just something strong, please,” I say.

Casey turns on the faucet, fills three mugs with water, and hands them to T.S., who puts them in the microwave. When the tea’s ready T.S. hands me mine first, then squeezes my shoulder gently. I don’t want to be touched, so I shirk away.

T.S. gives Casey a knowing look, like that’s how they expected me to react. Casey takes a sip of her tea, then sets her mug down on a small round end table.

“So what happened last night?” she asks, in the same tone she’d use to inquire if there was any ice cream left in the freezer.

“What happened?” I repeat.

She tries again. “Yeah, what happened last night?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“I’m your sister.”

“And that has something to do with last night how?”

“It’s cool. We can talk about something else. Did you see that girl in the hall with the knee sock? Total fashion faux --- ”

I cut her off. “Why are you two acting like this, like you have some weird secret you won’t even talk to me about?” It feels as if ants are all over me and I scratch my calf, like they’re crawling up it.

“There’s no secret,” Casey says.

I fold my arms against my chest.

Casey takes another drink, T.S. follows suit, and all three of us remain quiet. Then Casey makes her move.

“So, what was the deal with that guy?” she asks.

“That’s why I’m here? To tell you both about my first time?” I look to T.S. and kind of want to spit at her right now. “Thanks, T.S. I really appreciate you dragging me to the Captains’ Room for this. Next time why don’t you just take me to the caf so we can do it in front of the whole school? Everyone’s going to know soon enough anyway.”

“Alex, it’s not like that,” T.S. says.

I hold up a hand, my palm to her, and shake my head as I stand, move to the sink, and put my mug down next to it. I don’t look at them, just place my hands on the edge of the slim counter, grabbing it, pressing hard with my fingers, sending all the tension, all the bubbling anger in my body into my hands. I could break this counter, I imagine, split it in two and watch it splinter under my hands. When I turn around, something inside me snaps.

“You want to know what happened? You guys really want to know? Fine. I’ll tell you. Here’s what happened. I met a guy, I had some drinks” --- I direct this at T.S. --- “that your boyfriend supplied. And then I had sex. Twice, evidently. So it was a stupid hookup. So I’m a slut. So what? Have I embarrassed you? Have I left some taint on your Captains’ Room?”

I stare hard at Casey now, who has conducted her fair share of experimentation in college. She has dated short guys, tall guys, chubby guys, jocks, nerds, blacks, Asians, Republicans, actors, even a couple of bisexuals, not to mention a girl here and there. “You’ve hooked up way more
times than I have,” I continue, pointing a finger at her. I know all about her conquests. She’d told me the good, bad, and ugly during our summers in New Haven when we sat outside on coffee shop benches, drank our frothy concoctions, and played catch-up. “You’ve had sex with more people than I could count. So I don’t know why you’re acting as if it’s a big deal, like we have to sit down and have tea and whisper and pet my head like I’m a freaking wounded bird you found on the side of the road.”

I reach roughly for my mug, take a deep pull, like it’s whiskey in a flask, and then I bang my mug down. “I’m going,” I declare.

Casey stands up, places her hand on the countertop near me, her right palm fl at on the Formica. It’s some kind of therapist gesture, and I can’t stand it. I back away, against the wall, feeling the hard edges of the plaques digging into my spine.

“Leave. Me. Alone,” I say.

“No.”

“I mean it. Back away.”

But I can’t move, because I’m boxed in by Casey, who looks me in the eyes and speaks softly, “I don’t give a shit how many guys you hook up with as long as you use a condom. What I care about is whether you said yes. That’s the only thing that matters.”

She leaves it there --- that’s the only thing that matters --- hanging in midair, suspended, light as a feather. I close my eyes, press my thumb and middle fingers against my nose. The ants are gone, but my headache resurfaces, traveling around my body now, setting up camp in my neck, then my shoulders, before sprinting down into my legs, my feet, my toes. My whole body is racked, every muscle tense, every bone on edge.

I hear Casey’s voice again. “Alex, did you say yes? Did you say yes when you had sex with Carter? Either time?”

Yes, yes, yes. No, no, no.

I don’t know.

I don’t know the things about last night that matter. I don’t know what words were said or not said. I push my fingers harder against the bridge of my nose, like I’m directing all the dormant memories there, commanding them like a sorcerer to break free of their shackles, come out of hiding and reveal everything.

I say the words to myself.

Yes.

No.

Weighing them, one against the other on scales, hoping one scale will tip in favor of the other, making everything clear.

Yes, no, yes, no.

One or the other.

I try desperately to remember, reaching deep into the recesses of last night to recall the one most important word --- yes. But it won’t surface. All I can see are the band, the drinks, the card game, a kiss, then “Ode to Joy.” Then black, blank nothingness. Nothing at all. Then waking up.

“I don’t know,” I whisper as I open my eyes. The tightness in my body subsides and now I feel like a rag doll, wrung dry.

“You don’t know,” Casey repeats.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember,” I say, my voice shaking for the first time. “I don’t remember anything,” I say again as my throat tightens.

Fat silence fills the room and I look at Casey next to me, at T.S., who perches on the edge of her chair.

“When a girl doesn’t remember what happened there’s usually a reason,” Casey says.

“What, was I drugged?” I ask nervously because that would explain everything. If Carter gave me one of those drugs . . .

“I doubt it, but you did drink a lot,” T.S. says. “Sandeep called me last night after you left with Carter. He told me you had three drinks at the card game. Plus, you skipped dinner. You said you were too excited about seeing Artful Rage to eat. You were bouncing off the walls all day about Friday Night Out privileges. You’re skinny, Alex. Three drinks on an empty stomach, that’ll knock someone your size out.”

Knock someone my size out. The words, they ring in my ears.

Knock. Out. Knock. Out.

I picture myself as a boxer, bruised and battered, chin bloody, eyes swollen. I try to do that little toe bounce thing boxers do, but I can’t. I’m too worn out. I’m woozy, thoughts swimming aimlessly around my head. And that’s when it happens. My opponent slams his gloved fist into my chest, then my cheek, then my head. I’m knocked out.

“Knocked out?” I ask quietly, imagining Boxer Alex slumped down in the corner of the ring, clinging to the ropes, head hanging low.

“Alex, I think the reason you don’t remember having sex with Carter is you were passed out,” T.S. says.

“Like a blackout or something?”

“You could have blacked out. And while you were blacked out you could have been totally into him and having the time of your life or whatever,” Casey offers. “But even if that was the case, even if you blacked out, you were not in a condition to be having sex at all. So maybe it went like this: you made out, you went back to his room. He probably goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth or pee or whatever. So you sit down on the bed to steady yourself. Then it hits you. The room is spinning and you’re wasted. Your head meets the pillow. Boom. You’re asleep, passed out, whatever you want to call it.”

“So if I was asleep we didn’t have sex, then?” I offer sort of feebly, hoping that’s what happened, clinging to a faint, fuzzy memory of slumber.

“I don’t know what happened, Alex,” Casey continues. “Only you do and he does. And you’ll know for sure when you remember more. But I’m just saying something doesn’t sound right. It sounds as if he had sex with you while you were sleeping. Alex, it sounds like he raped you.”

Excerpted from THE MOCKINGBIRDS © Copyright 2011 by Daisy Whitney. Reprinted with permission by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

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