by G. Benson
Dex had had a brother once.
They’d all had parents of some description.
Jia had had a son.
Yet here they all were, without those people.
Blinking at Dex, the words cooled to stone on Carmen’s tongue; she swallowed them down, the truth of them rasping at her throat and coming to rest in her stomach.
She gave a nod, one that hurt like she was shaking apart her insides. He laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. After a beat, she rested her head against it, the warmth stealing into her skin and the brick still scraping at her back.
Ollie felt as if she was drifting. Her house was always quiet; her father worked more and more, throwing himself into his job as if this could distract him from the reality of his dead wife.
He tried and tried to connect with Ollie, but she had shut down, not even knowing why, until he suggested she see her school counsellor and disappeared into work again. They communicated with notes on the kitchen counter, scrawled loops of handwriting that Ollie was furious with but never threw away. One night, opposite each other at the counter eating spaghetti, Ollie had said something about school. Her father had smiled and lifted a hand to touch her wrist, and Ollie had flinched. The moment was too quick to stop or take back, and guilt bubbled in her stomach at the depth of hurt that carved its way across her father’s face. He tried to bury it. Ollie watched it happen. But after that, he kept his hands to himself, as if scared to feel his daughter’s rejection.
Ollie didn’t know why, but she couldn’t bridge that gap.
She’d stumbled her way through the last few years, had pulled back from her parents’ attention, yet their family had always been one for relaxed affection, touches, hugs, easy laughter. Her father was barrel-chested, and Ollie’s favorite place when she had been small was in his arms, her ear against that chest, his heartbeat playing in her ears. She’d drum the beat against his arms with her fingers. At night now, with the ticking of her mother’s watch, Ollie fought with the urge to crawl out of bed and to fall against her father, to listen to his heartbeat and ignore the fact that she’d never hear her mom’s again.
That morning haunted her, the lack of good-bye, the roll of her eyes. The dismissiveness Ollie had felt.
Worse yet was the memory of her mother’s hands on her back not long before she died. Ollie’s drunkenness that night had reduced the memory to a dreamy blur. Some nights, she woke up, choked with the feeling that her mom’s hands had just been on her back, rubbing soothing patterns.
Her mother hadn’t even lectured her the next day. Just bit it down and put a plate of scrambled eggs in front of her. There’d been a smirk at the edges of her lips, playful and teasing, when Ollie had blanched at the sight.
But her mother was gone, and her father was as lost as Ollie was.
Ollie was painfully logical, able to sift through facts and to draw conclusions. She knew, she knew, it wasn’t her father’s fault. But for some reason, she still couldn’t meet his eyes, couldn’t offer more than tight smiles and short sentences.
He’d been there. While her mom lay on the floor and left them both behind.
The house was quiet, snow swirling in the window.
Everything was closing in on her, and Ollie turned on the television and upped the volume so loud the neighbors were sure to complain. Even so, the silence seeped in from the other side of the house. Ollie switched on the radio in her room, and then the stereo in the kitchen, and the cacophony of voices twined together to drown out that emptiness that had taken over.
But not completely. Not enough.
So she messaged Sara, who turned up instantly, fist pounding at the door.
Ollie swung the door open, and Deon and Sara, bottle of something in hand, flinched at the ball of media noise that hit them even on the doorstep. Grimacing an apology, Ollie went room to room and flicked switches and tapped buttons. Instead of silence, she was flooded with the sounds of her friends breathing, their upbeat questions. Sara and Deon flopped onto the sofa, snow still melting in their hair, and left a gap between them for Ollie to fill.
Bottles of mixers and shot glasses were dumped onto the coffee table, and Ollie burrowed between her two friends.
“Shots first?” Sara asked. A few weeks ago, she’d voiced concern to Ollie that maybe she should sleep more, try to look after herself. Then the look of drowning Ollie could feel in her eyes had made Sara close her own and pull her in for a hug. Still, at times Ollie could feel the concern in Sara’s eyes.
“Always.”
Sara accepted hers, and they clinked them together, spirits spilling over and Ollie’s eyes burning for no reason. They all did their shots in procession, coughing at the liquor’s burn.
They did another one, and then Ollie poured drinks, mixing Coke and ice. Finally, she fell back against the sofa, the touch of her friends’ skin calming the heartbeat that fluttered against her chest.
“You okay?” Deon asked.
Ollie shrugged, their arms rubbing together as she did so. “No.”
Sara took a pull on her straw, angling slightly so she faced them. She pulled her legs up and laid them over both Deon and Ollie’s laps. “Your dad working late again?”
“Yeah.” There was something bitter in how Ollie said it, a taste she didn’t want in her mouth, but she had no way to stop it from spilling up and out. She sipped her drink, swilling it around her mouth, it doing nothing to erase it. “Like always.”
Sara and Deon made eye contact, and Ollie noticed but ignored it.
“Maybe you should ask him to be around more.” Sara turned her eyes back to Ollie, rushing to continue when Ollie opened her mouth quickly. “Even just in one of your notes.”
Ollie snapped her mouth shut and shook her head. “I don’t even know if I want him around anyway.”
