The Anti-Virginity Pact Page 9

  Papa nods his approval as I slip past Maman, hook my hand through Sam’s elbow, and try to escape out the door.

  “Wait! Hold on!” Maman hurries forward. I swear if she whips out a camera and asks us to pose, I will drop dead. Mercifully, she just takes the flowers from Sam. “We need to put these in some water. And where are you kids headed?”

  “He isn’t telling me. It’s a surprise, Maman.” I widen my eyes and tilt my head to the side. “You don’t want to ruin the surprise, do you?”

  She doesn’t take the hint. “Well, he can tell me.” She leans her ear conspiratorially towards Sam.

  “We’re leaving,” I announce and pull Sam out the door.

  He glances at them over his shoulder and issues a polite goodbye before turning to me, unable to suppress his grin. “Your parents—”

  “Don’t even say it.”

  He opens the passenger door for me before hurrying around to his side and starting the car.

  “You really won’t tell me where we’re going?” I ask.

  “Nope,” he says cheerfully, pats his jean pockets as if checking to see if he forgot anything, and pulls out of the neighborhood.

  We catch the tail-end of the sunset as we drive, the last few tendrils of burnt orange slowly fading behind the mountains. Sam turns the radio on at a soft volume, and for several highway exits, neither of us says a word. Usually, this would ignite a furious anxious cycle in my head as I desperately searched for something to say, but it’s actually sort of comfortable. And there’s something about not feeling the pressure to fill the silence that makes the muscles in my shoulders relax, just a bit.

  Eventually, Sam pulls off the highway, and several turns later, we end up on a bumpy dirt road that jostles the car so much, I have to brace a hand against the door.

  I try to peer out the window, but there isn’t much to see, just empty land and darkness. “Are you sure this is the way…?”

  “I promise I’m not taking you out into the middle of nowhere to kill you.”

  I throw my hands up. “Well, I hadn’t even thought of that until you said it.”

  He winks. “Don’t worry. We’re almost there.”

  The road leads to a gigantic plot of land, mostly dirt with clusters of weeds, where a dozen or so cars are already parked. Thick green trees line the perimeter, and at the front hangs a large white tarp. A small booth covered in string lights sits at the opposite side of the lot, and I press my face against the glass, trying to get a better view, when Sam pulls up to a small booth sitting to the left of the entrance and rolls down his window.

  The man inside is wearing a bright red hat, and he leans forward with a toothy smile when we pull up. “Two?”

  “Already got them.” Sam digs in his pocket and offers the man two crumpled ticket stubs.

  The man tips his hat. “Welcome! Just make sure you actually park in one of the spots.” He grins again and waves us in.

  Sam pulls up near the front, but a decent distance away from the rest of the cars. As he backs into the spot, he glances over at me. “So, what do you think?”

  I turn around to see the people in the car diagonally in front of us hop out and make their way across the lot to the concession stand. The sun is tucked beneath the mountains in front of us now, the smallest hints of orange still lingering in the sky. When the breeze picks up, the white tarp sways a bit.

  My cheeks ache with the force of my smile. I can’t help but feel like I’m in some sixties romcom. “I love it,” I say. “I’ve never been to one of these before.”

  “This one is a little more rundown than the places closer to town, but it’s a lot better.”

  I hadn’t thought it seemed run down in the first place, but it’s not like I had anything to compare it to. “Why is it better?”

  He just winks and hops out of the car. “You’ll see.”

  I stare at him in confusion. “Isn’t the point of a drive-in to stay in the car?”

  He rolls his eyes and nods his head to the side. “Come on.”

  I get out and follow him around to the back of the car, where he pops the trunk. The SUV’s backseat is flattened out, exposing an array of blankets and mismatched pillows. A small battery-operated lantern sits in the center beside a picnic basket.

  I look at him, surely wide-eyed. “Damn. You went all out.”

