Upside Down

by Lia Riley

  I need to control my thoughts.

  But my tongue feels so weird and the ache in my stomach is back. I can’t control shit. Struggling to think different is like playing a game of mental Whac-A-Mole one-handed.

  “What are you doing, love?”

  I spin around. Marti and Lucy watch me, hand in hand.

  “Are you bon?” Marti’s brow crinkles.

  “Yeah. Sure.” I clear my throat, my windpipe thick and claggy. I’m more light-headed by the second. “I should be asking you. Feel good?”

  “It pinches.” Marti winks. “But Dice says that I’ll have orgasms walking up stairs within a few days.”

  “You outsourcing me, bitch?” Lucy jokingly elbows Marti’s rib cage.

  My head aches and I dig a B vitamin from my pocket. I pop supplements like candy when I get nervous.

  Need to calm down.

  My poisonous thoughts cement into place. I shove harder, but they strengthen their grip, little nails dragging across a chalkboard.

  How long will it take Bran to move on to another girl? With his track record? Probably not long. Maybe he’ll seek out a Canadian the next time.

  He drops trou all over town.

  I don’t even have a right to get upset. We merely hooked up a little. People do it all the time.

  It’s just…what we shared felt different.

  Clarification. I felt.

  I felt something that wasn’t gray misty sadness shot through with the occasional bolts of terror.

  For whatever reason, surly, argumentative Bran made my broken pieces feel…not put back together, exactly, but less brittle, like there could be a chance I could refashion into something different. Stronger.

  Well, that hope’s gone. No one saves you in real life. It’s a dirty lie perpetuated to sell blockbuster Hollycrap movies. There are no shiny armored knights.

  Dragons kick ass.

  They always win.

  I need to get out of here. Away from Dice’s thick fingers and bad attitude. And far away from Marti and Lucy’s puppy-eyed lusta-love. Why can’t I live in the future? A time when unacceptable cognitive functions can simply be deleted? In the twenty-first century we have artificial hearts, electric cars, YouTube, for fuck’s sake. Are cyborg brain implants too much to hope for in my lifetime?

  My mumbled excuses and hasty retreat garner a skeptical look from Marti, but Lucy is pushing hard for a drink at a pub and it’s time I stop being the downer third wheel.

  When I get back to the residential hall, there’s a Post-it stuck to my room’s door.

  Stopped by, will come back later

  —B

  A Post-it? For serious? Does he keep that shit in his pocket for girl emergencies?

  I can’t deal with this, not right now, not when I’m peaking. The stairwell door props open at the end of the hall. I normally avoid the stairs because they reek of urine and Band-Aids, but right now I need to move. I race down two flights when a small motion catches my eye.

  My gorge rises.

  A mouse, no bigger than my little finger, lies on its side, rib cage shuddering. The poison bait the facilities crew scattered around the building must have tricked the poor creature. The little guy thought he’d found something good and now he’s dying—alone—in one of the world’s top ten grungiest stairwells. Its nose twitches, turns in my direction, and I swear the black eyes ask me a single question.

  “What have I done that you wouldn’t have?”

  * * *

  I hunker in the back of a used bookstore. No matter what I do, I can’t stop thinking about Bran, the responses he coaxed from me yesterday. He slit the threads I’d spun around my protective cocoon and I slipped out without any butterfly wings, falling to the ground with a sickening smack.

  Getting up from my tiny table, I pad to the closest shelf and pull out a random book. It’s poetry by E. E. Cummings. I part the pages midway and read.

  who are you,little i

  (five or six years old)

  peering from some high

  window;at the gold

  of november sunset

  (and feeling:that if day

  has to become night

  this is a beautiful way)

  My lower lip trembles involuntarily. Pippa and I shared a room ever since we were born even though we lived in a three-bedroom house. On summer nights when our mom used to put us to bed while the sun nestled high in the sky, we’d pile blankets on the floor and build nests. Curled, side by side, we’d watch the sky change colors out the window while whispering secrets and concocting stories.

  Who was my little i?

