Текст книги "Cam Girl"
Автор книги: Leah Raeder
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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
—10—
I walked from the patio down to the sea, the whispery sweep of waves like jazz brush drumming. Strands of tinsel moonlight floated on the water. The anxiety and unease in me all gathered into an ache at my elbow and I felt as if I could fire bullets from it, or set it on fire, or rip it out of the socket. Wasn’t sure whether I wanted the badness out or if the badness could stay as long as I escaped. Pain makes a body a prison, the same way desire does.
So I did something stupid.
This was bumfuck tourist-trap Maine, near the Canadian border. Whatever cell tower my phone triangulated to, it was hundreds of miles from my actual place of residence. And I was a little past caring anyway.
I sent an email to Blue.
I’m having the most surreal night
come talk to me before my brain melts
There. Done. He could trace the IP and see that I was in Bar Harbor if he wanted.
Not like my life could get any crazier.
I knelt on cold rocks at the water’s edge, my face flecked with stinging spray. In less than a minute he replied.
Skype?
no, private chat on my site
meet me in 5 mins
As long as he went through the cam site, the region ban would block Maine IPs. Not foolproof, but better than nothing.
Could I really picture Max going to the trouble of constantly masking his IP, then chickening out when he had the chance to touch me, in his house?
Could I have pictured Ellis as a convincing guy before tonight?
My visualization skills had obviously gone rusty.
“You know,” Ellis said once, “rust is just oxidation. The same chemical process as fire. Oxygen interacts with steel, electrons drift from one element to the other. So really, rust is a slow fire. Isn’t that weird? Water causes something to burn.”
Back in the hotel I put the burglar chain on the room door and opened my laptop.
He was waiting.
SoBlue: hi.
SoBlue: how long has it been?
“Three days.”
SoBlue: is that all?
SoBlue: only feels like three eternities.
“Miss me?” I said, my legs sprawling to either side of the keyboard.
SoBlue: not a bit.
SoBlue: and the fact that i’ve been jerking off to you nonstop means absolute zilch.
I sank against the pillows. “Bad boy. While you’re over there painting the walls white, I’m learning self-restraint.”
SoBlue: bad girl.
SoBlue: such vulgarity.
SoBlue: it’s hot as fuck coming out of your mouth.
SoBlue: but tell me what was melting your brain, before you melt mine.
I looked at his black rectangle. Then at the girl on my side: dark hair raveling around her shoulders, long brown legs spread. Beautiful but interchangeable. Another cam girl.
If I wanted him to be real, I had to be real, too. Not just this face and this body, but this heart.
“Blue,” I said, “I think I’m falling in love with two people at the same time.”
SoBlue: i see.
I would’ve killed to hear his voice then, gauge his tone. Jealous, indifferent, intrigued?
“And the scary thing is, I’m not sure I really know either of them. Not the way I thought.”
SoBlue: one of them is red.
“Yes.”
SoBlue: something happened tonight.
SoBlue: tell me.
“This will make me sound like a total asshole, I hope you know.”
SoBlue: i’ll probably still like you anyway.
“Probably?”
SoBlue: this will make me sound like a total asshole, but . . .
SoBlue: i’d like you even if you were a monster.
SoBlue: who frowned at puppies.
SoBlue: and tipped over wobbly kittens.
SoBlue: and thought comic books were for children.
SoBlue: and had a complicated pseudo-sexual relationship with her best friend.
I laughed, immensely relieved he framed it that way first. “Okay.”
SoBlue: this goes back to that night, doesn’t it?
SoBlue: when the bad thing happened.
SoBlue: that you don’t talk about.
“Yeah, it does. And now I’m going to talk about it.”
I told Blue the official story—designated driver; ice on the bridge; tragic collision—and then I told him the aftermath. How I lost Ellis, dropped out of my MFA program, became a cam girl, found Ellis again. How I got close with Max. How he flipped on me, tried to turn me against Elle.
I looked into the cam lens as I spoke, imagining different faces looking back. Max. Dane. Curtis. Even Brandt, whom I’d never met.
Names have power. They change the way the world sees you.
One man called himself Blue, and made me see him differently.
