She perks up and stares at me. “You know what I hate? I hate people asking my permission. People who are important enough to someone else should know what’s appropriate without resorting to cheating by questions.”
“In that case…” I clamp my other hand around her side, trapping her in my arms. Her eyebrows perk and the rest of her features freeze before she slides down me. My head finally screwed on again, I’m quick enough to grab a fistful of her flimsy top and bring her back up to my height, although she’s still a head shorter than me. I love this—the top of her head fitting under my chin like she’s the other puzzle piece.
I see her gulp. “What makes you think I wanted this?”
Is this a test? I was so sure before. I stick with my instinct, and say, “Because.”
I trace a path with my lips around her mouth, over her cheek, and the shell of her ear, not actually touching her, but so close I can feel the whisper of her skin. A quiver has her threatening to collapse from my touch, my breath, and I’m fighting to stay silently cool and collected, but inside am shaking just like she is, and feeling so turned on. “Because otherwise you wouldn’t have quivered like I’d just discovered every one of your secret places.”
That turns her face bright red, which sends my cock up in salute.
With a fistful of her top in my grip and the other now bent behind her back, we seem much more naked and raw than we were in the pool. I decide the time is right.
I let out a growl. “Argh, this is all so messed up. Sometimes my dad will act like he’s after your dad’s money and sometimes he seems truly affected by the ski accident. Despite being cleared, the public still has it in for me. But through all of it you still stand by me.”
“So is your dad is trying to harm my dad and steal his money?”
I step back, pocketing my hands. “You trust me?”
“Let’s just say I think you know how to get me to face an issue.”
The trapping-her-to-me part. Looks like I’m not a bastard after all.
“And you believe me?”
“I’ve believed that you weren’t capable of doing such horrific things to all those people for a while. But I’ve understood just recently.”
“You were in on the investigation?”
She shakes her head and rises on tiptoes so she’s just below my eye level. “Nope. But on some level we understand each other,” she says, waggling a finger between our faces, “and since the accident no one has forced me to do anything. You force me to do all the right things, somehow, in a very, very good way. So it’s sort of hard staying away from you now.”
She trembles a little, so I take her weight and she slumps, her toes no longer holding her up. Her body is a puppet in my hands. It’s such an alien feeling. I’ve never touched girls in the way Charz lets me touch her. A girl’s never trusted me like she trusts me. It’s nice knowing she sees not only through the media storm, but also me for who I really am.
“I’m the worst kind of bad for you, Charz,” I surprise myself by saying. I don’t know why I’m doing it. Maybe it’s testing her back, as she did to me just before. She hasn’t made me feel guilty once, and truthfully, with her I forget the things I’ve done.
“Maybe I like bad, Dex.”
“People think I murdered your mom and almost killed your dad.”
“Then people don’t know.”
She links her fingers in mine, bringing us closer. I guess I’m not trying to keep her away very hard.
“I don’t want to be in on this because I prefer not to know, but I’ll help you because I can see you need to figure this out. I just want my dad better before I focus on anything else.”
I can’t stop the tiny, goofy grin. I take a small step away and say, “Then let’s not have you focus on me, okay?”
“It’s not a choice I have. To ‘focus on you’? It’s something that we are. It’s not something I need to work at.”
You know, despite how confusing all girls are, she’s pretty much summed us up. Charz isn’t a relationship to work on, though God knows I’ve tried so hard to prevent it. Charz and I just are, and hard as I try, I’m fucking scared we’re too intertwined to begin to separate us.
Charz holds my hand and leads me to the front door. I fudge the truth when I say my ride is around the corner, because it is, but I might have to wait for it to pick me up in twenty minutes where it’ll take me and forty or so other passengers to our destinations.
The dirt bike did not want to start today.
At the door, Charz rests her nose against mine, caressing me with her angel-soft skin. This action feels uniquely ours already, but I have to remind myself that there isn’t an “ours”. Only couples have intimate “things” like this.
