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Chapter Thirteen

Sarah

I decide to go with a white dress with pink flowers for my birthday party. And I put on more pink eyeshadow than normal, and some glitter on my cheeks, because I am the birthday girl, after all, and I can’t say that that’s ever really meant anything to me.

But Dallas says it’s a big deal for me to turn twenty-one, and so I’m going to treat it like a big deal.

Maybe I’ll even order a drink.

A pink one.

I smile a little bit as I think about that.

I walk out into the living room where Dallas is standing, wearing a black T-shirt and blue jeans, a black cowboy hat.

His shoulders are broad, so is his chest, his waist narrow.

He’s a solid wall of muscle. I already know that from all the times I’ve hugged him.

His body is warm, and I remember the heat from when he fell asleep on my lap the other night.

I remember how it feels to be pressed up against him. I look down at his hands.

I’ve associated a man’s hands with pain for a long time. Pain and fear and disgust. But when I look at Dallas’, I don’t feel any of that. I imagine what they would look like, big hands gripping the fabric of my white dress.

No. I shove the thoughts away, and I smile.

“I’m ready for my party.”

“Good,” he says. His eyes flick over me, like he’s looking at something mundane. I can’t read the expression on his face, but it’s almost like he’s trying to be too casual, and I’m not sure why I think that.

“Ready to go?”

“Yes,” I say.

We get into the truck, and as I’m buckling, I look over my left shoulder and spot a platter covered with a tall, metal lid.

“What’s that?”

“A surprise,” he says.

“A surprise ? I get a surprise?”

“Yeah. Because it’s your birthday.”

“Well, that’s nice.” I see a little package back there too, with a pink ribbon on it, and I’m secretly pleased that the ribbon is pink because it is my favorite color, even though I try to pretend that it isn’t.

Because just like in my little fantasy where I think about Dallas and I meeting at school, I sometimes imagine who I would be if I didn’t have to be tough.

If I didn’t learn that being a girl is dangerous.

If it hadn’t made me hate the things about me that were feminine or soft.

I think I would really like everything to be pink.

I’ve really embraced the summer dress, because in recent years I’ve tried to disentangle my hatred and loathing about the past from the way that I feel about my body, from the way that I feel about clothing, but there are still things that linger, I wonder who I would be if I felt like I had the freedom to be feminine and pretty all the time.

To experiment with makeup and high heels.

To look sexy, even. I can honestly say I’ve never attempted it.

He pulls the truck up to the curb, I get out and so does he, collecting the pan, and placing the little present on top.

“Come on,” he says.

And then we walk into the bar together. The bar is a funky place, styled like an old-fashioned saloon, with a large liquor cabinet behind the glossy bar top that looks ancient.

“Laz,” he says, greeting the tall man behind the counter, with a big smile and a pine tree tattoo on his forearm. “Good to see you.”

“Good to see you too, Dallas.

“This is my friend Sarah. It’s her twenty-first birthday.”

“Oh well, we’ll have some drinks on the house for the birthday girl.”

I smile, because the attention doesn’t feel creepy or wrong. And maybe some of that is because he has a bright gold wedding band on his left hand, but it just feels friendly, and I feel safe because I’m with Dallas.

“You can think about what you want,” I say.

“Something… Fruity?”

“That sounds good,” Dallas says.

“I don’t know. I’m probably the only person with a background as sketchy as ours who didn’t do any underage drinking.”

Dallas looks at me. “Probably.”

We go over to a table in the corner, where he sets all the things down. “Why didn’t you drink?”

“I always felt like I needed to be in control. ”

“Fair enough. You don’t have to be in control tonight, though. I am your designated driver for the evening. And I’ll be taking care of you. You can do whatever you want.”

I’m about to demand a cake reveal when Colt, Allison, and two people I’ve never met walk into the bar as a group. They see Dallas, though, and smile and wave.

“Hey, Sarah,” he says. “This is Gentry and Lily. And you already know Colt and Allison.”

“Hi,” I say.

“We’re just doing the very important work of deciding what Sarah is going to have for her first drink.

“Well, that’s very important,” Lily says.

“I had Laz make me a strawberry daiquiri,” Allison says. “My birthday was three months ago.”

“Is that sweet, and is it pink?”

“Yes and yes.”

“Then I guess I’ll have that.”

“I’ll order for you,” Allison offers cheerfully.

“Dallas,” I say, elbowing him. “Show me the cake.”