“Tonight,” I said, “Red cross-dressed and went stealth at a gay bar so we can learn who beat the shit out of a dead kid and solve a possible hate crime. This is my actual life.”
SoBlue: red cross-dressed?
“Yeah. Like, convincingly. Very convincingly.”
SoBlue: your voice goes strange when you mention her.
SoBlue: not the dead kid, or the father.
SoBlue: red is the one who bothers you.
“It’s weird. It’s just weird.” I grabbed a pillow and wrapped my arms around it, like a buffer. “Want to hear something fucked-up? When I saw her as a guy, I felt, like, turned on. And then I got depressed, because what if that means I’m actually homophobic? I have no problem with guys, but girls make me all conflicted.”
SoBlue: feeling conflicted doesn’t make you homophobic.
“If I hate the part of me that likes girls, it does.”
SoBlue: do you hate it?
“I don’t know. But moving halfway across the country to get away from it is a big sign, right?”
She was waiting outside my art history lecture one afternoon. The instant I saw her, I knew who she was: tall and willowy, her hair a fall of autumn leaves tumbling around her face, shades of russet, carrot, straw. An older version of Ellis.
She touched my shoulder warmly. Her eyes remained glassy and cool. “My name is Katherine. Do you know who I am?”
“I think I do, yeah.”
“Can we talk?”
She took me to a coffee shop and put five dollars’ worth of cappuccino in my hands. She drank plain green tea.
“Is this the part where you pay me to never see Elle again?” I said.
Katherine smiled as if holding a knife blade between her lips. “No.”
“If you think you have any hold on her, you’re out of your mind. She’s done with you. I’m her family now.”
The smile grew thinner.
“She told me everything.” Night after night Elle and I stayed up talking till the sky turned pink and tender. I heard the whole sad story. Distant father, manipulative mother. Church every week. Running away from de-gaying camp (“conversion therapy”). “Counseling” with a priest who said fucking girls meant she wouldn’t go to heaven. Ellis told the priest she was glad because she’d hate to spend eternity with her mom. I’d fantasized about meeting her parents someday, and now it had fallen into my lap like a gift from God. “You should be prosecuted for child abuse, Katherine. You’re a monster.”
She turned her mug with the tips of her fingers. “Imagine you’re a mother, and you watch your child suffer, day after day, when she’s too young to understand why. Would you want to stop the pain?”
“That’s your logic? That’s like mercy killing.”
“Sometimes we have to hurt the people we love to spare them a greater hurt.”
“You caused more pain than anyone.” I downed my drink in a big gulp. “Ellis is the best person I’ve ever met. The smartest, kindest. The most compassionate. Every day I’m grateful she got away before you psychos destroyed her.”
Katherine drummed her fingers on the mug rim. “I see what she likes in you. Tough life, hard attitude. Classic bad boy, but with a woman’s heart.”
My face went warm. “Don’t even. You don’t know either of us.”
“You think we’ve been cruel, evil fairy-tale parents.” She took a leather folio from her purse and pushed it at me. “Look.”
Bank letterhead, columns of numbers. “What is this?”
“She refuses to take a dime of our money. We know she’s been struggling. I hired someone to watch her, to make sure she doesn’t starve or get assaulted on the street. That’s how cruel I am.” Katherine tapped a number. “She wouldn’t accept our help, so we set up a trust in her grandmother’s name. Drew up convincing-looking documents. A surprise inheritance. Nothing to do with us. She took it, but donated the bulk to charity. What little she kept she’s been spending on bizarre purchases. Jewelry, dresses. Things she never cared for.”
Automatically, I touched the ruby earrings I wore. Katherine’s eyes tightened.
“I’m not here to pay you off, Vada. But I know you want her to be happy. She wants you to be happy, too.”
“So what the hell do you want?”
“To give you a letter of recommendation. I’m a patron of the arts, and I have pull with several admission boards on the East Coast. Choose a graduate school, and I’ll ensure you can go.” She closed the folder. “Alone.”
(—Bergen, Vada. This Is How I Lose You. Pencil on paper.)
“I took her mom up on the offer,” I said. “My family’s broke. I’ve fought for everything I have. But honestly, part of me wanted to get away from Red, too.”
