Little & Lion

by Brandy Colbert

  The first round goes to Justin’s team, which also happens to be Lion’s team. Rafaela steps back to let someone else take her place and then she’s standing next to me, saying she needs an escort to the bathroom. Emil doesn’t let go of my hand, though, and that sick feeling comes back when I realize I have to introduce them.

  “Emil, this is Rafaela. Lion’s… and we work together.” I couldn’t say it. Girlfriend. I don’t know if they’ve said it yet. But even if they haven’t, anyone who sees them together would know the word applies. “Rafaela, this is Emil.”

  “Nice to meet you,” he says, politely holding out his hand.

  She smiles at him, her mouth twisted to the side. “Oh, I think I’ve heard about you.”

  He glances at me before shooting a nervous grin her way. “You have?”

  But Rafaela doesn’t respond. She takes my arm and whisks me away, and I barely have time to look over my shoulder, to mouth Sorry to Emil before we’re heading inside and up the stairs. We stop at the doorway to the master bedroom and I fumble my way after her in the dark until she mercifully flips the switch in the bathroom, flooding my path with light.

  I step through the doorway to find a marble bathroom with a gleaming shower stall big enough for five people, and double sinks under the mirror. The towels hanging from the rack are impossibly fluffy and monogrammed.

  “So that’s the guy?” Rafaela asks, lifting her maxiskirt before she plops down on the toilet. Her underwear slides down to her ankles, pooling under the hem of the skirt. “Emil?”

  I lean against the sinks and face the shower, talking over the sound of her peeing. “Yeah, Emil. He’s…”

  “Cute?” I can hear the smile in her voice.

  “Yeah.” My mouth turns up, too. “I don’t know what we are. I’ve known him my whole life, practically, but something changed when I came back. And I told him I’m not totally straight.”

  “He’s chill about it?”

  “Completely.”

  “Well, lucky for you.” She flushes and walks to the sink to wash her hands. “One of the scariest things about that Palisades dude was that he flipped after I told him I’m not totally straight. He started getting super possessive and would watch me when we were around other girls to see if I was checking them out.”

  “Wow. Have you seen him lately?”

  “He’s been scarce, thank God. Although he did send a text today.”

  She dries her hands on one of the fancy towels hanging by the sink and fluffs her curls with her fingers. Then she reaches into the pocket of her skirt and pulls out a tube of lipstick. When she clicks it open, I see the purple shade that I so love on her.

  I don’t realize I’m staring until she stops, midapplication, and looks at me in the mirror. “What?”

  “Nothing.” I don’t really have to pee but I walk over to the toilet to escape her gaze.

  Rafaela is quiet as I flush and wash my hands. She carefully scrapes the excess color from the edge of her lips with the side of her fingernail before blotting with a tissue. Then she says, “Come here.” She’s brandishing the lipstick in one hand while studying my face.

  I stand in front of her, almost disturbed by the vibrancy of her gold-flecked eyes when we’re this close. She touches the center of my top lip, briefly rests her finger in the little groove right under my nose ring, and I close my eyes out of instinct, like the moment I know I’m about to be kissed. I hold my breath while she glides the tip of her finger around the edge of my mouth.

  “You have great lips,” she says, and I finally open my eyes, finally exhale.

  “I do?” My voice is shaky, and I know she notices, by the way she smiles.

  “They’re full, perfectly shaped. Makeup artist’s dream.” She touches my face then, but only so she can angle my chin where she needs it to be. “Don’t move.” She holds up the lipstick and slowly paints the color along my bottom lip. I close my eyes again. Partly because it seems like the thing to do when someone is putting makeup on your face, but mostly because I want to savor the soft but assured touch of her hands on my skin.

  She does the top lip and then goes over my whole mouth again with the lipstick. When I open my eyes, she’s holding out a fresh tissue. “Blot.”

  We look in the mirror together with our matching lips, and I think how easy it would be to kiss her now. How my brother or Emil wouldn’t have to know. How easily I could hide the evidence on our equally stained lips.

