Vignette

Rebecca liked to play with fire for fun. She loved risky behavior. I knew this because she kept every rejection letter or piece of bad news taped to the side of the walls of her apartment. She’d been admitted to the School of Fine Arts in high school, a highly competitive state-funded academy for the creative, artistic, and intelligent. During her time as a student, she’d found a skeleton key that opened every classroom door and most of the offices. Late at night, she explored the facilities purely out of curiosity and the thrill of doing something against the rules. Eventually, she got caught and was summarily expelled.

The notice of expulsion had been placed roughly at eye level, a little towards the left of the door. Rebecca was fond of telling the story of how it happened. She was wild and impulsive, even a little dangerous, but these qualities made me want her even more. I had never seen much appeal for bad girls until then, usually saving my attention for broken birds in desperate need of a self-esteem booster shot. Rebecca was different. She knew precisely who she was and what it is that she wanted.

Who she wanted was me. Rebecca would have asked me out but she was already with someone else. She told me she wished she could have the both of us simultaneously, and made those feelings very evident. With her consent, I felt her up outside the Humanities Building while her boyfriend was taking a test. She reserved certain areas as off-limits, though in truth I got to explore all but a few choice parts of her body. Once again, she found taking chances like these appealing and intoxicating.

I saw a few distant faces walking around the track, yards and yards away, but could make out no identities. To our left was the student parking lot, but the cars had no occupants. I was feeling a little exposed with the huge risk we were taking, but wasn't about to stop. We were outside, leaning against the green-painted brick of the building. The both of us enjoyed being this sexually reckless. None of us felt any need to apply the brake.

Thirty minutes later, he emerged from inside, turned hard to the right, and was two seconds away from blowing our cover. Though my face revealed the shock of nearly being discovered, her facial expression never changed. It didn't seem to phase her one bit. She'd gotten what she wanted. He was confused and couldn't tell what we had been doing. She was not ashamed of what had happened, not one bit. As she stood upright to walk with him, she winked at me.

See you next time, the gesture said.

I found her in my dorm room two nights later. She had picked the lock somehow. She sat cross-legged on my bed, awaiting my arrival.

I want to sleep with you, but I don’t want to sleep with you.

As much as I might have wanted to take her to bed, she specified that sex was off-limits. Instead, she wanted to spend the night curled up next to me. I was so smitten with her that any kind of intimacy granted to me was an opportunity I did not want to squander. I woke up next to her at eight, where she kissed me on the lips.

I have to go.

That was the last time I saw her. I found out later that she had gotten accepted into some elite law school up in New England. I didn’t know about her departure until she was already gone. The other day, I typed her name into the Facebook search box and found her picture. In it, she is posed with her now-husband happily beaming at the camera, though I notice she’s gained a tremendous amount of weight. I’d be lying if her increased girth didn’t please me a little in a spiteful sort of way.