SoBlue: you wanted her out of your life?
“No. The exact opposite. I wanted her in my life, in every way, just . . . not in some kind of official relationship. And she hated that.” I sighed. “Not that it mattered, because I couldn’t leave without her. I was halfway through packing when I broke down and begged her to come with. Funny thing was, she was planning to follow me anyway. So we left together. Her mom was pissed. She throws money at Red sometimes, trying to woo her back. But Red won’t leave me. For a while it was nice, being here on our own. I thought I could do it. You know, be with her, officially. Then things got all messy and fucked-up again.”
SoBlue: why not an official relationship?
“Because I really didn’t want to sit down and have the ‘Am I a lesbian now?’ talk with myself, okay? I’d never even had a serious boyfriend. How could I know what I wanted yet?”
SoBlue: i don’t think liking girls is what bothers you.
SoBlue: it’s falling in love with one.
“It was never an issue before. I knew I was bi, but—maybe I internalized this from my mom, but I always thought of being bi as something that would turn off when I married a man. Then I met Red and my head filled with all these crazy thoughts. Like, ‘What if I end up with a girl instead of a guy? What does that make me?’ ”
SoBlue: the same person, in love with a girl.
I squeezed the pillow. “You are so male. It’s so fucking simple for you.”
SoBlue: it really is that simple.
SoBlue: no matter who you are.
“That’s not how girls work, Blue. Our minds are different from yours.”
SoBlue: you have some hang-ups about gender, morgan.
“Please. Red is the biggest tomboy, and it never bothered me. Like, wears men’s underwear and gets male haircuts and stuff.”
SoBlue: you don’t have a problem with masculinity.
SoBlue: your problem is with femininity.
This seemed totally absurd, so I just stared at the screen, baffled.
SoBlue: look, i don’t want this to come off as mansplaining.
SoBlue: but i think it’s red’s femininity that disturbs you.
SoBlue: you’re fine with the masculine side of her.
SoBlue: that’s why you liked her cross-dressing.
SoBlue: you probably like being read as a straight couple in public.
SoBlue: it’s when you think of her as a girl that you freeze up.
SoBlue: and start making it about you.
SoBlue: “what if i end up with a girl?”
SoBlue: “am i a lesbian now?”
“Okay, Dr. Blue. What does it all mean?”
SoBlue: you see things in a binary way.
SoBlue: feminine or masculine.
“Rojo o Azúl.”
SoBlue: red or blue.
SoBlue: clever.
SoBlue: it’s not surprising.
SoBlue: spanish is a heavily gendered language.
SoBlue: and language shapes culture.
SoBlue: maybe you’ve absorbed some ideas about gender without realizing.
I frowned.
Pajarito rojo. Little red bird. En español, the feminine forms of adjectives almost always end in a, not o. I never questioned why I used masculine forms with her—it just seemed to fit better.
SoBlue: are you having a linguistic epiphany?
“Shut up. So what’s your diagnosis, doctor?”
SoBlue: mild femmephobia.
SoBlue: it’s a real thing. you can look it up.
SoBlue: treatment plan:
SoBlue: stop being such an asshole.
I snorted.
SoBlue: and stop being so tough.
SoBlue: let your guard down sometimes.
SoBlue: i think your own femininity scares you.
SoBlue: makes you feel weak, when it shouldn’t.
SoBlue: it’s part of your strength.
SoBlue: you got into camming because it lets you control your feminine side, and how people react to it.
SoBlue: lets you explore it in a safe, compartmentalized way.
SoBlue: take that to the real world.
SoBlue: your real self.
“How are you more of a feminist than I am?”
SoBlue: what can i say.
SoBlue: i’m in touch with my feminine side.
“You are, aren’t you?”
And it’s sexy as fuck.
Who the hell are you?
SoBlue: there’s that look on your face.
SoBlue: you want to tell me something.
“Good eye.”
At this point he knew enough details of the accident that he could find me anyway. But I wanted it to come from me, willingly.
“Blue, my real name is Vada Bergen. I live in Maine, near Portland. I’m twenty-three.”
