Pieces

by G. Benson

  And Carmen could feel like other teenagers, just for one night.

  The next afternoon, though, she wasn’t there, and Mattie and Carmen sat at the table that wobbled, with marks cut into it where her mother had once chopped at white powder. When Carmen had walked in and found her doing that, she’d taken Mattie’s hand, dragged him out, and hadn’t taken him home until stupidly late.

  Mattie’s fingers ran along one of the lines, his thumbnail following it like a train on its track.

  At times, Carmen felt like that: like a train on a precarious track where just one waver could derail them all.

  “She’s been gone a week.” His voice was high, nerves plucking at his vowels. Carmen was pretty sure kids his age didn’t normally keep track of time like that.

  “Yeah, she has. But…” She waited for him to look up, his eyes deep and dark, and Carmen could swear they had been like that when he was a baby: knowing and wise and too pure for what he’d been born into. “…I got us dinner.”

  And those eyes lit up. He didn’t ask where, and Carmen didn’t tell him. She pulled out a container from her bag, followed by a second one, and they ate until they thought they’d be sick. Carmen didn’t tell him she’d pulled money from a teacher’s bag, her heart in her throat and her hands clammy. She didn’t do it a lot, especially now, but there was no way she’d risk listening to her brother’s stomach rumble emptily next to her in bed again. They’d had nothing to take to school. Lies dripped from both their tongues, adept at covers and half-truths, but it really would be noticed soon.

  The cafeteria lunch for kids with no money was almost as bad as not having any lunch at all.

  Her mother needed to come back, and anger itched under Carmen’s skin that they needed her at all.

  “I love noodles.” His plump lips rounded, and he slurped one up.

  Carmen’s laugh, rare and unheard in that house, bounced off the walls.

  Their mother didn’t come back the next day, but she did Friday. She had blown-wide pupils and a slur to her voice and was clutching money too closely that Carmen didn’t want to ask about.

  Mattie, no longer tiny and easily supplicated, gave his mother a grim smile, his eyes only lighting up a little when she handed him a new Nintendo DS. He quickly said, “Thanks, Mom.”

  And Carmen’s heart swelled, pushed against her ribs, and choked her at the way he really did mean the words.

  So, Saturday night, Carmen found herself at a party far from the city center.

  People spilled from room to room, the house huge, the property huge, the atmosphere huge—Carmen had walked a mile and a half from the bus to get there, a bottle in hand pilfered from her mother’s bag.

  Their hot water still wasn’t on, so Carmen had taken a cold shower. Before Mattie had gone to his friend’s house, she’d heated the kettle to make a bath that wasn’t freezing and forced him into it.

  He gave in. They knew how to cover.

  When Carmen left the house, her mother had already been gone for hours, eyes glassy as she’d taken her keys. She’d smelled like vodka. It’d made Carmen hesitate before leaving. If something happened and Mattie needed to go home… But she’d pushed it aside. He was safe at a friend’s.

  Carmen hated alcohol, hated the burn, the smell. Hated the way it made her mother into someone Carmen swore she hadn’t been once upon a time. But that may have been a false thing to swear to, a lie to sit heavy on her shoulders. Because, really, Carmen barely remembered a time her mother wasn’t high on something, gambling away what they had, forgetting she had two children at home who needed her to be something.

  But even Carmen knew, in her zero experience with this, that you never turned up to a party without something. Her heart thudded at the amount of people—the laughing, the shrieking—and she uncapped the bottle and took a swig, purely with the hope of faking some confidence. Her face scrunched up at the taste. She’d never spent much time with people her own age outside of school. She wasn’t sure she could slide in comfortably and pretend she fit in among them, worried about kissing, tests, the next soccer game, and anything else in between.

  Her feet ghosted from room to room, and something inside her clenched as she realized she didn’t really know anyone. That missed school year hung wide between her and everyone else, and she hadn’t exactly tried very hard before anyway. She never knew how: the ground that was meant to be common had always been foreign under her own feet, and she couldn’t expect someone else to attempt to step over it.

