by G. Benson
Just blackness. Thick clouds were obscuring the stars, and if she stared long enough, Carmen could just make out where the moon lay. She’d left the others downstairs, claiming she needed some time alone, and for a moment, she thought she’d wanted to cry for the first time in a long while, but now she sat, feeling numb and empty and alone.
The door opened behind her, and as it swung shut quietly, Carmen sighed. “Rae. I told you. I just want some time alone.”
Silence. Then: “Sorry. Sara, uh, brought me. I wanted to… I’ll go.”
She whipped her head around, ignoring the glance of pain it provoked. Carmen’s breath left her in a rush at the sound of Ollie’s voice.
She stood in front of the door, a hand shoved into her back pocket while the other disappeared into the sleeve of her hoody.
For a second, Carmen forgot to breathe back in. With everything that had happened, pushing Ollie to the back of her mind had been simple. But now, with Ollie staring at her, unsure, all Carmen could remember was the look twisted on Ollie’s face when Carmen had turned and walked away from her.
Ollie started to leave, her hand reaching for the door handle, and Carmen couldn’t stop herself: “Wait.” That couldn’t be her own voice, could it? Low and as dark as the night that surrounded them.
Ollie froze a moment before turning back. Her eyes were huge, and Carmen didn’t know what to do. All she could think was that Mattie wasn’t here and that Ollie may very well be there to tell Carmen she wanted nothing to do with her, that she was breaking it all off. The thought of Ollie walking away from her was horrifying. Those goose bumps rose further, and the world seemed to drop out from under her.
But she had no idea what to say.
Thankfully, Ollie spoke first. “Is Mattie okay?”
Carmen nodded, then shook her head, her lips tight together; it seemed, in that moment, that if she loosened them, everything she was feeling would burst out in a torrent, too many emotions for either of them to handle.
“He’s not?” Ollie’s voice was high, panic lacing the edges.
“He—he will be.”
Ollie had stepped forward, and she hovered again, her hands coming together, both wrapped in the ends of her sleeves now. All Carmen was aware of was her own breathing, of Ollie’s eyes.
“I’m…I’m so sorry I called the police.”
Carmen shook her head, the movement explosive. “No, don’t be. You didn’t know.”
“Exactly. I…” Her voice cracked, and something in Carmen did too at the sound. “I didn’t know…”
Even from where she sat, Carmen saw the tremble to Ollie’s lips. The sight left Carmen wordless again. She always thought she had nothing to offer, nothing to fix the people in front of her who looked at her like they needed her to.
“You didn’t trust me, Carmen.”
The ache in Ollie’s voice set off an ache in her, and Carmen twisted, pushing herself up and walking to her with no idea of how to make this better.
“You didn’t—” Ollie cut herself off when Carmen was in front of her, hands cupping Ollie’s cheeks.
“Please, Ollie. No.” The whisper, the desperation of her own voice was one Carmen didn’t recognize. “It wasn’t that.”
That lip was trembling again, and tears spilled past Ollie’s lids and down her cheeks, fat drops, one by one lathing salt into the fissures in Carmen’s heart. “I told you everything.”
“I know. I know you did, and I told you everything I could. I did.” Carmen tried to smile, the turn of her lips falling short. “No one else knows I stole a skateboard.”
Ollie huffed a laugh, damp with her tears and no smile to echo it.
“Ollie, I swear it wasn’t because I didn’t trust you. I do, with everything.” It was as if voicing the words made Carmen realize the depth of how much she did, how much she needed Ollie.
“You could have told me.”
Carmen pressed their foreheads together, and, finally, Ollie’s fingers gripped her back. The pressure of it felt like relief always should, even as she held in a gasp at the push against her injuries. “I was going to, right before. And I wanted to, so many times. I was scared.”
“Of what I’d think?”
Carmen shook her head, their noses brushing. “No. Of losing…of losing Mattie.”
