"Go see him tonight," Alicia said, nodding as though there could be no argument. I looked at Becky through the computer. She was biting her lip. I'd expected her to jump in immediately with "no way" or "don't even think about it" and was surprised at her silence.
"Beck?" I questioned, prompting her.
"I don't know, honest, I don't. I mean, the sane part of me says Alicia is a moron and you should stay as far away from him as possible but … I mean, you're kind of right. It's not really fair to judge him by his dad, and if that's all your dad is doing … I mean … I have my reservations about this whole thing, but, like, if I really thought he was a worthless asshole, I would never have let us go to that bar in the first place. There's something good about him, at least."
"Plus, I mean, don't you remember when his friends were talking? They were saying that he and his dad were on the outs … remember? Remember his face after he talked to his dad? He wasn't happy," Alicia said.
"How can you even remember that? You were high as a kite," Becky said to Alicia, who promptly rolled her eyes.
"C'mon guys, you know I'm not as dumb as I look," she said. She was right; for someone who acted ditsy a lot of the time, Alicia was actually really smart, and she had remembered that moment when even I'd forgotten about it.
"Well, I mean, that's true, he did look … I mean, but why are we even talking about this? My parents probably won't ever let me leave the house again, and I'm definitely not going anywhere tonight," I said, realizing that we could discuss it until the end of time and Boon would probably still be gone in the morning.
"Call him, ask him to stay, just for a while," Alicia said. "Do it now!"
Becky nodded, not quite convinced but clearly willing to support me.
"If it's what you want, Samantha, you have to. We'll stay on the computer with you while you do it, if you want."
I reached for my phone, hand shaking. I pulled up the texts Boon had sent me and called the number that sent them. There was no ringtone, it went straight to voicemail. And it wasn't even his voice on the message, just an automated voice. He could have been using a burner phone for all I knew. I hung up, shaking my head.
"It's off," I said.
"Text him," Alicia pressed, excitement in her voice.
"Well, what do I say? ‘Sorry my dad tried to shoot you, why don't you sit around for a few days until I'm allowed outside'?"
"Just … well, I mean, just say, like ‘please don't leave yet'. Tell him you want to talk," Becky suggested. I tapped the message out quickly, not wanting to give it another second to doubt myself.
The message sent, I put my phone down. Looking back up at my friends' faces, I was at a loss.
"Well, what now?"
"Now … just wait," Alicia said, shrugging. Great, my favorite thing, waiting, I thought, irritated and nervous. What if he never turned his phone back on? What if he did, and saw the message, and didn't respond? What if he did?
Two hours later, he hadn't texted me back. An hour later, my phone buzzed. My heart leapt up to my teeth. I closed my eyes as I picked it up:
Any news?
It was just Alicia. I sighed, both relieved and disappointed. I responded quickly, then threw my phone to the side and returned to what I'd been doing for the last three hours: pacing around my room, trying to read magazines, flipping through TV channels. It was pure torture. It was a million times worse than taking the SATs, a billion times worse than waiting for college acceptance letters.
I lay in bed, hands behind my head, trying to think of everything and nothing at the same time. At some point, much to my own surprise, I fell asleep. As I slept, I dreamt, one of the strangest dreams of my life.
In the dream, I was riding a motorcycle through a huge suburban town: it wasn't Missoula, though I suppose it could have been. It wasn't, really, anywhere. I had my arms clutched around the man driving the motorcycle, my cheek pressed against his back. I didn't know where we were going, who it was.
I knew it was a cop, from the hat he was wearing and the blue uniform. I could feel his muscles, tense and strong, under his clothing as my hands roamed across his torso. I could have sworn, once I woke up, that I could really feel the way the bike hummed and shook underneath me. As we drove on, the suburbs dropped away, turning to wide, flat desert.
"Where are we going?" I remember asking in the dream. I looked down; I was suddenly naked, the hot leather of the seat pressing and buzzing against my clit, my thighs shaking, my slit wet. The driver turned to me. It was, of course, Boon. Who else could it have been?
In that special way that dreams have of making no sense and total sense at the same time, he turned all the way in his seat but still managed to keep the bike running down the long, straight road. He was still wearing the cop's hat but was otherwise naked, as well. Even in a dream, I could recreate every inch of his toned, hot body. My hands flew to his chest, tracing the two guns tattooed on his pectorals. I leaned forward, feeling his flesh under my lips as my hands traced down, down, his long, triangular torso, lower, lower …
And then his hands were on my arms, gripping me tightly, almost too tightly, as he pulled me upwards, our eyes meeting in a moment of singular intensity.
"The cliff," he said, releasing one of my arms to cup my face and draw me close to him, our lips growing nearer and nearer. The dream slowed down, but the bike didn't, and I saw, over his shoulder, the horizon suddenly falling away as the road ran off into nowhere: we were, indeed, approaching a cliff, and would soon drive right off it.
Even as I saw this, my lips were drawing close to Boon's, tantalizingly slowly, my dream-self crying out in anticipation, until we met, mouths parted, and the sky broke open into forty million pieces and the bike ran off the cliff and we were falling together, tongues entwined, flesh dancing, tumbling down and down into the abyss …
I woke to a sound that could almost have been rain: plink. Plink. Plink.
I rose to my elbows, shaking my head, lost in a post-nap fugue. I felt sweaty, clammy, and uncomfortable: I'd fallen asleep in my tank top and shorts but still felt like I was overheating in my bed. The noise continued, and I realized it was coming from my window. Plink. Plink. Plink.
Getting up to investigate, I saw what was causing the noise: tiny rocks hitting my window. My heart skipped a beat. Legends tell of boys performing such strange rituals in the hope of attaining the favor of a lady … Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
"Samantha! Get your ass up!"
Nope. Alicia, wherefore art thou Alicia.
"Holy shit, Alicia, we're supposed to be sneaky here," came Becky's voice in a loud whisper. I couldn't help but chuckle to myself as I threw the window open. They were standing on my lawn, hands full of pebbles, and both looked up at me as I popped my head out.
"Guys, you could have just texted me," I said in a stage whisper, not wanting my parents to hear.
"Go get it," Alicia said, making a shooing gesture at Becky, who promptly ran from the lawn towards the street.
"What are you guys doing?" I asked, leaning forward further to try and see where Becky was going.
"Jailbreak, baby," Alicia said. "We're going to get your man!"
"Shhh! Oh my God, no, I can't! And why are you screaming? My parents will hear!" I called out, trying to be loud enough for Alicia to hear me while still being quiet enough for my parents not to. Suddenly, Becky's shadow fell across the lawn, accompanied by … something else. She reappeared, clearly struggling, carrying a huge ladder. I hit my forehead with my palm.
My friends are beautiful, beautiful morons, I thought to myself, not quite believing that the girls had actually thought this scheme was a good idea. I can just imagine the conversation:
"We'll sneak her out of her bedroom with a ladder and whisk her away to the hotel where her leather-clad admirer is staying and then he'll ride off into the sunset with her on the back of his bike and we'll be the maids of honor at their wedding and she'll have a billion babies and we'll help her raise them all and date his hot friends."
"Yes, amazing plan, that will definitely work."
This had to be mostly Alicia's idea. A grand, ridiculous, teenage cliché like this could only have been cooked up by a mind as dramatic as hers. Becky probably figured out the logistics. I had to suppress a laugh as they struggled with the ladder, trying to anchor it safely in the ground and lean it against my window.
"You could help, you know," Becky called up. I realized I was just watching them dumbly and leaned out more, grabbing the top of the ladder and pulling it towards me. The sound of the metal against the side of the house should have been enough to get my parent's attention even if the girls' loud voices didn't.