  Somehow, Carmen found herself in a conversation with an old classmate that started awkwardly but ended up flowing, a river in its bed, smooth and easy. They shared a drink and a laugh, and another boy joined in and held his hand up with a grin. “That goal in PE the other day? Like, seriously.”

  His hand hung there, and Carmen stared at it. With raised eyebrows, he wriggled his fingers, and Carmen laughed, the sound too obviously like relief to her ears. She slapped her hand against his.

  “Why aren’t you on the team?” he asked.

  He had kind eyes and a kind face. A shadow shaded his jaw. His eyes were a little unfocused, probably from the drink sloshing in the red cup in his hand.

  The question made her swallow and eye the room. Could she sidle away, out of this conversation? Her cheeks were already growing hot. She couldn’t afford the registration, the equipment, the cleats, the time to train. What if Mattie needed something? Their mother was gone more often than not.

  “You really should join. The girls’ team is kickass, and you’d make a great striker. Hey, dude.” He turned to his friend, Jacob, the one Carmen had started talking with at first. “Isn’t there that program now? Money to get girls onto the soccer team, to pay for stuff ’cause they’re desperate for decent players?”

  He said it innocently, but maybe he wasn’t so oblivious after all and didn’t want to offer it to her like charity. Hope, or something like it, ballooned in her throat.

  “Yeah, I heard the coaches talking about it.”

  The guy whose name she still didn’t know turned back to her. “You should totally talk to them. I’ll recommend you, if you want.”

  And that’s when it clicked: he was the captain of the boys’ soccer team. This was his house.

  She smiled despite herself. “Okay.”

  Overwhelmed and a little light-headed, Carmen slipped away when they started talking about starting a chugging contest. After wandering though rooms full of people, Carmen didn’t see Ollie and ended up outside, surrounded by cool, still air. When she sat down, the cold quickly seeped into her jeans from the grass, but she didn’t mind, because as she tilted her head up, the sky was a blanket of whirling stars and black clouds. She took a sip from the bottle between her legs and watched the patterns overhead with her tipsy gaze.

  Maybe she could play soccer.

  That was like something beyond her reach, something silly.

  Someone plopped down next to her, fingers brushing over hers to steal the bottle from between her legs. Carmen was too hazy to be surprised, and a giggle washed over her as she turned her head. She was struck by the sight of Ollie tipping the bottle back to take a sip. A loud “ugh” followed the swallow.

  A husky laugh fell from Carmen’s throat, unfamiliar, and she watched Ollie’s profile as she ran a tongue over her lip. Something pulled low in Carmen’s stomach. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” Ollie looked at her. “You made it.”

  “That I did.”

  Ollie held the bottle out, and Carmen couldn’t say no to the stormy offer in those eyes. She took a long sip.

  “Are you having fun?” Ollie asked.

  Something like delight painted across her features as she watched Carmen swallow the burning liquid down. Her skin was such a delicate shade of brown, yet the blue of her eyes was bright, an intrigui
ng contrast that left Carmen tripping over her words.

  “I am.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  Carmen looked around, the noise filtering out of the open doorway and people trickling through the doors, their laughter loud and raucous. Couples were making out in every darkened corner, one even on a trampoline. “I suppose I am.” She turned back to Ollie. “This isn’t usually my scene.”

  “Hmm.” Ollie clicked her tongue and pressed against Carmen. Her shoulder was warm, a heavy weight of young comfort.

  She was so easily affectionate, and Carmen didn’t want to stiffen at the touch, but she did a little. But Ollie didn’t even seem to notice. She tilted her head to stare at Carmen. “And what is your scene?”

  Carmen would have waded into Ollie’s eyes and never come out again if someone offered her the chance. She shrugged and said nothing and instead offered the bottle to Ollie for another sip.