  A girl who didn’t worry. Woke up each morning like it was my birthday. Was the kid sister to the coolest, sweetest, kindest person ever.

  I want my Pippa alive.

  I want my innocence back.

  I want to feel normal.

  I don’t even remember what normal feels like anymore.

  There’s a lecture on campus I can get bonus credit for attending. Not that I really need it. My grades are kicking all kinds of ass. But that won’t fix the fact that I’m not graduating, that I screwed my transcript last year, and that I still need to come up with a senior thesis.

  After the lecture, I’ll e-mail Bran. Ask him to leave me alone—in a civil way. While it sucks he left me in a house inhabited by a bitter ex–fuck buddy, he didn’t do anything really wrong. We have a magnetic attraction, both mental and physical, but are barely acquaintances. He makes me want to feel too much.

  And feeling is dangerous. I can barely withstand the sensations in my own body on the day to day. Bran opened something inside me and I need to get that shit recorked before I go crazy. I’m already opting for medication and the pills are barely getting me through. My superpowers are waning and Bran is my Kryptonite. I need to opt for avoidance. Cowardly, yes. But also effective.

  Stressing about him has sent my OCD symptoms creeping back. Any second my brain is going to start flashing a red light with a blaring alarm droning, Danger! Danger!

  A guy is up ahead of me on campus as I walk to my lecture. His height, the fall of the unruly hair, the familiar way his hands are shoved deep in his pockets sends me ducking behind the Law building. I tap my fingers in a special order. It doesn’t feel right, so I have to do it again and again. And I miss the lecture.

  Fucking damn it.

  I had a crush on Tanner, Pippa’s boyfriend, for my entire adolescence. When the chance came, the awful, drunken, grief-stricken chance, I let him use me. I offered up my body for a taste of beauty and instead never felt more hideous, like a mutant hobgoblin devouring the crumbs of my dead sister’s life.

  Bran made me come alive briefly. And look what happened. He burst on me like a wicked storm and when he put his hands on my body, the sensation thundered deep into my bones. Better I stay far away from him. I’m like a trailer in Kansas that narrowly dodged a tornado, lucky to have escaped more or less unharmed.

  I head home and fall straight asleep, but my dreams are turbulent. Tangled memories of Tanner’s hoarse sob, the sharp burn the moment he buried himself inside me. The first soft brush of Bran’s lips across my own. My head bouncing against Tanner’s chest while he took me hard, way too hard for my first time. Rubbing on Bran like a sexed-up cat in his shower. Waking up alone under the Santa Cruz wharf when the high tide reached my bare feet, a homeless guy snoring a few feet away.

  I lurch up in my bed, slick with sweat, gulping for air like a dying fish. A bunch of Pippa’s pals had gathered at the beach park to commemorate the first anniversary of her death. Tanner and I had both hung in at the BBQ as long as we could, faking smiles, faking we weren’t gutted zombies. Dad skipped out, hiding in our backyard to wax his surfboards. Mom had already long bailed, escaping us for a rainbow-colored promise of alohatastic healing.

  “Wanna get out of here?” Tanner had unzipped his black backpack, revealing a nearly full whisky bottle.

  “Yeah.”

  I’d followe
d him down West Cliff Drive on my cruiser. His effortless, graceful skating style turned heads the whole way. He probably didn’t even notice. Pippa was the same way. That’s what made them such a great couple. They both wore their perfection so casually, like they were fully comfortable in their skin.

  We reached the wharf as darkness settled over the bay. For a long time we leaned against a piling, wordlessly passing the bottle back and forth. We drank silently, grimly. The sea air was cold, but my belly grew hot with alcohol and something else.

  I’d never spent a lot of alone time with Tanner even though he’d been a regular fixture in our house. He hadn’t come by much the year after Pippa died. His pro skateboarding career skyrocketed and he toured with the X Games, and recently he signed a shoe sponsorship, paying off his single and perpetually struggling mom’s mortgage.