  “That color looks amazing on you,” she says.

  “Yeah?” I silently agree, though I think it looks better on her.

  “Emil will love it.” She steps away then, breaking the temporary spell that made me think I’d actually be brave enough to kiss her, to trace the elegant lines of her flowered tattoo. She pockets the lipstick. “Ready?”

  I nod, but she stops before she opens the door. Turns to face me.

  “I’ve never cheated on anyone I’ve been with,” she says carefully.

  I frown. “Neither have I.”

  “And I’m not in the habit of coming between family members.”

  I almost drop my beer. She stares and stares like she wants me to say something, but the only thing I can come up with is “I never said you were.”

  “Sometimes I say things out loud when I need a reminder. So… I don’t cheat. Okay?”

  But I think it’s a lie. I think that if I’d made a move, she would have kissed me back. That we might be pressed against the cool marble sinks, touching and still kissing and not just wanting. But she’s with Lionel and I am sort of with Emil. So I nod again and follow her, clutching so tightly to my beer I’m surprised the cup doesn’t splinter in my hands.

  I meet up with Emil again downstairs, and we walk out to the keg to refill our cups. We get in line behind two girls with tattoos that cover more skin than Rafaela’s, and I’m trying to discern what they are when Emil nudges my shoulder and says, “Hey.”

  I look up at him. “Hey.”

  “New lip stuff?”

  I nod. I don’t normally wear anything so dark and I wondered if he’d notice—especially that it’s the same shade as Rafaela’s. “Do you like it?”

  He kisses me in response. Soft and sweet and unexpected, square on the lips. I kiss him back, and when we pull away, I smile.

  “What was that for?”

  He shrugs. “Do I need a reason?”

  He doesn’t, but I have to wonder if he could tell there was something different when Rafaela was around. If he felt the need to remind me that I’m with him tonight.

  Just then a guy lopes over from the porch and announces to the entire line of people waiting for the keg: “Fight! In the garage!”

  Lionel’s face flashes in front of me. I send it away. He was angry with Catie earlier, but they only ever fight with words. And he wouldn’t hit a girl. And maybe there’s a point when you have to stop worrying, when you have to believe everything will turn out okay in the end.

  Half of the line disperses and follows him back to the house. Mostly guys, but a few girls scurry off, too. The ones in front of us stand strong for only a few more seconds before one of them looks at the other, shrugs, and they walk away, too. Emil and I have just reached the front of the line, him instructing me to hold my cup while he pumps the keg, when Justin comes tearing toward us.

  “You guys should get to the garage.” He’s jogging in place like Emil did the first day I saw him this summer. Like he wants to be here but has somewhere more urgent to go.

  “We heard about the fight,” Emil says. “I’ll pass.”

  “Yeah.” I hold my cup steady as the tap slowly fills it at an angle. “What’s the point of watching people we don’t know get into it?”

  But I know. It’s too early to stop worrying. I know there’s a good chance it’s—

  “Guys, it’s Lionel.”

  My cup crashes to the ground, soaking my feet in fresh beer.

  We race inside. Emil pulls me along after him so fast that I fee
l like I’m floating. But we’re nearly the last to arrive. The garage is full, the center of the room obscured by a thick wall of backs nearly pressing up to all four corners.

  “Let us through!” I shout, loud as I can. “We need to get through! That’s my brother!”

  But they can’t hear me over the cheering and yelling. Even if they can, no one parts the crowd for us. Everyone is too invested in what’s going on up front or trying to see what’s going on up front or just getting swept up in the commotion of it all. My heart is thumping so loudly that the voices coming at me from all sides fade into the distance.

  We push our way up a millimeter a minute. I feel like I’m going to be sick. Maybe Justin was wrong. Maybe it isn’t Lionel. Maybe there was some other guy with red hair hanging out in the garage. But I can’t ask him; he’s ahead of Emil, who’s ahead of me, still tightly gripping my hand so we don’t get separated.

