I want to grow up, be a woman. Run around the East Village wearing slip dresses, witch shoes and too much mascara. I’m thirteen, my freckled face incapable of pulling off make-up, but my D-cup breasts get a lot of attention. Curfews, pleated uniform skirts and braces imprison me.
The kids at my school on the Upper East Side have their own dealers, go to dance clubs and snort coke with child stars. My parents are strict, Catholic, and I’m not allowed out of the apartment after dark.
I try to fit in—listen to NWA, smoke menthol cigarettes and wear my flight jacket inside out like a fly girl. I’m laughed at for trying too hard. The boys say I’ve got a good body but a weird face. The girls roll their eyes at me and call me a loser. I take it, bite my bottom lip and act like I don’t care.
One day, after school, on the corner of 84th and Lexington, I see him. If I could have a boy like him, I think to myself, I wouldn’t care about anything else. He leans against the wall of the pizzeria that’s packed with hungry kids, talking to some of the boys from my school.
I walk by, body clenched and trying not to trip. He holds his hand out, grabs my arm. I freeze, numb from the heart down, thighs wobbling.
“Got a light, beautiful?”
I try to hide my braces by pouting.
“Umm, yeah.” Emboldened by his smile. “You got a cigarette?”
“They’re Newports. That cool?”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” I say, my voice sounding stupid and childlike in my head.
I hand over the lighter and he gives me a cigarette. The pads of his fingers graze my wrist in the exchange. His nails are dirty and he’s got small blond hairs that glisten in the sun on his wrist.
I’m talking but it’s not my voice, not my body. I’m a hot air balloon, floating above myself looking down, tethered to this brash girl who’s yapping away while this beautiful boy looks on, laughs, talks back. I’m amazed.
His name is Justin. He’s eighteen and a senior at Bronx Science. I go home, fantasize about touching his café con leche skin and staring into his big green eyes. I want to hold his hand, feel our wrists grazing, his pulse synching up to mine as we walk through Central Park.
I buy some smokes, pack them against my palm, rip off the cellophane and concentrate on my wish. I flip the chosen cigarette upside down and put it back in the pack to smoke last; that’s when I’ll ruminate on the idea of Justin liking me.
*****
My wish comes true. A week later, he stands on the same corner, looks at me and licks his lips. We go for a walk. My mouth is dry and little gasps escape my lips doubling as yes’s and no’s. I nod at his poorly constructed sentences and try to look into his bloodshot eyes that he keeps from me like a secret. With every step he becomes less like the boy in my fantasies.
He says, “I just wanna be alone witchu’, girl. You are so beautiful.”
I call my parents from a payphone, say I’m going to the library. A part of me wishes my mom had answered instead of my dad. She would’ve told me to come home, provoked some sort of Jesus-driven guilt in my gut. My lungs choke as I return the warm phone to its cradle.
We sneak into a building on 80th and 3rd, climb thirteen flights up to the roof. When we reach the top, I’m out of breath. There’s no magic here, just an anxious moment that’s overheating like an engine. Justin’s all business, a condom in his hand. “Let’s do this,” he says, face frigid, eyes blank and looking through me.
I’m stuck like a needle in the groove of a broken record.
The sky above me turns to rust. My legs shake and I lose my footing, flailing into Justin’s chest. He grabs the back of my head, tugs at my hair and bites my lower lip. The taste of my own blood and his smoky breath in my mouth. He tugs at my skirt, rips my tights and panties. His hands grope me too quickly in too many places and I’m disoriented. What am I doing? “Please, stop,” I whisper, but he keeps going. I have no control. The word “NO” blinks in my head, red and bright, but I can’t make my mouth move. I’m mute, dead under the weight of his now black eyes. I’m swimming inside that out-of-control feeling you get when you realize you’ve gone too far and can’t turn back. I fall down, my bare ass on the tar roof.
There’s a moment in every fight when you realize you’re going to lose and that’s when you give up. My lower body stops rejecting his thrust, opens up and I stop fighting. The world fades to black and I hide behind my shut eyes.
I come to when someone screams, “Hey, get off a my roof before I call da caps!”
Justin yanks up his pants. I stare at the used condom by my foot. Blood runs pink down my legs and I can’t find my underwear. I stand up and drag my feet behind him down the stairs and onto the street.
He hails a cab and squeezes a twenty into my hand. “Thanks,” he says, as if I’d just done him a favor. “See you around!” He sprints away, turns the corner and vanishes into the deep cracks of the city.
The backs of my thighs stick to the leather seat of the cab as my heart beats thick and slow. I wish I’d gone straight home after school. I thought I knew everything. I hate myself for being so stupid.
At home, I sit under the scalding shower until I’m red and blotchy. When I finally manage to get his stink off of my skin and hair, I step out and dry off. In the full-length mirror, I notice the bruises on my thighs, knees, and hips. I feel raw. My body echoes inside like it was robbed, unaware of how much was really stolen until after I’d cleaned it up.
*****
At school, people know. The boys invite me to their empty houses after school. I flip my hair and say, “No thanks.” I’m cool. Everyone wants something from me. I tell my friends, “Like it was totally awesome. No big deal whatsoever!” rolling my neck and clicking minty gum against my tongue. But at night, in bed, I cry. That magical idea of holding a boy’s hand and the momentum that builds up in you before that first messy kiss are tarnished, discarded into the gutter on the Upper East Side. Like my underwear, like my virginity.
A week later, I see him. A group of girls flank him like remora. “Hey, baby, how ’bout we go for a walk?” His smile, his wide hand on the crotch of his baggy pants.
“I don’t think so, asshole!” I say, feeling like a little kid who’s just learned a bad word.
“Say what? I know you aint’ talkin’ to me, you fat slut?” he hisses, embarrassed.
“Fuck you!” I seethe, and walk toward my crosstown bus.
I want to turn around and scream, “You raped me! You raped me! I hate you!”
But I follow the rhythm of my racing heart that leads me away from him.
*****
The bus speeds through Central Park. “I’m sorry,” I whisper to my reflection in the window, my hair and face infused with trees all brown and fluffy with motion. The fiery angst in my chest softens and purrs. I still want to grow up, be a woman, wear make-up and high heels, but I can wait a little longer and a bit more patiently. I close my eyes for the rest of the ride home, holding my hands in my lap, feeling my pulse in my wrists.
