Tryst Six Venom

by Douglas, Penelope

  “I got my credits,” she continues, holding back tears. “I got into Dartmouth, and I didn’t need any of that shit anymore. You weren’t worth the fight.” She grabs my collar. “You were worth nothing!”

  I shove at her, but she keeps hold and so do I. “None of us are, right? Jaeger for herself, right? Go, then. Get the fuck out of here! Go!”

  “I will!” she cries. “I’m leaving, Clay. And I’m not coming back!”

  I gasp, nearly choking on my breath as my knees give out and I slide down the wall.

  She follows. “I’m leaving.”

  No. A sob lodges in my throat.

  “I’m going,” she says.

  I shake my head. No…

  “And I’m never coming back!” Her shout rings in my ears, and in a moment, she’s going to rise, walk out the door, and she’ll never come back, because Liv doesn’t lie. She’s stubborn and strong and a survivor, and she never lies.

  Knots twist so hard, they snap in my gut, vomit rises up my throat, and I squeeze my eyes shut, tears spilling down. I push her away and rush into the bathroom, dropping to my knees and heaving over the toilet. I cough, sputter, and choke, feeling it coming up, but the only thing that does is a cry too agonizing to hear.

  Oh, God.

  She can’t go. She can’t. I can’t…

  Resting my elbows on the seat, I hold my head in my hands as lumps of something fill my throat and my stomach quivers.

  And then… I feel something warm cover my back, arms wrap around my body, and hands tip my chin back and wipe the hair away from my face.

  I tense, instinct telling me to push her, but all I want is her. She holds me to her, and I fall back, collapsing in her arms, crying. “You weren’t supposed to leave,” I murmur. “You weren’t supposed to give up on me.”

  “Shhhh…” She smooths my hair back.

  I keep my eyes closed, the tension easing from my face, my head swimming as the warmth and gentleness of her touch lulls me.

  “You were the one who wasn’t supposed to leave.”

  Everyone else gave up.

  She holds me for a while, and I don’t know if it’s her or me, but the hold gets tighter. And tighter.

  “What are you doing?” she whispers in my ear, and I feel the tears on her cheeks. “What are you doing to me, Clay?”

  And I realize she’s not holding me. She’s holding onto me, because I’m not the only one alone.

  “What do you need?” she asks. “Tell me what you need.”

  “Just this,” I tell her. “Just don’t move, Liv. Please don’t leave.”

  My parents give me whatever I want, because they don’t want the fight. My mother doesn’t have it in her to raise me anymore, and my father finds his time is better spent elsewhere. Liv was all I had left. I wanted to hurt her, so I could matter.

  I live for her, an enemy I never wanted to defeat. A fight I never wanted to end.

  But, God, her arms. The feel of her. Her voice.

  More.

  Opening my eyes, I look up at her, wiping my tears. “I changed my mind,” I tell her as she looks down at me. “I think I need carbs.”

  I CHEW THE pizza, glancing up at her as she sits showered, hair wet, and dressed in sleep shorts with blue octopi on them and a white Henley on top. Despite the small, round table and two chairs behind me, we sit on the carpet, under the window of our sixth-floor hotel room, with the open pizza box between us.

  Our eyes meet, but we haven’t said much since she broke down in the bathroom an hour ago.

  For now, we enjoy an awkward silence, but it’s not fighting, and that’s something.

  Maybe this is a play. A way to reel me in so she doesn’t lose her favorite chew toy.

  But I think what happened in the bathroom was real. It’s just hard to trust anything genuine from her. As much I want to.

  And whyyyyyy do I want to? I keep looking for the good in her. Why?

  “I’m sorry about your dad,” she says in a quiet voice.

  I look over, seeing her pick at her slice and put it in her mouth.

  I shrug. “It was eight years ago.”

  I take another bite, almost ready for my second. She ordered old world pepperoni. My favorite.

  She nods. “I know. At least he went quickly, though.”

  Her brother didn’t. The Collins’ could afford to put up a fight with leukemia, but it just prolonged his suffering. I guess they had to try, though.

  “I’m sorry about Henry.” It comes out as a rasp, and I don’t know why. “I saw you with him sometimes. You were a good sister.”

  My dad died long before Clay and I knew each other, but Henry was only a few years ago.

  She still doesn’t look at me, just nods, and I watch the ball in her throat move up and down.

  She picks off a piece of pepperoni. What’s going on in her head?

  “Do you like it?” I ask her.

