Things Change Read online

  He frowned for a second. "Got another?"

  "Oh." Had I failed some taste test?

  "I just hate peanut butter, that's all, and I might want to lick from your cone sometime."

  "Paul, you have a way with words, that's for sure." I laughed when I said it, which helped force down the blush I felt overtaking me. "How about chocolate chip then?"

  "Okay, but remember if you eat all that ice cream, you'll get fat unless you exercise. Know any physical activity to burn off those calories?" Paul started tickling my stomach as he spoke.

  "Stop it!" I said it loudly, but I was laughing. "Hey, where are we going?"

  "You're always so serious, Joha. I think I need to loosen you up." He pushed down on the accelerator, and we roared down the road.

  Rather than heading toward the interstate, Paul drove in the opposite direction down my street. After a while, he pulled into the parking lot of St. Mary's, the church that my parents and I went to every Sunday. Paul turned the radio and the lights off, then pulled toward the back of the deserted parking lot, in a tree-covered area. He wasn't talking.

  "Are you mad at me, Paul?" I asked.

  "I'm not mad. I'm a man with a plan, understand?" he said.

  "Paul, this is too strange to be here," I said, the tension in my voice obvious to Paul. My parents are pretty religious, and I guess deep down I was, too. I believed what Paul and I had been doing, and what he wanted us to be doing in the future, was wrong. He kept pushing for more of me, and as I was falling deeper in love with him it was getting so much harder to pull back.

  He just looked at me, then smiled. He started kissing my neck again, then biting on my ears, and then back to kissing my lips. His mouth was moving all over me, as were his hands.

  My glasses were steaming up: In fact, all the windows in the Bird were steaming up. It was like being in a fog. I held Paul close to me, but had to push him away when I felt his hand go under my dress and touch me above my knee.

  "Please, Paul, I don't want to—"

  He pushed himself away from me, grinding his palm into my shoulder. "Damn it, Johanna." He raised his left fist in the air, slamming it down on his steering wheel, accidentally hitting the horn. "Great, just great."

  As the sound of the horn faded we sat there in silence. I reached out to him, stroking his right arm. "Not here, not now." It was all I could manage to say.

  "Then when?" he asked softly, stroking my hair. "Then where?"

  "I just don't know; I don't know." I was a mess. I could count on one hand all the times I answered "I don't know" at school, but I was setting some sort of record this evening. Honors physics was easy compared to the balancing of the mind with the body and the heart. This was a science I didn't think I would ever understand.

  "I want to touch you. Really touch you." Paul turned and looked me right in the eyes. He took my glasses off and set them on the dash.

  My vision was bad, but I knew every inch of his face by now. I touched his bottom lip with my finger. "Paul, I just don't know."

  "I know I want more. I want all of you."

  I think I stopped breathing for a second. I closed my eyes, trying to soak his words into my head. "Paul, I don't mean to be this way. I just don't know if I'm ready."

  "Joha, I need you. I'd be lost without you." He was rubbing his hand lightly against my cheek, brushing his fingertips every now and then across my shoulders.

  "And I need you," I said softly. I shut my eyes, squeezing them tight as if I could push out the answer I wanted from him to the question I needed to ask. "Paul, do you love me?"

  "Of course I do," Paul said, without skipping a beat. He pulled me closer to him.

  I was about to cry. I knew if it started, I couldn't stop. "You never told me that before."

  "You never asked."

  "Paul, I want to make you happy," I said, moving closer to him. "I'm just not ready. I want to be with you. I guess it's wrong, but I don't care about that. But I want it to be beautiful: I want us to be able to spend the night together, not be crunched up here in a car."

  He sighed, then put his fingers over my mouth. "It's okay, Joha; we can wait," he said, reaching his hands out in front of him, pulling me back toward him. In the darkness, even without our glasses we could see each other clearly. I could see inside him. I could feel the beating of his heart. I knew it was in perfect time with mine. I just wanted to make him happy, make him feel as happy as I was feeling now.

  "I want to Paul, but—"

  "Everything is going to be okay. We can wait for that. We're not going anywhere."

