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  “Always surprised, don’t I take care of you. I told you you’ll always be my girl.” Dad said.

  “Where did you get this much money?” I asked him quietly.

  “Gambling,” he said. “And I’ve been saving it for awhile now, I don’t need much I never have. I want you to have it.”

  “Dad I can’t take all of your money.” I said.

  “Think of it as an early birthday and christmas present.” he said.

  “Hell of a present,” I said with a watery laugh.

  When I got home I paid my rent and set aside enough money to pay off what I owed for my tuition for the fall semester with Dad’s money. The rest covered the table and the floor, I didn’t know what to do with it I had never had this much money before in my life. I walked around the house until the sun went down and then I went into a bar even though I had never had anything stronger than a coffee with a splash of whiskey and had a drink.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Mary had moved out the first week of October into a boarding house to have space and time to find herself. I had helped her move in and promised that I wouldn’t smother her and I wouldn’t call her every day to check up on her. Even with Dad’s money to help I couldn’t afford to pay the rent on my own. After a talk with student aid and my advisor I resigned myself to moving into a dorm on campus, which was just like living in the hostel.

  It took a few weeks to get used to after having a whole apartment to myself, but I had a bed and access to the cafeteria which was open eighteen hours a day. I got to my classes a lot faster too and started tutoring again, I charged ten to fifteen dollars (depending on the subject) an hour per student and was bringing in almost five to six hundred dollars a week when the check cleared. Things settled down.

  A couple days before Thanksgiving I called Dad up and asked him what his plans were, I was going up to see Mom and Mary was going on a school field trip to Florida. He mumbled something about going out to the movies or ordering some chinese food. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, Dad alone on Thanksgiving.

  We had never really celebrated it when I was growing up but we had always been together. I kept imagining him sitting by himself at the movies or in his room above the bar eating chinese food and watching old movies.

  I don’t know why I did it, maybe it was because he had given me the money to pay for my tuition and rent, maybe because I didn’t want to spend time listening to Mom talk about Bob and pretending that her life had been all roses and that I was her best friend instead of her daughter so she could ignore all of her obligations. Maybe it was because I had been feeling lonely myself after Mary had left. But I called Mom and told her that I wouldn’t be able to make it and then made a big plate of stuffing, sweet potatoes and chicken (all the stores near me were out of turkey) and walked down to the bar.

  He was as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

  He had let his hair grow out again and started growing in a thick beard. There were strands of grey and silver weaving through where there had never been there before.

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” I said with an awkward smile.

  “Well,” he said rubbing the back of his head before inviting me inside. “Thank you darling.” We walked single file up the stairs to his apartment. There was a bed in the corner, and a door to the bathroom, a small kitchenette with a few old wooden stools along the counter and a neat stack of pots and pans, in the living room there were two old leather sofas that creaked when you sat on them and a thick rug.

  I was surprised that it was so clean, and strangely cozy.

  Dad opened the tupperware bowls humming, “This looks delicious, you made this yourself?”

  “Yes sir.” I said rubbing my calf.

  I took my seat on the ottoman looking at him while he ate. The TV clicked on at some point and the football game on. It was awkward and familiar, it felt like I was back in Dogtooth again but different. I had never cooked anything for Dad before, Mom and Mary definitely but Dad, the closest thing I could think of was when Mom and I had made applesauce cookies for Mary’s third birthday and Dad had eaten one.

  I was surprised looking around the little apartment, everything was different from what I had imagined, which was a drunken hovel full of old ripped furniture and broken glass, and stacks of newspapers and old books. Like the mess we had lived in and Mom had never let us really tidy or clean up, but I realized that I had never really known or asked if Dad had liked living that way or if he had only been humoring Mom.

  I had never felt comfortable enough to ask him, partly because something had changed we had all fractured apart and retreated into ourselves, partly because Dad had seemed hellbent on self-destructing and that Mom had drilled it into us to never ask any questions, as if she was afraid of him.

  I shot Dad a small smile and went back to watching him and the game, as he took big forkfuls and hunched over his plate as if I was going to take it from him or smack it out his hands.

  What happened to you Dad?

  When I left I promised that I would keep in touch.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  During the spring semester of my senior year I went to a movie with a few friends. We had snuck in Runts and candy in our purses and were laughing at the screen when I saw a tall, dark haired boy with a big crooked toothy smile walking through the seats. He almost slipped twice on the dark steps but caught himself. He looked cute, I had seen him around campus a few times but we ran in different circles, so I never had the chance (or wanted) to talk to him.

  “Hey,” he said.

  I blinked surprised to see he was sitting right next to me. I blushed and ducked my head down.

  “Hi,” I whispered.

  “I hope you don’t mind, my friends flaked on me,” he whispered.

  “Oh no, no you’re fine.” I whispered and could feel my blush spreading down to my chest. I must have been as red as a tomato.

  “You want some?” he asked offering ne some of his popcorn.

  “Oh sure, do you want a Runt?” I asked him. He smiled and I shivered.

  “Susie right?” he asked me.