  Lionel isn’t a fighter. And so my stomach turns even more when I think about him getting bruised up by some guy who’s actually had practice. The closer I get, the more I can hear the sounds from the actual fight: grunts, breathless curses, the ripping of clothes.

  But by the time we finally make our way to the head of the crowd, it’s over. And it’s not the scene I thought I’d find. A guy with long, dark hair is lying on the floor of the garage, holding his arms around his head like a helmet. He raises his elbows just high enough for me to see that his nose is gushing blood: a thick, dark stream of red that stains the concrete below him.

  Lionel is standing above, still raring to go and held back by Rafaela, who looks even tinier than usual. But she doesn’t look scared. I’d be horrified if Emil had just been in a fight, but the look on her face is… not enchantment, but something close to it.

  No one is helping the guy on the ground. I don’t know what the story is, but I need to find out why Lionel is covered in this guy’s blood. It’s on his collar, his arm… his fist.

  I want to ask him but as I step forward he glances at me, and the look in his eyes is wild. Not really seeing me. Not really in this moment except for his body.

  I’ve seen that look before. It was the other time I saw him clenching a bloody fist.

  Lionel once told me he didn’t know why doctors bothered with explaining the difference in the types of mania since it all meant people with bipolar were crazy and, eventually, would end up depressed.

  When I look at my brother, I see that he’s sick. I see that he needs his meds to properly function.

  I see that I have fucked up big-time and I have to fix it.

  eighteen.

  Emil drives Lionel and me home in Lion’s car, not without protests from my brother.

  He insists that he’s fine, that he can get us home himself after God knows how many drinks, that we should totally fucking ignore that he’s moving around like a can of compressed air on the verge of bursting. He’s mad that we left Rafaela at Alicia’s house and mad that we let that guy on the garage floor get away from him.

  “What was your problem with that guy?” I ask. He’s in the backseat, and I can’t look at him. It’s my fault that he’s like this right now and yet it’s his fault, too, for involving me. I’m mad at both of us, at what we’ve gotten ourselves into.

  “He wouldn’t leave my girlfriend alone,” Lionel responds in a steely voice.

  “He goes to school with Rafaela?”

  “He’s from the fucking Palisades.”

  Oh my God. That was the guy from the Palisades? How does he always know where Rafaela is? They don’t have any friends in common.

  Emil looks over at me, sensing that I know exactly who Lionel is talking about, but I shake my head and mouth Later. I don’t want to get into the details now, not with Lion so amped up.

  “We should stop at the Brite Spot, Suzette,” Lion says as we drive past, the white sign with the huge orange dot looming behind the diner. “I could really go for some pancakes. And then we could go out again. It’s still early—”

  “It’s time to go home, Lionel,” I say in a voice that sounds like I’m his mother. I hate it, but it momentarily shuts him up. And I don’t want to hear him talk right now because he called me by my name instead of Little. Yet another sign that says he’s not okay.

  As soon as we pull into the driveway, Lionel jumps out of the car and runs up to the front porch and for a moment, even though I know it would only make tonight even worse, I wish Mom and Saul were still up. Because then, after tonight, all of this would be over. But every floor of the house is dark, save for the lamp they’ve left on for us in the front room.

  Emil watches me. “Do you want me to go in with you?”

  I start to say no, that I can handle this myself. But I don’t want to handle this by myself anymore. And Emil already knows everything. Justin pulls up to the curb then; he dims his lights but leaves the car idling. He sobered up pretty quickly once the fight started and promised he was okay to drive.

  “Can you stay?” I ask, turning to Emil. “Tell your parents you’re spending the night at Justin’s?”

  He looks up toward the turret and even though I’m filled with anxiety, I feel my body go warm as I think about him in my bedroom. “I want to, but… it’s kinda hard to sneak out of a room like that.”

  Shit. He’s right. There’s only one way down that doesn’t involve acrobatics and an extreme lack of good judgment. I think about the tree house, but I feel strange inviting him into my space with Lionel again, especially tonight. And I’d rather be close to Lion; the tree house is too far.