She slips three fingers from my hand, so we’re just hanging on by two fingers. “I’m in. Whatever you need to do—I’m in.”
I have to kiss her. I’ve had nightmares and dreams about her lips on mine. I’m huffing by the time I lean in. I’ve gone crazy imagining that first moment our lips meet and despite my no-I-wont, yes-I-will attitude towards us, I need to take a selfish moment to make her mouth mine.
Charz’s scent is chlorine-y at the moment. I’m entranced—want to learn every one of her scents. She traps me in a state where I’m incapable of stepping away. I inhale and groan from the erotic pressure it builds in me.
And, I think I almost do kiss her. But a chill sweeps over our bodies and reminds us that the world still exists outside of this moment, so I slip my two fingers from hers and tell her I’ll call. She tries to hide her smile, and I suppress the biggest, stupidest grin ever.
Oh, and in case you’re curious, love is nose to nose, cheek to cheek, two fingers to two fingers.
And love is now the one thing I can’t step away from.
16. Mourning Mom
Charlee
“Well, Darce, because I’m not up to it today.”
He stares at the side of my face, and I know he’s doing it because I can almost feel it. I recite the license plate of the SUV in front of my car, then peek around the corner to recite ones farther in front. I like remembering license plate numbers.
“I’m not going to look at you just because you’re staring at me.”
Darcy shoves his arms across each other against his chest and looks ahead too.
I’m just not ready to see Mom, okay? I think. But I actually say, “We have plenty of time.”
“You didn’t see her last week when we visited. Don’t you miss her?”
I try to swallow over a lump that’s lodged in my throat that wasn’t there before. My glands are on fire, constricting my throat, which makes breathing difficult, the way it feels when Darcy body slams me to the floor.
“Sure,” I snap. “I don’t miss Mom and it must be the best feeling in the world for her that her only daughter refuses to see her. Oh, wait!” I smack my forehead quick and fast. “She doesn’t have feelings anymore.”
I must have terrified Darcy because for the rest of the fifteen minutes to the cemetery he doesn’t utter a word, much less move an inch from his position in the passenger seat. I’m always the one to cave in but I’m never this mean to him, or anyone. In fact, I don’t snap at anyone. I don’t swear or talk behind people’s backs.
I don’t even leap onto a dripping wet guy who has an eyebrow ring and tattoos that stretch over his shoulder and run my hands over his bulging biceps and forearm. And I certainly don’t unashamedly flirt with this guy after he’s basically broken into my house and leapt into my pool.
I have to force my shoulders and neck into motion when my car stops. The tension has me frozen.
Darcy and I are suddenly in a parking bay at the cemetery. I’m usually attentive, flashing my blinker the full three seconds before changing lanes, but I couldn’t tell you if I stopped at the red lights—or if there even were any red lights on the drive. Darcy and I turn to each other at the same moment.
I try to say yes, but I’m a horrible liar withou
t the practice. So I begin nodding but then finish with an exaggerated shake of my head. Darcy’s head hangs down, his neck having lost the power to hold him up.
“I’m…” what do I say? What can I really say? I can’t—not that I don’t want to—visit our mother. She never denied me a Dr. Seuss story, not even after I asked for the same one for a whole month straight. And look at me. “I’m…”
That’s how I say it. Darcy accepts this is all he’ll get and trudges out of the car with his bunch of flowers and silent tears streaking his dirty face.
When Darcy stops at the grave, five rows up in the grassy section labeled ‘D’, and fourteen aisles down from the edge, I rummage through my bag and yank out my cell.
I’m horrible! I message Rosa.
I hold my cell in a death grip, my hands still poised at steering-wheel height, watching Darcy stand at the side of the grave, hugging the flowers. He drops his chin and sniffs the bouquet. His knees buckle and he falls to the ground, hand outstretched to touch our mother’s grave plaque.
The new notification sound shocks me from my reverie and I drop the phone, scrambling to recover it from the floor of the car.
