The Girl

by K Larsen

  “Are you anxious now? Is that why you did it?”

  I shake my head. “No.” I bite my lip, searching for the right way to explain it. “It’s more like, when a situation becomes overwhelming—good or bad—it comforts me. It keeps me grounded in the moment.” Concern melts off his face. “Reminds me that everything is right and that it’s really happening and not a dream? Does that make sense? It’s a reassurance. But I haven’t done it in forever. I think, maybe, just being away from home, and doing new things triggered it—but not in a bad way. I am having so much fun. I don’t want to go home. I want this,” I say, gesturing around us. “All of it.”

  Dallas lifts my index and middle finger to his neck and pushes them against his skin.

  “I'm scared I'm going to wake up from this dream and realize I have nothing.”

  He grins at me. “It's not a dream Charlotte, look around. Take it all in.”

  20

  Charlotte

  The sign on the highway says ‘Pocketville 50 miles.’ We’re not there. We stop in this little Podunk town. Tiny little houses that look beaten from the weather line the streets as we drive around looking for a public restroom to wash up in.

  Dallas takes his shirt off to wash in the bathroom sink. I’ve never seen him without a shirt on, and the sight catches me off guard. I’m doing the same, but now, sort of standing frozen in place. He stares at me as I clutch my shirt to my bra-covered chest and I stare at him. The air feels thick enough to chew.

  It’s embarrassing to think about how unclean we both are currently. It’s even more shameful that it doesn’t seem to matter in the least to my hormones. Who cares if I smell… if he does… when he’s standing shirtless next to me. A heaviness, thick like a blanket pushes at my chest. Salt air drifts in from the ocean and fills the beachfront public restroom.

  Dallas pulls my shirt from my vice-like grip and sets it on top of his over the rim of the sink. He leans his hips against the counter and pulls me to him. Skin to skin. I want to beg him for more but my words are all jammed up, my throat tight as his eyes lock with mine. He’s stocky and muscular in all the right places to my soft curves. His fingers move gently over the flesh of the tops of my hips and waist and goose bumps breakout on my skin.

  When he kisses me, my whole body melts against his. Is it as good for him as it is for me? His approval is like oxygen for me. Sometimes when he smiles at me or I make him laugh I feel like I might burst. His chest pushes mine, our hearts sync up as we kiss. When he pulls away, disappointment crushes me even though he’s grinning. I want more. I smile too, to hide the letdown. I always want more. He causes this gnawing hunger deep in my belly to take things further.

  We give ourselves pits-tits-and-ass baths silently exchanging lust-filled glances and smiles.

  We decide to sit on the beach for a while afterward and soak up the sun. Listen to the wind and crashing wave music, feet buried in the hot sand. I’m struck with too much emotion and lots to say, so with my journal in my lap, head craned over it, I write away.

  Dear D,

  When I was little, I used to have this fantasy. I’d run through a glen of wild lupines. Every color you can imagine, and it led to the ocean near Nana’s house. Crystal clear and blue-green. I was free and safe there but the feeling never lasted. He was always pulling me back to reality. I don't understand it, but there was a reason he kept me. And if I’m honest—it eats away at my soul knowing I will never find out why. It’s that thought that brought us to this moment, to seeking out the place I’m forever connected to.

  This won't make sense to most people, visiting the place I was held captive for years, but I want the curtain to be lifted. I read somewhere that your mind protects you from certain things, especially when you’re young. What has mine staved off from me? I need to find out.

  Dallas hollers in the distance. When I look up and squint against the sun, he’s tearing across the beach straight for me. I squeal as he sprays sand at me. He pulls the journal from my hand and tosses it aside before tugging me to my feet. Seemingly effortlessly, he slings me over his shoulder and runs toward the water.

  “Dallas! Don’t you dare!” I squeal.

  “Oh, I dare, City.”