  “We’ll set an alarm,” I say. “You’re used to getting up early. You could even run home.”

  “Okay.” He looks at me and shakes his head, smiling. “This is probably a really bad decision, but okay.”

  “This whole night has been a bad decision. Why stop now?” I smile back at him before I get out of the car and wait for him to talk to Justin.

  The house is quiet, and I click off the lamp as soon as we’re inside. Emil takes off his shoes out of habit while I lock the door behind him. He holds the shoes in one hand and I take the other as I lead us up the first staircase, walking on the very tips of my toes. I pause in the hallway between Lionel’s and our parents’ room, but the strip of space under their door is dark and I don’t hear voices on the other side. Lionel is still up, though, bumping around in his room.

  I grab the tissue box from my nightstand and leave Emil alone, sitting barefoot on my bed. Then I march back down the stairs and knock as softly as possible on my brother’s door while also trying to signal that I mean business. He pulls the door open immediately and walks over to his desk, as if he was already midtransit.

  “What’s up?” he says as soon as I close the door. “Change your mind about Brite Spot? I know you think I’m too fucked up to drive, but I can get us there. It’s just up the street. Or we could walk! It’s not too far. Not too late.”

  “Lion, this isn’t okay. What happened tonight…” I swallow and set the tissue box on top of his bureau, dig out the pill bottles, and line them up next to each other. “You need to go back on these. I can’t hide them for you anymore.”

  I expect him to be combative. I don’t expect him to look at the bottles and then me with a derisive smirk that makes me feel stupid for being here. For saying something. For caring.

  “You were the one who offered to hide them,” he says, his back to me as he plops down in front of his computer. “You can leave them here, but I’ll get rid of them before I take them.”

  “Lionel, you got into a fight. You punched a guy so hard his nose might be broken.”

  “So? He should have left Rafaela alone.”

  I notice, as he types, that he hasn’t bothered to clean off his knuckles. They’re crusted with blood, the skin broken open in some places, but he’s just clacking away on his keyboard as if this is all commonplace.

  “Lion, this isn’t you.” I walk over to stand beside him, but still he doesn’t look at me. “You
don’t drink like that. You don’t get in fights. This is the bipolar.”

  “You think I don’t know what I’m dealing with? It’s my brain, Suzette.” He pauses with his fingers above the keys. “Lots of people ride out their hypomania and they’re fine. It’s, like, increased energy. Nothing to worry about.”

  “It’s not just increased energy!” I have to actively work to keep my voice down. “Not with you. You get irritable and angry and…” I stop myself from saying it scares me. “Lion.” I take a deep breath even though I’m still looking at the back of his head and it’s always easier to say something to someone when you don’t have to make eye contact. “If you don’t start taking your pills, I’m going to tell Mom and Saul.”

  His fingers start clicking over the keyboard again, as if I haven’t spoken at all. Then: “You don’t want to do that.”

  “No, I don’t want to do it, but you’re not giving me a choice!” I realize I’m breathing heavy, talking too loudly, and take a moment to calm down.

  He whips around then, his eyes narrowed to slits. But still I can see the pure fury that lies behind them, and I can’t believe that for the first time in his life, it’s directed at me. “You think I don’t know you told them last summer? All that stuff I said to you… You went right to them the next day.”

  I knew he knew about it, but I thought the fact that he didn’t bring it up meant he was grateful, on some level, for my intervening. “I didn’t tell them exactly what you said. I—”

  “It was enough to make them decide I had bipolar! And then everything was worse than when they thought I just had fucking ADHD.”

  “The doctors decided that. What was I supposed to do? Pretend like what you said didn’t scare the shit out of me? You were talking about dying.”

  “And I told you I didn’t want to, but you still went right to the parents. I’m so fucking sick of this,” he says, shaking his head. “Sick of everyone butting into my life, thinking they know what’s best for me.”