First Time for Everything Page 15

  “Wait, I was joking. When did this happen?”

  “When you were off helping with the food. Come on, Jess, you’re not even trying. I’ll give you one last guess.”

  “Okay. Oh, I know, you asked Jules to the formal.”

  Ben slaps his thigh. “Yes! Yes, I did.”

  “Wow, Ben. What did she say?” I honestly didn’t think he’d do it. It’s amazing what getting wasted can make you do.

  “She said she didn’t want to go with anyone, but she’d see me there.”

  “Oh, well, that sucks.”

  “Yeah,” he says, grinning at me like an idiot. He’s a bit too happy for just being rejected. Maybe it’s all the beer he’s had. He says, “You know what that means, though, right?”

  “We get to go to the formal together now?”

  “Yes, but no, that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  I shrug.

  “Come on, Jess. You remember our deal.”

  I do now. “No. No way, Ben, that’s not fair.”

  “Why isn’t it fair? I asked Jules, now you have to tell—”

  “No, Ben. I don’t.” I stand up and brush the sand off my shorts.

  Ben stands up and says, “Come on, Jess. Look around. Everyone’s plastered. I’ll go and get Ellie and you can talk to her alone.”

  I never thought he’d ask Jules to the formal, and I never want to tell Ellie how I feel about her. It’s the stupidest idea ever. “You don’t understand,” I say. “It’s easy for you.”

  “What? Risking rejection?”

  “You’re a boy asking a girl. I’m a girl telling a girl. It’s not the same.”

  “It can be. Look, I’ll go and get Ellie….”

  He turns to go, and I grab him by the arm. “No, Ben, I’m not telling Ellie I like her.” Just as the words leave my mouth, the music stops. Everyone turns to look at me and Ben. Someone says, “Holy shit.” I don’t wait around for the reaction. I turn and run up the beach. I can hear Ben calling after me, but I keep running. I have never been more embarrassed in my life.

  I FIND a spot on the dunes, just down from where Ben and I are camped. It’s close enough to still see the bonfire but hopefully far enough away that in the dark no one can see me.

  Stupid Ben and his bet. I didn’t even agree to it. What makes him think I could even think of telling Ellie how I feel? God, Zac must be having the time of his life down there now. Yes, I’m kind of out at school, and I have been since ninth grade, but Zac still takes every opportunity to tease me about it. This will just make things worse for me. There’s no way I can go to the formal now. How am I going to even do my exams? There’s no way I can show my face at school after this.

  I look back toward the bonfire, where the party seems to have started back up again. Someone’s walking up the beach, looking toward the dunes. As the figure gets closer, I realize it’s Ellie. She stops, looks around, and calls out. “Jess? Are you up there?”

  I don’t answer. Instead, I slump down, trying to hide myself behind the tufts of grass.

  “Jess? I want to talk to you.”

  I consider whether I should answer her or not. Ellie walks farther along the beach and calls, “Come on, Jess.” She stops in front of the dune I’m hiding on. I have no idea what I’d even say to her. She turns and starts to walk back toward the bonfire.

  Before I know it, I’m standing up and calling out to her. “I’m up here.”

  She spins around and replies, “Where? I can’t see you.”

  I move down from the dune a bit and wave to her. She says, “Can I come up?”

  “Yeah. I guess.” I sit back down to wait for her. My mind starts churning and so does my stomach. Should I tell her it was a joke between me and Ben? Should I just tell her the truth and risk losing her friendship? What little we have, anyway.

  Ellie scoots up the dune and says, “Can we talk?”

  “I guess.”

  She stands awkwardly and then says, “Can I sit down?”

  “Sure.”

  She pulls her skirt underneath her and sits close enough for me to smell just a hint of the Cruisers she was talking about earlier. She doesn’t seem to be drunk, but I can’t really tell.

  “I heard—”

  “Who didn’t?” I interrupt her.

  She lets out a sigh. “Sorry.”

  Silence.

