Pieces

by G. Benson

  Maybe she should word that more as if she wanted to, rather than needed to.

  Pamphlets sat in her room for colleges, and she ignored them, trying to not think about the weight of applying for things that determined her future when she wasn’t sure what she wanted her future to be. She just bumbled though the exam, Sara at the same one, almost in solidarity more than anything, and hoped for the best.

  Art pumped through her veins and tingled at the tips of her fingertips. It was what she threw herself into most. And, with the constant thought of what her mother would think in the back of Ollie’s mind, she thought mostly about colleges with good art programs. Her dad had just nodded, a shadow in his eye, but not saying anything.

  Ollie wanted to talk to her mother. To ask her what she thought. On nights following the exam, she’d lie in bed alone, her heart racing and wish more than anything she could flop onto the couch with her mom and ask if everything really did hang on these decisions she was making, or if it just felt that way.

  One night, on the roof of the warehouse, Ollie and Carmen lay on their backs and stared up at the sky. With the exam over, summer stretched ahead of them. She had a job at a reception desk in one of the art museums now. Her dad knew someone who knew the director. Sometimes, she forgot that his job was linked with art, that he’d minored in it while studying architecture.

  But finally, with Carmen there next to her, their legs entangled and her head on Carmen’s shoulder, none of that seemed to matter.

  “I have something for you.” Carmen tensed under her. She didn’t like gifts, or anything that felt like charity. When would she get that it wasn’t charity? “Chill out, it’s nothing like that,” she added.

  “Sorry.”

  Ollie sat up and stared down at Carmen, who pulled her hand under her head. The moon was full, throwing a blue light over everything. It seemed to roll over Carmen’s hair like waves. Each shift made it shimmer, and Ollie wanted to draw her like that. She took a second to take her in, to imprint it all into her mind to sketch later: the colors and the slope of her cheek, the brush of her eyelashes. Charcoals, heavy with blunt lines and smudged to create the softness caused by the light. And later, she’d paint it on a canvas. Oils, maybe. Or she could play with her watercolors. They weren’t her usual medium, but something about that light made her fingers itch for the brush, for the swish of water and the cloth she’d grip in her hand to wipe it clean between colors.

  Blinking, she remembered where she was.

  Carmen was staring at her with a soft smile. “What?”

  “Nothing.” Ollie traced a finger over Carmen’s cheek, brushed her hair behind her ear, and smiled when Carmen shivered as Ollie ran a finger lightly over the shell of her ear. Carmen’s eyes fluttered closed. “You’re beautiful.”

  Carmen shook her head.

  “You are,” Ollie reiterated.

  “Didn’t you say you had something for me?” Carmen opened her eyes and laughed at Ollie’s eye roll. Carmen could never take a compliment.

  Too lazy to get up, Ollie stretched over, shuffling a little, to drag her backpack over. She rummaged inside it, and her fingers enclosed over the soft, leather lines of what she was searching for. Out of nowhere, she felt shy. Warmth flooded her cheeks. “So, I, uh, had this for you weeks ago. But it was the day Mattie got hurt, and I kind of forgot about it. And then it didn’t seem like the right time. So I waited? And maybe you’ll think it’s really stupid—”

  Carmen’s hand on her knee shut her up. And then she was sitting in front of her, with her soft eyes and moonlight in her hair, and Ollie knew she was being stupid to worry like this.

  “What is it?”

  Ollie held out the overloaded journal she’d wanted to give Carmen ages ago. It was full of sketches, random pages filled with colors she’d played with, things she’d glued in that pulled out and made shapes and images.

  Swallowing, Carmen took it, staring down.

  “You—you said you wanted to see some of my stuff. More of it, I mean. So this is for you.”

  Carmen opened it, and she traced her fingers over the image she’d come across. The book sat in her lap, and she flicked more pages, staring down at a pastel drawing of eyes Ollie hoped she knew were her own. She touched her finger against a thick acrylic painting of a sunset. “This is amazing.”