  “Right,” I said still blushing. My mouth was dry, too dry but I didn’t want to risk drinking anything in case I spilled it.

  He smiled again.

  “Paul,” I asked him. “Right?”

  “Right.”

  We shared an awkward laugh.

  “You want to get out of here?” he asked.

  I snorted and covered it up with a more delicate sounding sneeze. No one had ever asked me out before.

  “Um sure,” I said. “But, I’m here with my friends and..” And I don’t really know you or feel comfortable leaving this movie theatre with you to go on a date no matter how cute you are I thought.

  He smiled and I felt some of that nervous awkwardness melt away.

  “That’s cool,” he said. “I should go and see if my friends are here yet. Here let me give you my number so you can call me when you want to.”

  He took my hand in his and pulled out a sharpie and scrawled his number and name across my palm in big looping letters. He gave me a crooked grin and a wink that made me turn red and sent small thrills running up my back surprisingly my crotch. I pressed my thighs together. I watched him walk away and ignored my friends giggling and whispering. What were we in high school again?

  I thought about him through the rest of the movie. He wasn’t like the boys back in Dogtooth, he wasn’t like the boys in high school or even in college. He was different, there was something dangerous about him, he looked and acted like a rockstar. I decided that I would call him when I got home, and if he was trouble then that was okay.

  ***

  We went on our first date after a week full of texting and phone calls at all hours of the night. We went to the movies (Properly this time Paul joked) to see some romantic comedy called The Fisherman. He sat with his arm over my shoulder, just enough that I could feel the heat but that I could still pull away if I wanted to.
Right when the credits started to roll Paul gave me my first real romantic kiss, not like Michael, it was different. It was sexy. I didn’t care about work, or the paper I had been putting off that was due on Friday or that I hadn’t heard from Mary in weeks. Nothing mattered except for that kiss.

  We held hands all the way to the train and all the way back to the dorm and then he kissed me again outside my door and said that he had a really good time tonight and would like to see me again. I told him I had to work on my paper but I would be free (hopefully) on Wednesday or Thursday.

  I hadn’t finished my paper by Wednesday or by Thursday but I still went out with Paul to the top of the Empire State Building (something I had never done before but Paul said I had to do and he was right it was incredible) and then to Bow Bridge where he had taken me rowing and kissed me every third stroke. He stopped rowing and drifted along, he laid down next to me and we kissed and he pushed his hand under my shirt pressing against me stomach. I jumped but I didn’t try to stop him. I was afraid, but something told me not to move.

  “Hey,” he said pulling back sensing my discomfort. “It’s okay, we don’t have to do anything.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered. “Can we just kiss awhile?”

  “I’d like that.” he said.

  I smiled, and suddenly all of that fear went out of me like all of the hot air in a balloon.

  “Where’d you learn how to kiss like that?” I asked him when we were rowing back to the shore.

  “I’ve had some practice.” he said not even tired despite how far we had gone up and down the lake.

  “Have you been with a lot of girls?” I asked him.

  “Enough.” he said with a smile.

  “Have you ever had sex with any of them?” I asked him seriously.

  He laughed and rubbed the back of his head and neck and let us drift for a moment.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ve had sex with some of them.”

  “Oh,” I said softly. “Did you like them? The girls you had sex with?”

  “I did, but things didn’t work out.” he said.

  “Do you want to have sex with me?” I blurted out. “I mean, I know that you like me and I like you but I’ve never had sex with anyone before.” I admitted in a rush of words.

  “But that’s okay because I really like you and I, I want to,” I said my face burning.

  Paul put his hand on my knee.

  “Susie it’s okay. I really like you,” he said with a warm smile. “And yes, I would like to have sex with you, someday in the future when we’re both ready.”

  “Really?” I asked him, shocked that he wouldn’t pressure me like some of my friends boyfriends had.

  “Really.” he said with a serious look.

  We took the subway back to the dorms, I invited him in but he told me that we didn’t have to rush things, we could take it slow, and then he kissed me goodnight and headed back to his apartment. I left Mary an hour long voicemail on her answering machine and jumped on the bed. before flopping onto my back.

  My stomach was full of butterflies. God, I thought how could I end up with someone so sweet?

  It was six more months of dating before we had sex. I had looked at the condoms (conveniently located next to the pads and pregnancy tests) and tried to imagine what it would be like. I had read plenty of magazines in the checkout aisle with titles like “HOW TO HAVE THE BEST SEX IN YOUR LIFE” and “THE ABCs OF SEX” and pamphlets from Planned Parenthood where I also went on the pill (which led to an interesting an awkward conversation with Mom whose friend was a pharmacist and had seen me buying it).

  The first time we had sex was in his apartment after we had shared a pizza and a beer, it wasn’t as romantic as I thought it might be. He was slow and gentle, but it still hurt more than the magazines and my friends had told me it would and I couldn’t stop shaking. I didn’t enjoy it for a second. It was the most painful and bloody thing that I had ever been through, it was worse than when I got my first period and worse than when I had fallen out of a tree and broken two of my fingers. It wasn’t anything like the movies. It wasn’t romantic. I almost cried.

