Belly Up Read online

  “I don’t know yet. Let me check...”

  ...if she’s still drunk.

  Mom rolled her eyes and got up to drop two more pieces of bread into the toaster. “Bread is probably a good start,” she said, casting a sly look my way. “Lots of water, then aspirin. Probably some grease for lunch to suck up the nastiness. Steak and cheeses, maybe. Did you have a good time last night?”

  I thought back to Aaron and Samantha and inevitably, Jack and his amazing bouncing truck. Not having his number bugged me. For the hours we’d been together, he’d been a ton of fun, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. “All in all, yes? A few hiccups, but it wasn’t bad. I met a guy but forgot to get his number.”

  “That sucks. Maybe someone else can get it for you.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I said.

  Except no one did.

  Chapter Four

  “So that’s the story. Surprise, everything is terrible forever,” I said to Devi, rounding out my sad moving-in-with-Mormor tale. I wanted to talk about Jack, too, and fill Devi in on my rebound hookup, but Mom was floating around the apartment and I was pretty sure she didn’t want to hear about her kid’s sex life.

  Devi blinked at me over her buttered toast, the only indication she’d drowned in a vat of strawberry wine the matching mascara smears beneath her eyes. She’d slept for six hours and miraculously emerged without a hangover, the witch. I kind of hated her for it. “It’s only one town over, so that’s good.”

  “Well, yeah.” I shifted in my seat, cringing when my own stomach let out a shrieky wail. I was still battling the next-day demons. “But we won’t get to go to classes together anymore.”

  “True, but we don’t hang much beyond lunch, anyway.”

  “I know.”

  Devi sipped her water and shrugged. “I’ll miss you, but you’re a text away, and seriously, your grandmother’s house is, like, ten minutes from mine, tops. We’ll see each other all the time. I get why you’re upset, but I don’t think it’ll be a big deal, and at least you’ll get to avoid Mr. Brown’s onion breath. I am not looking forward to AP Calc, dude.”

  My mother, who’d made herself absent upon Devi’s appearance, yelled from the bathroom, “She’s smart. Listen to her, Sara.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I will.”

  I frowned. It wasn’t that I wanted to wallow in self-pity. It was just—

  Okay, yes, I wanted to wallow, and no one was letting me. Devi made it worse-slash-better by saying, “Just think, no Skank One or Two. You’ll be Aaron free, bay-bee.”

  That wasn’t something I’d considered, and I perked up at the thought of not having to see him or his dingleberry of a girlfriend every time they walked down the hallway, twined together like snakes. And hey, new school meant new people. New people meant more options for dating. I’d had fun with Jack the night before. Kissing Jennifer before that had also been fun.

  Maybe there’d be a thousand Jacks and Jennifers at Stonington. Maybe I could reinvent myself as an AP sex goddess who just so happened to have the world’s biggest butt.

  “Maybe it won’t be bad,” I admitted. “It’s a bigger school. More people. I’ve known everyone in this town since kindergarten and it’s getting old. New blood is good.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Devi said. “I’m even a little jealous.”

  “I’m gonna miss you this summer,” I blurted, watching her pick up her plate and bring it to the sink to rinse it. “How long are you at your grandparents’ for?”

  “The end of time, it feels like. The last week of July.”

  “We’re moving in August, so we’ll get a little hangout time.”

  “...you’re moving ten minutes away from me, in the opposite direction of the ten minutes away from me that you are now. You’re not going to Mordor, Sara.” She smirked and stretched, and catching a waft of her own pit smell, winced. “I need a shower.” I watched as she swooped down to grab her overnight bag from where I’d dumped it the night before. She was comfortable enough being in my apartment that she padded for the bathroom without needing help, stopping by the linen closet to grab herself a towel and facecloth. I heard the squeal of the door as she pushed it open. Right before she disappeared to rinse, she called my name.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s gonna be fine. Promise.”

  * * *

  Four hours later, we were in the corner booth of a burger place at the mall recapping the events of the party, and oh, Devi was judging me.

  “No condom, seriously?”

