Sloppy Firsts_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [101]
"Are you taking me home?"
"Not quite."
He drove past my house (no lights on) and slowed down when we got to the kiddie park. The one I used to run to in the middle of the night.
"And this," he said, "is the park that time forgot. It’s the only one in town that hasn’t been Disneyfied or Pokémonized. It’s exactly the same as it was when we were in elementary school. The tire swings, the monkey bars, the merry-go-round. It’s all exactly the same."
The park is one of my favorite places. I loved that he brought me here. It made me want to tell him things.
"I used to run here in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep."
"Really?"
I pointed up at the leafless tree. "I’d hop on a swing and try to hit the branches with my feet," I said, feeling bold enough to look Marcus right in the eye. "It was just a game I used to play."
"A game."
"Yes." I tried, and failed, to suppress a smile. "Now I talk to you instead."
Marcus stuffed his hands into his front pockets. He suddenly looked incredibly uncomfortable, as though he wished he could climb inside his pants and hide.
Then, without saying anything, he ran toward the merry-go-round. I followed and sat down inside the big red circle in the middle. Bull’s-eye. Marcus hopped on and sat Indian style, facing me. The wind inched the merry-go-round in circles, but I felt like I was spinning out of control.
"I made my first New Year’s resolution," he said.
"Really? I would think that you’d already given up all your vices."
"Almost," he said.
"So?" I said, sitting up on my heels. I was eager to hear what vice he was giving up. God help me if he chose now to go celibate.
"Well, it has to do with you."
I tried to say, With me? but no sound came out.
"I promised myself that I’d stop jerking you around."
"What … ?!"
He put his finger to my lips to shut me up. Did I ever want to put it in my mouth and suck on it until it got pruny. Then I’d move on to the next one …
"You never should have read that poem," Marcus said. "’Fall.’"
Our knees were touching.
"Why?" I asked. "I like your poems."
"But it gives you the wrong idea about what I want from you."
He was going to apologize for wanting to have sex with me. I just knew it. I learned from watching addicts on The Real World that saying I’m sorry is number nine on AA’s twelve-step program. But Marcus didn’t have to take this step with me.
"You don’t have to apologize," I said, leaning in closer. Close enough for him to kiss my forehead, my cheek, my mouth …
"Yes, I do," he said, arching back and away from me. He tapped his fingers against the merry-go-round metal, ping-ping-ping. "I wrote that before I really knew you. I only thought I knew you. Or maybe I did know you then, and you’ve changed."
Now I was confused. "Changed? How?"
He looked away, his foot tapping a bizillion beats per minute.
"Well," he said. "When I used to listen to you and Hope talk …"
I jolted to attention, as though a puppeteer had jerked my marionette strings. "You listened to me and Hope?!"
His words came rushing out, almost too fast to hear.
We’d be in Heath’s room too stoned to move and I could hear you through the wall complaining about how much you hated your friends and this town and your goody-goody label and I thought hey here’s someone who has something to offer the world if only she had someone to help her bust out and why couldn’t I be that person I admit it was sort of an experiment to amuse myself to see how far I could push you but when I asked you to fake my test I never thought you’d actually do it so when you took that bait I wrote the poem to see if I could tempt you with sex too just to see if I could but that was before I really knew you …
Holy shit!
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. None of it was real. From our mutual mistrust of technology,