day two continued: our lips are sealed

that was how it started, my sleeping with robert and troy, and how the rumors all started, too, about my sleeping with robert and troy. though the two stories were so far from being aligned. all i was doing was sleeping, finally sleeping. not every night, but at least once a week. when i could stand it no longer, that night patrol with eyes pealed open and my heart racing. the lack of food and the lines of no sleep my darling holding my hands, and pushing me so close to the edge. when i could barely stand robert would take me, grab us both. tuck us in and hold me close.

of course, that isn’t how it went around. i suddenly went from being a virtual nobody, or that weird girl in black with the headphones and smeared eyes, to that total slut. did you know she sleeps with both of them? they have no shame. walking around the halls as if we don’t know. i hear she takes it from both ends, that sometimes they invite people in with them, that they trade blow jobs for speed. did you know? did you hear? i heard she had three abortions. i heard she slept with mr. deacon for that "a"; setting the curve in more way than one.

i was still a virgin.

well, unless you count... but i don’t count that. virginity is supposed to be something you give willingly, and i’m still not sure if that was all real. the shadows, the plaid, the bruises, and the dreams. they seemed to have slowed. my almost excuse.

i’m not sure how i’m supposed to take this sudden fame. i find notes shoved in my locker now, phone numbers, party flyers; The looks and whispers. there is nothing quite like the cruelty of girls. lisa wouldn’t talk to me anymore, she stared at me until i caught her eyes in the hall, then she'd turn away. i heard about her birthday sleepover from the bathroom stall, my feet balancing on the door, shoved shut and trying not to be found. i held my skirt between my knees, tightly. i heard most of the stories from my hidden bathroom stall; the last one, with the broken toilet paper holder and the lyrics to depeche mode’s ‘somebody’ written in black sharpie pen (should have been 'blasphemous rumours') i listened in silence to all the music girls kill me off without saying goodbye.

all of them, except sam; she never did anything with my back turned. she came straight to my window, knocking hard enough to make the panes of glass shake. she came right in when i opened it. she lit a cigarette, grabbed my shoulders and pushed me onto the bed. she sat opposite me, her hands still holding me close, her eyes burning into mine.

“so, are you fucking them? both of them?” there was no skating around truths with samantha, no bullshit layer to wade through.

i just laughed. and then she started laughing, too. laughing in that full body abandon sort of way until the tears started to well up. the release of things, and words, and time just pushed out of the both of us. fast.

“i didn’t think so,” she finally said, when we had breath again. “not that it would have mattered to me.”

and i knew it wouldn’t have.

the rumors didn’t play the same for robert and troy. they had some sort of superhero aura to them, landing on their shoulders, making them larger than life. troy stopped being cornered in the locker room, his bruises faded and didn’t re-appear. robert was invited to some of the same parties i found out about through the shoved in the locker flyers, only they were handed to him in person; face to face. they were not some code for meet me in the back room of the party, spread them for me, and for all my friends. the difference of being a boy, i guess.

it didn’t change us, though. not to each other, not right away. we laughed about it. the way we were misinterpreted. robert would say how crazy they all were, how ridiculous. and, i have to admit, sometimes it stung to hear that. not that i wanted the title of class whore, but, i also didn’t want him to dismiss the possibility of us completely. my emotions were all over the place. sometimes i wouldn’t speak at all. i would take up troy’s code of silence, and set myself to mute. robert would try to lure me out. he would bring up duran duran, make me tapes from krog, drag me to the drive-in to see ‘the breakfast club’, or a midnight showing of ‘rocky horror picture show’ at the balboa theatre. he would walk with me out to the lifeguard tower afterwards, the one off the third cul de sac, with troy trailing behind us, kicking sand.

Iididn’t always shut him out. it was impossible to hold up that kind of vigil. robert's words were like honey, slipping in between my bitter parts, and giving unspoken promises to my shrinking corners of hope.

troy stopped calling me as much, though. he had his own grudges, and he held to them in earnest. he would pull himself farther away every time i shared robert’s comforter, or when i had the crook of robert's arm asmy pillow. i overheard him once talking to lisa under the bleachers; one of our places. i was there to meet them, but arrived a little early. he was giving her a mixed tape. i knew the score, what was hidden within. then i heard the words that felt like a slap across the face.

“she likes it up the ass. Shi have pictures of it, i swear. taking it while she fingers her dealer’s girlfriend.” he was whispering it to her, close to her face, but loud enough that i could hear it, so that i could make out his conspirational tone.

“ewww. why do you hang out with her? god, janie used to be so sweet.”

i heard my name clearly, the confirmation that what i heard was actually about me. and with it, i ran. i threw up in the far bushes, back by where the gardening shed was, right near the dumpsters.

i was afraid to confront him, to confront what he said, to make it real. i ditched classes for the next two weeks, took the bus to south coast plaza. i would sit there in the center court, watched the merry go-round go round. i stole lipsticks from may company, used my lunch money to buy magazines. i would walk down by sears, down by where all the runaways collected themselves. i would let this boy with green streaks in his hair, and rough hands, feel me up in the back of this van. it wasn't his van, i don't think anyone knew whose van it was, exactly.

he pressed himself against me, closer, his tongue pressing my mouth open wide.

i wanted to feel something, or not feel anything at all. i stole valiums from my mother’s bathroom. a bottle of vodka from town and country. snuck in the back, by the toilet paper, diapers, mouth wash. i shoved it into my coat and walked out.

i met that boy a few times. i let him touch me places. with my eyes closed, and my body going numb. he would moan in my ear, his face in my hair, until his breath quickened. then he would pull away, his pants sticky. he’d dig into the bottom of his backpack and pull out a cigarette, share it with me. he didn't look at me, he didn't notice the tears.