Regret

Jenna sneezed. The dust up here was terrible, but that was the price of being a light girl. She worked on the tech staff in her high school theater, and was usually up in the bays, where all the lights were hung. It was a dangerous job; she’d be the first to tell you, as the catwalk you used to reach the lights, which had to be focused by hand, was small, but unexpectedly sturdy. It didn’t wobble, but looking over the edge at the people far down below on the stage could give a newbie a bad sense of vertigo.

Usually the lights crew was loud and rambunctious, jumping about and singing along to the music blasting out of the theatre’s sound system as they worked, but today everyone was subdued, and no Weird Al blared from the speakers above the stage. Another theatre kid, Kevin Thomas, had died last week.

It hadn’t been a slow death, the kind where you had time to come to grips with the fact he was passing away while he was still here. It had been sudden, a car accident. A truck hauling a trailer had crushed in the driver’s side as he was trying to cross the highway on the way to school. Unlike when a well-known boy, Michael Williams died, only his small group of friends mourned Kevin, most of them in the theatre, other sprinkled around the school.

One of his closest friends had been Tyler, the light crew chief. Once smirking and sarcastic to the point of annoyance, he was now quiet, though something could now set him off at the slightest aggravation, such as yesterday, when Tony Ryans used his bare hands to screw in a halogen bulb. He had made the poor kid cry, though later he had mumbled an apology.

Now it was just a few of the working today, Tyler, Jenna, Carl, and Jack. After a shouting match with Carl, Tyler had sat down heavily, head in his hands, legs swinging over the edge of the catwalk. He waved the crew away with one hand.

"Just go. We’ll finish tomorrow.” Carl and Jack shuffled down to the booth and out of the theatre without a word. Jenna hesitated for a moment, and then sat next to him, awkwardly wrapping an arm around his shoulders. They had more history than either of them cared to rehash. They had dated in Jenna’s freshman year, his sophomore year. It was a bewildering three months for both of them. He had never really had a girlfriend before, so though he knew the bare mechanics of what happened in a relationship, and of sex, he didn’t know how to implement any of it. He didn’t take her anywhere, ever in the three months they dated, he never got her any presents, for either Christmas or Valentines Day, and he constantly avoided kissing her.

It was like watching an animal that had been orphaned very young try to have children of its own, getting annoyed by the baby, not feeding it, or rolling over it in its sleep. It was painful to watch. She ended it herself. They had long since kinda-sorta patched up their relationship, though there was a certain embarrassment in the air, and it was clear they’d never date again.

Now, he looked up startled, through red rimmed eyes. His face was still nothing to laugh at, she noted. Still had a jaw he hadn’t quite grown into, high cheekbones, pale blue eyes with light blonde hair falling into them. He could be considered cute, and quite eligible, if he didn’t push away so many girls with his abrasive personality. A tear slipped down his cheek, and she unconsciously wiped it away. He flinched at her touch, and then leaned into it. She knew what she had to do.

Her hand swept from his cheek to his lip, tracing over them briefly. His eyes fluttered closed briefly. Then they opened again, boring into hers.

“If you need to…” she said, her fingers trailing lightly down his chest. Her meaning was not mistaken. He took her offer, slipping an arm around her back, his left hand warm at the small of her back. His lips took hers, claimed them, roughly ravishing her. He was eager, eager to forget, at least for a while. His other hand slipped up her shirt, pushing her bra out of the way, going much farther than he ever had when they were dating, cupping her right breast roughly, teasing her already peaked nipple and making her bite down on his bottom lip. They both moaned, pressing closer to each other. The hand that had wiped the tear away was brushing hard against the hot hardness in his jeans, and he mumbled something unintelligible into her mouth.

Suddenly it occurred to them both that they had entirely too much clothing on. Their lips broke apart, she wretched his shirt off, tossing it into the alcove where the light gels were, unzipped his jeans. He succeeded in getting her shirt off, finally got her bra off and threw both articles up on top of the warm and dusty air vent. He had complained about her wearing a skirt up here earlier, (“Totally unpractical for working!”) but now he was glad for the short black thing made mostly of tulle, pulling it up and stopping at her undies, black and satin.

Jenna, breathing hard, said, “What? What is it?” She was laying on her back by the point, her brown frizzy hair spread out again the catwalk.

“I—I don’t have any….”

“Oh Christ,” she said, pulling them away herself, and they soon joined her bra and shirt. “I’m on the pill.” He waited no longer, looking at the spot where her legs met briefly, and then pulling out his hardness, not bothering to get out of his jeans, and slamming into her. A wild moan escaped from both of them, and he rocked into her with abandon, taking her, both hands gliding over her body, mostly coming to caress her breasts. His face was buried in her neck, sucking and biting at the spot that joined her shoulder and her neck. He was whispering things she couldn’t hear.

She was getting close, she arched up to meet his thrusts, her legs wrapping around his covered hips, her hands softly touching his face and neck. Then he came, pouring his anxiety and anger and frustration and grief into her, and she came shortly after. They lay there on the catwalk together for a long time, their arms wrapped around each other, her legs still wrapped around him, his face still in the crook of her neck.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“Don’t be.”

They ignored the fact the both of them were crying.