  Ollie’s cheeks went warmer. “Thank you.”

  “This entire book is for me?”

  “I have a lot of them. I fill them up really fast. This is the one I started around when I met you. Some of the, uh, pages get a bit dark. In the middle.”

  Carmen cocked her head, nodding. She knew very well when Ollie’s mom had died, and Ollie suspected it was what she was thinking about right now. “Don’t you want to keep it?”

  Ollie shook her head. “It’s for you. It’s yours more than mine. I don’t know if that makes sense.”

  Carmen’s fingers wrapped around the back of Ollie’s neck and urged her forward. Ollie pushed herself up, her thighs on either side of Carmen as she straddled her and their lips came together softly.

  “Thank you.”

  The words murmured over her lips, and Ollie breathed them in. “You’re welcome.”

  She settled back to sit more firmly in Carmen’s lap, Carmen’s hand against her thigh and the other still in her hair. The book pressed between them, and neither went to move it.

  “There’s some of Mattie in the back.”

  Carmen’s lips curled up even more, and Ollie wished she could see her smile like that more often. It lit her whole face up, crinkled around her eyes.

  “You drew Mattie?”

  “Yeah. I added them after.”

  A shadow fell over Carmen’s face then, the smile dimming.

  “What?”

  For a moment Ollie panicked, thinking Carmen was about to shut down and pull back. She did that sometimes—disappeared—and Ollie let her. She always came back. But the thought of losing that open look on Carmen’s face made Ollie’s stomach lurch.

  But Carmen shook her head, just slightly. “I’m just… I’ve been thinking all day. Talking with Jia.”

  “About how to get him back?”

  “Yeah. I’m eighteen in just over a month. I’ll be able to get visitations with him pretty easily, I think. I’ll have aged out. Jia agrees it won’t be a problem. But actually getting him back?”

  Beneath Ollie’s hands, one against Carmen’s neck and the other resting lightly on her stomach, no longer bruised but still tender, Carmen’s body froze as she held her breath for a second. Finally, the muscles under Ollie’s hands relaxed as Carmen exhaled slowly, and Ollie pushed closer, shoving the book to the side, their foreheads together.

  “I’m so scared I may not be able to.”

  “What can I do?”

  Carmen shrugged, the movement shifting both of them a little. “Nothing. I need to speak to a lawyer, to someone, once I’m eighteen. Jia knows some people who will speak to me for free and give me some advice. I need to get an apartment. I need to find a job out of the bar, one more full-time. I have to prove I can look after him.”

  Her entire body tensed again.

  “What?” Ollie asked.

  “It’s just…” Carmen pulled back so abruptly the cold air was a slap against Ollie’s cheeks after being wrapped in her. She leaned back on her hands, staring Ollie straight in the eye, her face unguarded and her cheeks flushed. She was angry.

  It took Ollie a second to recognize that look. She hadn’t really seen it on Carmen’s face before.

  “It’s that—why should I have to prove I’m the best thing for him? I’m all he’s ever had. Of course I’m the best thing for him. No one—no one asked me to prove it when it was only me, and our mother was just gone for days and days. Do you know she once lef
t for an entire month?”

  Ollie shook her head, wanting to absorb the anger radiating off Carmen.

  “A month. She left fifty bucks she’d probably gotten from selling crack from the very table she left it on and just went. Do you have any idea how hard it is to make fifty bucks last for food for a month? The electricity shut off halfway through. We had to have cold showers in winter. We had to make sure the school didn’t notice. She raised me to do that, to know secrecy and cover-ups. And I did it, for Mattie. And I did it well. Now they want me to prove I deserve him? To prove I’m the best option he has?”

  Carmen’s eyes were glittering now, and when she blinked once, heavily, tears spilled over and fell too fast to count. The light caught on them, and the ones that clung to her lashes were like diamonds.

  Her tongue heavy with its lack of words, Ollie hesitated. She had no idea what to say to this. To the reality of the world that had swallowed Carmen and Mattie so unfairly. “I’m sorry.” She whispered the words in the hope they wouldn’t hit Carmen too hard.