No, I am! I am awake at 9-freaking-AM because my group was too tired to go clubbing again, Rosa replies. Ok, sorry, stop beating yourself up. Talk and I shall promise not to fall asleep.
Please sleep. I don’t know why I messaged you.
You miss my face, she replies, sending three smiley faces.
Like a rash.
I look up to check on Darcy and he’s on his knees, plucking leaves from the bottom of the stems with perfection, inspecting each one and then individually placing them in the vase near the plaque. I need to think about something else. Anything.
Tell me about what you’ve been doing.
You ready for this? Four nights ago got a tramp stamp coz I lost a bet I couldn’t drink three shots in ten seconds. Three nights ago scored two kisses at Cubanita Havana with one hot Latin dancer and some random. Two nights ago I scored—wait for it—four kisses at another club in Athens. Squeeee! And today my tattoo is finally less itchy.
Rosaaaa, I type furiously.
How could she? We both swore off tattoos, and drinking bets were only when we were both together and could look out for each other. She’s with a Contiki group she met weeks ago! And a tramp stamp tattoo for a lost bet? People actually do that outside of the movies?
What were you thinking?
I wasn’t! LOL. Best week of my life.
Darcy places the last of the stems in the vase, wipes his hands on his pants and then stands.
Realizing what she’s sent, Rosa adds, Besides parties with you.
Not that I can blame her. I should feel hurt but I don’t, not really. I don’t do crazy things like drinking three days in a row or branding my skin or kissing guys whose names I don’t know.
What kind of tattoo? I ask.
It says: Life, do your worst. In Greek.
But you don’t know Greek! How do you know what it says?
There’s someone moving in the distance in my peripheral. Looking up, Darcy steps away from the grave. He’s coming back? Already?
Because… Gotta go. Tell you later, she says.
Because…someone translated for her? How could she trust a stranger to tell her the truth? She could have ‘slut’ inked above her butt.
Before I know it I’m dashing from the car, forgetting to shut the door and…
…and I trip. It’s a colossal fall, my hands shooting in front of me. They don’t stop my tumble. I roll sideways, learning firsthand how even though the rain stopped a few hours ago, the grass has yet to soak it up.
If I’m sore, I don’t notice it. Darcy breaks into a run, asking if I’m okay and what happened.
Waving at him to turn around, I say, “Go back.” I stand up and brush the blades of grass from my leggings. “Go back. I’m coming.”
Darcy’s stiff face breaks, starting from his mouth. It’s this little grin in the corner, which spreads across his entire face. His cheeks pinch when his expression melts. While I try not to limp through the rows of green grass and graves in an attempt to conceal my shame, Darcy waits, hands on his hips, trying not to collapse into a ball of giggles.
“Yeah, yeah. You’ve never seen someone fall? Come on.” I take his shoulder and lead him back to Mom’s grave.
We stare at her for ever and ever. It’s funny how selective memory works. I forgot that the space between the graves is wide enough to lie between. I forgot how beautiful these people’s resting places are with their flowers and pictures. I forgot how our nana chose silver leaf instead of gold leaf text because our mom never grew out of her silver-obsessed teenage years.
The one thing I never forgot is the words on the plaque, because I said them and Nana heard and noted them down. They’re now engraved there for eternity.
“It wasn’t time; it never will be. So let’s not count the days and you won’t be in our past.”
I wasn’t holding Mom’s hand as she passed in her hospital bed. Mom never had the chance to die in a hospital. I wasn’t reading an inspirational speech. I didn’t even write the eulogy at my mother’s funeral.
I was touching her face through the glass of a photo frame, a picture of her and Dad at their wedding, laughing into each other’s mouths, the muted greens and blues and browns of a summertime park in the background.
Darcy touches my cheek and I pull him into my arms, both of us sinking to the wet grass. He deserves to wet his legs like I had to when I tripped. At least, that’s what I tell myself. But I can’t hold Darcy up now, and for the next half an hour, I don’t.