  He gestures forward and bows his head with a sideways smirk. “After you, my lady.”

  I curtsey—I actually freaking curtsey—and hop up. Sam climbs in after me as I crawl to the back and prop myself up on the pillows and throw a blanket over my lap.

  “I hope you’re hungry.” He wedges the picnic basket between us and pulls out a bag of tortilla chips and a container of queso. “I believe someone here said she likes nachos.”

  I laugh and cover my face with my hands. “I can’t believe you remembered that.”

  As we set up our plates and get situated among the blankets and pillows, the lot begins to fill with cars and the sky finally shifts to black. I smile as the stars begin to poke through the darkness. I can see now why Sam chose this drive-in. It’s so far removed from the city that the light pollution doesn’t reach us, and you can see—I mean really see—the stars.

  When I finally look away, I catch Sam staring at me.

  “Worth the drive?” he asks.

  I blush for no apparent reason. Hopefully it’s too dark for him to notice. “Definitely.”

  I am hyperaware that the following silence is not as comfortable as it was in the car. I keep staring straight ahead at the screen, even though nothing is being projected on it yet, and nibble quietly on my chips. I accidentally swallow too large of a chunk, and the chip’s pointy edge stabs the inside of my throat. Now I can feel all of my usual tells starting to creep up on me: the clammy palms, dry mouth, heart thudding dramatically against my ribs no matter how calm my mind is and how rationally I try to reason with my body to calm the fuck down. I need to start talking or this is only going to get worse.

  “So, I have a question,” I blurt.

  Sam props a pillow against the side of the car so he can lean against it and face me. He sets his plate off to the side. “Fire away.”

  “At the coffee shop, we only really talked about me,” I venture. “I didn’t have the chance to ask what you’ve been up to the past seven years.”

  Sam raises his eyebrows and blows the air out of his cheeks. “Well. When I was eleven, I ran for student council. And lost. It was rigged. When I was twelve, my father made me join a soccer league, and there were three other Sams on the team, and since my hair was rather long back then, they all took to calling me Samantha—”

  I nudge his leg with mine. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I! The nickname stuck until I was fifteen—”

  “Sam.”

  “Fine,” he sighs and leans his head back against the window. “What do you want to know?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know? What are your hobbies?”

  “I like to write,” he says matter-of-factly.

  “Writing?” I ask, surprised. “What kind of writing?”

  “Anything, really. Short stories, that kind of thing. I was thinking about maybe going to college for writing, but my dad wants me to do something else. Anything else.” He laughs humorlessly. “All he cares about is me finding a job that pays well.”

  “Do you ever let anyone read your stuff?”

  “Not yet. I want to make sure it’s good first.” He sighs and rakes his hand through his hair. He stares off toward the still-blank screen, sucking the corners of his mouth in. “I just get so frustrated with myself, like maybe I’m trying too hard, and that’s why my writing doesn’t come out the way I want it to sound. It’s like…” He turns back to me, gesturing widely with his hands as he talks. “Have you ever read a really good book, and it’s like magic? It’s so well-written that reading it feels like listening to your favorite song?”


  I nod, because I actually have no idea what he’s talking about, but I want him to keep talking.

  “That’s the frustrating part. I’ve been trying so hard to achieve that. I just want my writing to be great and unique, to find something worthwhile to say. Sometimes, it feels like my own passion for it is eating away at me—like it’s in this cage in my chest, rattling the bars, desperate to get out.” He leans back against the window and shakes his head. “The problem is, I’ve been trying to dissect and recreate magic, and you just can’t. You can’t make magic. It’s like when you’re looking for magic, it disappears. I don’t know. It just feels like I could be a good writer, but exactly what I want to say is out of reach.”

  “Do you know anything about physics?” I ask.

  “Physics?”

  “Yeah.” I shrug, suddenly self-conscious. “What you’re describing sounds like this energy principle—that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. And there’s this other one, where if you try to observe electrons, their behavior changes. The very act of trying to observe it changes what you’re looking for.”

