Lisa Unger - Fragile

“Suit yourself.”

The sky outside had turned quickly and totally from dusk to night. Jones and Sarah looked anyplace but at each other-Sarah looking at her knees, Jones messing with the radio-while Travis and Melody rocked the car in the backseat, laughing, moaning, until finally it stopped. Jones flipped through the stations; they only got a few back then, whatever happened to carry in from bigger cities that day. Sometimes on 712 AM, The Hollows Wave, the night DJ played some decent stuff. But that night all Jones could get was an alternative station.

“Oh, I love this song,” Sarah said. Jones had no idea what the song was or who was singing, but he didn’t want to seem uncool. She didn’t say anything else.

“Are you two just going to sit there?” asked Travis, popping his head between the front seat headrests.

Neither Jones nor Sarah answered; they just exchanged an embarrassed look. She definitely didn’t act like a girl who enjoyed giving head, not that he’d ever met a girl like that. Really, most girls-in his limited experience-didn’t want anything to do with what was going on in your pants. Most of them just wanted to kiss, maybe do a little rubbing. Most of the girls he knew balked at even putting their hands down there.

“There’s no point in pretending you’re a prude, Sarah,” said Travis. “We all know the truth.”

Sarah frowned, turned to study him and Melody. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Melody started to giggle. “Come on, Sarah. Lighten up.”

Travis and Melody were both stoned stupid, now laughing like idiots. Finally, Travis pushed open the door and the two of them tumbled out, ran screaming into the woods. They left the door open, and the cold air quickly filled the car. Jones got out and closed it, could still hear their voices off in the distance, like the calling of barred owls. He returned to the driver’s side.

“Can you just take me home?” Sarah asked. “My mom is going to be really worried. And really mad.” She looked like she might cry, eyes wide, corners of her mouth turned down.

“Yeah, okay. Sure,” he said. “They’ll be back in a minute and we’ll go.”

He noticed that some of the tension in her shoulders released with a breath. And her arms, which had been wrapped firmly around her middle, relaxed a bit.

“What did he mean ‘We all know the truth’? What’s he talking about?”

“Don’t listen to Travis,” Jones said. He felt embarrassed. “He’s got problems.”

“No, really. I want to know.”

He should have told her that he had no idea what Travis was talking about, just left it at that. But there was a small part of him-a young, stupid part of him-that wondered if the whole innocent thing was just an act she was putting on. Maybe, he thought, if he just told her what he knew, she’d relax. Maybe it was even true.

“Travis says someone told him that you give good head.” The words sounded clumsy, felt awkward on his tongue.

She stared at him blankly but slowly started to shrink away from him again. She looked down at her knees. “I don’t know what that means,” she said.

He felt his face flush. “Uh, you know.”

“No,” she said, getting angry now. “I don’t.”

Jones found himself gripping the wheel, wishing he’d never listened to Travis, wishing he could be anywhere but where he was. Finally, he left the car.

“Crosby!” he yelled into the darkness. “Let’s go. Let’s get out of here. I have to get home.”

He heard the car door open and close, and then determined footsteps on the ground.

“What does it mean?” she asked. He turned to face her. She was tiny, much smaller than he was, but somehow her direct and powerful stare cowed him.

“Oh, God,” he groaned, looking up at the starry sky. “You know, like a blow job, okay? That you suck cock.”

She stepped away as if he’d slapped her, and he felt like he had, he was so ashamed in that moment. She was a nice girl. She was innocent.

“I want my stuff out of the trunk,” she said. Her voice was faint.

“Why?” he asked. “You can’t walk from here. Your house is miles away, and it’s dark.”

He’d driven them out of The Hollows and down past the dairy farm to a state park that closed at dusk but where no one ever bothered to pull the gate shut. They were three miles from town, surrounded by nearly five hundred acres of yellow poplar, hemlock, American beech, iron-wood, dogwood, red and white oak. Kids from school came here a lot, sometimes to play, sometimes at night to drink or make out. He came here often to walk or run the five miles of trails; sometimes he did his homework on one of the picnic tables or down by the rushing Black River just to be away from his mother, from everyone.

“Look,” he said, raising his palms. “I’m sorry. Let’s just wait for those guys and then we’ll all go.”

She shot him an annoyed glance and then walked to the head of the rocky path that led into the park. “Melody!” she yelled. “Let’s go. I have homework.”

Her voice bounced off the rock walls of the glacial ravine, came back sounding haunted and strained. But she stayed there, looking into the park even though no one called back to her.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, coming up behind her. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m a jerk.”

He could see that she was shivering, so he shrugged off his varsity jacket and draped it over her shoulders. She seemed to consider refusing, then offered a weak smile, pulled it tight around her. He noticed then the sweet turn of her nose, the wide, full shape to her lips. Her eyes were heavily lidded, almost sleepy, but their color-hazel with flecks of green and gold-shone in the amber light.

“Who says that?” she asked him, after a moment. “Why would they say that about me? I don’t-I haven’t.”

Jones kicked at a stone by his foot; it skipped off into the brush.

“Forget it,” she said.

Jones shrugged. “You know what? Probably no one said that. It was probably just Travis being a tool. He’s, you know… troubled.” He made a looping motion with his finger and pulled a funny face. They both laughed then, and he felt the awkwardness between them pass. But the next second, Travis and Melody emerged from the path.

“What’s so funny?” Travis snapped at them. Melody wore a deep frown, looked as if she were fighting back tears.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, brushing past them, headed for the car. “I want to go home.”

“What happened?” asked Jones.

“Melody’s a little prick tease. That’s what happened,” said Travis, staring at her hard. He was clenching and unclenching his fist.

Melody spun around. “Shut up, Travis,” she shrieked, and the sound of it echoed around the park.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Sarah. She strode over so that she was standing right in front of Travis.

The exact sequence of events, who said what, was always nebulous here. Jones remembered a chaotic rise of voices, like gulls on a beach fighting over food. He remembered himself as apart, watching, even considering going to the car until they got it all worked out. He remembered Melody saying that she wasn’t a slut, or something like that. And Sarah asking why he’d spread rumors about her, she didn’t even know him.

But more than anything he recalled the electricity of rising anger, their pulled, pale faces.

“You’re a loser, Travis Crosby. A born loser.”

She couldn’t have known the charge of that word, what it would mean to him. She couldn’t have known that he’d heard it a thousand times, in a hundred ugly ways, from a father who’d never had a kind word for his son. It was just the word a girl who wasn’t accustomed to calling people names would choose. She said it dismissively and turned to walk away.