SoBlue is typing . . .
Nothing. No send.
“You promised you’d hit Enter for me.”
SoBlue: why are you telling me this
“Because I want to be real. My boss told me to stop the private chats with you. I can’t be exclusive anymore.”
SoBlue is typing . . .
“Press fucking Enter, Blue.”
SoBlue: vada don’t do this
My heart leaped, seeing him write my real name for the first time.
I typed my phone number into the chat.
“That’s my cell. You can call it, text it, whatever.” I was shaky but the more I revealed, the calmer I felt. “I want to meet you. In real life.”
SoBlue: stop.
SoBlue: you’re off-kilter tonight.
SoBlue: it’s the catharsis. it makes you feel high.
SoBlue: you don’t mean what you’re saying.
“I mean it with my whole heart. Meet me.”
SoBlue: vada.
Again my breath caught.
SoBlue: this isn’t right.
SoBlue: you’re conflicted about your friend.
SoBlue: you’re forcing yourself into making a decision between us.
His words struck hard.
“Don’t you get it, Blue? This is over. We can’t be exclusive anymore. And I don’t want to lose you. I want to meet you and see if this is real.” My body tensed. “Tell me your first name.”
SoBlue: this is a mistake.
“Tell me your name.”
SoBlue: i can’t.
“Why?” I said, but I knew.
Because I already knew him.
SoBlue: i don’t want to lose you, either.
SoBlue: but i will.
“Man up, Blue. Show me who you really are.”
SoBlue: you already know who i am.
I swallowed. Tried to speak but my voice failed. Instead I typed.
Morgan: when I think about you
Morgan: I think of this painting by Magritte
Morgan: called The Lovers
Morgan: a man and a woman are kissing
Morgan: but their heads are covered by cloth
Morgan: they’re kissing through it
Morgan: but they can’t see or feel each other
Morgan: that’s us, Blue
Morgan: hiding our true faces
Morgan: touching each other through this digital veil
SoBlue: you see the veil as obscuring.
SoBlue: i see it as freeing.
SoBlue: we can be ourselves without preconceptions.
It can’t be you, I thought. You can’t be the person I think.
I’ll prove it.
Morgan: this is the last night you get to see me like this
Morgan: it’s over
Morgan: our little online romance
Morgan: you gave me an ultimatum once, so here’s mine
Morgan: either meet me irl or we’re done
SoBlue: i’m not ready.
Morgan: readiness is an illusion, Blue
Morgan: remember?
SoBlue: this will change things between us.
SoBlue: irrevocably.
Morgan: I don’t care
Morgan: do you really feel something for me, or not?
Morgan: because I feel something for you
Morgan: if you care about me, prove it
Morgan: no more secret online bullshit
Morgan: meet me
Morgan: let me see your face
Morgan: let me hear your voice
Morgan: show me that you’re real
Now I was in Ellis’s shoes, pressing someone to choose. To commit.
Thanks for the karmic payback, universe.
SoBlue: vada.
SoBlue: okay.
SoBlue: okay. we can meet.
A tingling wave washed through me. I slumped against the headboard, tension ebbing.
“No bullshitting,” I said. “No putting this off.”
SoBlue: when?
“Next weekend,” I said on a whim.
SoBlue: where?
I thought of Dane. “Boston.”
SoBlue: okay.
“Okay.”
I felt like I’d been holding my breath for hours. I was light-headed.
SoBlue: i have one condition.
“You’re putting a condition on my ultimatum?”
SoBlue: yes.
SoBlue: it’s non-negotiable.
SoBlue: you’ll understand when you hear it.
“So let’s hear it.”
This time, he surprised me.
SoBlue: i want you to bring red.
Warmth moved against my face. I blinked into the too-bright light. Ellis sat on the edge of the hotel bed, brushing my hair back.
“What happened to waiting up?” she said.
“A forty-ounce.”
She smiled. “I drank too much, too.”
“Kiss any cute gay boys?” I pulled her closer. “You smell like a Diesel store.”
She laughed and pushed me away but I held on. Somehow we got tangled up, rolled across the mattress till we lay side by side. Still in her guy getup. Through the blur filter on my brain I thought: tell her, tell her, tell her.
