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By Root 225 0

Alexis, warm on one side, as I looked at the ceiling. I felt Marco put me in his mouth, but it hurt and I pushed him off. I turned back toward Alexis and he started to work me with his hand. I stared at Alexis’s neck and the spill of her hair on the couch as he touched me more. I moved my hand back and found Marco’s penis. I closed my eyes and flipped over. I heard Alexis breathing, slurry and asleep, on one side of me, and I heard Marco, breathing through his nose quickly, on the other side. We both came on the other’s hand. We didn’t say anything to each other. I heard the shower turn off in the bathroom. I felt frozen and unsure of what to do next. Marco used the blanket to wipe himself off and nodded for me to do the same. I heard Daphne and David exit the bathroom and slip into Marco’s bedroom. David looked pale and weak from vomiting. I pretended to fall asleep, hoping Alexis would wake up or flip over to face me. I thought maybe she wasn’t really asleep. I thought about the photos I took of her and then I realized that someone else would see them—the person developing the film. I felt a nervous sickness then.

I slipped off the couch and put my clothes back on. I noticed that it was past 2 a.m. by that time. I stepped outside and breathed in deeply. I thought about getting the film out of the camera and taking it. I tried to go back inside, but I was locked out. I pressed my ear to the door but couldn’t hear anything. In a way, it sounded like nothing had happened.

Elvia

During the time I was seeing Daphne and hanging out with the other New Wave kids from Hermiston, I met Elvia, a beautiful and quiet Hispanic girl who dressed more conservatively than the rest. I started to talk to her more and more when she made it up to the Tri-Cities on the weekends. Pretty soon, we decided we would be boyfriend and girlfriend. But first, I had to tell Daphne and stop having sex with her. This was tricky because they worked at the same place, a burger joint called Arctic Circle. After news broke about Elvia and I, Daphne was stone cold to us both. I would come pick up Elvia when she got off her shift sometimes and Daphne stared hatefully at us. Soon enough, Daphne’s anger boiled over and she spray-painted a message for me on a water tower near the highway exit. It said, KEVIN SAMSEL IS A DICK.

Elvia and I went out for about a year, and even though I had a couple of prior girlfriends, I felt like this was the first girlfriend I could really get into. She was so pretty, with perfect olive-brown skin and thin-but-plump lips that my mouth will never forget. Her face often displayed a sexy pout or a smile so giddy and mischievous that it ignited her whole being. Our sex felt alive and loving and totally open. Plus, she had a mysterious personality that intrigued me. She lived with white foster parents who were very religious and wouldn’t even let her listen to Top 40 music in the house. Once, they threw out all the cassettes that she had hidden in her closet. Even her David Hart cassette. She had cried about that and I tried to ease her pain by making her mix tapes, which were eventually found and thrown out as well.

Her own parents were somewhere not far away, but it was always kind of vague as to why she didn’t live with them. Maybe they were too poor.

Sometimes, during the week, because we couldn’t see each other, we would write letters. In these letters, she was more goofy than she was in person. She’d crack jokes, make fun of her foster parents, and quote fake Bible passages. If she hadn’t lived with such conservative white people, she may have been a Goth or a punk.

One week she sent me a serious letter and told me that she was pregnant. I tried to make a plan to see her that weekend (we’d sometimes sneak long-distance phone calls to each other), but she told me she was grounded. She asked me to send her $300 so she could get an abortion. I emptied out my bank account and scrounged up some more tip money and sent cash. A week later she called me and said she hadn’t gotten the money yet. I really need it, she said.