  “That’s exactly it!” He grins and shakes his head once. “Wow. Yeah. I’m totally stealing that comparison.” He laughs and fishes some more queso out of the container. “It just feels like the more I try to breathe life into it, the more it falls flat. Sorry, didn’t mean for that to turn into a Ted Talk.”

  “I think if you write as well as you just explained that to me, then it’s probably a lot better than you think, Sam.”

  He cracks half a smile. “Don’t mistake my psycho babbling for actual talent.”

  I laugh. “Spoken like a true tortured artist.”

  “Tortured because the art is le garbage.” He winces. “That didn’t sound French.”

  “Des ordures,” I correct. “And it sounds to me like the only way to know if it’s actually le garbage is to let me read it.”

  “You’d want to?” he asks.

  I can feel the blush creeping back. “I’d love to.”

  “Well,” he says, his expression suddenly serious. “You’ll have to prove your trustworthiness first.”

  My jaw drops open. “You don’t think I’m trustworthy?”

  He just twists his mouth to the side and shakes his head.

  I throw a pillow at him. “I’m still not sure you haven’t brought me all the way out here just to murder me yet.”

  He props the pillow behind his head. “Well, I guess if that’s the case you’ll find out soon enough, won’t you?”

  When the movie starts, we move the picnic basket and lantern to the front seats to get them out of the way and position ourselves so we’re facing the screen. Now that it’s getting later, the temperature is noticeably dipping. A chilly night breeze drifts through the open trunk, so Sam and I sit side-by-side, propped up with pillows, and share the two blankets. They’re plaid and warm, and have the distinct scent of his aftershave.

  Our legs are pressed against each other beneath the blanket.

  I am hyperaware of this fact, even long into the film. My entire body is tense with nerves no matter how many times I order it to relax. It’s like my body is betraying me, like it’s determined to sabotage this situation.

  “Are you cold?” Sam asks.

  “Just a little. I’m fine.”

  “Here.” He wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me against his side. Immediately his body heat relieves the wind’s bite, and he leaves his arm around me. I feel the stupid urge to grin and try to relax against his side.

  “Since you got your question, does that mean I’m allowed one?” he asks.

  I consider this. “One.”

  “You wanted to skip your dad’s service last week.”

  I can feel him looking at me, but I keep my gaze trained on the screen. “That doesn’t sound like a question.”

  “I’m not going to lie, I was really surprised. I don’t think it’s any secret that the only reason I go is because of my dad, but you…I don’t know. I always thought you were really into that kind of stuff.”

  “My family is,” I concede.

  “And you’re…not?”

  I finally risk a look in his direction. His expression is curious, if a little serious, but there doesn’t seem to be any judgement in his eyes. “You want to talk religion on the first date?” I ask with a laugh.

  He shrugs, smiles a little. “I’m just trying to understand you. You’re really different from the girl I used to know—and don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m definitely not the guy I used to be. I just want to know who you are now. And I’m guessing this is probably a big part of it. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

  How he managed to nail me in so little time together, I have no idea. “If you really wanna know, I was twelve when I started having doubts,” I find myself saying—it almost feels like an out-of-body experience, like someone else is saying the words that I’ve never managed to speak aloud. I start talking faster, trying to rid myself of the words before I can talk myself out of it. “And by the time I reached high school, I didn’t just doubt what I’d been taught; I disagreed with it. And I guess now that I’m older, and I’ve started to see religion in the context of the outside world, I just have more and more contempt for it. I hate how narrow-minded it can make people. How it breeds judgement and hatred and superiority complexes.”

  I pause, gauging his reaction. There’s no disgust in his expression, so I guess that’s a good sign. He just waits for me to continue, his head cocked in that oddly endearing way of his.

