Free You, Maybe by Rachel Vail Page A

sat back in my seat and stared out the window. I didn’t want to be a baby, or a killjoy. Maybe I just don’t know how to be cool. I sank down in my seat. Carson turned on the radio but this time I didn’t sing at all. We drove to the south end quietly. Carson pulled up in front of a small white house with a chain-link fence in front.
    “Home sweet home,” Frankie said.
    “Can you let them out?” Carson asked me.
    I got out quickly and released the seat so Frankie and Margo could uncurl from the back. They both ducked down to say bye to Carson, then turned and walked up the dark path to the front door. Carson peeled out while I was closing the car door.
    “Are you mad?” I asked.
    “No,” he said.
    We rode in silence for a while.
    “What are you thinking about?”
    “Nothing,” he said.
    “Nothing?” I asked. “Nothing? Really? Wow, that’s so Zen of you. Maybe it comes with your magic witch-eye. You really have a totally empty mind? That’s like the highest level of karmic enlightenment, isn’t it?”
    “Do you ever stop talking?” he asked.
    I didn’t say anything for a minute. “Sorry,” I came up with. Ah, well. It was lovely while it lasted.
    Carson turned down a narrow winding road with no houses as far as you could see, and pulled over onto the frozen grass.
    “So,” I felt myself start defensively chattering, powerless to shut up. “Do you think Daniel was right about the movie having some meta-meaning, like that it was trying to be a movie about an action movie? Because if so, I totally missed that. Or do you think Daniel is just full of—”
    Carson interrupted by leaning across the gearshift and planting his mouth full on mine. We made out for a few minutes. When he pulled back a little, I finished my (edited) thought: “Himself.”
    Carson took off his jacket and kissed me some more.
    “Do I talk too much?” I asked him.
    “Yes. Shh.” He kissed me some more.
    “Mostly when I’m nervous,” I said, into the inside of his mouth.
    He unzipped my jacket and slowly untucked my shirts, but didn’t stick his hand inside. “What time are you coming over tomorrow?” he murmured, pushing my jacket down off my arms.
    “I can’t,” I said. Michael’s birthday. The entire Lord of the Rings, uncut, all day and night. “Sorry.”
    “Yes, you can,” Carson said. He kissed little kisses up the side of my neck, which made me all tingly again. By the time he got to my ear I was practically panting. I moved my mouth to his and we made out awhile longer. He unhooked my bra through my shirts, on his first try.
    As he slipped his hand toward my waist, I said, “You still like her, don’t you?”
    “Who?” he asked, kissing me with tender little teasing kisses.
    “Emelina.”
    He pulled back and stared at me. “Why would you say that?”
    “I saw the way you looked at her.”
    He gripped his jaw closed. “I can’t believe you would say that.” He looked angrily out the window, at the darkness.
    My fingers felt a little shaky. I didn’t trust myself to say anything so I just very slightly shrugged. My unhooked bra was making my T-shirts all lumpy. I crossed my arms over my misshapen self.
    “Why would I have broken up with her, if I still liked her? Why would I be here with you, if I still liked her?” He kept his face turned away from me.
    “I thought,” I began, but didn’t finish, because you cannot say to somebody, Oh, I thought she dumped YOU. Even if it’s true.
    He looked at me, shooting daggers. “You thought what?”
    No way. Not going there. I may be only a sophomore but I am not that dumb.
    “You thought so little of yourself that you can’t imagine I would want you, rather than Emelina?”
    I opened my mouth to protest that but the calamitous truth of his statement stopped me, put a cork right in my throat, as surely as if I had swallowed it. I could feel it lodged there, in fact.
    “Oh, Josie,” he said, softening. Ah, the way he looked at me. It was back.