  "What else should I do to make you feel good?" I asked. He pulled me toward him, putting my hands between his legs. "Tell me what to do, Paul. I don't know."

  "Where have you been?" Brad shouted at us when we finally walked into Santi's later that evening. "Paul, I realize you're a senior in high school, so some concepts are behind you; but nine o'clock is when the big hand is on the twelve and the little hand is on the nine."

  Paul pointed at me. "She's the math whiz. Tell her about your crazy formulas, not me."

  I was wondering what Paul was going to tell them, but I figured the big smile on his face matching the one on mine was probably telling the story without sound. I was also holding the single red rose Paul had given me. I stuck it in the vase on the table and then gave Paul a hug.

  Paul grabbed Brad by the shoulders. "Get over there, al­ready," he said, pretending to pull Brad out of the booth. Brad got up and tucked himself into the other side of the booth next to Kara.

  "You guys eat yet?"Paul asked as he sat down near the edge of the booth. He grabbed me around the waist and pulled me so I was sitting on his lap.

  "Like an hour ago," Kara snapped. Her color of the night was blue, including a thin midnight blue scarf hanging around her shoulders. "Hi, Johanna, how are—"

  "My fault!" Paul said, throwing his hands in the air. "I take the blame. In fact, I think I'll have a large order of blame, with a side of sorry and a glass of shame to chase it all down."

  He was laughing at his own joke and wrapping his arms around me.

  Kara and Brad stood up. Brad put on her coat, then his own. "I got bad news, and I got good news."

  Paul put his hand on his chin as if in deep contemplation. "I think I'll take the bad news first, then."

  "We're leaving now," Brad said as he held Kara's hand tight. "Well, the good news is more for you, Chief."

  "Hit us," Paul said.

  "Your buddy Pam was in looking for you. She said she would stop back to see you," Brad said as he and Kara walked away from the table toward the cash register to pay their bill.

  "Great, just great." Paul slapped his hands so hard off the table that every head in the restaurant turned to look at us.

  "Please, Paul, don't be that way," I said. "Let's invite Pam to join us if she comes back."

  "I'm dating you, not your dyke friend," he said as he jabbed his index finger hard into my shoulder.

  "I just-"

  "Let's blow before she gets here," Paul said, pushing me to get out of the booth.

  "Paul, she's my friend," I protested.

  "Whatever. Now why don't you start moving your fat ass?" Paul hissed at me. He grabbed both of my wrists and squeezed them hard. I tried to pull away, but he was too strong.

  "That hurts," I said, holding back tears. He let go, but then balled his right hand into a fist and rammed it hard against my left wrist.

  "Life hurts, Joha. You had better get used to it," Paul said through clenched teeth. He grabbed the rose I'd put in the vase and threw it at me. "Ask Pam to buy you roses, then!"

  "Paul, please, she's my friend. I need to—" I didn't finish as he shoved me out of the booth and pushed me aside.

  "I thought you said you needed me. You lied."

  "Paul, please wait!"

  He never made eye contact, instead just marched toward the door where Kara and Brad were still standing, watching the scene from a distance. Paul stoppe
d by the door, turned to me, and shouted across the room, "Are you coming or not?"

  I started toward Paul, hoping we could somehow make this scene less public. "Just a few minutes, she's my friend."

  Paul glared at me. If earlier in the car I thought he could see inside of me, now he was looking right through me. "It's either her or me. You had better decide!" Paul shouted, slamming the door as his exclamation point.

  Kara came over, while Brad finished up paying their bill. Before any of us got to the door, I heard the sound of the Firebird screeching off into the night.

  "Paul! Paul!" Brad opened the door and ran out onto the sidewalk. We followed behind.

  The cold wind bounced against my face like needles. "It's my fault." I was shaking.

  "Don't worry, we're not going to leave you here," Brad said, putting his arm around me. I noticed the look that Kara gave him. He must have noticed as well, backing away from me.

  I turned to Kara, hoping she could be of some help. "Should I stay and wait for him?"