  “So, I brought you a Cruiser,” Ellie says. “Do you want to try it? I didn’t know what you’d like so I brought raspberry. I figure everyone likes raspberry. If you don’t like it, I can drink it.”

  She holds the bottle out to me, and I take it. “I like raspberry,” I say. “How do I…?”

  “Oh, sorry.” Ellie takes the bottle back and expertly twists off the lid. She hands it back to me and smiles.

  I can feel Ellie watching me as I take my first sip.

  “So?” she says.

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  “I knew you’d like raspberry,” she says. “I like the pineapple ones. And I like the berry ones.”

  I hand her the bottle. She looks at me, and I say, “We can share.” She takes it and has a much bigger drink than I would have and hands it back.

  “So, is it true?” she asks. “What you said down there?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” I have a longer drink from the bottle this time, and I feel it warm my throat all the way to my stomach. Ellie takes the bottle back, has a drink, and then burps. She giggles.

  “Have you had much to drink?” I ask.

  “Just enough to make me feel warm and fuzzy,” Ellie replies. “You?”

  “Not as much as some people.”

  Silence again.

  Ellie looks out over the beach and says, “I love it here.” She draws her knees up to her chest, wraps her arms around her legs, and rests her chin on her knees. “It’s so quiet. Apart from tonight, of course.”

  “Do you come out here a lot?”

  “Not as much as I’d like to. At least,” she says, “not with the people I’d like to.”

  I’m not entirely sure what she means by that, and before I can ask her, Ellie asks, “Are you ready for the formal?”

  “I’m not sure I’ll go.”

  “Jess—”

  “Just, after tonight—”

  “So what about tonight?”

  I really don’t want to talk about it, so I ask, “Are you ready for the formal?”

  “Yeah. It’s such a hassle, though. Zac just has to turn up in a suit. I have to get my hair and makeup done, and my dress still isn’t finished yet. Plus, Zac was supposed to hire the car, but he forgot, so we’re left with my dad’s old Holden.”

  “I think we’re just taking Ben’s ute. We didn’t want anything fancy. That’s if I even go.”

  Ellie ignores my last comment and asks, “What about your dress?”

  “I’m actually wearing a suit,” I say. I’m unsure what Ellie will say to that, and I’m also not entirely sure how everyone else will react when they see me arrive in a suit.

  “Wow, really?” Ellie says. “That’s so cool. Actually, I could see you in a suit.” She turns and looks at me. “Bow tie or normal tie?”

  “Bow tie,” I say.

  “That is so cool. I’m not surprised, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we’ve known each other since grade three….”

  “Two,” I correct her.

  Ellie smiles. “Since grade two, then. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a dress.” She thinks on that for a moment and then says, “Nope. No dresses that I can remember.”

  “I did wear one once,” I say.

  “Really?” Ellie asks. She turns to me then and says, “When was that?”

  “Grade one.” I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. “Jasmine Buckley came up to me one day and said, in front of everyone, ‘Boys wear shorts, not girls. Are you a girl or a boy?’ I looked over to you, and all the girls you were playing with wore dresses. So, t
he next day, I wore a dress.”

  “You wore one to impress me?”

  “I wanted to play with you, and it looked like you would only play with girls who wore dresses.”

  “I don’t remember,” Ellie says, shaking her head. “What did I do?”

  “You were sick the next day so you never even knew.”

  Ellie laughs and says, “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for your big reveal.”

  I shrug. “It’s okay.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Jasmine made fun of me for wearing shorts under my dress.”

  “Really? I never liked her, you know.”

  I laugh.

  “What did you do?” Ellie asks.

  “I took off the dress and threw it on the ground. Mr. Henry had to get me a shirt from the spare ones in the tuckshop.”

  “Wait. You wore shorts under the dress but no shirt?”

  I nod.

  “And you went topless?”

  “Yeah, but we were six. It wasn’t that bad back then.”

  “Wow, I can see why you were scarred for life.”

  “I still get nightmares about it.”