  Before I can protest further, he hurls us both into the crashing waves. Salt water swirls around me with hurricane-like force. I can feel his energy even here beneath the water. His hand finds mine as we pop up, breaking the surface. Water drops, fat and thick, cling to his hair and brows. Dallas dripping with water makes my heart hiccup in my chest. He rests his forehead against my head.

  “You’re more beautiful than all the stars in the sky, Charlotte.”

  My cheeks heat, no doubt turning hot pink under his gaze. My chest rises and falls with labored breaths. His hands shake as he licks his lips. Silently, I plead, do it, do it, do it. Take me here, at the ocean, in the sun-soaked sand.

  But then I remember it is broad daylight and a public beach. Toddler’s and kids’ laughter cut through the air, mixing with the crashing waves and seagull calls.

  Dallas pulls away, scratching the back of his neck. I look down at my clothes, soaked through, and laugh.

  21

  Dallas

  She’s dancing with her eyes closed, singing all the words. Her hair’s falling out of her pony tail in wisps around her shoulders. Her eyes find mine and she smiles. When she looks at me, everything in my mind becomes clear—focused and calm. It makes me think I was born to love her. Charlotte might be the most wild and free being I’ve ever encountered. Uninhibited and mine.

  It’s close to one in the morning, the lights steadily grow brighter. Two by two people buddy up and file out of the club to go home, maybe mess up bed sheets and forget about life’s problems.

  I catch her twirling by the arm.

  “They’re closing.” City pouts at me and lists to the left then giggles. My palms clutch her shoulders to steady her with jungle cat like quickness.

  “Fine-ah.” The word drawn out sloppily from too many sips from my flask makes me chuckle. “Where to, my Lord?”

  “My Lord?”

  Her pout deepens. “Yes, and I’m your Lady,” she states, looking at me like I’m a fool for not getting her joke.

  I chuckle at her and shake my head. She’s funny buzzed.

  “To your chariot, of course.”

  Her eyes widen, pupils dark circles. “Ah yes, the trusty chariot.” It’s a declaration, loud and pointed. People stop and stare at us. I loop my arm through her elbow to get her moving.

  “You’re drunk.”

  “Nope-ah.” She shakes her head as I walk her out to the street.

  “Yup.”

  She side-eyes me, those gorgeous blue eyes blazing. “Hush, you’re too loud.”

  “I’m too loud?” I stammer, amused.

  “Shhh.” She presses two fingers to my lips. “Inside loud, was good. Out here,” she cranes her neck and stares at the sky and then back to me. “You must be quiet, like the night sky.” The words come out breathy and rushed like a secret not meant to be told.

  I raise an eyebrow at her, but oblige as we walk to the truck. She tucks herself into my side as we go.

  “I’m tired,” she mumbles dreamily.

  “I bet.” She rests her head against me as we walk. I like the little ways she finds to always touch me, to be connected. I feel better when our skin’s in contact. Like I’m protected from all the evils by her touch.

  “You didn’t dance with me.”

  I chuckle. “Accurate.”

  She stops short and I trip a step. It reminds me of the night we met. “I wanted you to. A girl always wants a boy to dance with her.”

  Cocking my head to the left I stare at her. “Always?”

  “Yes,” she says, defiantly. I brush an errant strand of hair from across her face behind her ear.

  “Then next time I will,” I tell her.

  “Not next time. Now.” She licks her lips and shoots me a determined glare.
r />   I sigh and squeeze her hand. “Charlotte.”

  She parrots me. And does it too well. “Dallas.”

  A standoff. But I know better than to think I will win this. The sober never win against the whims of the drunk.

  “At the truck then, so I can pick the song.” The corners of her lips creep upward and her eyes twinkle in the moonlight.

  “That’ll do,” she says.

  “You’re infuriating sometimes,” I reply under my breath.

  “I know, but you like it,” she says, and I can’t argue with that because she’s right.

