Side Effects May Vary

When I first saw him there on the boardwalk, he looked like a candy striper in white shorts and a red-and-white-striped polyester polo shirt. It all looked very uncomfortable. “Smile!” he said, holding up the camera around his neck.

I crossed my arms over my chest, and said, “Get me out of here.”

“Did you say something?” he asked, as he pulled the camera away from his face. He tore an orange ticket from a ring of tickets hanging around his wrist.

I squinted. “When’s your shift over?”

“Uh . . .” He looked at his watch. “Thirty minutes. Your picture will be ready in an hour. What’s your name?”

“Alice.” I think he was waiting for me to ask his name, but I didn’t. “Any townie stuff going on tonight?”

“Well, yeah, I guess. Nothing big, but yeah. You want to come?”

I held out my palm to him. “Address.”

He fumbled for a pen and finally found one in a cargo pocket of his hideous white shorts. He was cute in a second-string kind of way. When he finished scribbling on my palm, I pulled my hand back to study the address.

“Thanks,” I said and began to walk in the direction of the beach house.

“I could pick you up!”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” I called, not turning around.

I walked back to the beach house. Thankfully, everyone was out for dinner. I hadn’t showered last night and still smelled like the ocean, but worst of all I still wore Harvey’s sweatshirt. I was quick to shower and let my hair air-dry, which was still very short and had only recently grown into something manageable—a sort of sun-kissed, messy, golden brown coif. I’d begun to work my way back into some of my old clothes too. Over a white two-piece I wore a blue-and-white seersucker spaghetti-strap dress. I looked whole, but I didn’t feel it.

Before leaving, I left a note for my parents saying I’d be back later. When I showed up at the address (which was within walking distance from our beach house), I found mostly locals and mostly guys. The few girls present gave me dirty skank looks for intruding on their territory.

Brian/Trevor instantly attached himself to me, fetching me drinks and introducing me to anyone who would listen. Most of the guys at the party were the type of people who pronounced “bro” as “bra,” and I had the sneaking suspicion that Brian/Trevor was someone’s little brother. When the party began to disperse, I sweetly asked him if he could give me a ride home. In the driveway, I invited him inside. He hesitated for a moment, but then followed me through the front door.

We squeezed down the narrow hallway and I waved him into my bedroom.

“You have a bunk bed?” he asked.

“Come on.” I climbed the ladder to the top bunk.

“Wait, top bunk? Why don’t we use the—” He ducked down to take a look at the bottom bunk. “There’s someone down there!” he whispered, pointing frantically at the bed below me.

He continued to stare, dumbfounded, at the bottom bunk. I unzipped my dress and pulled it over my head, standing there in my white swimsuit. “Brian, are you coming or not?”

His eyes widened. He climbed up to the top bunk in two steps, skipping rungs.

I pulled him down to me, wrapping my legs around his waist. Our lips collided roughly, our pace mismatched and wrong. I moved fast, my kisses harsh. He tried to be slow and gentle, giving soft pecks. His hands slid down my shoulders, so I did him the favor of moving them to my chest. He gasped. I wanted to smash his body against mine until I became just as much of a stranger as he was.

“Wait, Alice.” I tried to silence him with my lips. “Alice,” he murmured. “I think you’re a great girl.” A great girl? Who was this guy? “And you’re beautiful, God, you are so beautiful.”

“Yeah, you’re okay too.”

He rolled off me and rested on his side between me and the wall. “Alice, I have a girlfriend.” He went quiet. It took me a second to realize that he expected me to react and that his confession was supposed to be shocking, like a big reveal or something.

From below us came a quiet sigh. Debora.

“Oh. Okay,” I whispered. “Let’s just have tonight.”

His eyes lit up, like he’d won the hormonal jackpot. “You’re okay with that?”

“I’m great with that, Brian.”

“My name is—”

I pulled his face to mine and made our lips move together. It didn’t matter to me what his name was or whether or not he had a girlfriend. I only cared that he could make my life melt away for however long he could last. All I wanted was for him to do this to me and take away the raw misery I felt. My heart throbbed, reminding me that I was alive, even though all I felt was everything but.

We rolled over so that I was straddling him. This time he got the point and his hands roamed my body more aggressively. He pulled the string that stretched across my back, holding my swimsuit top in place. I leaned down closer to him and a moan fell from his lips. I felt myself disappearing.