She had no idea how to word the mess of thoughts and tied-up feelings in her chest. How to explain that the hole there was huge, with her mom dead and her dad out all the time, but that when it was just her and her dad, that hole was bigger somehow. So big Ollie thought it was going to swallow them both.
“Well, Sara has a plan.”
The tone in Deon’s voice made something in Ollie perk up. “Yeah?” She looked to Sara, her drink clutched against her chest.
“Well…” Sara smiled a little. “Ruin is back from college this weekend, and Deon said he’d mentioned a bar he was going to go to where they don’t card you.” Sara’s grin grew a little wicked. “So Deon convinced him to take us.”
Something like interest stirred in the back of her mind. That sounded fun and like a totally stupid idea. It sounded like something she wanted to do. “And he agreed?”
“Of course he did.” Deon nudged her. “I just reminded him he’d already mentioned which bar it was and that we’d go without him anyway…”
With another grin, Sara shrugged. “It worked. So we’ll tell our parents we’re at Deon’s and we’ll go out with Ruin.”
Reckless with alcohol, and reckless without it these days, Ollie perked up. “Deal.”
“Excellent!” Sara straightened and poured more shots. “You better?”
Ollie opened her mouth to say yes but instead, no fell out again. And she accepted the shot and threw it back without waiting for the others.
“Okay.” Sara’s voice was small, laced with the apprehension that never went anywhere these days when it came to Ollie. But she took her shot, and Deon took his, and they all let their night become blurry around the edges.
It was a not a great thing to do, but Ollie agreed to it anyway.
That Friday night, they piled off the bus in a neighborhood their parents would probably warn them about. Sara had dressed up Ollie, complete with makeup on to help her feel a little older. Deon had procured them each a fake ID, which sat in their bags
and would hopefully not need to be used.
Ruin pushed the door to the bar open, and the music blasted out, warmth radiating into the street. A grin lit up his face. “I’m going to get my ass kicked if anyone finds out about this.”
“No one will, Ru.” Sara looked delighted as she walked past him.
Ruin rolled his eyes as he held the door open for Deon to follow Sara, but when Ollie started to walk past him, he asked, “You okay?”
Ollie gave him a nod, too sharp, her blood already singing a little from the pregaming.
He eyed her, then returned the motion. “Okay.”
Unable to take sympathy, to look empathy in the eye, not when it was a night Ollie wanted to be someone else, something else, anything else, she turned and walked into the full bar, which was brimming with boisterous noise and drunken energy.
It took so long.
It took even more weeks on top of the few months that had passed, but Carmen had finally left Mattie with someone else. Her fear had nothing to do with the people—as difficult as it was to admit, Carmen trusted Dex, trusted Rae and Jia, all of them, with her life. But trusting them with Mattie’s was more difficult. Anytime he was too far from her, a thick and heady unease crawled up Carmen’s spine. It left her feeling like all the air had left the room. Sometimes, if she walked to the other side of the warehouse, Mattie’s gaze flicked up, eyes almost black from his blown pupils as he watched to see where she’d gone.
But she always had the feeling that if she let him out of her sight, he wouldn’t be there when she got back. When they’d been in the group home the last time for a night, Carmen thirteen and Mattie five, she had been sent to school one morning. Mattie hadn’t been there when she’d returned.
He had been so small and young, sent to the first open home without being able to say good-bye to the only person he had in the world. Carmen had begged to see him, begged the family she was with next to see him, begged the one after. She’d always been met with silence.
So she didn’t like to leave him alone.
But now, after months, Mattie trusted the others, especially Rae. For the first time, when Carmen had been about to leave, Mattie hadn’t jumped up immediately to join her. He’d been sitting next to Rae on the sofa, who was busy trying to beat his top score on his DS and failing badly. Mattie had hesitated, almost hovered, as though torn between his desire to stay with Carmen and wanting to be somewhere that was starting to feel like home.
“Want to stay with me, kid?” Rae had asked, her eyes on Carmen, filled with a question.
Mattie had swallowed, had stood, had taken a step toward Carmen, and then paused and looked back at Rae. “Can we spar a bit?”
Sparring with Mattie was all footwork, teaching him to duck and weave. He loved to dance around Carmen as she taught him the signs of someone about to throw a punch, taught him to roll, to be quick. They were progressing slowly, and she still lived with her heart in her throat, but he loved it.
Sometimes he laughed mid-dodge, delight in his eyes. The sound filled the room, filled Carmen, and left her breathless.
“Yeah, we can.” Rae nudged his shoulder with her own.
He’d looked back to Carmen, teeth at his lip. “Can I?”
“Of course.” But she was looking at Rae. “You sure?”
The nod was certain, but Carmen’s gut wasn’t, and she left after ruffling Mattie’s hair, trying not to make it a big deal. The feel of his hair, shorn much closer to his scalp than in the past to make it easier to maintain, left an ache in her stomach. She had liked the soft cloud it was when it grew out.
Her own hair was at her chin now. Rae had taken her scissors to it during a night filled with a few beers, the taste of them like bread over Carmen’s tongue. Her hair now was jagged, shaggy, her long, dark waves a distant memory. A patch had even been shaved just above her ear like an undercut.