  My mouth stung and the heavy amount I drank wasn’t making me feel better. Time didn’t heal shit. Another lie people tell you to get through an uncomfortable moment where they don’t want to be stuck gawking at your grief. If anything, the year after Pippa’s death had turned from a wound into an angry, throbbing infection.

  “I miss her all the time.”

  Tanner’s voice had been thick. His hand slid up my knee and when I looked up and saw his tear-wet cheeks, I gave him the only thing I had.

  Me.

  And it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough.

  I’m not perfect. I’m not Pippa.

  The air in my dorm room is harder to find. I close my eyes, concentrate on the next breath. That’s it. All I need to worry about is the next breath. My heart rate slows.

  What I wouldn’t give for a goldfish memory.

  There’s a knock at the door.

  Shitabrick.

  It’s him. Bran. I know it. His presence zings through the cheap particleboard and churns my stomach until I feel like a methamphetamine hamster unleashed on a wheel.

  “Bonjour? Talia?” It’s only Marti.

  Great. I’m a freak, not a telepath. I brush my arms but my skin remains stubbornly goose bumped, my breath hitching like I’m poised at the top of a roller-coaster drop.

  I climb out of bed, open the door, and my senses dip like the roller coaster is flying down the track. My brain screams while my heart throws up its hands in sheer abandon.

  Bran stands there, green cat eyes trained on mine. No trace of the dimples. He’s deadly serious.

  “Oh, hey.” I actually stretch my arms like the d-bag I am. “Just waking up.”

  “He said you wouldn’t talk to him.” Marti backs away when my gaze cuts her like a lightsaber. Right now I so wish the Force was with me. I’d totally do that Darth Vader choke on her.

  “You’re avoiding me.” Bran’s voice is flat.

  I force a laugh that sounds worse than the canned soundtracks on sitcoms. “That’s ridiculous.”

  Marti watches us by her door. A few other girls chat farther down the hall. Better to let him come in than stand and bicker in the hall. I can’t deal with scenes.

  I open the door wide and sweep my hand into the room with a grand gesture. “Come on in.”

  He ignores my sarcasm and takes a sure-footed step inside my room. “We have to talk.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Talia

  Talia.” Bran’s fingers fan my cheek. He must feel how hard my teeth are clenched, for he pulls back, allowing me some much-needed breathing room. “What happened yesterday—Miles told me Bella got to you.”

  “I nearly stepped on her exiting the bathroom. You live with your ex, Bran. A little heads-up would have been appreciated.”

  His lips draw a fraction inward, enough to let me know my words make an impact. “Bella called herself my ex?”

  “Not exactly, but whatever, the implication was clear.”

  “I moved into that place a few months ago. Bella and I had the occasional hookup. That’s the sum total. Nothing serious.”

  “I heard…” The words threaten to choke me. “I heard word you get around, like a lot.”

  He snorts and turns away. His expression is hidden while he runs a hand over my vitamins cluttering the top of my dresser.

  I’ve no idea what to say, but right now babbling’s better than this stony silence. “Bran—”

  He spins on his heel. “Did you like it?”

  “What?” I take an involuntary step backward.

  “Being with me?”

  “Yes.” The truth flies out before I can consider concealing it.

  His face loses some of that hard edge. “I did too.” He folds his arms behind his head and takes a deep breath. “I…I…Listen, I…”

  I sit on my bed, hook my elbows around my knees, and wait.

  He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Have you ever been in love?”

  My eyes widen. Whatever I thought he’d say, that was definitely not on the list. “Um, yes. I think so. Well, kind of.”

  I mean, I don’t know what exactly I felt for Tanner. I believed my emotions were love, but now I’m not so sure. Sometimes, with hindsight, I wonder if maybe I simply wanted someone to love me the same hard-core way he loved Pippa.

  Someone who believed, despite all evidence to the contrary, that I was a lock they wanted to open.

  Bran rocks on his heels. “I don’t believe in love.”

  Those words shouldn’t hurt the way they do. It’s not like he and I have time for anything serious. I force myself to roll my eyes.

  “What?”

