We Fell Apart: A We Were Liars Novel(56)
For a moment, I feel simply happy. Nothing else. I’m just a girl who’s fallen for a boy who’s fallen for her, a girl with an actual date that night, going to see a band she likes.
50
Riding behind Tatum on the scooter is very different from when I rode behind him before.
Through the canvas of his jacket, I feel the muscles of his waist shift as he leans into a turn. I’m conscious of my knees touching his legs and the heft of his shoulder as I look over it onto the road.
The Wooden Cage show is on the main street of Oak Bluffs. We lock our helmets to the scooter and stroll down the block, which is busy with tourists on this summer evening. The movie theater is showing Jaws. Tatum tells me they screen it every year.
People walk with ice cream cones. Some teenagers are standing in front of a pizza place, just hanging around like teenagers do pretty much everywhere in the world. A couple of them say hi to Tatum, and he nods, but we don’t stop.
The place we’re going is a bar. I put my hand on his arm. “I don’t have an ID. Did you think I had a fake ID?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t worry. I’ve known the guy who works the door for years. He coaches the high school soccer team. And the woman behind the bar was a chaperone for away games.”
“You played soccer?”
“Uh-huh. Did you think I lived under a rock?”
“I thought you lived in the castle. And followed the castle suggestions.”
“There’s never been a suggestion that you shouldn’t play soccer,” says Tatum, laughing. “Anyway. They won’t serve us alcohol, but when there’s a good band, they kinda look the other way and let the local kids in.”
“Why don’t you talk to your old friends from high school?” I blurt.
“I talk to them. We literally just said hello back there.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t.”
“You used to play soccer, you used to have a girlfriend. There are pictures on your wall. But you don’t seem to see anyone anymore.”
“You know I’m antisocial.”
“I don’t think you are, actually.”
“You’ve changed your mind?”
“I saw you with Holland and her friends. You didn’t hang back, you talked to all of them. You weren’t even shy.”
He half laughs and reaches for my hand. “I’m not shy.”
“So why didn’t you want to see those girls again?”
“I’m just not that into them.”
“You said ‘absolutely not.’?”
He gives my hand a squeeze. “I have big opinions. We’re not always going to agree. We might never, ever agree.”
That’s true. We walk in silence for a moment. “But, Tatum,” I say, persisting, “you must know a ton of people on this island. Meer said you do. Why don’t you see any of them on purpose? At all?”
He stops and looks down at me. We’re under a streetlight. People walk by us, talking and laughing. “Can I kiss you?” he asks.
“You don’t have to ask.”
He bends down and touches his lips to mine, very gently. Then he says, so low that only I could possibly hear it, “June doesn’t want me to.”
“June? This is about June?”
“She has a good reason. And I literally owe her my life. I’m so sorry, Matilda, but can we leave it at that for now?”
“How come?”
“Because I’m asking you to. Please. Can we just go hear this band, and have this night, you and me, without worrying about anything else? Just tonight?”
I nod.
He kisses me again and then pulls me through the door into the venue.
* * *
—
It’s crowded. We hang our jackets on hooks. The room is hot.
The opening band is already playing.
Like the big-city kid I am, I drag Tatum through the crowd till we’re near the front, and then we are lost in the music. It thrums through the floorboards and into our veins. Wooden Cage comes on and they’re larger than life, beautiful and sweaty, their voices hoarser and looser than they are on the albums.
The hot skin of Tatum’s arm brushes mine as we dance and jump and sway and shout with the crowd.
He laces his fingers in mine.
When the show is over, we go out into the cold air. We’ve forgotten our jackets and have to run back inside for them.
The street is quiet now.
I catch Tatum at the back of his neck and pull him down to me, standing on tiptoe so my lips can meet his. The world disappears and it doesn’t matter what he’s not telling me, because his kiss is so full of possibility and devotion and affection
and curiosity.
It’s sure and electric, like
slaughtering everyone on a boss level when you’re really in a flow, and like eating a peach pie someone made for you because they know you love it, and like swimming in a turbulent ocean but knowing it could never hurt you.
51
Tatum has an early pickup to do in the taxi-van tomorrow, six a.m., so I kiss him good night, pressed up against the wall in the living room at Hidden Beach. I know I should let him go, should let him sleep, but I feel like there is no way I can tear myself away from him.