Tasting Never(10)

“I'm sorry for what I said to you,” he tells me, and I feel tears sting my eyes. I don't know why, but suddenly, they're just there. I look away and pretend that the cold is getting to me by tucking my hands under my armpits. “I'm the last person that should be judging anyone else.”

“Second to last,” I say, and dash my tears away before throwing a smile back at him. “And I'm sorry for calling you a whore.” He grimaces and the smile falls from his face for a moment. Ty bites his lip and spins the ring back and forth with his tongue.

“That's okay,” he says, and before I can argue, he explains himself. “Because I am one. Or I was.” I shake my head as we pause at the street corner and wait for the light to change. There are no cars, but we wait anyway.

“I sleep around a lot, too,” I admit, and have no idea why I'm spilling my guts to this guy. Maybe it's because he reminds me so much of myself. I reach into my coat and find the lighter and the box of cigarettes. I light up again and pass one to Ty. He takes it in his fingers but doesn't put it to his mouth.

“No, not like that,” he says as I tuck the lighter away, and we start across the street. “I worked as a whore.” Ty puts the cigarette between his lips but doesn't take a drag. It hangs limply from his frown, and I can see in his eyes that he's tortured by whatever it is that he's done. He looks as sick as I feel. “And not a very good one,” he tells me as we pass by brick apartment buildings that were once historic treasures but now just appear rundown. Very few windows glow with light. “For a couple hundred bucks, I would've given you what you wanted.” Ty inhales and holds the smoke in his lungs for a long time before he exhales in a cloud of white. “Or I would've. I don't do that anymore.”

I don't say anything to that. I don't know what to say. On one hand, I'm disgusted with him. I think things like, How could he sell his body like that? and Doesn't he have any shame or dignity?, but then I realize that we're just the same, me and him. I may not have ever taken money for sex, but I abuse it just the same.

“I have six sisters which is just as shitty as it sounds,” I say randomly, and Ty finally smiles again. He has a really nice smile. It lights up the dark almost as well as the streetlamps above us. “My mother is, like Lacey said, a belly dancer. She does shows during the farmers' market and teaches classes.”

“That's cool,” Ty says, but I cut him off.

“No, it's not. She could've made more money working at Mc-fucking-Donalds. I don't know how someone could be that selfish and still pretend they care, you know?” Ty laughs, and it sounds bitter and dry.

“I know what you mean,” he says as we pause outside a 24-hour coffee shop. “Want something?” he asks me, and I nod as this strange feeling takes over me. I'm hanging out with a guy with butterfly tattoos who worked as a hooker and blew me off at our first meeting. The same guy who tackled a person with a gun just to save me and has a smile with dimples. I'm making a friend. I smile.

“Coffee, black,” I say and Ty grins.

“Funny,” he says. “That's just the way I like mine.”





5

“I had one serious boyfriend in high school,” I tell Ty as we sit on the edge of a cliff and look down at the sea below. My coffee is clutched between my fingers, cold now but still good. Ty finishes his with one last sip and crushes the cup between his hands. “We dated right up until the day I ran away. I still think about him sometimes.”

“What was his name?” Ty asks as he sets the cup down in the grass beside him and wraps his arms around his knees. I watch the horizon and see that it's already tinted with a rosy blush, preparing itself for the sunrise that's only moments away. I can hardly wait. After what happened to the two of us last night, we could use a little light.

“Noah,” I say with a smile, thinking of the last time I saw him, waving goodbye to me from the parking lot near the high school. That was just days before junior prom. I wonder if he went with anyone else, or if he was still holding out for me. I guess I'll never know.

“Just Noah?” Ty asks as he leans back and puts his hands in the grass. “No last name? What is he, like Madonna or something?”

“Of course he has a last name,” I say as I finish my own coffee and go for another cigarette. I try to hand one to Ty, but he waves it away.

“What was it then?” he asks, feeling awfully bold in this early morning darkness.

“Scott.”

“Noah Scott, the long lost love of Never Ross. Why don't you call him? Look him up online?”

“I do way better than that,” I say as I copy Ty's pose and lean back. “I stalk him online.”