We whisper alternating lines of a prayer we make up on the spot, then slip into funny memories, throughout which I sob this loud, ugly sound. Not wanting to think about how much it hurts having mom gone, I realize what Rosa meant.
I don’t think it matters to her even if she does have ‘slut’ inked on her. That tattoo is a memory that reminds her of the best holiday of her life and no one can taint that. I wish I were so brave.
In the end, I demand our mom to tell us this isn’t real.
She ignores us.
17. Run, and You Shall Find Trouble
Charlee
These weeks, we don’t usually see Dad three days in a row, but I ask if Darcy wants to go by and he tugs on my sleeve and pleads for us to see him as though I hadn’t asked. Maybe he doesn’t trust this mood swing of mine.
We take our time hiking up from the end of the parking lot. We wait until the green man appears at the pedestrian lights, not rushing. Darcy takes the steps at the hospital entrance one at a time today, and after waiting for what feels like five minutes at the elevators, they finally take us up to the third floor.
But at the door to room 311 Darcy barrels through, making the door crash against the doorstop in a way it shouldn’t in a hospital. I glance around me and give an apologetic shake of my head to two nurses I see. Lisa doesn’t seem to be working today.
I’m still at the door. Dad attempts a pitiful tickle under Darcy’s arms, and like a good son he cackles wildly and begs Dad to stop. My eyes lock in a transfixed stare. The nurses rush by with equipment, talk to patients next door. All these sounds are muffled, as if I’m not here. I couldn’t tell you if Dad has flowers in the vases around the room. My eyes are locked to Darcy’s head and his laughter ringing in my ear and Dad staring, waving his hand at me.
“…Charlee?” Dad says, again.
Time warps, catches back up to me. The hospital surrounds and sounds are back as if I was never separated from them. Dad must have called my name a few times; that’s the feeling I get from the look on his face.
“Oh, Dad. Sorry. I was teaching the kids earlier at work and Darcy and I went to see Mom. You wouldn’t believe how tired I am,” I say, sitting in the chair on the other side of the bed, opposite to where Darcy is. “Sorry.”
“You said that, hon. Now,” Dad says, clapping his hands together.
“Update me on the shizz.”
“The shizz!?” Darcy shrieks. “The shizz, the shizz,” he cries out for the next few minutes before dropping to the floor and rolling with laughter. “Dad said the shizz!”
When it’s clear Darcy isn’t about to stop, I turn back to Dad. He’s already looking at me.
“You saw your mom?” Dad asks. You know, stuck in room 311 in the intensive care ward has done nothing to wipe away Dad’s people skills. He can’t pee by himself or buy milk from the store but you bet my dad is paying attention, twisting his head to the side, eyebrows scrunched in wait for my answer while he reads my body language.
“Yeah, Darce missed her a lot today so I took him after school. It was…” I search for the right word—nice? Hardly. Sad? Under-descriptive.
“Hard,” Dad finishes for me. I’m about to ask how he’d know—he hasn’t been able to visit his wife’s grave yet—but shut my mouth before I say that, thank God.
Grabbing Dad’s hand, I start at the icy touch of his skin. I reach out my other hand and sandwich his in mine, hoping to transfer the heat. Darcy has crawled over to the sofa on a side wall, and is now sitting there, stabbing his thumbs into his iPad. Satisfied, I meet Dad’s eyes and say, “I couldn’t go there before. I…I just sat in the car, Dad. Don’t hate me. I just don’t want to act in front of Darcy or Nana and Pa. I thought I couldn’t be there but I’m getting used to it.”
“Hon,” Dad says, wiggling his fingers in my hands to show he’s there, “your mom isn’t under that ground. Her body is buried there but her mind and soul are anywhere you want them to be, especially in your memory. Standing at the grave site gives people a focus and permission that they’re allowed to talk to someone who’s passed, but you could talk to your mom before you fall asleep and she’s just as much there as anywhere.”
Drowning in You Page 13