  At the truck, I turn the keys in the ignition one click to get the radio on. I eject the tape in the deck and flip it to side B. “Heaven” begins, and I turn the volume knob up slightly past too loud and leave the truck door open. I turn to City and extend a hand. She’s kicked off her shoes and is barefoot in the grass. She gives a little curtsey when she takes my hand. I pull her flush against me. A little sigh escapes her lips as I sway us back and forth. Her body’s warm against mine in the cooler night air. Little puffs of her breath hit my neck, just under my chin where her head rests against me. And I think Bryan Adam’s is on to something with this “Heaven” thing.

  “You’re the prettiest girl in the entire state,” I whisper into the top of her head.

  “You’re… everything,” she sighs. And that’s how I know she’s one sheet past the wind. She’d never admit that sober. Sure, she tells me she likes me. She shows me her love, but the words, the words have yet to arrive. I don’t mind. I don’t like and need words the way Charlotte does. For her, words seem to be therapy to her wounded soul. For me, words are traitorous. Anyone can say anything and not mean it. Words are mini-pledges that have a history of being broken. I like actions. Together, we’re almost a complete human being.

  “I want to go home,” she says.

  I stop dancing and step back from her. I’m not ready for this to be over. Have I misread the situation?

  “What?” Has she noticed too? I can feel it coming, the darkness, but I’m too scared to state it out loud, to give it the power to truly exist. But I can feel it, waiting in the wings, biding its time, and with its arrival, I’ll lose City. I’m not ready yet.

  “Not home to the house.” She shakes her head at me. “Home to the mountain.”

  I push my own thoughts and insecurities to the background and blink at her, uncertain I heard what I heard.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  She sighs and collapses into a pile of flesh in the grass. I plop down next to her, confused and uneasy.

  “I want you to take me to the mountain where I… lived.”

  “Why would you want to go back there?”

  “I need to. I need to see it. Say goodbye to it. I need to know it’s just a patch of land, not some ominous presence. I need to get it out of me.” She lies on her back and stares up at the sky. “I miss it. I shouldn’t. So much bad happened there. I know that, I’m not crazy,” she looks to me.

  “I know you’re not,” I say. There is nothing crazy about Charlotte. She might be the most logical and sane person I know.

  “But that place, feels like it takes up so much of me. Like it shaped me and I was ripped away from it. I want to be there and make peace. I want to be there and enjoy it without the fear of that monster present. There were some good things about it. Things weren’t all bad there. I want closure.” She jack-knifes up to a sitting position. Fire in her eyes. “Everyone alludes that closure is internal. That I don’t need to touch, smell, feel the stuff my nightmares are made of to face it, to kick its ass. And maybe for them that’s true, but I need to be there, physically to move on.”

  I take her hand in mine and squeeze. “I get it. Avoiding my mom after they took me away seemed like the best way to move on, but that ended up more like simply hiding everything. It wasn’t until the last time I saw her, confronted her, that I walked away feeling like a different person. I wasn’t whole, but I felt more connected to myself. Like everything would be okay. Like I had hope finally.”

  Lotte’s nodding and rubbing her free hand over our intertwined ones.

  “I need to confront it. You’re the only one who will let me. Please, please take me there. Be there with me. Help me do it.”

  “Do you know where it is? How to get there? I thought it was like, way in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I can get us to the mountain. I know those woods like the back of my hand. We might have to camp out a little but I know I can find it.” Her tone is fierce and I already know that no matter how much I think this sounds like a bad idea, I’m going to say yes. I don’t know how to tell Charlotte no. Not when it matters.

  “On one condition,” I say.

  She leans forward—eager. “Name it.”

  “You tell me everything you feel when we’re there. You talk about it. Don’t hide it away. I don’t care how ugly it is. Get it out of you.”

  Charlotte’s eyes glisten with tears, but she’s too strong to let them fall. She leans into me and nods her head against my chest. “I’ll tell you everything,” she says.

  “Alright, then. I’ll take you there. But for now, you need sleep. You’re going to feel terrible in the morning.”