The bar was busy that night. Fridays always were, and Dex had beckoned her up to serve with a wink and a grin that bordered on cheeky. It was better that way. The pace was faster as she switched between pulling beers and cleaning glasses; doing it kept her mind off Mattie, off the space he left within her when he wasn’t there, off the way something tugged at her to go back and get him. This was the best option: he wasn’t cooped up in the back office with the sounds of drunken idiots around him. He was somewhere safe, with someone safe. But still.
He wasn’t with her.
The crowd was getting thicker, louder.
Dex ran a tight ship. Troublemakers weren’t even remotely tolerated, and on nights like this, he called in a friend, equally as large and bearded and weighty, to help him keep the idiots at bay. By now, everyone knew the rules, which meant the crowd was usually a fun one, easygoing. Carmen only had to ward off the occasional overly friendly dude.
A guy stood in front of her with cheekbones to die for, who, despite the rough stubble, reminded her of someone. His skin was like the inky black of the river she and Mattie had slept by at night, soothing and deep and endless.
“Hey.”
“Hey. What’ll it be?”
“Two beers and—” His face fell. “Wait. Yo!” He turned around to the crowd behind him. “What was it?”
And then a guy with matching cheekbones was standing in front of her, grinning up at the older one. He also looked familiar.
He was familiar.
Carmen knew him. She knew she did.
“One rum and Coke, and a gin and tonic.” He grinned at her. Then his mouth fell open.
Panic seized Carmen so strongly she had to grip the bar top. His name was Deon. She remembered him now, laughing with Ollie at that party, an arm carelessly over her shoulder hours before the bottom fell out of the world.
Sara, who Ollie had draped her arm around at that party, pushed up next to him. She barely looked at Carmen as she went to say something to Deon. Then she noticed the look on his face and turned to see what had caused it. Sara’s mouth dropped open too.
“Holy fucking shit! What are the chances?” Then Sara was grinning and grabbing someone behind her, and Ollie was in front of Carmen, thinner than before, hollow under her eyes, but still Ollie.
Something tripped over in Carmen’s stomach. She paused, and the urge to ask Ollie what had taken the stars from her eyes rose up.
“Ollie! Check it out. It’s Carmen. Dude.” Sara’s attention was back on Carmen. “You have no idea how much Ollie was trying to find you.”
Carmen could only stare at Ollie, who blinked back at her, the sky in her eyes a storm. Then one thought made it through the others: they couldn’t know she was here. If they told people, the school would find out, and that crack she’d merrily tripped down would widen until she was found.
Until Mattie was found.
“Carmen.” Ollie’s voice was all husk, surprise, and something else Carmen didn’t recognize.
“Ollie.” For a distracted moment, Carmen loved the way Ollie’s name flowed out of her mouth, like it was meant to be there for those few seconds.
“I—” Ollie was staring at her as if Carmen had all the answers, when Carmen felt that she had nothing to offer up but confusion. “How are you?”
Before Carmen could answer, someone down the bar yelled for service, and people jostled, waiting for drinks as Dex managed his end. He threw her a look, his eyebrows thick over his brow.
“I’m really sorry,” Carmen said. “I have to get your order out and serve the next people.”
Sara was looking between the two of them, Deon muttering something to the guy that was clearly his brother.
“Two beers, one rum and Coke, and one gin and tonic?” she checked.
Ollie’s never stopped staring at her, and she just nodded and watched Carmen the entire time she made the drinks. Carmen’s fingers trembled, which s
he blamed on the horror overtaking her that this was the first step in being found out.
That had to be it. Because it had nothing to do with Ollie and the memory of burning skin under Carmen’s hands or the urgency to her lips—nothing with the way Ollie had offered herself up like the answer to a prayer.
So many eyes were on her, brows pushed together in contemplation. Carmen was nauseated at the idea that maybe she and Mattie were going to have to run, just as he’d settled in.
The others all scooped up their drinks, but Ollie was still watching, lips parted slightly, the bow of her mouth a question.
“You guys want a tab?”
Ollie still stared at her, so Sara smiled. “Yeah, thanks.”
Carmen set it up, and when she looked back over, they’d gone, swallowed by the crowd. Something had opened up, some space, and gulped down something Carmen needed. Filling up a row of glasses with beer, the guy who asked for them trying to smile at her, Carmen pushed past the hollow feeling. What could she say to Ollie to ensure none of them mentioned Carmen to anyone they knew?
“What was that?” Dex was next to her, digging into the ice bin and filling some glasses.
“What?” Carmen took the guy’s cash with a glare until he got the hint and his friend helped him carry the drinks away.
“That showdown.” Dex splashed gin into the drinks in front of him, and Carmen took someone’s order down the bar by simply watching them gesture to the drinks in front of them and mouth, Four more?
“There was no showdown.”
“You know them.”
Carmen licked her lips. How much did you really know someone? How much could she really say she knew Ollie? She didn’t really know the others, that was for sure. Just their names. Just the way they all moved in each other’s orbits like they’d done it for a millennia since the first star exploded and engulfed them all. She kind of knew the drinks they liked, had watched them tell jokes and play games one night at one party.