  Ellie laughs. “I think a suit is a good choice for you, then,” she says. “You’ll look great. And, you get out of it cheaper, just like the other guys.”

  “Hardly,” I say. “I actually have to get mine made especially, so it’s probably costing me as much as it is for your dress.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Anyway, why do you need to spend three hundred on a dress that you’re only going to wear once? You’ve got plenty of dresses you could wear that you look good in.”

  Ellie smiles at me. It’s a crooked grin, and I think I detect a hint of mischief in her eyes. “I probably do,” she replies, “but the formal is special. I can’t just wear any old dress.”

  I want to say that yes, she could just wear any old dress, but I don’t. Instead I say, “I’m sure whatever you wear, you’ll look great too.”

  “God, it feels like it’s been so long since we’ve talked, Jess.”

  “I know.”

  We both look at each other for a moment, and then Ellie looks back out over the beach. She’s picking up handfuls of sand and letting it run through her fingers over her toes, burying them under little sand dunes. “Can I ask you something?” she asks. “Something personal?”

  I figure I know what’s coming, so I say, “Sure.”

  “When did you realize that you’re, you know…?”

  “A superhero?”

  Ellie laughs. It’s a response I got from an online forum for lesbian and gay teens. Telling myself I’m a superhero every time I feel less than because of being a lesbian has picked me up more times than I can count. “Remember earlier I said I’d only tried scotch and didn’t like it?”

  Ellie nods.

  I take a deep breath. “Ben and I got wasted on scotch at his parents’ house when we were fifteen.”

  “Is that it?” Ellie asks. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

  “We were so out of it,” I said, and grimace at the memory. “I puked in Ben’s parents’ bed.”

  Ellie covers her mouth and stifles a laugh. “Wow. You weren’t, you know?”

  “What? No!” I say and laugh. “It took me a quarter of that bottle of scotch to tell Ben I’m a lesbian. It was a huge thing for me, and Ben was so disappointed, and we both got really drunk. Anyway, I don’t remember why we ended up in his parents’ room, but there we were, laying on their bed, side by side, crying and solving the world’s problems. Well, mine at least, I suppose. I can’t remember too much apart from having to clean up the room the next day with a really bad hangover.”

  “Wow,” Ellie says.

  “Bad things happen when you drink.”

  “Not always,” Ellie says. She smiles at me then, and I feel like the world has stopped, just for a second. Ellie breaks the spell by asking, “Are you sure you’re a lesbian?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, have you, um, tested it out?” Ellie cocks her head to the side, and when I catch her gaze, she looks down at the ground.

  “What is there to test out?”

  “Well, I guess, I mean, have you actually kissed a girl?”

  I laugh. It’s making me a little nervous, and also a little excited, to be talking about this stuff with Ellie. If I were an optimist, I’d be thinking she’s asking me because she’s the curious one. I think it’s the Cruiser playing with my mind. I think it’s gone to my head.

  “So?” she asks, poking me in the leg with a stick. “Have you?”

  “I’m not going to tell you that,” I reply, poking her back. I don’t want to admit to Ellie that I haven’t kissed a girl yet. I’ve already had people, family mainly, telling me it’s just a phase, and I don’t want Ellie to think the same thing.

  “Why not?” Ellie asks.

  “Because I don’t kiss and tell.”

  “Is that right?”

  I nod. “Lesbian code,” I say, and Ellie laughs.

  She stops all of a sudden and asks, “Is there one?”

  “I have no idea. I’m just new at it,” I reply.

  A squeal interrupts the night, and we both look down to the bonfire to see one of the boys carrying one of the girls down to the water.

  “God, boys are so immature,” Ellie says.

  “Talking about boys, won’t Zac be missing you?”

  Ellie sighs and picks at a piece of grass. “We’re only keeping up appearances,” she says. This takes me by surprise.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Zac and I broke up during the September holidays. He doesn’t want to lose face with his mates, so I told him we’ll make it official after the formal.”

  “Wow,” I say. “I’m sorry, El.”