  “I know, I know.” I swirled my onion ring around in ranch dressing, plopped it into my mouth and then sucked a dollop of creamy goodness off my thumb. “I was thinking of getting a douche. I mean, I’ve never douched, but maybe that’ll—”

  “Vinegar, which is what douche is, does not cure or prevent STDs, you dink.” She threw a french fry at me. It hit me between the eyes, bopped off my nose and dropped down into my pile of onion rings.

  To be belligerent, I plucked it from the pile and ate it.

  “I know that,” I said, but I didn’t really know, or I wouldn’t have suggested it in the first place. But I really didn’t want to go to a doctor. “I’m just trying to think of what to do the day after.”

  This wasn’t how I’d expected our Jack conversation to go. I’d figured she’d give me the old attagirl for rebounding, for looking at Aaron and Samantha and, instead of shriveling because the thought of them turned my stomach, embracing my newfound sexual liberation with Handsome Guy Jack. Instead, she was scolding me.

  Hardcore.

  “Get tested.” She jabbed me in the forehead with her nail, which hurt, and I winced away. “You don’t know where he’s been. Would you pick up food and eat it off the sidewalk? No? Well, this is worse.”

  “It’s probably okay,” I said, frowning. “I mean, chances are it’s okay, right? He’s young.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You get tested. There’s no such thing as a little gonorrhea.”

  No, there really wasn’t. I knew she was right, knew that the 1 percent chance was worth having a doctor look at me, but my mind was spinning. How would I justify the appointment to my mom? She’d want to know why her healthy-looking daughter wanted to go to the doctor, and telling her that I’d gambled with my cooch didn’t seem like it’d go over well. I was pretty sure that conversation would be worse than the one I was having with Devi.

  “I know what you’re doing,” Devi said. “Stop it.”

  “Stop what?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Go to a free clinic. They’ll test you there.”

  “A clinic?”

  “Yeah, like Planned Parenthood? They do a lot more than abortions. I’m pretty sure there’s one twenty minutes away.”

  “Oh, right.” And I knew that, too, but nothing was firing right in my head. The thrill of the hookup was over and the day-after regrets were hitting hard. Jack had been cool, but I still had no idea how to get in touch with him. Maybe I’d never see him again, which meant Devi was absolutely right. I’d effectively picked up food off the sidewalk and inserted it into my no-no parts.

  “Craaaaaaap.” I dropped my head back onto the top of the booth and stared at the too-bright overhead lights. “I just didn’t want to think about Aaron. Like, all night, with him and Samantha—”

  “I get it.” Devi reached across the table to squeeze my hand. I didn’t look at her, too intent on burning out my retinas with the offtrack lighting, so she slid along the curve of the corner booth until we were hip to hip. “I’m not trying to be insensitive, Sara. I totally get it. He hurt you and you wanted to feel better, and a hookup is cool! Just...as long as you’re safe about it. I’m worried about you, is all. So promise me you’ll go to the doctor? Or the clinic? I’ll go with you if you want. It’ll probably be less scary if you’ve got a friend with you.”

  �
��Yeah, sure,” I said, my voice full of lead. “I promise.”

  “Okay, cool.” She pressed a dry kiss to my shoulder and pulled over her fries and milkshake. “It’s probably fine, like you said. I’m being precautious, but it’s peace of mind, too. Speaking of which, when we get back to school on Monday? You should totally ask Michelle if she knows where Olly is from.”

  “Wait, who’s Olly?”

  “Oh, the friend I let flirt with me for an hour and a half so you could have your truck cabin romance. If you ever doubt my love for you, remember this conversation. He kept trying to impress me with his car. He has a new Mustang, apparently, that his surgeon dad gave him, except he didn’t have it with him because he wasn’t allowed to drive it at night, but if I wanted, I could come over to his house and—get this—sit in the car to check it out. We can’t drive it, but we can sit in it.”

  That made me straighten up in my seat. “Seriously?”

  “Oh, yeah. Seriously. That was his big pitch. To sit in an unmoving car.” She grinned and offered me a french fry. I accepted it, biting her fingertip and earning a thwack upside the head for my efforts.

  I deserved it.

