We needed something, I thought. A thing we could do to show we hadn’t meant to hurt each other. On impulse, I flicked his earlobe. He jumped so hard the table rattled, and I laughed.
“By the way,” I said, “we’re officially friends now.”
I was waiting at his car when he came out. Most teachers stay late on Friday, catching up on papers, making plans to hit the bars together. Mr. Wilke headed for his car exactly fifteen minutes after the last bell.
I could tell when he saw me, the hitch in his step, the quick, guilty scan for witnesses. In the student lot kids yelled and honked as they took off for the weekend, but the faculty lot was quiet. I sat on the hood of his car, one foot propped on the fender beside it. A tiny, distorted version of myself swirled in the hubcap chrome: a Southern Snow White, all skim milk legs below my cutoffs, red toenails and sandals. The silver sky wrinkled with storm clouds.
He stopped in front of the hood. His hand tightened on the strap of his messenger bag, his knuckles white spurs.
“Do you need to talk?” he said in a muted voice.
I shook my head, slowly.
His chest rose and fell with a deep breath. He went to the driver side, unlocked it. Stood there unmoving.
“We can’t do this,” he said, but it sounded like he was talking to himself.
I hopped off the hood and he got in the car. But he just sat there, keys glinting in a limp hand. Then he turned and looked at me through the passenger window.
My eyes skipped to the dashboard. Somehow, in my daze, I hadn’t noticed it. The stupid velvet pony with its too-human eyes. I looked back at Mr. Wilke.
There was something very boyish about him at that moment, despite the five o’clock shadow, the blue rivers of veins mapping the back of his hand, the entire adult world he was part of. He looked lost. Maybe it was hypocritical, but the boyishness I barely tolerated in guys my age was exactly what drew me to him. He was like me: not fully part of the adult or child world. An exile, watching wistfully from the outside.
Something sharp and cold struck my shoulder.
A car drove past, a face turning to us.
We were utterly still.
Another icy dagger, this time hitting the crown of my head.
Then it all came at once, the sky exploding into water.
Thank you Jesus.
Mr. Wilke sat there watching me. He didn’t take his eyes off mine for a second, even when my hair plastered itself to my face and my shirt turned to cling film, and I stood motionless, expressionless, knowing I was going to win.
He leaned over and opened the door.
I got in.
Rain drummed on metal, a hundred wild heartbeats surrounding us. Mist came off my skin as if I was some ethereal creature. Our bodies faced forward, our faces angled toward each other.
“You kept it,” I said.
A long pause before he said, “It smelled like you.”
Everything solid in me evaporated, leaving only breath. I weighed nothing.
He started the car. I felt the engine rumble in my belly. I was a very thin, transparent piece of skin, everything going right through me. A sheet of nerve endings. I pressed my palms to the seat and drank in the smell: the old leather of the seats, the new leather of his skin, and, startlingly, me. My presence suffused his car. Rain and orange oil, the creamy body lotion that was coming off on the seat. I wiped wet hair out of my face and Mr. Wilke caught my hand.
I waited, wide-eyed, ready for anything.
His fingers curled around mine, painfully. His whole arm was rigid. Tension corded up into his neck, his jaw.
No words. Just that crushing grip.
He let go.
“Where do you live?”
It rained ruthlessly. I had no sense of time passing, of moving through space, only the zircon curtain clattering against the windows and the heat of his body so close to mine. I knew he was barely paying attention either because he almost ran a red. He slammed the brakes so hard the tires screeched and I caught myself on the dashboard, his arm tangling with mine.
“Killing us both is one way to solve it,” I said.
He drove more carefully, his hands strangling the wheel.
The closer we got to my street, the faster something accelerated inside of me, a terrifying urgency. How could I stall? How could I wring more out of this moment before it was over?
He parked several houses down from mine. I didn’t tell him to, and there was room in front of my house. My heart stuttered.
Car interior. Afternoon, heavy rain. Two people turn to each other. Raindrops crawl over the windows and paint shadows across their faces.
Action.
“Evan,” I said.
It was the first time I’d said his name since that night. It hit him like an electric shock, opening his eyes wider, stiffening his muscles. There was power in it and I wanted to play with that power. But not yet.
“I’m sorry I left that night,” I said.
Him and the pony looked at me sadly. I felt a childish urge to hug it.
“Why did you go?” he said.
There was no choice here of putting on the armor. This man had already seen the real me.
“Because I was scared,” I said. “Because you made me feel like being myself wasn’t such a bad thing. Like it might even be special. I didn’t know how to deal with it, and I panicked.”
I grimaced, hearing my words.
“This sounds stupid.”
My left hand lay on the seat. He covered it with his.
“No, it doesn’t. You’re being honest, so I’ll be honest, too.” His fingers contracted. “This feels wrong, Maise. I’m your teacher. It’s not just about getting caught. It’s how our lives will get screwed up even if no one finds out. Sneaking around, secrecy, paranoia—”