“Did you find Sergio?”
“Yeah.” She kept combing her fingers through my hair. “He’s really nice. We talked a long time. He wanted to open up to someone.”
“What’d he say?”
“Exactly what we expected. Ryan liked boys.”
“That’s it?”
She shrugged.
“There has to be more.”
“He got bullied. Even Max couldn’t stand it.”
I frowned. “Max isn’t homophobic. He’s never had a problem with me.”
“It’s different when it’s your own kid. Trust me.”
True enough. Mamá didn’t bat an eyelash at my best friend being gay, but my casual hookups with girls kept her up at night.
“So what happened at the dance?” I said.
“Ryan probably came out.”
“But how? Did he kiss some guy? The way people were freaking out—”
“Vada, what are you hoping to find?”
“I don’t know. The final puzzle piece. Something that makes the whole picture make sense.”
“You always want things to be epic. Sometimes even a tragedy is just ordinary.”
Lamplight skimmed the side of her face, the clean line of her jaw, the angled hollows. Her lips were soft and lily pink, girlish. Eyes narrowed, framed by long lashes. In her boy clothes she seemed like someone entirely strange and entirely familiar at once.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“It’s like I’ve never seen you before, Ellis.”
I pushed her down to the bed. Her shirt smelled like musky cologne and crisp autumn woods and her, just her, and I couldn’t get enough. I drank her in. At some point the hand resting innocently beneath her back pulled her shirt loose, sought skin, and the mouth breathing against her ear kissed it, her lobe hot between my lips. Then it was really happening. Legs intertwined and shirts riding up, bellies touching, soft on soft. She pulled my hips to hers and I groaned into her neck. I slipped my tongue into her ear, breathed so she felt the heat through my saliva, then the flash of coolness. She arched against me, grabbed my ass in both hands.
“I want you,” I whispered. “I’m ready for this.”
We twisted across the bed till she rose over me, pinning my wrists.
“Why now? Why all of a sudden?”
“It’s not sudden.” My left arm was stronger than hers and I jerked free, looped her waist, pulled her closer. “It feels like stones being laid on my chest every day. Small, and only a few each time, but I can barely breathe anymore. I need oxygen. I need you.”
“Did something happen?”
“Will you just fucking kiss me?”
She took my face between her palms. Her mouth was bittersweet, amaretto and crème de cacao. She kissed lightly at first but when I bit her lip and opened wider she thrust her tongue inside, her body tensing, coiling against mine. So fucking hot when she was aggressive. She held me down, kissed me so hard and deep my mouth felt fucked. With my free hand I squeezed her ass, the back of her thigh. Slid between them. Gripped the crotch of her jeans.
Ellis went still, breathing hard. “Vada.”
“What?”
“Are you thinking about me, or him?”
Idiot, drunken me hesitated.
She disentangled herself. Left the bed.
“Ellis, wait.”
I caught her at the bathroom door. She tried to slam it in my face but I slapped my weak palm against it, crying out in pain.
“Oh god,” she said. “Sorry. Did I—”
I shoved her into the bathroom. Bashed the light switch and flicked the fluorescents on. This time I was the tiger in the cage.
I was on her before she could react, my fingers fumbling at shirt buttons. I popped one on accident and the rest on purpose.
“Take your fucking clothes off,” I said.
“Why, so you can see how much of a girl I am? So you can be disappointed?”
“I want you to fuck me.”
“You want Blue to fuck you.” She raked her hands through her hair. “This is like that night all over again. Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s changed at all.”
You do remember, I thought. But how much?
She glanced wildly around the bathroom, panicking. Settled on the shower. Stepped inside.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Making this feeling stop.”
Ellis wrenched the water on, ice cold. She gasped but didn’t recoil.
“You’re crazy,” I said. “Get out of there.”
Her hair turned blood-dark, smashing against her eyes. Her clothes twisted heavily around her limbs.
“Ellis.” I moved closer. “Goddammit.”
I stepped in with her, shuddering when the water hit. It felt more like electric shock than cold. My shaking arms rose, hands skidding over her wet face.
“What are you doing?” she said, echoing me.
