Page 59 of The Auction
It was a question out of the blue from me because I’d been silent for the first half of the ride.
One hand on the steering wheel, the other tapping at some pattern on his upper thighs, he shot me a quick glance.
“No.”
“No?” I repeated.
“No.”
“Come on, you had to think about it. As a teenager. Your first crush. Who did you lose your virginity to? You had to love her?”
“I lost my virginity to a res hooker when I was thirteen. She was thirty-two years old. There was no love there.”
“Fine. You said you went to white school. There wasn’t some pretty blonde with blue eyes who caught your eye?”
He smiled, and I thought when he did, that it made his face look funny. Like his face was not meant to smile.
“Her name was Brigid. Her parents were Irish Catholic who told her to stay away from me. She used to turn pink any time I said hi when I passed her in the hallway.”
“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere,” I said, trying not to be intensely jealous of some bitch named Brigid. “So you had a crush on her, maybe you thought someday you’d grow up and get married and make beautiful babies together.”
He snorted. “No, Jules. I never once thought that. I was a bastard half breed from a reservation. The only thing I thought was maybe I could get Brigid to sneak under the bleachers with me so I could go to second base with her.”
“And, did you?”
“Hell, yeah. Back then, all the girls thought my chickenpox scars on my cheeks were badass. I told them I got them in an ancient Navajo ceremony.”
“You said your mother was Cree,” I reminded him.
“She is. The fuck do white kids know about tribes? What’s your point, Jules? You want to tell me you’re sad you’re not going to lose your precious cherry to someone you’re in love with?”
“I’m just asking, don’t we deserve more than this?” I made a motion with my finger between the two of us.
He pulled over to the side of the road and threw the truck into park.
“What do you want, Jules? And don’t give me that shit about the divorce and the land. What am I not doing for you that you want?”
“No, you can’t do that. You can’t make me feel guilty for wanting something special in my life. I had a shitty father, no mother, no siblings. I want to fall in love. I want at least a chance at happy ever after.”
“So, fucking fall in love with me. I’m not stopping you.”
I threw myself back against the seat of the truck in frustration. “That’s not…ugh! You know that’s not how that works!”
“Look, Jules, I get it. You didn’t go to high school so you didn’t get to have crushes and flirting. And, if I know you, you were probably downloading bootlegged versions of all your favorite romance books like that vampire dude with the pale girl-”
“Vampire what?”
“You know.Hungerfucking whatever. No,Sunset. No…”
“Twilight, you dickhead.”
“Yeah, that. But I’m here to tell you real life doesn’t work like that. It’s not some fucking fairytale. Thevampire breaks her heart. Over and over again. I’m not going to do that. I’m going to wake up and be here every morning. Fall in love with me and I’ll never let you down.”
I shook my head. “You’re making a joke of something…I didn’t have a lot to look forward to in life,” I said, and could feel the sob back up in my throat. “Sugar beets, surprise spring blizzards, and no money. That was all my future was going to be. But I had love. Or at least, the idea of it. Can’t you see how you destroyed that?”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said, quietly. He shifted the truck into drive and pulled back onto the empty road.
“Do you even like me?” I said, trying to hold back my tears.