  Carmen drew in a shuddering breath and held it a second before blowing it out. “No, I am. Sorry.”

  “Hey.” Ollie bent forward and cupped her cheeks. “No. Never be sorry.”

  She pulled Carmen forward, and she relented, wrapping her arms around Ollie’s waist and burrowing her face into her neck. Her cheeks and breath were warm and wet. All Ollie could do was hold her as close as possible and run her fingers through her hair. Carmen didn’t shudder from sobs, and she didn’t cry. She just gripped on to Ollie.

  “Thank you.”

  “No thank-yous either.”

  Carmen huffed a laugh against her neck, and Ollie couldn’t help the shudder, or the goose bumps that broke out over her skin.

  Pulling back just a little, Carmen blinked at her. Tears still hung from her eyelashes, but she seemed calmer, the wild look that had taken over her eyes soothed. With Carmen’s injuries and the stress of Mattie, they hadn’t done more than press close and kiss in weeks. Carmen’s gaze dropped to Ollie’s lips, and Ollie’s breath hitched, catching in her chest. Even fragile, with tears smudged under her cheeks, Carmen managed to make Ollie shiver.

  She pushed forward, their lips colliding with more force than Ollie thought either of them had meant. The rawness of the last ten minutes, too much for too short a time, had left Ollie split open. Carmen was facing so much for Ollie to be able to help, but the uselessness that haunted her disappeared as Carmen moaned into her mouth and her tongue licked Ollie’s lip.

  At least Ollie was here. She could offer that.

  Hands splayed over Ollie’s spine under her shirt, nails scratching over her shoulder blade. Ollie arched into her.

  “Of course they’re making out.”

  They froze, Carmen huffing at the sound of Rae’s voice.

  Ollie laughed, the sound slightly strangled as Carmen’s hands slid out from her shirt and rested against her thighs again. Carmen squeezed, and Ollie tried to remember to breathe. She turned around and saw Rae and Sara, who both looked far too amused for her liking. “Please. Don’t act like I didn’t walk in on you two in the bathroom at the bar just last week.”

  Sara shrugged. “You should have knocked.”

  “It was a public toilet, you animal.”

  “Right.” Rae drew the vowels out, her eyebrows raised. “And what does that make you two? I’ve seen you disappear off there more times than I can count.”

  Well, that comeback had been Ollie’s fault. She’d just gone for the insult rather than taking that fact into account.

  Carmen slapped her leg gently. “She’s got you there, Ollie.”

  “Way to take her side.”

  Carmen just shrugged at her as Ollie slid off her lap.

  Rae and Sara walked over to the edge of the roof and sat down. With Ollie’s art book firmly in her hand, Carmen hauled Ollie up, and they went and sat shoulder to shoulder with the others, their feet swinging listlessly.

  The moon really was like a streetlight, lighting everything up. The stars were even drowned out a little, and Ollie felt a pang of loneliness at not being able to see them. There, with her friends around her and the world sprawling out from their feet, she could forget SATs and life decisions. Even with the salty taste of Carmen’s frustration still on her tongue, the moment felt present, those decisions and repercussions a bit too far away suddenly. It was almost dizzying how much they swung from being at the forefront of her mind to far away, a problem for later.

  “Hey, Ollie?” Sara asked.

  “Mm?”

  “Have you gotten your SAT results yet?”

  Ollie groaned and dropped her head back. Next to her, knowing how much she didn’t want to think about it, Carmen just laughed.

  “Shut up, Sara.”

  The snort could have come from any of them.

  Chapter 25

  The summer passed too fast and too slow.

  Ollie worked during the day, and on days she didn’t, on weekends or even afternoons, everyone came over to use the pool. In so many ways, everything was like the summers before, and in so many ways so different that it left an ache in Ollie’s chest so deep it seemed to resonate.

