All the Things We Do in the Dark

by Saundra Mitchell

  It forgets how to be afraid, just for a moment.

  When I kiss her, our lips cling together. They’re not tentative or afraid—they long to hold on to the soft, silken glow between us. Her lips seek when I falter. They’re plush and they invite me in.

  She teaches me with a taste how to follow. I’ve never done this before. Every flicker is terrifying and exhilarating; it’s the first leap off the high dive and cutting flawlessly into the water. Twisting my hands in her shirt, my knuckles rasp against forbidden skin.

  Hailey unfurls against me. When she twines her arms around me, her blunt nails skate the length of my spine. They brush aside the hem of my shirt and whisper at the small of my back. It’s alchemy, drinking something that makes us grow and grow, fill up the room and spill out of it, into the universe.

  It’s so much, too much, and we break away at the same time. I burrow against her; she holds me tighter.

  “Hi,” I say.

  I feel her smile on my skin.

  IT’S HARD TO GET SOMETHING YOU DON’T EXPECT.

  Something that you should probably want—okay, something I want but wasn’t ready to want. This is the problem with going off the rails and chasing demons and angels in the dark. I’m not planning; I’m only reacting. And only reacting is—

  I’ve shared a bed with Syd before, so I’m like, I can handle sharing Hailey’s. Lying to myself, like it’s just going to be sleeping; it’s not. But it’s also not sex. Just kissing, just close, just skin-on-skin with clothes between, just breath hot on my lips and hands heavy on my hips.

  And when Hailey offers, it’s like, Yeah, we’re going to sleep. Just sleeping here. No big deal.

  First, she lends me a T-shirt and shorts to sleep in. They’re a little tight, and they smell just like her. I’m literally wrapped in her, and then I slide between covers with her, and lay my head on her pillows, and lace my fingers with hers, and I’m drowning.

  Then we curl face to face. Her smooth legs swim against mine; our brows rest together. I feel like I’m inside her skin or she’s inside mine. Sweat springs up between my breasts and along my spine. Even her voice is physical, velvet stroked along every nerve in the dark.

  “You have so many tattoos,” she says. She hesitates, then brushes a finger against the mini elephant (Shawn Mendes) a few inches beneath my collarbone. “I never realized.”

  “I have to hide them from my mom.”

  She traces the lines of the elephant—she’s on forbidden skin and it makes me shiver. “Does it hurt?”

  “Yes.” I strum my fingers against her arm. My head spins; I float free and swirl back down against her. She catches my foot between her ankles. I’m a desperate tangle of want. The problem is, the craving is formless. It’s a hunger; I want all of her, and I have no idea what to do with her.

  Hailey traces the other side of my collarbone, where the skin is plain and undecorated. “How many do you have?”

  I can’t count right now. I can’t even think. “A lot.”

  “My mother would kill me if I got one.”

  “Mine would too,” I say, and grin. “You and Syd are the only ones who know about them.”

  “So I’m your secret-keeper,” she says. She’s not looking in my eyes; her gaze falls somewhere around my mouth. My lips sting, and she’s not even touching them. And that makes me wonder why not.

  Why not and Things I Can and all that shapeless desire give me a push. A little clumsily, I steal a kiss. Just a little one, but it makes us both sigh.

  When Hailey raises her eyes to mine again, she murmurs, “I’ve never had an illicit sleepover before.”

  “Really?”

  “Are you surprised?”

  “No,” I say. I’m not. How could I be? “I haven’t either, so, you know, it’s nice. More than nice.”

  It’s her turn to graze a kiss on my mouth. She lingers longer, surer. She even knows how to bump and nudge so I fit better against her. I’m falling fast, infatuated with all her little details. Her cleverness, her warmth—the way she feels when she blushes, but I can’t make out the shade on her cheeks in the dark.

  “That’s all I want,” she says. “To be more than nice.”

  And then she bends my arm. Gently—everything about her here is gentle. But she bends it and folds it, sort of, and somehow—I’m not sure how—she tucks it against me. Sort of beneath. Sort of trapped while she dips her fingers free and then knots them again in mine. Her pinkie was on the inside; now it’s out. Now her weight shifts against me

  (no no no)

  and she presses me against the bed, but not really against the bed, and look. The words aren’t there. The words are a list of ingredients. They’re bone dry and bitter, and they vaguely represent what’s happening. But they’re not the feel of it. The soul of it. And the soul of it is, for two seconds, maybe three, I’m just not in Hailey’s bed anymore.