  Her hand creeps into mine and squeezes. Charlotte Johnston might be as crazy as me. I’ll have all night to think of all the different ways this could go wrong, or right—sleep has started to elude me in a more significant way. If we’re going to do this… if I’m going to be able to help her with this, it has to happen sooner rather than later.

  “Let’s sleep on the beach,” she sighs, rocking in place a bit, “under the stars.” She sounds so dreamy, so enchanted and lost in her own little drunken stupor that I can’t help but chuckle. She reaches in the bed of the truck, cussing softly before pulling her arm out, camera clutched in her hand and holding it above her head in victory.

  “Imma’ take a picture of you,” she says. A single brow hikes skyward.

  “Well, this should turn out good.”

  “Shhh,” she hisses. I stand, hands on my hip, a little like Superman, and grin for her. Her tongue pokes out of her mouth in concentration as she mushes her eye against the viewfinder and I can’t help but burst out laughing at the very child-like determination carved in her face.

  22

  Charlotte

  Nora kneeled on the floor and takes my shoulders in her hands. “Please, if you have it, just tell me,” she whispered. I bit my bottom lip genuinely upset. I didn’t do anything wrong.

  “I didn’t take it. Things go missing around here. Holden says it happens.”

  I can see Nora try to make sense of my explanation. “Lotte. You know lying is wrong, don’t you?”

  Anger, bubbling hot, lights up my blood. “I’m not lying,” I hiss. I stop and try to listen for him. She has to be quieter. “Things go missing here. Just…just ignore it. You have to look around.”

  “To find it?”

  “No, right now,” I whisper. “If we don’t look, he will think we lied to him.”

  Nora stares at me and shakes her head, confused. Ignoring her, I un-stack her books, then sweep my hand under the bed and re-stack them. He is watching us and she doesn’t know. I look under the dresser and under the other side of the bed as well. All while Nora stands dumbfounded, watching me.

  “It’s not here.”

  “I know,” Nora says eyes theatrically wide.

  I put my hands on my hips. “It’s time to make dinner.” I leave Nora standing in her room and walk out in unsteady strides. I hope that was good enough for him.

  She will learn soon enough.

  The sound of waves startles me awake. The truck beneath me gives way as I adjust myself, and it feels like I’m falling, or the truck bed is sand. The sun is bright. Too bright. Memory of my dream pulses against me. I focus on the present, on what we’ve seen and done. Wind chimes on front porches. Freedom as far as you can see. A road to drive and room to brea
the and clothesline sunsets to pass.

  My stomach rolls and I groan. I didn’t feel this way after Mike Badger’s party and too much wine. But I ate and had so much water before Dallas brought me home. The thought of last night; of the liquor consumed; the way the world swayed before I fell asleep—makes me nauseous. Dallas slings an arm over me as I crack an eye open. No short truck bed walls surrounding us. No truck. Miles of beach. Sand. Waves. Birds.

  “We slept on the beach?” I mumble. My voice still heavy and gritty with sleep. I feel awful. My eyes, my body, my brain aches.

  Dallas trails a finger up and down my arm leaving goose bumps in its wake. “You made me promise we’d spend the whole night out here.” He props himself up on one elbow, smiling at me.

  I blink at the statement. I feel covered in a glaze, like a piece of pottery. “I… ” I squint, perplexed.

  “Your memory a little foggy there, Miss I-was-a-drunk-wreck last night?” Dallas laughs out.

  I cover my face with my palms and groan—again.

  “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You were actually pretty hilarious.” I peek through my fingers at him as the waves crash in the background. “We danced together. Had a good chat and then you begged me to sleep under the stars on the beach so I grabbed our blankets and hauled it all down here. You kept going on and on about which stars were what and how you could tell based on seasons. You know a lot about the night sky—I’ll give you that.” His voice is light and full of humor and it marginally makes me feel better.

  Until I don’t.

  Until…