  "I wouldn't." She sounded bored, but then she surprised me by laughing. She pointed her index finger with the nail extended out like a blue sword at Brad, swishing it back and forth and making cutting sounds. "You know what they say. 'Boys will sometimes be boys, but they will almost always be assholes.'"

  I didn't laugh; there was nothing funny about this for me. "I didn't mean to make him mad. Why was he so angry?"

  "Nothing surprises me about how Paul behaves," Kara said, answering me, but her eyes and response were directed at Brad.

  "That's enough, Kara," Brad said. The three of us stood there in silence for a few minutes. None of us had any idea what was the right thing to do.

  "I'm cold. Let's go," Kara finally said as she motioned me to follow her to Brad's car.

  "Should I leave him a note or something?" I asked no one in particular.

  "He'll be fine," Brad said, opening up the back door for me, then holding open the door for Kara.

  Brad let the car warm up; the hum of the engine was the only noise. When Brad drove to the front of the parking lot, he adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see my eyes, which were still a little damp. "Johanna, which way to your house?"

  "Take a right," I said, slumping back in my seat as Brad accelerated.

  "Okay, right it shall—"

  Brad stopped in midsentence when he saw Paul's body crashing down on the hood of his car. I bolted up in my seat and screamed.

  "What the hell?" Brad turned off the car, and we all jumped outside. Paul was lying on the ground next to Brad's car.

  "Paul! Paul!" I knelt down beside him. I was so scared. "This is all my fault. Paul, are you okay? Oh, God, we need a doctor!"

  Paul lifted his head off the pavement and motioned for me to come closer. "No doctor."

  I could barely hear him.

  "No doctor," Paul repeated. "I need, I need something else."

  "What are you trying to say?"

  "I need . . . I need a spoon," he said, pulling me closer with his left hand.

  "A spoon?"

  Paul started laughing. In his right hand he had a small bag, which he thrust at me. "Joha, I'm sorry. I just lose it sometimes. I promise it won't happen again."

  I opened up the bag. Inside was a pint of chocolate-chip ice cream from Baskin-Robbins. In an instant the taste of my tears changed. The ones falling now were my favorite flavor and just as sweet as the ice cream.

  THIRTEEN

  "It is a good thing you didn't show up last night to Santi's," I whispered, which made little sense as Pam and I were about the only ones in the school library during first period. I had lied to Mr. Taylor about needing to do research for a story so the two of us could get out of class.

  "What happened?" Pam asked.

  I hit the highlights, leaving out the more unpleasant parts.

  "So everything is okay between you now?" Pam asked.

  "The evening had a very happy ending," I responded. I wanted to say more, to talk with Pam like we used to talk, but I felt myself holding back.

  "Books, in these fantasy novels we read, there is a happy ending," Pam said, tapping her finger on the Tamora Pierce book in front of her. "I don't think real-life is like that."

  "Maybe not," I said, but without much conviction.

  "No offense, but I don't think Paul is exactly the prince type," Pam said.

  "How come you never say anything nice about Paul?" I asked. Pam was trying to be funny and probably didn't mean anything by her comment, but it still hurt.

  "How come you never say anything bad about him? I guess that evens things out," Pam shot back. "And besides, from what I hear, he's telling people all these lies about me."

  "That's not the point." I stopped myself from raising my voice. The few other people in the library could have cared less about our conversation. No one was paying attention to us: Maybe that was the main thing that Pam and I once had in common. That had changed.

  "The point is that you never call me anymore, and we never do anything together," Pam lashed out at me. We still saw each other every day in class and at our locker, but we never really talked. I could tell from Pam's tone that she was letting loose stored-up feelings.

  "That's not true. I called you last Friday to see a movie," I countered.

  "Sure, but you said we had to go to the early show so you could see Paul later that night. What is that?"

  "Well, you never call me, either," I replied weakly.

  "How could a person get through to you? If you're not out with Paul, then you're on the phone talking with him. I'm tired of hearing the phone ring, knowing you won't even interrupt your Paul call for a second to say hello to me. Call waiting? It's more like call ignoring."

