Killing Kate(42)

“Next time you come,” Jose tells me, “You try the fried ice cream.” I swear I will but the thought of more food makes me want to explode in tiny pieces all over the restaurant. Jose kisses my cheeks like an old friend and we say goodnight and leave. The minute we are outside Justin backs me up against the wall and kisses me. Everything below my waist becomes slippery and I almost lose my grip on the leftovers.

A group of gangbanger kids across the street whistle at us and say something that’s likely obnoxious. Thankfully I don’t speak enough Spanish to know if we’re being insulted or complimented. “Can we go to your house?” I ask Justin. He nods and opens my door for me to let me into his car, just like his mother told him to.

“Just so we’re clear,” Justin says as he drives toward his house. “I don’t intend to fuck you tonight.”

“What?” I say, startled by the comment. “Well, I didn’t assume you would.” Except that I did assume exactly that.

He shakes his head. “To further clarify things,” he continues. “I don’t intend to fuck you ever.”

I whirl my head to look at him. “So what, you tell me that you care about me, kiss me hard enough to melt me into a pile of jelly, and then tell me you don’t want me?”

He looks at me pointedly. “I think something you are missing and have missed out on your whole life, Jenna, is the difference between being fucked and being loved.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling like a complete schmuck. “I see.”

“You don’t see because you don’t know,” he tells me. “I’ve known you a long time, even though there’s a lot I don’t know about you. I’ve known Devin forever, and the one thing I know about him is that he is the one person in your life that has loved you, but he’s your brother. Everyone else in your life has used you, or ‘fucked’ you, so to speak. I want to show you how you can be loved and also touched, because I think your entire life you’ve associated men touching you with being used, or fucked.” He looks at me and I sheepishly look down and realize my hands are pressing hard against my inner thighs, which are pushing themselves together. I want him to do everything to me that’s going through my head and I can barely wait. He takes my left wrist and pulls it away. “Save that for when we get to my place.”

“I can’t really wait,” I breathe.

“Smoke,” he tells me. I do as he asks me to, cracking the window and lighting up. He takes my left hand and clasps it in his right hand and squeezes. I feel comforted and comfortable.

*

“I cleaned up for you,” Justin tells me once we’re inside of his house. “It was a sty this morning.”

“It’s fine,” I say. Justin lives in an old brick bungalow in Margate Park on a tree lined street. It appears quiet, though I know it’s not the greatest of neighborhoods. We are standing in his front room, or “fronchroom” as Chicago people like to say. I follow him back to his kitchen where he stashes our leftovers in the refrigerator. I notice all of the appliances are very up to date, even though his kitchen is small. “Don’t let me forget that salsa,” I tell him.

“I might,” he teases. He grabs two beers from the fridge and closes it behind him. “Beer?”

“Yes please,” I say as I watch him open them up. His arms tense up with working the bottle opener and I like watching them. In addition to his dragon tattoo, he has a small tattoo on his left wrist of a dinosaur. “I like your ink,” I tell him. “What’s the significance?”

He smiles. “It’s a Brontosaurus,” he explains.

“Those didn’t actually exist, you know?” I ask him.

“I know,” he replies. “I like them though, because they’re proof that people aren’t always right about everything.”

“That’s for sure,” I agree. “Is that and the dragon your only tattoos?”

“For now,” he says. He hands me my beer and watches me drink about half of it in one gulp. I’m suddenly really thirsty. “What about you? Do you have any tattoos?”

I shake my head. “Maybe one day. I asked Devin a bunch of times to draw me something that’s for me but he never does.”

“What would you get?” he asks me.

I shrug. “I’m not sure. I never think of anything clever like your Brontosaurus tattoo. I guess a bird, maybe.”

He looks confused. “Why a bird?”

I’m slightly embarrassed. “Because there are different ways a bird can live, and it’s not up to the bird, but rather how people treat the bird. Like you can own a bird as a pet and it will live and die in a cage. Or a bird can be born in the wild and will be free to go where it wants. And in some rare instances, a bird born in a cage can become free, or a bird born in the wild can become caged.”