And then her chest heaved, and for a second, Carmen thought she was going to be sick, but instead she sobbed. She did it again, and her arms wrapped around Ollie’s shoulders as Ollie wrenched them together, her arms encircling Carmen’s waist. The weight was too much; it hurt her back. But it also wasn’t tight enough. Wetness was on her cheeks, and she buried her face into Ollie’s neck. “But I did. I lost him. I’ve lost him, Ollie.”
The sobs came out hot and damp and desperate. Her chest broke with it, shuddering under the stress of it all. Ollie didn’t let her break apart, even as Carmen thought she was going to.
They stayed on the roof until light started to streak the sky. First, in lighter blues and grays, seeping into the world and saturating it. Then pinks and oranges lit it up. Carmen sat back against Ollie’s stomach between her legs, Ollie against the door that led downstairs. Lips were at her temple, and Carmen sighed, her eyes closing, feeling tight and swollen.
“You okay?” Ollie whispered against her scalp, her arms tightening around Carmen’s middle.
“Better with you.” Carmen’s voice sounded overused, scraped raw to match her insides. She’d told Ollie everything, and Ollie had just listened. Her head fell back against Ollie’s shoulder as she watched the sun claim the skyline. “Don’t you need to be home?”
Ollie shook her head against her hair. “No. Dad thinks I’m staying at Sara’s. Sara’s parents think she’s at mine. But we’re both here.”
Carmen rested a hand atop Ollie’s knee, tracing patterns against the denim with her fingertip. Every part of her was exhausted. Even with Ollie there, grounding her, her butt surely as numb as Carmen’s was after hours sitting on the hard floor, a part of Carmen was itching to move and go to Mattie.
And she couldn’t. And that killed her. He would wake up in the hospital alone. Would his heart turn heavy as he woke up and remembered?
“What are you thinking?” Ollie’s words washed over Carmen’s ear.
She swallowed heavily. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to just…not see him.”
“Mattie?” Ollie asked.
“Yeah. To not…help him and wake up with him, to not have him here every day. To not know if he’s okay and what he’s doing.”
Ollie pressed kisses against her neck this time. A comforting touch. “I’m sorry.”
“I won’t… I won’t even know where he is…”
Ollie’s arms tightened around her, one right over her stomach and the other over her chest, that hand cupping her shoulder as well. She’d placed them in the only spots Carmen wasn’t in pain, and Carmen ignored the residual twinges. “Was this your only option?” she asked.
Carmen watched as the last of the darkness left the sky, the world awake around them. “It was.”
“Focus on that. Remember that. You’ll find him at school, and then you’ll get him back.” Ollie’s voice was full of conviction, sure in what she said.
“I have to.”
“You’ll have me to help. However I can.”
Carmen twisted as much as she could, nose to nose with Ollie. In that light, she could see the depth of the blue of her eyes, the darkness around her pupils. Her hair was a mess of curls, tight and crinkly, and in that light, in the cool beauty of it, Carmen thought her heart would swell too big for her chest. For a moment, they blinked at each other, eyes red-rimmed and tired.
“I trust you.” She whispered the words, a promise, letting them mark Ollie’s lips.
Olli
e ducked her head and kissed her. “I know,” she answered when they finally parted, a soft rending of their lips. “I know.”
Chapter 21
The school day was ticking by agonizingly slowly, and Ollie thought she might fall asleep at her desk. The lights were dimmed in her biology class for a video about cell division playing on the screen at the front. She’d heard the word mitochondria so many times she’d lost count.
Next to her, Sara’s head was on Ollie’s shoulder, and from the deep breathing in Ollie’s ear, it was obvious she’d started to drift off. Her own chin was heavy in her hands, and her blinking was getting slower and slower.
Ollie hadn’t slept at all on that roof last night. Instead, she’d wrapped herself around Carmen and tried to show her that someone, at least, was there. She’d wanted to leave the imprint of herself behind so that when she left, Carmen could still feel her—something permanent.
