THIRTY-FIVE
I take the stairs down to the ground floor and then I’m on the predawn streets of Philadelphia.
No one is around, and I imagine this whole city is under ocean water—I imagine I’m scuba diving, and it’s not really all that hard to do because it’s dark and desolate and my skin is kind of wet from sleeping under the down comforter Herr Silverman threw over me and also from freaking out, which maybe I’m still doing, although I’m trying not to think about yesterday—how choosing life might have been a mistake.
Underground, I crawl below the subway turnstile—feeling the disgusting city grime on the palms of my hands—because I have no money on me, and I wait in the trash-ridden piss-smelling underbelly of Philadelphia, imagining myself scuba diving with a huge light, swimming through subway tunnels with Horatio and maybe even showing S the graffiti when she is old enough to scuba dive in such dangerous enclosed waters.
The train comes after what feels like hours of waiting, and I’m the only passenger on the car.
When we burst out from under Philly and up onto the Ben Franklin Bridge the sun is just coming up over the eastern horizon and I blink at it.
When my town is called, I stand and hold on as the train slows to a stop.
It’s too early for the zombie-faced suits, although I know they’ll flock here soon enough.
There’s a rent-a-cop at the turnstiles and so I have to make a decision because I don’t have the ticket I need to get through the machines.
I’m just about to make a run for it when I see an old ticket on the ground.
I pick it up and insert it into the machine.
It doesn’t work, of course.
“Officer,” I say, and hold up the rectangle of paper. “My ticket’s not working.”
“Just go under,” he says, and then takes a slurp from his bucket-sized Styrofoam coffee cup and turns his back.
I crawl under the turnstile and walk out into the early-morning sunshine.
I’m not really sure what my plan is, but somehow I wind up walking past Lauren’s house, which is right next door to her father’s church.
Standing across the street looking at the house, I sort of feel like the house is looking back at me—like the two second-floor windows are eyes and the row of downstairs windows is a mouth. Kind of like what you see in old horror movies—the house coming to life like a face.
I have this stupid fantasy where I ring the doorbell and Lauren answers in a white bathrobe—which gives me a nice V-shot of her chest—and wearing the silver cross I gave her. We talk and I thank her for praying for me and she says it’s great that I’m still alive and we both agree that kissing was a mistake, before we shake hands and wish each other well—like everything is forgiven. But it’s all just bullshit and I know I messed up with Lauren in a way that can’t be fixed easily, which is so unbearably depressing.
“Fuck,” I say in real life, standing on the sidewalk across the street from Lauren’s house, shaking my head.
I know I’m an asshole for forcing Lauren to kiss me—a hypocrite even.
A bad person.
I walk away.
I’ll probably never talk to Lauren again and I’m okay with that.
It’s best.
Maybe I only pursued her because I knew a relationship between us was impossible. Like she was a safe test for me, because she had so much religion crammed into her brain that things would never go too far. But I ended up failing the test, so what does that mean?
I don’t know.
It’s kind of horrible that she’s the first girl I ever kissed, because I’ll always remember her as my first girl kiss, which will remind me of everything else that happened afterward. And I start to worry that every single time I kiss a girl from now on will trigger a flood of memories that will take me back to last night. Like maybe I’ll never be able to enjoy kissing at all.
All that gets me feeling depressed again, so I head over to Walt’s and key in.