  It’s summer, and sunshine. And blue sky above, and trees that curve over my head, and toward the apartments. People have windows open. Music filters out, but I don’t know the song. I’m glad I don’t know the song,

  (what is it what is it I bet you can remember if you try try hard Ava go on try and remember THAT

  SONG)

  and I’m sorry my eyes are open, because it’s a nice day, a beautiful day, the best day, hottest all summer, and he’s holding me down with his pinkie on the outside and my arms folded under me. I’m a broken baby bird, cupped in dirty hands that stain me and make it impossible to go back to the nest. He’s on me now; he’ll always be on me.

  (this is probably why your dad bailed)

  (And all this happened eight years ago, but it’s happening now, all over again. All of it, beginning to end, all summer in a day, you guys, all summer in a day.)

  And Hailey eclipses the sun and asks, worried, “Ava?”

  I’m so stiff. My breath is so thin. My brains roll around like loose marbles in my head, clacking and snapping together as they try to make a thought. Beneath the thin cotton of Hailey’s T-shirt, my heart pounds—not infatuation. Adrenaline. Fight or flight or, in this case, freeze. I froze and I’m frozen and I don’t even know how to tell her what’s wrong.

  “Are you okay?” Hailey asks. Now she’s afraid and maybe hurt and obviously confused.

  I shake my hand a little until she lets go. If my pinkie is on the outside, it’s okay. That’s a rule. One I just learned, so it’s not my fault I didn’t warn her. This moment is a helium balloon with a cruel clown face on it, and I want to let it float away.

  “Just not . . . like that,” I say, and lunge to grab her hand again. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” she says. Uncertain; she doesn’t understand.

  So I kiss her, and her mouth is sweet and good and tender. Mine is stiff and clumsy. It’s not the same now, and so I breathe and she breathes, and I change the subject. I press closer. I squeeze her hand tighter. I rub my nose against hers, and I ask how many times she sorted into Hufflepuff, because it’s cute and safe and light.

  It’s like I’m apologizing with my body for my body. I am my own secret that I don’t want to tell.

  IN MY DREAMS, JANE STUMBLES THROUGH THE forest.

  She’s a gothic heroine: white gown, black hair tangled by the wind, barefoot. Everything is black and white: white snow, black trees, white skin, bruises black like dahlias. The river is a black ribbon unspooling; it matches the one tied tight around her neck.

  So the blood is a shock. A single poppy blooming on the gown. Jane digs her fingernails into her face and drags. Furrows follow her touch; they well up with scarlet beads. The wind shifts. Her hair flies forward, impossibly forward. Strands stick in the blood, and Jane collapses to her knees.

  With raw hands, she digs into the snow. White drifts turn pink; black earth collects beneath her nails. There’s something here, something under. Her shoulder blades cut the back of the gown as she works. They protrude: clipped, vestigial wings that will spread.

  Temperature dropping,
Jane breathes hard, but no steam rises from her lips. She looks back at me, her eyes white and clouded. Splits open in her skin; yellow fat bubbles out. She’s strange stained glass; I catch glimpses of her bones beneath. Slowly she raises one hand, like she’s going to wave to me.

  Her fingertips fall off, one by one.

  That’s when I realize it’s a dream. When I know I’m asleep. That knowing is a trap, though. I want to wake up, but I can’t. I’m not sure why. Pressing my back to a tree, I try to warn Jane that she’s losing her insides and her outs. Air, forced into my throat, refuses to rise to sound. My lips move, but I have no voice.

  Heaving herself to her feet, Jane lurches toward me. She’s a puppet on a string. Floating just above the ground, her toes drag grooves in the snow as she makes her way to me. There’s nothing in her masked eyes, but she reaches for me all the same.

  My voice still won’t come. A weight crushes my breastbone. If it breaks, I’m sure, absolutely sure, that my ribs will break. They’ll pierce my flesh from the inside out, rising white and sharp and spindly from the black.