“Being crazy with you.”
If there’s a better definition of love than mutual benevolent insanity, I haven’t heard it.
My tee and panties were instantly soaked. I put my arms around Ellis, craving the heat of her body. She looked at me a moment and then kissed me again, less desperate, more a gentle inevitability, a slow fire. In the end, Atlantis didn’t drown. It sank beneath the waves and burned into red ash.
Ice water jetted down on us but all I felt was her. Warm skin gliding against me. Wet hair splaying across our faces, catching in our mouths as we kissed. She pressed me up against the tiles, her hands in my sopping shirt, on my breasts. Thumbs brushed my nipples. One hand ran down my belly, between my legs, and I parted them for her, my limbs curling around her helplessly like closing petals when she pressed into that heat. She touched me through my panties. Gripped my jaw and raised my face, made me look at her while her finger pushed harder, harder, then inside. When I cried out water filled my mouth, steely, tinged with rust. She tilted my face into the stream, fingered me through wet cotton. I pulled her mouth to mine but she broke the kiss.
“Did you talk to him tonight?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him it’s over?”
I didn’t answer and she put a hand on my breast, pinched the hard nipple through my shirt. I let her. I took her finger deeper. I wanted this so much, so much.
“Answer me.”
“No. I didn’t.” My head rocked against the wall. The only thing that was over was this. “I asked him to meet me in real life, Ellis.”
No surprise in her face. She closed her eyes, leaned into the crook of my shoulder. Water steamed on our hot skin.
“Baby,” I said softly, touching the back of her head.
Her hands fell away. She was shaking. Crying.
I turned off the water.
A swift chill swept over us. I gathered her into my arms, this limp, lost little bird. We stood there, dripping wet and unmoving. Something hot spooled down my face. I hugged Ellis tighter, though she didn’t respond.
I was a fool to fear this. To hold out for something less frightening, less risky, because all that meant was something less real. This person in my arms was one hundred percent real, breathing and shivering and crying, alive.
But I was still afraid. Still holding out for another prince, not the one in my arms.
Silence on the way home. The ocean was on my side of the car. Ellis stared into the pines.
When I stopped for gas before Portland, she got out and sat on the curb, watching traffic streak past. I filled up the tank and went to sit beside her.
Neither of us said anything for a while. I took a long exposure photo, taillights threading through the dark forest, glowing red veins unfurling into the twilight.
Ellis turned to me. Her mouth was grim, eyes shadowed.
“I’m going with you to meet him,” she said. “And I’ll drive.”
The island postal carrier knew me by sight. She shook her head when I came jogging down to the mailbox.
Dammit. Still no autopsy report on Ryan.
You could tell a lot from the bruise patterns left by a person’s hands. Whether they belonged to someone male or female. To the father, or the mysterious girl who’d touched that gun.
I needed to know how Ryan had been beaten. If it had been one person or multiple. What size hands.
Ellis barely spoke to me that week. At best I got sulky, monosyllabic retorts. Aside from confirming place and time, Blue was scarce, too. Dane was excited to see me, but Dane got excited about pro wrestling and NASCAR.
I took the week off camming. Sat up late, alone, turning the tiny wooden animals in my hands. Obviously I was the cat, la gata, and Ellis was el pajarito, the little bird. So Blue saw himself as the snake.
La serpiente.
It made me shiver.
I walked to the tree house through drifts of citrus-colored leaves, lime and lemon and orange, crinkling like wrapping paper. The air had a dry bite, a hint of ash and bone dust. Ellis was coming down the steps as I went up.
“Where you headed?”
She stuffed her hands into her mackinaw. “To check on Brandt.”
“I’m coming with. I’m going stir-crazy here.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“What?” I said. “You’re coming to Boston but I can’t see my old house?”
“Fine.”
We walked in silence to the ferry landing. Halfway across the bay, she finally spoke.
“Brandt is self-conscious about his appearance.”
“I won’t say anything.”
“He’s noticeably disfigured, Vada.”
I glanced at her. “What happened?”
“It made the news in Chicago, actually. He went to our college. Some kids from Kenosha jumped him, beat him up. You know how intense their football rivalry is. He was the star recruit. Now he can’t get through a day without popping pills constantly.”
