Jodi Picoult - Sing You Home

For a full week I would go to sleep at night wondering what you could see with X-ray vision. I pictured people in their underwear, the skeletons of dogs walking in the street, the insides of jewelry boxes and violin cases. I wondered if I would be able to peer through walls, if I would know what was going on in the teachers’ lounge, if I could read through the manila folder on Ms. Watkins’s desk and see the answer key for the math test. There was a world of possibility in X-ray vision, and I knew I could not live another day without it.

So I began to save. It didn’t take long to scrape together $1.10, but the Bazooka comics were another story entirely. I bought twenty pieces of gum that week with my allowance. I traded my best Topps baseball card-a Roger Clemens Red Sox rookie-to Joey Palliazo for ten Bazooka comics (he had been saving up for the decoder rings). I let Adam Waldman touch my boob for another five (believe me, it didn’t do anything for either one of us). Eventually, within a few weeks, I had enough comics and change to mail off to the address listed. In four to six weeks, those X-ray vision glasses would be mine.

I spent the time imagining a world where I could see beneath the surface. Where I could eavesdrop on the conversations of my parents about my Christmas gifts, could see what leftovers were in the fridge before I opened it, could read my best friend’s diary to see if she felt about me the same way I felt about her. Then one day, a plain brown box arrived with my name on it. I ripped it open, unraveled the Bubble Wrap, and pulled out a pair of white plastic glasses.

They were too big for my face and slid down my nose. They had slightly opaque lenses with a fuzzy white bone etched in the center of each one. When I put them on, everything I looked at was printed with that stupid fake bone.

I couldn’t see through anything at all.

I tell you this as a cautionary tale: beware of getting what you want. It’s bound to disappoint you.

You would think, after that first kiss, there would have been some kind of apology, an awkward pause between us. And in fact the next day, after eight hours at school analyzing every moment of that kiss (Was Zoe drunk, or just a little buzzed? Did I encourage her, or was that entirely her own idea? Was it really as magical as I thought it had been, or was that twenty-twenty hindsight?), I met Zoe at the hospital where she was working with burn victims. She told the nurses she was taking a ten-minute break, and we walked down a long hallway, close enough to hold hands, except we didn’t.

“Listen,” I said, as soon as we were outside and out of earshot of anyone who happened to be eavesdropping.

That was as far as I got before Zoe launched herself at me. Her kiss was blistering. “God, yes,” she breathed against my lips, when we broke apart. “That’s exactly how I remembered it.” Then she looked up at me, her eyes bright. “Is it always like this?”

How was I supposed to answer that? The first time I’d kissed a woman, I felt like I had been shot into space. It was unfamiliar and exciting and felt so incredibly right that I couldn’t believe I’d never done it before. There was an evenness of the playing field that was different from the kisses I’d shared with guys-and yet somehow it wasn’t soft and delicate. It was surround-sound, earthshaking, intense.

But that said, it wasn’t always like this.

I wanted to tell Zoe that, yes, the reason it felt like her skin was on fire was because she was kissing a woman. But more than that, I wanted to tell Zoe that the reason it felt like her skin was on fire was because she was kissing me.

So I didn’t actually answer. I just reached for her, cradled her head in my hands, and kissed her again.

In the three days since then, we have spent hours in her car, on my couch, and in the supply room at the hospital making out like we are teenagers. I know every inch of her mouth. I know what spot on her jaw, when brushed, makes her shudder. I know that the hollow behind her ear smells of lemons and that she has a birthmark shaped like Massachusetts at the nape of her neck.

Last night when we stopped, flushed and breathing hard, Zoe said, “What happens next?”

Which is how I’ve ended up where I am right now: lying on my bed, fully clothed, with the curtain of Zoe’s hair covering my face as she kisses me. With her hands moving tentatively over the terrain of my body.

I think we both knew tonight would end up like this-in spite of its humble beginnings of an Italian dinner and a bad movie. How does sex ever happen between couples, except as an electrical storm that’s been gathering in the space between the two people, which finally combusts?

But this is different. Because even though it’s Zoe’s first time, I’m the one who has everything to lose if it’s not perfect. Namely, Zoe.

So I tell myself that I’m going to let her go at her own pace, which means the most incredible torture, as her hands move from my shoulders to my ribs to my waist. But then she stops. “What’s the matter?” I whisper, imagining the worst: she is disgusted by this; she is feeling nothing; she knows she has made a mistake.

“I think I’m scared,” Zoe confesses.

“We don’t have to do anything,” I say.

“I want to. I’m just afraid I’m going to do it wrong.”

“Zoe,” I tell her, “there is no wrong.”

I slip her hands beneath the hem of my shirt. Her palms brand my stomach; I am sure I will wake up with her initials seared into my skin. Slowly, her hands inch up, until they are touching the lace of my bra.

Here is the thing about lesbian sex: it doesn’t matter if your body isn’t perfect, because your partner feels the same way. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never touched a woman, because you are one, and you already know what you like. When Zoe finally takes off my blouse, I think I cry out, because she covers my mouth with hers and swallows the sound. And then her shirt comes off, too, and the rest. We are a tangle of smooth legs and peaks and valleys, of sighs and pleas. She grabs for me, and I try to slow us down, and somehow we meet in the glorious middle.

Afterward, we curl together on top of the covers. I can smell her skin and her sweat and her hair, and I love the thought that, even when she is gone, my sheets will still retain that memory. But things that are this perfect don’t last very long. I have been down this path before with a straight woman, so I know that having a fantasy come true doesn’t always mean it will be permanent. I can believe Zoe wanted this to happen between us. I just can’t believe she’ll want it to continue.

She shifts in her sleep and rolls over, so that she is facing me. Her leg slides between mine. I pull her closer, and wonder when the novelty of me will wear off.

Two weeks later, I am still waiting for the other proverbial shoe to drop. Zoe and I have spent every night together-it’s gotten to the point where I don’t even ask if she wants to come over after work, because I know she’ll already be there waiting with Chinese takeout or a DVD we had been talking about watching or a fresh-baked pie she insists she can’t eat by herself.

There are moments I cannot believe how happy I am. But there are just as many moments when I remember that, to Zoe, this is still just the bright, shiny new toy. In private, Zoe is so, so gay. She reads all my back issues of Curve. She calls her cable company and gets Logo. She starts talking to me about Provincetown: if I’ve ever been, if I’d ever go again. She acts the way I did when I first embraced who I really was-like I’d been let out of my cage for the first time in twenty years. However, she’s never told anyone-not even me-that she’s fallen for a woman. She’s never been in a relationship before that causes people on the street to whisper when she walks by. She’s never been called a dyke. This isn’t real yet, for her. And when it is, she will come back to me and tell me it’s all been a wonderful, fun mistake.