  “Hey,” Jane says, reaching for me. “Let’s hold hands.”

  Her stunted fingers close over mine. She forces my pinkie inside and leans in. Anticipation is a poisonous mix of hope and horror. It’s bright and bitter and green, slipping through my veins as Jane sways close. Her lips are ice, brushing my cheek. She leans so close, I feel her lashes on my temple, her nose against my cheek.

  Finally, the dam in my throat breaks. I say, “What are we doing?”

  Jane’s grip tightens. The stubs of her fingers dig between the tendons in my hand. If she doesn’t let go, they’re going to split my skin and peel my fingers apart like a fried onion. “Whatever you want. I’ll do anything you want.”

  I’m frozen.

  “What do you want?” Jane asks. Her tongue is thick in her mouth now. New splashes of blood spread on the canvas of her face.

  My bones snap in her grip, and I whimper. I don’t pull away; why don’t I pull away? “You’re hurting me.”

  “You’re hurting me,” she agrees.

  She doesn’t let go. I don’t move. A siren wails, and a murder of crows explodes into flight above us. They’re black on the grey sky. They fly; they escape. They’re gone, and all that’s left is the sound of my breath and the crack of my bones. It’s just the two of us in this expanse.

  Alone.

  Except there’s a hand on my back. One that’s alive. One that’s warm; it strokes along my spine with a sweet, luring touch. A voice seeps in, and the woods burn away to darkness.

  “Hey,” Hailey says again. This time she strokes my shoulder and presses her face close to mine. “Wake up. Ava, wake up. You’re having a bad dream.”

  Even though I open my eyes, it’s still dark. I’m aware enough to be embarrassed, and I raise a hand. It skates against Hailey’s arm, and I say, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” When she leans over me, her hair falls like a curtain. It hides us, cutting off the rest of the world in a fragrant cloud. “You just sounded scared.”

  “I’m okay,” I say.

  “Okay,” she says. Then she slips closer and kisses me. She kisses me again and again, and it never ends. We drift back into sleep: laced, tangled, knitted, one. I don’t dream after that.

  I don’t need to.

  I WEAR MY JEANS AND ONE OF HAILEY’S SWEATERS to school.

  It’s the sweetest kind of torment. She’s wrapped around me, her scent setting off fireworks at unexpected intervals. The knit is buttery soft, and it makes my healing tattoos itch. It’s a constant reminder that I kissed the girl, and the girl kissed me.

  It’s a rising tide inside me, a hundred-year flood, and I love the way it makes me float. Sailing down the history hallway, I smile when people pass me. Do I look giddy? Then I look giddy, because I feel it. We held hands in the car; we kissed when we had to walk in two different directions.

  This must be the thing that Syd chases. Intellectually, I’ve understood that crushes and kisses are wonderful/terrible, but I didn’t get it. Now this—no wonder she buys a ticket to this carnival. No wonder she wants it again and again; the rides leave you dizzy, and everything tastes so sweet.

  I slide into Mr. Burkhart’s class, and say hello, hello, hello to all the people I know. One of the girls laughs. Not at me. With me, like, my smile roused her smile, and it’s a moment. The lights are brighter today, hearts lighter. I am Mary Freaking Poppins right now, and I don’t even care.

  Splashing into my seat, I scrub my fingers through my hair to toss it carelessly. I didn’t get to blow it dry this morning, so I’m a little poufy. Hailey and I got ready separately, and we both had to hurry. We had a window between her mom leaving for work and her dad getting home, and we had to hit it hard.

  It was a game. And Hailey’s mouth is so soft after a hot shower. Shockingly soft, enough to make me wish we were the skipping school types.

  As I sit in my desk in Mr. Burkhart’s class, I do that stupid movie thing. I touch my lips, remembering the weight of Hailey’s there. My heart beats on a strange loop; it’s like it’s loose inside me and leaping for joy.

  My phone chirps, and I swipe it open.

  Want to hear something crazy? Hailey texts.

  Another loop for my heart. I type back, Always. I love crazy.

  I’m seriously sitting here wondering if it’s possible to skip school if you’re already here.

  LOL, I reply. I was thinking the same thing. Here’s my crazy. I already miss you.