  Ellie shrugs. “See? You’re not the only one keeping secrets,” she says.

  “So, you’re okay with pretending to be his girlfriend?”

  “I guess so. I mean, it’s just easier this way.”

  “How is it easier?”

  “I just don’t want to answer everybody’s questions, and it just made it easier to get through exams. Plus, Shelley and Mel will be devastated when they find out. They think Zac and I are the perfect couple.”

  “Everyone thinks you’re the perfect couple,” I say.

  “But you don’t,” Ellie says. It’s a statement more than a question, but I feel like I have to answer it.

  “He’s such a dick, El. He always has been.”

  “And me?” she asks.

  “You’re not a dick,” I reply. She smiles.

  “Nice to know what you really think of me,” she says. What I really think is that she’s too good for Zac. What I really think is that she’s gorgeous and smart and funny, and that I’d love for her to be my girlfriend instead of pretending to be Zac’s. What I want to say is that what I said by the bonfire is true. But I don’t say any of that. It hangs in the air between us.

  Ellie lies down on her back and I stretch out beside her. We lie in silence, listening to the horseplay and music going on down at the bonfire. Ellie says, “Is it true?”

  “What?” I know what she’s talking about, but I want to stall for time. I feel buzzed from the Cruiser, but it’s not enough to make me relax and want to spill my guts to her.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” she says.

  I sigh.

  “It’s okay if it is. I mean, I won’t see you any different.”

  I take a deep breath and say, “Yes.”

  “Okay” is what Ellie says in reply. That’s it. Just “okay.” We lie there for a while, and I can feel Ellie picking at the grass beside me. I cross my arms so I don’t accidentally touch her. I’m wondering what I should say or do next when Ellie turns to me, props her head up on her hand, and says, “What’s it like?”

  “What’s what like?” I turn my head, and our faces are so close I can feel her breath on my lips.


  She fiddles with the empty bottle and says, “Kissing a girl. What’s it like?”

  I’m not sure how to answer in a way that doesn’t reveal I’ve never done it, so I close my eyes and think of what it might feel like to have her lips on mine. “Soft,” I say, “and awesome.”

  When I open my eyes, Ellie seems to have moved closer. Her lips are parted slightly, and just thinking about kissing her makes me tingle. Does she want me to kiss her? I mean, she’s close enough for me to kiss her, and she seems like she wants me to. Before I can make up my mind, Ellie leans toward me. Our lips brush, and I feel light-headed. My heart pounds as I push my lips onto hers, and I relax a little when she kisses me back. Her lips part slightly, and our tongues touch. She gasps quietly and then pulls away.

  I’m anxious for her reaction. I desperately want to know that it was okay. She lays her head beside me, our foreheads almost touching, her eyes closed. Then she smiles and says, “Wow.”

  I have to agree with her sentiment. It’s exactly what I hoped my first kiss would be like.

  SR SILCOX grew up in small town Australia. A child of the ’80s and a teen of the ’90s, it was a multicolored, fun-filled time of hypercolor T-shirts, Slip’N Slides, outrageously teased fringes, MC Hammer, and Dunlop Volleys.

  She played cricket in the summer and soccer in the winter, all while wearing shorts and T-shirts with a cap glued firmly to her head.

  She’s passionate about team sports, barracks for the underdog, and believes that everyone makes the right choices given the right set of circumstances. Most of all she believes that remaking movies from the ’80s should be made illegal.

  She writes fiction in various genres, with lesbian main characters.

  You can find her on her website (http://srsilcox.com/), ask her anything on Tumblr (http://srsilcox.tumblr.com/), or e-mail her at selena@ srsilcox.com.

  MIDNIGHT IN THE MAZE

  J. LEIGH BAILEY

  I. The First Kiss

  I GASPED and jerked back as a man in a white mask jumped out of a dark corner wielding a hunting knife the length of my forearm. Blood dripped from the silvery blade and stained the man’s denim overalls. He stopped short at the thin-linked chain that separated his room of the haunted house from the path we took.