  I just wanted this to end. "Let's just drop this."

  Pam leaned across the table. "Books, don't you want to be my friend anymore?"

  "I do, but—"

  "But what?" Pam spit out.

  I didn't know what to say. I couldn't tell her the truth: that Paul was making me choose, and that I had chosen him over her. How do you tell a person something like that? I responded with silence.

  "I miss spending time with my best friend. What is so wrong about that?" she asked.

  She was right. Paul didn't want me to spend time with Pam or with anyone else but him. She was right, but I couldn't decide the other way. I couldn't lose Paul. "I do, too. I'm sorry Pam, but it just has to be this way."

  I got up from the table and started to leave. She reached out and touched my left wrist. I let out a shriek of pain.

  "Books, are you okay?" Pam asked. "What's wrong?"

  "My wrist just hurts, that's all," I said as I tugged down on the sleeves of my blouse, making sure to cover the bruise on my wrist from Paul's punch.

  "You see, this is what I am talking about?" Pam said, tears now flowing freely. "You don't share anything with me anymore."

  "It's nothing," I said. Pam didn't need to know how Paul accidentally hurt me.

  "But I'm not nothing. Don't you remember how I helped you when you first came to school here?" she continued through tears. "When Ty rejected you, I was there for you. Or have you forgotten that—like you've forgotten about me?"

  "Pam, I haven't forgotten you; I just can't be friends like we used to be." It was so hard to confront someone like this; it took so much energy. "You can't have a friendship based on what was."

  She turned to look at me; she never even blinked. "No, you can't, Johanna."

  The sadness in my eyes was obvious. She quickly gathered her books, stood up, and walked out of the library just as the bell rang. Outside, I could see the hall fill up with students while I sat all alone in the school library. I had come full circle.

  FOURTEEN

  I was tapping the pencil against my calculus book, keeping time with Max Weinberg, the drummer for Springsteen's E Street Band. I had Born in the USA blaring in my Discman as I sat in the main library trying to force myself to work on the calculus proble
ms lying in wait for me beneath the covers of the book. I ran my fingers up and down the sleeve of the black parka Paul had given me. He had opted for a leather jacket I picked out for him at the Goodwill he shops at. Looking at the book in front of me, I couldn't concentrate. I took the pencil and started drawing heavier lines around pictures of Paul and me that decorated the brown cover of Calculus: Concepts and Problems, I looked at my watch again, counting down the minutes until Paul would be picking me up. I sighed, looked out the window at the light snow falling, promising to make tomorrow's Thanksgiving a white one, and finally opened the book.

  I had finished two problems during class, two more than anyone else had completed, so I just had one more to go. I wrote down the number three on a clean sheet of paper in front of me but found myself closing the book again, then writing the number three in big letters on the front cover. In just a couple of weeks, Paul and I would be celebrating our three-month anniversary. I never thought myself to be sentimental, but that number, more than all those equations glaring at me from inside the book, meant so much to me. I guess because I never thought it would ever happen. Now I was about to celebrate my best Thanksgiving ever. I opened up one of my notebooks and tore out a blank sheet of paper. I wrote at the top, "Things to be thankful for," and then Paul's name instantly. I sat there for a second, pulling Paul's parka around me tight, thinking about him holding me. I turned the Discman off, letting the sound of Paul's voice replace the Boss. I heard him whisper to me, "I want to touch you," and I remembered him saying that he loved me. I closed my eyes and just heard those words echo in my head, over and over again.

  I took another sheet of paper out of my notebook. Yet another thing my father had drilled into me: work out your problems on paper, make your mistakes alone rather than in front of people. My dad wanted me to be like him, but now I was turning out so different. I'm sure he blamed Paul, never realizing that I was the one making the choices, and now even more choices were in front of me. I drew a line down the middle of the blank page, then wrote the words yes and no at the top. I stared at those words for a long time, my mind bouncing all over the place. I put my pencil in my mouth, shut my eyes, and tried to focus.