The guilt and uncertainty in Carmen’s gaze had forced that last lick of anger firing up Ollie’s throat to flicker out. That hurt had raged within her as she’d walked with Sara to the warehouse, but it had already begun to soften as she took in the derelict buildings, the people she saw rolled up under newspapers and cardboard in the alleys and doorsteps. Then there were the haunted eyes that followed them, some completely empty, as they watched Sara and Ollie pass by. By the time she’d stared around the ratty, slightly dirty warehouse and heard Dex’s gruff “she’s on the roof,” that small lick of anger was all that was left, fading fast once she saw those eyes, so deep and dark and everything.
Ollie had never seen Carmen cry. And if anyone needed to cry, it was her.
When the sun had started to bathe them on the rooftop, exhaustion rubbing at Ollie’s eyes, she’d kissed Carmen and wondered at the delicate touch of her lips. Carmen had never seemed delicate before. She’d seemed intense, closed off, filled with something Ollie wanted to dig her fingers into and figure out.
Never fragile. Never feeling like she’d fall apart beneath Ollie.
The video on the TV kept droning. Sara was definitely asleep. Ollie’s head dropped, and she snapped it back up, jostling them both. Sara jumped, straightening and looking around wildly, her gaze settling on Ollie’s face. Ollie was failing to smother her smirk.
“How is this movie not finished yet?” Sara whispered as she shuffled closer and dug her chin into her hand.
“I don’t know. But I feel like we’re in hell.”
When the movie finally finished, their teacher set homework based around it, and Ollie let out a groan. They had so much reviewing to do for finals, and he was giving them extra now?
“He’s evil,” Sara muttered as they walked out. They headed for a grassy spot, pushing past jostling students on their way to classes. Having the same free period was the highlight of their day. With a thump, they flopped on the grass, their heads just touching as they stared straight up.
White clouds were drifting by, and the sun was almost warm against their skin. Yesterday seemed miles away to Ollie, lost, as if it had never happened to her but rather to someone else or in a dream: the violence of it, the small kid, Mattie, and the wildness in Carmen’s eyes as she’d pulled him to her in the back alley.
Time had warped.
But now, a wall came down between them on that rooftop, crumbled to nothing. That thing Carmen always seemed to be holding back had been let go, and now Ollie could see her clearly.
“You okay?” Sara asked.
Ollie considered her answer for a moment. “Thinking.”
The sun was bright behind the clouds, and Ollie closed her eyes. Would it be inappropriate to nap right there? The grounds had emptied, everyone was in class, and the next hour spread out in front of her, hopefully filled with sleep. They should be in the library, but if they lay really still, maybe no one would notice them.
“I’m still sorry I didn’t tell you.”
Blinking against the light when she opened her eyes, Ollie turned her head. Sara stared up at the sky, hollows under her eyes. She never did well without much sleep.
“I know. But you don’t have to be.”
Sara turned her head a little, catching Ollie’s gaze. “I am, though. But, well, I’m also not.” At Ollie’s scrunched forehead, she turned on her side, her head on her hand and looking down at Ollie. “I hated keeping it from you. I’ve never done that before. But… Carmen is from this other world in some ways. Like Rae.”
She paused, and Ollie rolled over too, mirroring Sara by putting her head in her hand and staring her straight in the eyes. Their knees knocked together. “And like you.”
Slowly, Sara nodded. “And me. There’s something about coming from the homes we did, and being in the system, that other people just can’t get. I saw her with her brother and in that warehouse, and she was trying so hard to protect him. I, well, I needed to have her back.”
Ollie hated that there was a part of her best friend’s life, of Carmen’s life, that she would never be able to really touch or understand. Tendrils of it that would slip through her fingers. Inexperience and her own history would stop her from being able to really hold tight to them. But that betrayal, which had tidal-waved through her, had ebbed to nothing in the last twelve hours. How could she hold a grudge? How could she be so angry when she’d looked into the molten, dark eyes of Mattie and seen what Carmen was desperate to protect?
