N.M. Iralde
All the known stories
It was December 4th, and we were 17, the both of us. I had invited Soni over because I knew I couldn’t stand the Sunday night alone. There we were, in the kitchen, trading stories. Her on that side of the island, me on this side.
“Did I ever tell you,” she said, looking and not looking at her pale purple phone, “Did I ever tell you about the day we met Satan?”
That’s a good sentence, I said to myself. Remember it.
—
Before December 3rd, I didn’t know much about Dustin Hicks. I knew my brother thought he had a neck beard, and that made him look sleazy. I knew, according to summer camp confessionals, that he was one of the good hook ups. I knew he was in the grade below, a junior, though in those days we were all cougars. I knew he wore sweaters and walked around campus like every other lump of human. I won’t pretend I had some kind of unique thought about Dustin Hicks before December 3rd. I’m not a pretender.
—
Sometimes I think those red-ribboned lessons, songs and slogans, were all a little cruel. They set us up to betray our younger selves. Of course I signed the goddamn pledge – I was 11 and you were giving away a free red bracelet that all my friends were already wearing. Of course I inherited all the school-sanctioned conceptions. Of course I still hate cigarettes, and the
health-book bullies that hold them.
—
Soni’s story started with the friend group at Strands. It was summer, it was night, she set the scene, and they were sitting in the back of Cameron Karn’s truck.
“Have I seriously not told you this story?” she interrupted herself. My fingers draped over the unlit stove. I shook my head. She continued.
“So this guy comes up. And he thinks Cammy K is staring at him. So he gets out of his car and says ‘What are you looking at?’” I can imagine it pretty well. The dark man, the night, the accusations.
“We apologized, and then he started being friendly.” She looked at me. Her eyes were brown. “Really friendly. Asking us all these questions. Just being friendly. Like what school do you go to, that stuff. Everett started lying. He said he was going to Harvard to become a defense attorney. The guy was just like, being friendly.”
I felt like I could almost predict what was going to happen, if I cared to try. Like it was following a familiar format, resembling something our parents had once warned us about. The notably friendly guy. Asking your address. “He asked us our names, but didn’t tell us his.” Her tone betrayed nothing. I knew what was going to happen.
—
It’s December 3rd, whopping Saturday night, and I’m sitting out on the curb. I just needed un momento, you know? Flicking the lighter I stole from someone’s garage. I can hear the party noises humming from inside, but I’m designated driver. You can guess who waddles out, in a goddamn sweater. You know where this story is going.
Dustin Hicks sits next to me on the curb. Asks me for a light. I’ve never talked to this kid before. It’s all so European. That ancient smell fills the air. It’s all so according to plan.
—
The first time I went to a real high school party, I didn’t drink. Don’t know why. Just shivered in my green homecoming dress all night. The next time I went to a real high school party, I drank for the first time and purposely too much and had my third kiss. “Do you want to go to my car? We can go hook up in my car right now if you want to,” he made his case expertly.
Did I want to? “We’re doomed. Like Romeo and Juliet.” I was pretty drunk. “See you next week.”
I slipped back through the side yard and the arches and the fairy lights. Pretended to be embarrassed about kissing a guy in the grade below. Tried to decide whether or not to regret it, and which parts, the doing or not doing. Came out inconclusive.
—
“What happened next Soni?”
“He offered us White Claws.”
“Did you take them?”
“He was being really friendly. But the friendlier we got, the more he started to say weird things.”
“Like what?”
“Like anti-god stuff.”
“Did you take the White Claws Soni?”
—
“So why do you smoke?” The words leave my mouth. Where did they come from? I’m not even drunk. I’m goddamn designated driver.
“Well, my brother is in the army, so…” I was expecting him to leave after getting his light. Honestly, I was expecting him to be a dumb dud. There are no stars out. Only street lamps.
“I gotta pee.”
“Do it here, in the wilderness,” I say, gesturing to the empty street. Quiet. Concrete.
—
“He talked to us for a long time. He was even sitting there with us, in the back of Cammy K’s truck. We realized we still didn’t know his name, so we ask him, you know ‘what’s your name?’”
—
Dustin Hicks in a sweater on a curb, talking about his family issues for twenty minutes. The air is full of fog. I never know what to think of guys. I mean. A sweater. A brother. A nonexistent neck beard. How can I tell which side of the list it goes on? How can I tell what’s a pro and what’s a con?
—
Soni looks at me. Her brown eyes.
“And he goes, Emma are you listening?
He goes ‘I’m Satan’, and drives away.
Can you believe that?”
—
“What about you.” He’s looking at me. He’s smelling like a boy. “Why don’t you smoke cigs?”
—
Satan? Satan? Where had I heard that word before?
—
It’s not that I won’t. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just
—
“Oh my god. Wait.” I laughed. Embarrassed.
“You did tell me that story before. That punchline. I remember now. Meeting Satan. You did.”
N. M. Iralde
N. M. Iralde is a teenager born-and-raised in Southern California. She enjoys spending time in coffee shops, writing in her diary, and drawing self-portraits. She was once a barista and is now currently attending Johns Hopkins University as a Biomedical Engineering student. Nadia is a self-proclaimed story-teller, and she hopes to someday tell them all.