  Her mother never appeared to throw sunscreen toward her with a roll of her eyes, or gave her the special conditioning treatment she always bought Ollie for her hair. No week her mom took off to just be around the house, all up in Ollie’s space in a way that had started to get irritating but now she craved.

  There were things her dad didn’t think of and things Ollie just did for herself.

  The best difference, though, was Carmen—laid out in the sun with drops of water drying tight on her skin, brown and browning even more in the heat. There was her lazy smile when she’d roll over on her towel and throw a hot, baked arm over Ollie’s stomach.

  Sara and Rae came and went at their own times. Not always with each other. Sara and Ollie would still spend hours together, laid out and reading, poking each other into laughter under the twilight sky. They wouldn’t go inside until one of them had to slap at a mosquito, usually too hard and on the other person with an unapologetic shrug at the indignant squeal it evoked. Some nights, Deon joined them, or a few other friends from school.

  Carmen kept seeing Mattie. He was at school five days a week still, trying to catch up in some kind of summer program Ollie should really be grateful she hadn’t had to do this year. Sometimes Ollie went with her to see him before he got on the bus. He was a smart kid. All dark eyes and dark hair and dark skin. He’d sized her up before he really warmed to her, and she liked his boldness. But mostly she liked the way Carmen would look between the two of them as if she had everything she wanted at that moment.

  Carmen now had a standing invitation to dinner at Ollie’s house. So Carmen came regularly, on the nights she didn’t have to be at the bar. Sometimes, if Ollie got off from work late, she’d come home and the two of them, Carmen and her father, would be watching a soccer match on TV, yelling things at it that Ollie didn’t care about. Her dad didn’t even like soccer. He preferred tennis or football. She’d seen him some mornings, staring at his tablet and reading about soccer teams and cups, and Ollie had felt such a sweeping affection she’d wanted to hug him over her cereal. He was only reading up on it for Carmen.

  Right before Carmen’s eighteenth, he insisted she come for a birthday dinner.

  “So, Carmen,” he said over the meal, “you’re almost eighteen?”

  Ollie knew that number would be ringing in her head. She squeezed Carmen’s hand under the table.

  “I am,” Carmen said. “In a few days, in fact.”

  “It’s a big birthday.”

  Her father didn’t say it in the patronizing way so many adults did when they spoke about it. His tone was low, as if he really did understand
the significance it had for Carmen.

  “It is.” Carmen took a sip of her water.

  “So. Are you going to see about your brother?”

  Carmen’s hand shuddered as she put her glass down. Someone’s knife scraped on their plate, and Ollie realized it was hers. She put her cutlery down. Carmen knew Ollie had told her dad about most of it, ignoring as many of the more illegal parts as she could. But talking about the situation with an adult not immediately involved had clearly thrown her.

  “I am. I—” Her gaze darted to Ollie, then back to her father. “I would really like to have him back living with me as soon as possible.”

  Her father put his elbows on the table, his hands clasped in front of him. “That’s a huge amount of responsibility.”

  Ollie wanted to tell her dad to shut up, expecting Carmen to bristle next to her. But she didn’t.

  “I know it is. With all due respect, I’ve been looking after him since he was born. I know what I’m getting into.”

  He nodded, his head tilted as he took in the sincere look on Carmen’s face. “I really believe you do,” he said softly. “What about school? Isn’t there something you’d like to do?”

  Instead of just saying no like Ollie expected, Carmen relaxed back into her chair. Relaxed wasn’t the right word; she was still tense. But she wasn’t thrumming with frustration like Ollie would have expected.

  “To be honest, I haven’t really even thought that far ahead.” Her hand trembled slightly, fingers still wrapped around the glass on the table. “I know I should, but all I can think about is getting Mattie back with me. He’s the most important thing. I can look at that stuff later, when we’re more set up. I know I’m young, and people will think too young for this. But also: yes, I’m young. That means I have so much time. I can study later. I can take some kind of online course, or I can look at getting my GED. But I’m young. I have ages to figure that out. People go to college late all the time. But I only have now to be with Mattie.”