“Holy shit.”
“He doesn’t like talking about it.”
“Point taken.”
On the mainland all the paint had drained out of the world and soaked into the trees. Leaves rained from the sky, persimmon red, marmalade orange, dancing around our feet and swirling in midair and splattering across the streets in wild, fiery brushstrokes. My fingers froze. I took Ellis’s hand as we disembarked, and she didn’t let go. The heat between our palms pulsed like a heart. When someone jostled us on the ramp she gripped tighter, and I went warm all over.
At Commercial Street she turned for the East End. I pulled toward the Old Port.
“My cousin’s waiting.”
“He’ll survive for an hour. Trust me.” I tugged. “Let’s do an experiment.”
“What experiment?”
“If I tell you, it’ll corrupt the results, Professor.”
We wandered through the Old Port, past plate-glass windows full of local arts and crafts, lighthouses and lobsters stamped on fucking everything. A candy shop sold Maine blueberries that burst in your mouth like sun squeezed from an azure summer sky. I refused to give Ellis any till she let me feed her by hand. At first she balked, glaring, but after a while she gave in, and when her teeth touched my fingertips I held them there a moment too long. Juice splashed when she bit, tinting her lip purple. I pointed to the spot and watched her try to lick it off, laughing, then finally pushed her against a shop window and said, “I’ll get it,” and kissed her.
People passed us on the street. The cool fall breeze scattered my hair across my face. All I felt was warmth. Pure warmth.
When I pulled away, Ellis looked stunned.
I played it off, acting goofy, trying on ridiculous hats, posing with statues. I pecked a ceramic mermaid, smirking. We passed a narrow cobblestone alley and Ellis dragged me into it. I started to ask if she’d seen something neat but she pressed me against a brick wall, lifted my face, and kissed me. Not a second’s hesitation. I grabbed the lapels of her coat for leverage. Inside I was nothing but water and sand, my bones made of soft coral. All the submerged things.
We stopped, breathing into each other’s mouths.
“Remember?” I said, my hand sliding into her coat, against her ribs. “Do you remember the first time?”
Another rainy April afternoon in Chicago, water pouring over the city like melted pewter and nickel, gray and cold. I got off the L and shambled toward the exit. Two-mile walk home in this. Story of my goddamn life.
As I clicked through the turnstile, I saw her. Ellis, peering at the crowd as it streamed past, an umbrella tucked in the crook of her elbow.
“You’re here,” I said, flinging my arms around her. “I could kiss you. Actually, I will. Brace yourself.” I planted one on her cheek, then started laughing.
“What?”
“Your face is experiencing chromatic inflammation.”
She got mad when I pointed out her blushes, so of course I did it even more.
“I’m beginning to regret this.”
“Hey, who else kisses you just for being you?”
I pulled her out into the rain, and she opened the umbrella just in time. People flowed around us. Elle turned toward the bus but I drew her on, down Division.
“Let’s walk home.” I slid an arm around her waist and heat flared up my veins. “It’s not so bad now.”
Her ribs pressed against mine. I felt the breath she took. “Okay.”
On that day we’d known each other a year and a half and were card-carrying BFFs. Over hundreds of train rides and drawings and late nights, she’d opened up to me. Steadied me. Grounded me. She was there when my own family wasn’t, and vice versa.
I could not imagine my life without this person.
The streets shone, coated with a mirror glaze of rain. Traffic lights leaked across the blacktop like spilled neon paint. We walked down Division, our steps slow, her arm circling me, and I thanked God I’d forgotten my keys and panic-texted her because this—this was worth it.
We passed a strip mall and I stopped. She followed my gaze.
“Gelato?” she said skeptically.
“Yep.”
“But I’m cold.”
If I kissed you, I thought, you wouldn’t be.
And then:
Why the fuck am I thinking about kissing my best friend?
I headed for the café. She ran after to keep the umbrella above us.
We pooled our money. Only enough for one person.
“You pick,” she said.
“No, you. Come on. I dragged you here.”
“I want you to be happy.”
“I’ll be happy if you’re happy.”