  More than anything, I’m surprised he’s listening. Not just listening as a courtesy, but actually listening, listening. And it’s unnerving, knowing I could just keep talking and no one would stop me. No one would interrupt me or talk over me.

  Because when you’re quiet, you learn to speak in short, fast sentences, because you’re not sure how long people will listen to you. You get the words out as quickly as you can—sometimes so quickly, they start to slur and trip over each other, just so you won’t have to be the center of attention for too long.

  But this isn’t like that. I have the floor. And I have a boy looking at me like he wants to hear what I have to say, no matter how long it takes me to say it.

  It’s equally terrifying and thrilling.

  “Whenever people quote scripture at me,” I continue. “I feel like they’re trying to shove religion down my throat. Honestly, it makes me feel like I’m suffocating. Like everyone is always trying to force these beliefs on me that I just don’t have. All my life, everyone has acted like what they believe is the only right thing to believe. But I’ve never understood why their beliefs are automatically more correct than mine. Why do I have to believe the way they want me to? Why am I going to hell just because I believe differently? For all the reasons Christians don’t believe in the gods of other religions, why can’t those be the reasons I don’t believe in their god? There’s no proof, and I guess I’m just not the kind of person who can believe on faith alone. And whenever I asked questions in Sunday school, my teachers would look at me like there was something wrong with me for not believing blindly.”

  I take a deep breath. The more I say, the more words seem to bubble up in my stomach, desperate to break the surface. I’ve suppressed them for so long, it’s like they’re jumping at their opportunity for freedom. That all too familiar self-consciousness comes crashing back, and the silence suddenly feels much heavier in the wake of my words. “Sorry,” I say, staring at my hands in my lap. “I’m ranting.”

  “No,” Sam shakes his head, a thoughtful expression on his face. “It’s okay. I get what you’re saying. Completely.”

  “I’ve never been able to talk about this with anyone before,” I say quietly.

  “You’ve never talked to anyone about it?”

  Shrugging, I look away. “Johanna, my best friend, she kind of knows. She kno
ws I don’t believe like my parents do, but that’s pretty much it. It’s just not something we really talk about, you know?”

  “And your parents? Do you think you’d ever tell them?”

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “I’d like to think that someday they’ll be willing to hear it, but they’re just so far into their religion, like it’s some kind of hole in the ground, and they can’t see anything outside of it anymore. I think I’m just better off not telling them. If I do, I’ll get exactly what I’m trying to avoid.”

  “So, you don’t believe in it?” Sam asks. “Any of it?”

  “I believe in science,” is all I say.

  He nods a few times, gaze trained on the screen, mouth set in a way that tells me he’s thinking pretty hard about something.

  “What about you?” I ask, suddenly self-conscious for talking so much.

  He nods his head thoughtfully and takes a deep breath. “A part of me wants to. I can see the appeal of there being a greater plan, a purpose. Of there being someone watching over me.”

  I wait.

  He shrugs. “But I don’t know. I just can’t get the logical part of my brain to shut off. I go to church for my dad’s sake. He needs that faith. It’s what gets him through the day. My mom left more than ten years ago, but he’s still not over it. And even though I don’t agree with him, I have nothing against him believing in God, if it helps him. He has every right to believe whatever he wants to believe.”

  Sam twists so he’s sitting next to me again, his arm pressed against mine. “So, is this the most dysfunctional first date you’ve ever been on, or what?” he laughs. “Grease and religious discussions in the trunk of a car.”

  I let out a long, shaky breath that sort of sounds like a laugh. “I wouldn’t know, actually. I don’t really have anything to compare it to.”

  His eyebrows shoot up. “Really? None?”

  I shrug, my cheeks flooding with heat. “Nope.”

  He considers this for a second. “Well, I should probably try to redeem it for you then, shouldn’t I?”

  Before I can respond, he leans over and takes my face with both hands. He pauses, our noses almost touching, his eyes searching mine. When I don’t pull away, he closes the rest of the distance between us.