Nathan Hill - The Nix

So she’s been waiting for Henry to try it — paw at her belt, stick his hands somewhere private — so she can protest and defend her chastity and he can try again next time, try harder and better, and she can protest more until finally, after enough protesting, after enough of saying no, she will have demonstrated that she is virtuous and chaste and good, not easy, not a slut. And then finally she can say yes. She is waiting for this, the whole ritual, but instead Henry only kisses her, smashes his face against hers and stops. It goes like this every time. They sit together at night on the riverbank or in the park and listen to the sound of motorcycles on the highway, the squeaks of the swing set, and Faye picks at the rust on the merry-go-round and waits. And nothing has ever happened, not until tonight, this night after the prom, when Henry is so full of ceremony it seems he’s memorized his lines.

“Faye, I think we’ve come a long way. And you’re very important to me and special. And it would make me feel honored and happy and really happy…” He stutters, stops, he is nervous, and she nods and touches his arm lightly with her fingertips.

“I mean,” he says, “it would make me feel honored and happy and really lucky if you, you know, to school, from now on,” and he pauses, gathers his courage, “if you can, please, wear my jacket. And my ring.”

And he exhales greatly, spent from the effort, relieved. He can’t even look at her now. He stares at his feet and twists his shoelaces tightly around his fingers.

She finds him adorable in this moment, in his embarrassment and fear, in how much power she has over him. She says yes. Of course she says yes. And when they stand up to leave, they kiss. And the kiss feels different this time, feels like it is a greater and more powerful thing, a kiss with meaning. They both must know they’ve crossed a boundary: the class ring is a harbinger, everyone knows that. An engagement ring almost always follows, and these symbols make their coupling official and sanctioned and certified and good. Whatever a girl might do in the backseat of a car, she is protected if she wears the boy’s decorations. These things insulate her. They guard her. She is immune from insult. A girl is not a slut if she has a ring.

And Henry must sense it too, that they now have permission to do as they want, because he pulls Faye closer, kisses her harder, presses his body tightly to hers. She feels something then, some blunt and rigid thing pressing into her belly. It’s him, of course, Henry. He is pushing up through his thin gray slacks. He is shaking a little and kissing her and he is hard as stone. It surprises her, how solid a boy can be. Like a broom handle! It’s all she can think about. She is aware she is still kissing him but she is doing it automatically — all her attention is on these few square inches, that obscene pressure. She thinks she can feel his pulse through it and she starts sweating, grabbing him tighter to tell him it is all okay. He runs his hands over her back and makes little squeaking sounds; he is jittery, jumpy; he is waiting for her. It is her turn to do something. His was an opening gambit, pressing himself so obviously into her. It is a negotiation. Now it is her move.

She decides to be bold, to do what she’d insinuated during that final dance at the prom. With one hand she pulls on the waistband of his slacks, pulls hard enough that there is enough space for her other hand. Henry twitches then, and his body goes tense, and everything about him stops moving for a split second. Then it all happens so fast. She drives her hand down as he leaps back. Her fingers begin to grasp him — she feels him for the smallest moment, and knows that he is warm and solid but also soft and delicately fleshy — and she has just begun to understand this when he jumps back and turns slightly away from her and yells, “What are you doing ?”

“I’m, I don’t know—”

“You can’t do that!”

“I’m sorry, Henry, I’m—”

“ God, Faye!” And he turns from her then and adjusts his pants, jams his hands in his pockets and walks away. He paces from one side of the swing set to the other. She watches him. It’s hard to believe that his face can go so cold so quickly.

“Henry?” she says. She wants him to look at her, but he doesn’t. “Henry, I’m sorry.”

“Forget it,” he says. He digs his foot into the sand, wiggles his shoe until it’s buried, then does it again, getting his nice black dress loafers all dirty.

She sits again on the merry-go-round. “Come back,” she says.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Faye.”

He is an even-keeled boy, mild and modest; he must have frightened himself, reacting the way he did. And now he is trying to make it go away, to erase what happened. Faye sits on the merry-go-round and says, “It’s okay, Henry.”

“No, it’s not,” he says, his back to her, hands pocketed, shoulders hunched up. He is a closed fist, all tense and curled in on himself. “It’s just…You can’t do that.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not right,” he says, and she considers this. Picks off red flakes of rust and listens to his feet crunching the sand as he paces and she stares at his back and finally says: “Why?”

“You shouldn’t want to. It’s not what a girl like you is supposed to want.”

“A girl like me?”

“Never mind.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“Forget it.”

And then Henry is gone. He sits on the merry-go-round and shuts everything off, becomes a silent, cold lump. He crosses his arms and stares out into the night. He is punishing her. And it makes her furious, makes her begin trembling. She can feel a nausea beginning in her gut, an agitation in her chest — her heart beating, the little hairs on her neck standing up. She can feel something coming, a familiar wave of sweat and dizziness. She is lightheaded suddenly, and hot and tingly and a little outside herself, as if she is floating above the merry-go-round, looking down, watching the buzzing of her own body. Can Henry see it? The wrecking ball is on its way — the sobbing and choking, the shakes. This has happened before.

“Take me home,” she whispers through clenched teeth.

Who knows if he understands what is happening, but Henry looks at her then and seems to soften. “Listen, Faye—”

“Take me home now.”

“I’m sorry Faye, I shouldn’t have—”

“ Now, Henry.”

So he takes her home, and for the whole terrible ride they don’t speak. Faye squeezes the leather seats and tries to fight off the feeling she is dying. When he stops in front of her house, she feels like a ghost, flying away from him without making a sound.

Faye’s mother knows right away. “You’re having an attack,” she says, and Faye nods, wide-eyed, panicky. Her mother takes her to her room and undresses her and puts her in bed and gives her something to drink, dabs a cold washcloth on her forehead and says “It’s okay, it’s all okay” in her quiet and sweet and hushed motherly voice. Faye holds her knees to her chest and sobs and gulps for air while her mother runs her fingers through her hair and whispers “You’re not dying, you’re not going to die” as she has all through Faye’s childhood. And they stay that way until finally the episode passes. Faye calms down. She begins breathing again.

“Don’t tell Dad,” she says.

Her mother nods. “What if this happens in Chicago, Faye? What will you do?”

Her mother squeezes her hand and leaves to fetch another washcloth. And Faye thinks about Henry then. She thinks, almost gladly: Now we have a secret.