  When Ollie held it out toward her again, Carmen tried to take it back. With a laugh, Ollie held on, their fingers slipping together against the neck of the bottle, sticky with spilled spirits. Ollie tugged, gravity happened, and they tumbled together, a tangle on the ground. Ollie’s hair splayed out around her head, and Carmen’s fingers trailed over it, like tendrils of fog against her skin. Ollie’s hand was stuck between their chests. Surely, she would be able to feel the thumping of Carmen’s heart through muscle and bone and skin.

  “Ollie!”

  And with that, they were pulled away, hauled onto their feet.

  “This is Sara.” Ollie threw her arm easily over the girl’s shoulder.

  With nimble movements, Sara pulled grass out of Ollie’s hair, her big, dark eyes throwing a wink at Carmen.

  Brashness normally made her uncomfortable, but the motion sat easily on the shoulders of the plump Sara, and Carmen found herself smiling.

  They were called inside to a game with a ping-pong ball and cups. Carmen remembered the party game from a book. Turned out she sucked at it.

  “I chose the wrong team,” Ollie declared with a wide, cheery grin and a nudge to Carmen’s shoulder after tossing a ball over the table and missing all the cups. She blew a kiss to the boy across the table, Sean, one of many names thrown Carmen’s way over the evening.

  The other day, Carmen had seen Ollie nuzzle his neck in the corridor at school.

  Sara grinned at them, bumping her hip against Sean’s. “It doesn’t matter whose team you’re on. You always suck.”

  The ping-pong ball landed with a splat in a cup, and Ollie pouted but picked it up and drank the contents. She put the cup back down with a twist of her mouth. “Who put Jaeger in the cups?”

  “You did.” Carmen said it with a laugh, and Ollie rolled her eyes.

  “True. Well, I have terrible ideas. You’ll learn that.” Ollie closed an eye, lined up her shot, and threw the ball. It bounced off one of the cups’ rims, and Sara and Sean crowed. “My ideas are about as terrible as I am at this game.”

  There was another splat as Sean got the ball in a cup that was for Carmen.

  Ollie winked. “But you suck too, so we can suck together.” She held the drink out, swaying a little. Or maybe that was Carmen? “Bottoms up!”

  The alcohol was burning in Carmen’s stomach, but she didn’t care, because Ollie really was an affectionate person. Her hand ran down Carmen’s arm at one moment, and later her arm slung over Carmen’s shoulders. She was full of fist bumps and high fives and cheers and loud groans when they had to drink again. At some point, she pulled the snapback cap off the head of one of her many friends—a kid named Deon. It sat backward on her head, ridiculous. If Carmen stumbled, it was into Ollie, who giggled and pulled her in closer. Everything was a blur, but it wasn’t a bad feeling.

  When they lost their second game, Ollie threw up her hands and shook her head. “God, no. No more. We’re shit.”

  Their place went easily to others more than willing to take it. She led Carmen to the bathroom, a smile on her face, and when they fell through the door and against the sink, they were wrapped up in each other.

  “I thought you had to pee?”

  Ollie shrugged, her nose against Carmen’s neck and her breath sending shivers down Carmen’s back. “Not anymore.”

  Carmen pushed the hat away and it fell into the sink. It had sat too low on Ollie’s forehead. She wanted to see her with no shadows falling over those eyes.

  When Ollie’s lips pressed to the sensitive skin over Carmen’s pounding pulse, Carmen’s own parted in a sigh. No one had ever touched her there, like that, with softness and uncertainty. She swallowed heavily and felt the lips against her throat curve up in a smile. They trailed to her mouth, and it seemed so simple to kiss her, to fall into the safety of Ollie’s warm mouth, the wetness of her tongue against Carmen’s own. Carmen’s first kiss, drunk in a bathroom. Her first kiss, delivered in a way she’d always thought she’d never want but now wouldn’t change for anything.

  Ollie’s glasses fogged up, and she giggled, the sound a delight. She pushed them on top of her head. Fingers buried in her hair, and Carmen’s nails scraped skin she exposed by plucking at Ollie’s shirt.