“I get it.”
Sara blinked. “You do?”
“I do. I know I can never understand where you guys all came from, but I get why Carmen kept it from me, and I get why you wouldn’t tell me for her.”
“Thanks.”
“Thanks for having Carmen’s back.”
Sara flopped back down, twisting onto her back and dropping a hand over her eyes. “Great. Now that the love-in chat is over, can we nap?”
“If you tell me if you and Rae are actually a thing yet or not.”
Eyes still covered, Sara’s lips twitched as she obviously tried not to smirk. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You looked pretty cozy this morning.”
That smirk showed a little more. “Did not.”
Ollie poked her. “Did too.”
“If I admit something, can we nap?”
“Yup.”
“Fine… We’re, like, not not together.”
“Sara!” Ollie squealed like a stereotypical teenager but didn’t care. “Really?”
Finally, Sara dropped her arm away from her eyes. “Really.” She winked. “Really, really. Now, can we sleep?”
Groaning, Ollie fell next to her, throwing a leg over so her ankle hooked over Sara’s in the familiar way they had. She set an alarm on her phone, though she knew the kids flooding out for lunch and heading toward the cafeteria would make it unnecessary. Slowly, they drifted off while watching the clouds move over the sky, her chest a bit lighter at the way that smile had lit up Sara’s face.
The day stretched on and on, and Carmen went from the roof to walking the street to trying to sleep. None of it worked. Her mind was on Mattie and the day before and, most of all, his absence.
She was filled with a nervous energy and couldn’t even spar to get it out of her system. Her entire body hurt more than it ever had. In no position to even stand for long periods of time, she was left having to try not to bounce her leg to death to get out her energy.
She was itching to know something about Mattie, to know he was okay. In her bed in the afternoon, she lay sprawled over a sleeping bag that smelled like him. Her thoughts twisted and turned on each other, melded and separated and spliced apart. All she could do was stare up at the ceiling, a hand under her head, feeling ready to tear out of her skin. Other times she’d felt like this, Mattie had crawled in beside her, the length of him along her own. When he was tiny, he’d curl up,
a hand fisted under his chin and the other fisted into her shirt. He wouldn’t sleep unless he was mashed against her. This had been fine when he’d been tiny and she could put him in a crib, but then at eighteen months, he’d worked out how to climb out, and that was it—he was in her bed. They’d breathe in sync, his snuffles sending her to sleep, and she’d wake with him even closer than he’d started, even if it was the middle of summer.
She’d been eight when he’d been born. Tiny and screaming and waving his fists in the air.
Before him, she didn’t remember much. Time before Mattie was convoluted and meaningless. Carmen remembered time after him. From when she first saw him, the protectiveness had grown in her chest, a seed in her heart that took her over, the roots implanting deep, digging into the very core of her.
“Hey.”
Carmen pushed herself up onto her elbows, trying not to wince at the protest from her entire body, even as the voice lightened something inside her. “Ollie.”
Hovering in the doorway, Ollie gave an awkward wave. “Hi… I came straight from school.” She scuffed her Converse sneaker into the ground, toeing at it. “I hope you, uh, meant it when you said to come.”
“I did.”
They stared at each other a moment, and Carmen slumped back against the mattress, her ribs finally winning. Everything ached. “Come in.”
Carmen tried to ignore the warmth that flooded her cheeks as Ollie walked in, dumping her backpack on the floor at the end of the mattress. Ollie’s eyes took the room in, no doubt seeing the stains and shedding wallpaper and emptiness. Carmen’s situation, the truth of it, was seeped into the walls of this room. No belongings except for some clothes stacked into a corner of it and some books along one wall. The sleeping bags on the bed.
That was all.
But then, Ollie was only looking at Carmen, her eyes blue and soft like the sea, a rolling tide of understanding.
Carmen shuffled over on the mattress.