He looks a little sheepish, then hesitant, but pulls the cover off the cake, revealing quite possibly the most garish, hideous thing I’ve ever seen.

The frosting is dripping, the top layer is sliding slightly to the left, and there’s too much of the pink sugar glitter, with larger, rounder pearls that seem to have been placed on top of the cake at random.

I know instantly that he made it himself.

I also know that it’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever been given.

In spite of myself and all my prickles, my eyes fill with tears.

“Dallas,” I whisper.

Colt turns away from the bar, two beers in his hand, and comes over to the table. “Where did you have that made? I’ll make a note to never go there.”

“I made it,” Dallas says.

“Oh,” says Colt. “Well. It’s nice.”

“Fuck you.” Dallas scowls.

“You made that for her?” Allison asks. “That is so sweet.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet ,” says Lily.

“It’s an ugly cake, guys.” Colt is being honest, but mean.

“It’s sweet,” says Lily. “No man has ever made a cake for me.”

“Me either.”

“No man has ever gone on a date with you,” Gentry says to his younger sister.

“Rude,” says Allison.

Now I’m wondering what’s in the gift box.

I can’t begin to guess because I don’t have a gauge for the kind of gift Dallas would buy. Well, not what adult Dallas might buy.

I can remember him getting me a bracelet out of one of those little machines you put a quarter in and you get a little plastic ball with a trinket inside. He was so proud that he got that for me, and I treasured it, until another kid who lived with us broke it.

She took delight in it. Like crushing something that I loved might heal something inside of her.

I punched her in the face.

I don’t know whether to cry, smile or shrug at the memory. It’s one of many just like it. We’ve lived a life full of bright little moments in the middle of a lot of sad things. Living around the sad things that other people are grappling with, and it makes for a lot of complicated memories .

I’m tired of complicated. Sometimes it feels like all I’ll ever be is a tangle of knots I can’t undo.

Well. That’s a cheery birthday thought. The alcohol is seeming like a better and better idea as time ticks by and I start getting lost in my thoughts.

My drink arrives, and I’m excited by it. I sip, and the buzz goes to my head. It isn’t the law that’s kept me from drinking, it’s my fear of losing control. On what it could mean for me. But I feel safe here. With him, with his friends. It almost makes me giddy.

The other girls order drinks, and for a minute there, I feel like I might be normal.

The more I drink, the more I feel normal . The more all of those tangled, knotted, complex memories fade into something diffused. They’re not so sharp. They don’t have any power over me.

There’s music playing on the jukebox, and I stand up, shimmying my shoulders. I have terrible rhythm even when sober, and now, edging toward tipsy, I know that it isn’t improved. “Care to dance?”

I turn and see Colt standing there, handsome and offering, and why not?

Why not ?

Yes, normally, a man’s touch would make me recoil.

But I want to change that. I want to change me .

So, I take his offered hand, and it’s fine.

Everything is okay. I’m not panicked. My body is loose, and I feel good.

This is how things should be. You should feel good more often than you feel bad. You should be happy.

You should be able to go out with friends and have a good time, and have a birthday party. All things that I’ve never been able to do. God, I want it .

I want this to be fun .

So, I let him twirl me in a circle, and I laugh when he draws me up against his chest, facing away from him as we sway, and he spins me out again, and I twirl in a circle like I am the birthday queen, and I really would like to be.

The song slows down, and he brings me close, and there is a slight difference in the way he’s looking at me now. If I wanted to sleep with him, I think I could. But maybe I should start with smaller goals.

Maybe I should just think in terms of a kiss.

A kiss wouldn’t be so bad.

I feel a little bit sorry for him, because he’s more guinea pig than man to me.

An experiment more than an object of my desire.

But my inhibitions are loosened, and I like the way I feel.

My motives might not be pure, but then, maybe his aren’t either.

He’s a man who’s free with his favors, as far as I’m aware, as far as everyone has led me to believe, so it doesn’t need to mean anything to him.

And that, I feel, is a good thing for me.

He puts his hand on my face, and I don’t hate it.

“Hey,” Dallas says, suddenly breaking the spell. Breaking through the haze. “You should come eat some cake.”

He’s sitting at the table, half a bar away from us, shouting like a fool. And I know he’s sober because he’s the designated driver.

“Right now?” I ask.

“Yeah, you better go have it,” Colt says, releasing his hold on me, his expression wary. “I don’t want to have a bar fight.”