  “It’s not his, you realize,” I said, going back to my greasy lunch. “Like, it’s totally his dad’s car and he’s trying to use it to get laid.”

  “Oh, I know. It’s gross, but boys are gross.”

  As I tucked back into my lunch, my mind racing with thoughts of STDs and clinics and a couple hours of DNA swap, I could only hope boys weren’t that gross.

  Chapter Five

  Monday came, no clinic. Too much homework, I told myself. Plus, I was stewing over Jack. Sadly, Michelle didn’t know who he or Olly was, never mind where they were from. She looked at me blankly after I asked and then complained that her father had come home and grounded her for the rest of her natural life for the lawn getting torn up after the party.

  It sucked to be Michelle.

  Tuesday, I tried to psych myself up to go to the clinic, but no, that didn’t happen, either. I justified it with the paper I had due for English class...next week. Devi read me the riot act again, and so I made a promise. Wednesday was the day. I’d drive myself to Planned Parenthood and get my testing done. I dreaded it still, but Devi’s bit about peace of mind was spot on. I’d rather know that I had crotch fungawookie and get treated than to find out the hard way with itches or oozes or worse later on.

  A plan. I had one.

  But then Aaron came along and screwed it up because that’s what he did best.

  Logically, I understand that it’s not his fault that I didn’t make it to PP. He didn’t hold me down and tell me I couldn’t go. He didn’t slash my tires or lock me in a closet. I already had a trash record of going because I was scared. No, what Aaron did was absolutely ruin my day, decimating me so much I shirked all responsibilities so I could lick my wounds over chocolate ice cream.

  Wednesday afternoon, five minutes after last bell. I stood at my locker stuffing books into the pit of disorganized despair that was my book bag. We didn’t carry many books anymore, a lot of our stuff was online or printed out in packets, but close to finals, three of my teachers had volunteered textbooks as study aids. Like a true nerd, I’d signed them out to take the chapter reviews to make sure I knew the material. I’d just wrestled my Algebra II book in between my file folders when Aaron appeared, sliding in beside me and leaning against the lockers.

  He looked good. Collared shirt, white T-shirt underneath. New jeans and sneakers. He had a fresh haircut and he’d switched his cologne to something that wasn’t the nose-killing Axe body spray he’d preferred when we were dating.

  “Hey,” he said in greeting. “Got a minute?”

  “Nope.” I slammed the locker in his face and brushed past him, my shoulder colliding with his as I stomped my way down the hall and toward the parking lot. I wished I wasn’t wearing my old jeans with the faded knees. I wished that I hadn’t gotten salad dressing on my Evil Dead T-shirt at lunch. I wished I’d brushed my hair or done anything with it beyond putting it up in a clip on my head. But that wasn’t my reality. “Fake it till you make it” was in full effect. I might have felt like two pounds of garbage in a one-pound bag seeing him, smelling him, touching him, but I wasn’t letting him know that.

  He fell into step beside me.

  “Are you okay, Sara? For real. I’m worried about you,” he said.

  “Don’t be,” I immediately snapped, though inwardly I was screaming. What had he heard? Who’d he heard it from? Was everyone talking about me? Maybe I wasn’t ready for this liberated sexual-being thing after all. I was only seventeen...

  “That guy. Like, you don’t just go off with dudes. He didn’t do anything to you, did he? Like, nothing in your drink or—”

  “I said I didn’t have a minute,” I interrupted him. “My business stopped being your business when you boned Samantha, remember?”

  I thought that was the end of it because he stopped mid-hall, brow furrowed, his hands slipping into his pockets. I was almost free, my hand was on the door handle, when he said, “I get it. I screwed up and ruined a great thing. That doesn’t mean I stopped loving you, you know. If you went off with Rando Dude because you wanted a hookup, fine, but that’s not the Sara I know.”

  I stopped in my tracks to eye him over my shoulder. He looked so earnest, like he’d just poured his heart out on the floor. His shoulders were tight, his lips tilted down into a frown. It’s how he’d looked on all the sobby Snapchats, too, and for a fleeting second, I wavered. I remembered what it was like to love this guy, to be with him, to smile with him, to feel him stroking my hair after a bad day. I remembered why we were good together.

