Page 39 of Eighteen (18)

“Do I have a choice?”

“Do you think you don’t?”

I do, I realize. I could’ve walked out at any point today. I could’ve stopped this before it got started if I wanted to. But I don’t want to. “I’ll come back.”

“We’re really not going to fuck again until you pass a test.”

“I hope you’re a good teacher then. Because I could get used to this side of you.”

“What side?”

“The quiet side. I don’t get enough quiet in my life.”

“Mmmm,” he says, but it’s more of a question. “Your teenage problems are typical? Or atypical?”

I think about this for a moment. I was going to immediately say atypical, but it’s a thoughtful question, so it deserves a thoughtful answer. “My mom died a year and a half ago and my sister Jill got custody of me because I was already seventeen. She wanted to move to California. See the world, take a risk, become new people.”

“Did you hate the people you were?” he asks.

“I didn’t. But I guess she did.”

“Then what happened?”

“We bounced around, Escondido first, then San Diego. We always lived with her boyfriends. But then she got pregnant by Jason, my-brother-in-law who I live with now. And we moved up here with him after the baby was born. But she OD’d the day after we moved in. Left me with him, and him with the baby. Olivia’s three months old now.”

“I think that counts as atypical.”

“Me too,” I say, but it comes out filled with sadness.

Mateo drops the strand of hair and just uses his fingers to caress my back. It feels so good, I can’t even find a word for it. We sit there in silence for a long time and I wonder if he’s thinking about me and my sad situation or something else.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Shannon.”

“Are you hurting me?”

“Am I?”

I shake my head into his chest. “I—” But I have so much I want to say and no good way to let it out. “You’re not hurting me.”

More silence. I’d like to ask about him back. Learn a little more, see a little deeper. Why is he so weird? Why does he like young girls? Why me, mostly. But when I open my eyes I see the stars.

“Why stars?” I ask instead.

“Astronomy, remember?”

“You love them?”

“How could anyone not love them? They’re filled with the mysteries of the universe. When I was a kid I read this book about a star who came to Earth reincarnated as a dog.”

I huff out a laugh. “I know that book. Dogsbody.”

“Yeah,” he says. I can feel the smile in his heartbeat. “And it made me wonder if the stars knew all the answers. Because it really bugged me that I’d grow old and never know those secrets. So even though I am nothing but a good test-taker myself, I taught myself math so I could teach myself science. And I’ve spent the last twenty fucking years trying to get close to them.”

“That’s why you put stars all over your body? To be close to them?”

He nods. “Turn around and look up.”

I force my satiated body to turn so my back is against his chest. He eases us up a little so we’re semi-sitting.