  “Figures you’d be the kind of guy who reduces love to something fictitious, like Santa Claus.”

  “Not following, Captain.” There’s an edge to his voice.

  “Did you wake up one morning and think, love? Mmmm, not really buying that whole spectrum of humanity’s experience.”

  “I did wake up. And realized love’s nothing but a word used to excuse a bunch of pretty fucking questionable behavior.”

  So Bran doesn’t believe in love but was practically a child-bride? I bite back the comment, just.

  “So you’ve never been in love. Never felt strongly about anyone, ever?” Oh, I’m baiting now, all right. Put the words on the hook and cast it into the conversation. Fishing for details about Adie Lind and his engagement.

  “There was someone serious a while ago. We didn’t work out.” He shrugs like that’s more than enough explanation.

  Damn, he got away. He’s lying by omission and I can’t even get him to own it because of the dodgy way I uncovered the information. But come on, what was he thinking, wanting to get married at our age? He certainly wasn’t the religious type. Something doesn’t fit.

  What if I tell him I accidently snooped, found his wedding invitation? That I know he’s been engaged?

  “I started sleeping around after my last relationship ended. I needed distance from her, from the memory of us together.”

  “How’s that working out for you?” Better if I keep my mouth shut. He clearly doesn’t want me to know, still keeps me at arm’s length, hides behind his secrets. Frustration sears my chest. “So why are you here?” I jerk my head toward my bed; apparently my vocal cords haven’t gotten the message to shut the fuck up. “You want to get a little more distance?”

  “You aren’t going to make this easy, are you?”

  “I don’t even know what this is. What do you want, Bran? From me?”

  “I…like you.” He sounds surprised.

  “Wow, is that supposed to be flattery?” The shitty thing is the admission secretly pleases me. And makes me angry. Like am I supposed to drop my panties and cheer for my likeability?

  “Who was the guy?” Bran hooks his hand behind his neck. “The one you were kind of, maybe, sort of in love with.”

  I don’t want to talk about Tanner. That time in my life was chaotic, like the aftermath of a train wreck. “He was my sister’s boyfriend. They were together since middle school. He was like my brother, except not, I don’t know. In a moment of poor judgment and epic fuck-up
ery, I slept with him.”

  “Your sister’s boyfriend?”

  “A year after she died.” I swallow, hard. “He hasn’t spoken to me since.”

  “Idiot.”

  Tears blur my vision. I know my actions that awful night below the wharf were slapdick, a terrible mistake. Hearing Bran react so badly makes the remembrance even worse. I clamp my jaw and throw myself over my internal memory chest, the place where I stuff my worst emotions. If I start to feel one thing, I’m going to feel all the things and no way is that happening—I can’t lose control.

  “Wait a second, hey, look at me, Talia.” He crosses the room in two steps, crushes me against him. “Not you. Bloody hell, you thought I meant you?”

  I nod, face in his ribs, unable to speak.

  “You didn’t tie this guy down to do the deed.” He squats beside the bed, his hands cradling my face. “Or did you, naughty girl?”

  “No.” I crack a small smile even as I sniffle. “No ropes were involved. Only Jack and Daniels.”

  “You got him drunk first, huh?”

  I frown at the memory. “Actually, the other way around.”

  “So you drink with this guy and have consensual sex. But somehow you’re the bad guy? Not connecting the dots here.”

  “You don’t understand. Tanner was my sister’s epic love.”

  He tilts my chin. “I get that you feel bad. All I’m saying is it’s not your fault. She was your sister and you suffered too. Any questionable choices you made—it sounds like you more than paid for them.”

  I close my eyes.

  He strokes my hair in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. “This year, I did things. Lots of things I’m not proud of.”

  “By things…you mean girls.”

  “Yeah.” His answer is quiet.

  “Lots and lots?”

  “Yes.” Quieter still. “But you’re different.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “I’m a lot of things, Talia. But I’m no liar.” His gaze shackles me to him. “I don’t know what this is between us but I’ve a mind to find out. What do you want? The ball’s in your court here.”