  Then I remembered Samantha’s thong-in-crack on his phone.

  I am so, so glad to be getting away from this. From him.

  Bring it on, Stonington.

  “I said it’s none of your business,” I hissed, and before he could do anything else to hurt me, I ran to the Subaru. Bonus, I didn’t cry till I left the parking lot.

  I did cry all the way to Devi’s house, having to pull over twice to blow my nose and wipe my eyes.

  Screw you, Aaron.

  Screw you and your girlfriend, too.

  * * *

  You know your best friend is a good one when she’ll let you drop by her house unannounced, eat all her ice cream and snot up her favorite shirt because your ex-boyfriend decimated you with concern trolling.

  “That’s what it is,” Devi said, handing me another tissue, probably in hopes I’d stop dripping all over her blouse. “Concern trolling. I don’t think he really gives a crap about you being okay. He wants to let you know he knows about Jack and frame it as a good-guy-Aaron thing. It’s a douche move.”

  “You’re giving him an awful lot of credit for being clever,” I said, digging into my ice cream, which was really her ice cream, but who was counting?

  “Maybe, maybe not. If he’s desperate enough to get you back, he might get clever out of necessity.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I shrugged and offered her a bite of ice cream. She waved me off and reached for her frozen chai instead.

  “You sure? You’re going to be eating kosher soon,” I said.

  “Actually, Ben and Jerry’s is kosher. Most of it is, anyway, but thanks for the reminder, smart-ass. God, I’ll miss bacon.”

  Devi’s immediate family were pretty casual with their Judaism.

  Bubbe, not so much.

  “Sorry. When you come back from Connecticut, I’ll have bacon double cheeseburgers at the ready.”

  “Gee, thanks, friend.”

  She winked at me. I winked back. I licked my spoon clean and flopped back into her mountain of pillows, my eyes sweeping her room. It was big, almost twenty by twenty, with dusky purple walls and off-white furniture. I didn’t think people
actually had things like matching bedroom sets, but Devi’s bureau, vanity, desk and headboard were all the same style and color. There was a knotted rug on the floor and real lace curtains in the windows. The paintings on her wall weren’t framed posters, but actual oil-painted reproductions.

  In short, Devi’s room > my hodgepodge room with matching nothing.

  “Can I live here while you’re gone?” I asked. “Just move in and be the honorary third Abrams kid?”

  “Sure, my parents love you. But Ezra lives here, you realize, and he’s back on SpongeBob reruns almost exclusively. Plus, he pees in the pool, so...”

  Ezra was Devi’s seven-year-old little brother. And he acted exactly how you’d expect a seven-year-old little brother to act, complete with the obsession with farts, Lego and bad TV shows.

  “Yeah, okay, hard pass. I’d actually rather move. Speaking of which, I’m a lot more okay with it after Aaron’s crap. I don’t think I can deal with him anymore.”

  “Valid.” Devi drained her chai and slid in beside me on her giant bed, her arms and yards upon yards of legs wrapping around me. She nuzzled at my hair and I settled into the hug. She was the one thing, possibly the only thing, I’d miss about my hometown, but like she’d pointed out, I was only ten minutes away in the opposite direction. I wouldn’t see her during the school day, but we didn’t have all our classes together, anyway.

  I’d be losing a Devi lunch, but gaining an Aaron-free life.

  “I’m gonna miss you, wifey,” I said. “You’re about all, though. I think I’m ready to get out of Dodge.”

  “I’ll miss you, too, but you’re right. Take out the trash. Aaron’s part of that trash. You got this, girl.”

  Chapter Six

  Devi didn’t bring the clinic up again after that and, honestly, I didn’t kill myself to get there, either. I kept making excuses for reasons not to go, and eventually, I just told myself I was too busy and a symptom would have shown up already if I’d caught something so I must be fine. Instead, I focused on getting through school, acing my finals, getting phone numbers from classmates I wanted to stay in touch with—which was a lot fewer than I’d expected—and helping Mom pack. Devi left, but she texted me daily and sometimes at night we’d Skype, save for Friday night and into Saturday because she was observing Shabbos with her grandparents.