Autoboyography
Page 54

This seems to pull my guilt right up to the surface, and the words tumble out. “When I came over, I never meant . . .” I swipe at a tear and try to start over. “I didn’t mean for . . . that to happen. I was hurt and not thinking straight, and I never meant to take advantage of you and—”
Autumn holds up her hand to stop me. “Wait. Before you go all noble on me, I get to talk.”
I nod. I’m breathing so hard, like I just ran ten miles to get here. “Okay.”
“When I woke up this morning, I thought it had been a dream.” She says this with her eyes fixed on her lap, her fingers toying with the ribbon tie at her waistband. “I thought I’d dreamed you came over and that we did that.” She laughs and looks up at me. “I’ve dreamed about it before.”
I don’t know what to say. It’s not that I’m surprised exactly, but Autumn’s attraction to me was always some abstract concept, nothing solid, no foundation to make it last.
“Oh.”
Which is probably not a great response.
She reaches up and twists the end of her braid around her finger until the skin turns white. “I know you’re going to tell me that you took advantage of me, and I guess . . . in a way, you did. But it wasn’t only you. I wasn’t lying when I said this whole thing with Sebastian was hard for me, Tann. For a few reasons. I think a part of you has always known some of it. Has known why.”
Autumn looks to me for confirmation, and I get this sick, slithering feeling in my chest. “I think that’s why it feels so terrible,” I say. “That’s the definition of taking advantage.”
“Yeah, okay”—she shakes her head—“but it’s not really that simple. Our relationship has changed so much these past few months, and I think I was still trying to figure it out. Figure you out.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you told me you were bi—and God, this makes me such a terrible person, but since there are literally no more secrets between us, I need to get it out. Okay?” I nod, and she pulls her legs to her chest, rests her chin on her knees. “I’m not sure I believed you at first. I had a moment where I thought, great, now I have to worry about girls and boys? But then I also thought maybe I could be the one to change your mind.”
“Oh,” I say again, not knowing how else to respond. She’s obviously not the first one to think bisexuality is about choice and not about the way you’re made, so I have a hard time faulting her for that. Especially now.
“You were so upset and just . . . I know you. I know how you react when you’re hurt. You dive into me, into your best friend safe space, and last night . . .” She bites a lip, chewing it as she thinks. “I pulled you over me. Maybe I took advantage too.”
“Auddy, no—”
“When you said that Sebastian didn’t love you, it’s like some fuse burned down in my chest.” Tears fill her eyes, and she shakes her head, trying to blink them away. “I was so mad at him. And then the worst part, how could you let him hurt you? It was so obvious.”
I don’t know why—I honestly don’t—but this makes me laugh. My first genuine laugh in what feels like days.
She reaches for me, pulling my head onto her shoulder. “Come here, idiot.”
I lean against her, and with the smell of her shampoo and the feel of her arm around my neck, a filmstrip of images blurs past me, and a quiet sob escapes. “Autumn, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry too,” she whispers. “I made you cheat.”
“We broke up though.”
“There has to be a mourning period.”
“I want to love you like that,” I admit.
She lets the words hang there, and I keep expecting it to thicken, to grow weird, but it doesn’t. “This will be in our rearview mirror soon.” She kisses my temple. It’s something her mother has said to her probably a thousand times. Right now Auddy sounds like a girl trying on wisdom, and it makes me squeeze her tighter.
“Are you okay?”
I feel her shrug. “Sore.”
“Sore,” I repeat slowly, trying to follow.
And then she laughs, self-consciously, and the brakes lay down a long scar of black in my mind.
How.
How did I forget?
How did it not even pop into my head for one goddamn second?
A sensation like my chest crumpling causes me to fall forward. “Auddy. Holy shit.”
She pushes back, trying to trap my face with her hands. “Tann—”
“Oh my God.” I duck down, putting my head between my knees so I don’t pass out. “You were a virgin. I knew you were. I knew, but—”
“No, no, it’s fi—”
I make some ghoulish moan, wanting—basically—to die on this couch, but Auddy smacks my arm, jerking me upright.
“Knock it off.”
“I am Satan.”
“Stop it.” She looks pissed, for the first time. “We were sober. You were upset. I was at home, doing homework, reading. I wasn’t out of my mind. I wasn’t intoxicated. I knew what was happening. I wanted it.”
I close my eyes. Come back, Statue Tanner. Listen to what she’s saying and nothing else.
“Okay?” she says, shaking me. “Give me some credit, and give yourself some while you’re at it. You were so sweet to me, and we were safe. That’s what matters.”
I shake my head. I remember tiny flashes. Most of it is this weird, emotional blur.
“I wanted it to be you,” she says. “You’re my best friend, and in some twisted way, it made sense that it would be you. Even if you were doing it to get out of your own head for a half hour”—I actually snort at this; it was definitely not a half hour, and she smacks me again, but I can see she’s smiling—“I’m the one you make that kind of mistake with. That person is me.”
“Really?”
“Really,” she says. Her eyes turn into these shining beacons of vulnerability, and I want to punch my own face. “Please don’t say you regret it. That would feel terrible.”
“I mean,” I begin, wanting to be honest, “I don’t know what to say to that. Do I sort of like that I was your first? Yeah.” She grins. “But that’s shitty, Auddy. It should be with . . .”
She raises an eyebrow, waiting skeptically.
“Yeah, not Eric,” I admit. “I don’t know. Someone who loves you like that. Who takes their time and stuff.”
“‘Who takes their time and stuff,’” she repeats. “Honestly, you’re so smooth, I have no idea why Sebastian broke up with you.”
I bark out a laugh that seems to die out into silence almost immediately.
“So we’re okay?” I ask, after a minute or so of quiet.
“I am.” Auddy runs her fingers through my hair. “Have you talked to him?”
I groan again. It’s like a revolving door of suck. I pass through the lobby of Terrible Best Friend Behavior and into the room of Heartache and Religious Bigotry. “He came by today to apologize.”
“So you’re back together?” I love her for the seed of hope in her voice.
“No.”
She makes a small sound of sympathy that reminds me how easily everything happened yesterday.
I think we both realize it at the same time. Autumn pulls her arm away, tucking her hands between her knees. I shift so that I’m sitting up. “I think he just wanted to own the way that he was sort of shitty about it. As much as I want to hate him, I don’t think he set out to hurt me.”