  “Are you okay?” Paul asked me. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No.” I said waddling toward the shower.

  “I didn’t want mean to hurt you.” he said over the water. “It’ll feel better in a few days.”

  “Yeah,” I sighed sore and cranky.

  I didn’t spend the night. I went home and kept a heating pad pressed between my legs and drinking my favorite tea (blueberry).

  I called him three days later and told him I wanted to try again. We met up, went out to see a movie and ordered chinese. This time it was better, and it kept getting better, it was toe-curlingly perfect. It was also strangely familiar, and not just from touching myself but from as far back as I remember it was new, but it was also familiar. I couldn’t remember when I had felt this way before.

  We saw each other every day, and spent the weekends together, I started spending more time at his apartment until I had just moved in with him. It wasn’t like anyone was asking after me. I was still going to work, I was getting all of my class work done. For the first time I could understand why Mom was so happy when she had met Bob. I was in love with Paul.

  Paul and I were inseparable through the rest of the spring and fall semesters. We went out to dinner, we talked. He told me about his parents and how they had died when he was a kid in a car crash and how he lived with his grandparents now and wanted me to meet them one of these days. I told him I would love that. For his birthday I took him out to One if By Land, Two if By Sea and we traded ghost stories. We had sex all of the time.

  My friends told me that I was glowing, I couldn’t even sit through class, I would leave as soon as it was over to his apartment where we would do our homework, watch bad movies and attack each other.

  It was in October when Paul said he loved me. I had kissed him and told him I loved him too. I had never been in love before and I didn’t want it to end. Some of my friends told me to slow down and asked if I wasn’t taking things to fast and what if we broke up but I laughed off their concerns. I would never leave Paul and I didn’t think I would ever be in love again.

  ***

  For Thanksgiving, Paul told me he was going up to the Bronx to see his grandparents but he would be back the day after to celebrate with me. I told him I was planning to go see Mom and Bob and after go to a party with few of Mary and I’s mutual friends in Queens. Dinner was uneventful, we ordered in and watched the parade, by the time we got to the party it was in full swing and I saw Paul, my Paul, who was supposed to be in the Bronx was sitting on the couch next to a pretty blonde. I was shocked.

  “Isn’t that Paul?” Mary asked me.

  “Yeah.” I said thinking that he had come to surprise me when I saw him kiss her. On the mouth. The same way he kissed me, two small kisses followed by one big one. I grabbed Mary’s beer and drank it along with two Fogcutters and then took the train back to the dorms with Mary and a couple of our friends and spent the night watching bad movies drinking, eating greasy food and passing me between them to cry on their shoulders. There were no curfews, nowhere we had to be, no parents looking for us, they all spent the night curled up in the bedroom and on the floor in the sitting area and slept in until late afternoon. I woke up with a swollen face, puffy red eyes and a killer hangover.

  Everything hurt.

  I didn’t want to move, to get up, I just wanted to lay on my bed and die. It hurt worse than that time I fell out of tree and broke my arm. It was a dull constant ache that left me raw and open with every single breath. I wandered into the room stepping over a few sleeping bodies out into the hallway. Mary followed me a few seconds later.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Mary asked me?

  “I’m going for a coffee run,” I said.

  “You should let me do that,” Mary said.

  “No I need to go out,” I said trying and failing to ignore the w
atery sound my voice was making.

  “Yeah,” Mary said slowly, “But have you looked at yourself?”

  I hadn’t.

  I looked awful, my makeup was smeared all over my face, my lipstick looked like a crazy clowns and my eyes looked like a racoons and streaking down my face from all of my crying and rubbing my eyes.

  I started crying again.

  “How could he do that to me?” I asked Mary as she hugged me.

  “I don’t know Susie. I’m so sorry,” she said. “I know you loved him, but he’s an asshole.”

  “I loved him.” I whispered.

  “Maybe he was seeing her on the side,” Mary said softly. “Maybe he was planning to break up with you?”

  “Things were good between us,” I said. “We were happy.”

  I washed up and then went out for coffee.

  ***

  Paul showed up later that night with two boxes of takeout and a big shit eating grin. I kept my arm on the door.

  “Hey Susie,” he said. “I don’t know what you wanted, you weren’t answering any of my texts so I just got some italian food.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked him.

  “What do you mean?” he asked me confused.

  “Queens, the party last night, you and that blonde.” I said angrily.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about I wasn’t with anyone else ,” he said with a small grin.

  “I guess you didn’t see me,” I said. “That’s okay because I saw you, you fucking asshole.”

  “Look can I come in and we can talk about it.” he said quietly looking over his shoulder.

  “No, no you can’t come in. You said you were going to be in the Bronx, you said you were going to see your grandparents. That your, your parents were dead.” my eyes were burning. “And you were lying, what else did you lie about?” I asked.

  “Are your parents even dead?” I asked him, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

  “Jesus Christ Susie of course they are I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”