  Carmen had known, had known she could fall into Ollie and not crawl her way out, because why would she want to?

  Hours later, Carmen stumbled through her front door, a thousand memories of her mother doing the same thing crashing into her. The smell of alcohol and disappointment dragged itself inside, not far behind. Something rebellious stirred under the knee-jerk disgust that swelled up in her. Carmen was sixteen, was smart, was young, was desperate for something that tasted like normal—she could do this just once.

  Squaring her shoulders, swaying only a little, Carmen stumbled down the hallway, her keys rattling on a table before they dropped heavily to the ground. For a moment, she eyed them, then decided they weren’t worth the effort. Before she could turn to go to her room, she froze. Her mouth was dry. Water. Water would help this situation. She turned for the living room, but paused in the doorway. A blurry shape on the sofa slowly came into focus.

  Carmen’s hand gripped the doorframe, fingers biting into the wood. “Mattie?”

  He was huddled in a ball. The clock above him said three in the morning.

  He said nothing, so Carmen, dread rippling in her belly, hurried over to sit next to him. When her hand ran across the plane of his shoulder blades, they quivered under her palm. “Mattie? Why aren’t you at your friend’s house?”

  “Mom picked me up. Then she went out.” His voice was hoarse, probably scratched from hours of crying. “She went out and left me alone.”

  Carmen never left him alone. Never. Her lips were numb. “Why did she pick you up?”

  “I don’t know. She was saying all kinds of stuff, weird stuff, then left the house. She didn’t even say why.”

  Guilt flared. Carmen wrapped her arms completely around Mattie, pulling him half into her lap, not caring how his legs didn’t fit anymore.

  “She was gone, but so were you.”

  His sobs were hot against her neck. Hot and wet and everything she had promised herself she would never play a part in. Carmen would never be their mother. But the smell of spirits clung to her clothes, it was early morning, and her brother was sobbing. Disgust at herself curled in her lungs, her breathing halting at the choking sensation of it.

  She wanted to tell him sorry, to fix it, but instead she held him to her chest and rocked him, the way he’d liked when he was small, the way her mother had shown her to do before she went away for a few nights, before Mattie could even crawl.

  Sniffling into her shirt, he pulled his head back, his face wrinkled. “You smell.”

  “Sorry.”

  He opened his mouth to say something but snapped it shut, and he whipped his head around, staring out the windo
w.

  It took Carmen longer, but her drunken brain registered the blue-and-red lights washing the room, washing Mattie’s face in a ghostly image of wide eyes and open mouth.

  “Not again,” he whispered, his words settling deep in Carmen’s chest.

  Chapter 3

  Carmen’s heart was thudding, a beat so fast she thought she was going to be sick. In her arms, Mattie was shaking; his eyes still hadn’t left the window. And in a moment, everything shrank to a kind of clarity, a focal point. Carmen bit her lip, looking from out the window and back to Mattie, the broken look on his face shattering her insides.

  “No.” His voice scraped out, rasping, grating over Carmen’s cheek. His eyes screwed shut, and he shook his head again and again and again. “No. No. Carmen. No. Not again. I don’t want to go back.”

  Something in Carmen’s throat expanded, a lump growing bigger and bigger, and she couldn’t swallow past it. She could only hope the evidence of it didn’t leak out of her eyes. The sound of a door slamming shut, followed by another, echoed in her ears, and anxiety flared deep in her gut, so far down, clawing up and trying to fight at the rest of her. How were they here again?

  “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.” The voice was a whisper in her ear, but Mattie may as well have been screaming.

  Their chests expanded in time, too fast, oxygen saturating their blood and too much carbon dioxide expelling from their bodies as they drew shallow, panicked breaths. Carmen desperately tried to grab on to a solid thought. “Mattie.” She didn’t recognize her own voice, the desperation, the plea. “Mattie, look at me.” She clasped his burning cheeks, his hair curling at the edges of her fingers. He shook his head in her grasp, and she clung to him, her voice low. “Mattie, please.”