  Miss you too, she says, and follows it up with the blushy emoji.

  Ugh, god, I feel like I’m going to explode. There’s too much inside me for my skin to contain. Sprawling on my desk, I hold my phone in front of me and somehow get the nerve to send back the kissy smiley.

  Everything with Hailey is fast; the right kind of fast. The kind of speed you want to try to keep up with; it’s the running of the bulls, the Indy 500. And tonight, we’re going flying again. Has anyone ever died from anticipation? Because it feels like I might. It feels like I want to. Except then I have to resurrect myself, because I don’t want to miss out on her.

  Hey do you want a ride in the mornings? I can pick you up.

  !!!!! I text. Definitely. Yes. Please.

  Hailey sends back a shower of hearts, some stars, several rainbows, and the party horn. The emojis fill the screen. Digital confetti, bright and bold and super hyped. They’re perfect, better than words. They say everything, and I literally drop my head on my desk and squeak.

  I’m ridiculous, I’m wonderful, I’m shackled so hard.

  I can’t wait to see her again.

  “WHAT ARE YOU ON?”

  Syd shakes her head at me as, together, we knife down the hallway. Sometime between dropping me off at the Red Stripe yesterday and second block today she added deep purple tips to her blue curls. She’s iridescent, some glistening siren set free to entrance the sorry souls that inhabit Aroostook North High School. Poor things, they never had a chance.

  I tug my bag onto my shoulder. “Nothing. A cinnamon latte.”

  “No,” she says, bumping me to steer me around a puddle on the floor. “Cinnamon latte doesn’t make you giggly.”

  Without warning, I burn up with a smile. It’s not even on purpose. It just happens: smiles and happy sighs escaping all by themselves. I want to spill it, a pitcher overturned and flooding everywhere. I got my first kiss

  (first chosen kiss)

  and my second and my third. I felt want with somebody, with an actual human person who wanted me back. Hailey’s perfume engulfs me, and it’s just right there. Right there: I could tell Syd how Hailey woke me up from a nightmare, how she looked in morning darkness, like the sun waiting to rise.

  A silent alarm trips in my head, though. Slow down! Think! Remember! Syd played all around the subject of Hailey. Tread carefully. Move wisely.

  I think I choose my words judiciously. “I don’t know. Things with Haile
y . . .”

  Let her finish the sentence. Multiple choice: Are good. Are progressing. Heated up. All of the above.

  Syd writes in a selection of her own. Knowingly, amused, she asks, “Are you guys sexting?”

  “No!”

  She seems taken aback to have guessed wrong. “Then what?”

  I draw the deepest breath. I hold it. The ache feels so good in my lungs, and I glitter again when I let it out, air and truth. “We kissed.”

  What I expect: Syd to be shocked but delighted. Possibly scandalized. Hungry for details and insistent that she get all of them. What I get is the crackle of brand-new ice. She frosts over, instantly, completely. Her pale eyes fix in the distance. “When?”

  “Last night,” I say. I tremble in a place between fragile and furious. I want her excitement. I want what she got from me when she turned in her kissginity at the lake in middle school. I leapt at her feet and lapped up the details like a dog; like a dog, I was almost happier for her than she was for herself.

  There’s stone beneath Syd’s ice now. She looks at me, hard. “When last night?”

  “Last night-last night,” I tell her. “After you dropped me off.”

  “I thought you had to meet your mom.”

  I hadn’t forgotten that lie. I don’t trip over it. “I did. And we went home, and then I went over to Hailey’s.”

  Suddenly, Syd barks a laugh. It’s all incredulity and annoyance as she veers into the wall and stops. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously!”

  “How stupid do I look?” she demands. “You bailed on me, and you made me give you a ride to do it! God, I knew you were full of it. The Red Stripe? Seriously?!”

  Long, hard zaps of anxiety rush from my spine into the back of my head. I don’t want to fight in front of the school—I don’t want to fight at all. But if we have to, it should be private.

  This is exposure; this is armor off and vulnerable skin, and I don’t want—can’t—feel this way at school. I keep my voice low and say, “I didn’t meet Hailey in Caribou. I met up with her after. It was the middle of the night!”