  She pops her eyes up, still bloodshot from the crying. “Yeah, why?”

  “You usually like all the fixings.” Olives, peppers, onions, sausage… She likes her pizza loaded. After years of playing lacrosse together, I know her pizza order by now.

  She lifts the slice to her mouth. “It’s good.”

  I smile to myself. I appreciate the sacrifice. Old world pep is my thing.

  “Why do you hate me?” I ask after a moment. I don’t know why I want to know. Maybe I’m taking advantage of the opportunity to finally talk to her. “Why do you act like you hate me, I mean?”

  She looks at me, holding my eyes, but when her mouth opens, nothing comes out. Her lids fall, her gaze drops, and I can see the tears pool again.

  But she blinks them away, clearing her throat. “You don’t have to come back to school.”

  She changes the subject, and I let her. “I know.”

  “But I’ll miss you,” she adds, and her voice is as small as a needle, and seeps right into my skin just as easily.

  I’m dying for air. She’s fixated on me, right? Because she has nothing else? That’s all this is, right? She couldn’t control me anymore, because I’d started to react. She’s starved for attention, and if that means going to bed with me, she’ll do it. That’s what she’s doing, right?

  You weren’t supposed to leave.

  “No one has left you, Clay,” I tell her. “Your brother was taken. He didn’t make a choice.”

  She’s not alone.

  “And your parents…” I go on. “They may be going through stuff, but they’re there. They love you.”

  Demand their attention like you do mine. Why not?

  “Did you feel like your mom loved you?” she asks. “Do you remember her?”

  I stuff a bite of pizza into my mouth, hating how she’s so savvy at deflecting. “I remember her. And no, I don’t think she loved her kids.”

  My mom had mental problems her whole life, but my dad was gifted in helping her handle it. After he was gone, she just couldn’t hold on.

  “You don’t miss her?” she presses.

  “No.”

  She raises her eyebrows, a challenging look in her eyes that says I’m a liar.

  “I wish she was different,” I clarify. “But I don’t want her back the way she was. No mother is better than a bad mother.”

  Guilt curls its way through me. Maybe that was harsh. My mother’s problems weren’t her fault. I know that, it’s just hard to truly believe it. It’s hard to feel that neglecting us wasn’t something she had control of. Everywhere else in life, we’re taught our behavior is one-hundred percent up to us.

  “‘If I could go back and do it again, I’m not sure I would’ve had any kids,’” I recite to Clay. “That’s what she said in her letter.”

  I toss the pizza back into the box and dust off my hands before hugging my knees to my chest.

  “It sounds awful now, but at the time it didn’t really hurt.” I look at her. “Everything was shit all the time anyway, I didn’t expect more. My brothers were in troub
le, causing my father stress during his illness like they didn’t have a brain in their heads, but I was actually a lot happier than I am now. Behind my closed door, with my music and my books and my room, it was a perfect world. I didn’t have to deal with anyone. They just let me be.”

  “Life is small when you’re a kid.” She stares at her pizza. “We get attached to what we can control and resist what we can’t.”

  “Yeah.” Exactly. I’m kind of surprised she put it into words so easily.

  My little room was my domain, and I sought refuge there. From my father’s failing health, my mother’s…failing health, how no one in my house understood me, and the money we always seemed to need and never had. I shut myself away from it, resisting everything I couldn’t control, just like my mother with her dark bedroom and the movies she watched all day taking her to any world but her own.

  Macon won’t let me do that anymore. He doesn’t let me hide, because he doesn’t want any of us to end up like her. In our heads too much.

  Unfortunately for him, it’s too late. Our mother had already taught me how to leave.

  I run my hands up and down my face, so confused about what I’m doing, what I want, and what’s right. What am I searching for?

  “I don’t want to be like her,” I whisper.

  “I don’t think she wanted to be like her either.”

  I close my eyes. I know. I know children weren’t her problem. Her husband dying wasn’t her problem. Her problems were always there.

  And she hated it as much as we did.

  Maybe killing herself was mercy for our family. To not put us through more. To not give my brother another mouth to feed.

  Or maybe she did what she’d wanted to do all along. She left.

  I want to leave. But I don’t want to leave them behind. I want the people who love me to miss me when I’m gone.

  “I don’t hate you.” Her murmur is barely audible.

  I look up, listening.

  “I think about you all the time,” she almost mouths.

  I swallow the lump in my throat.

  She holds the pizza, all of her hair loose and spilling over her shoulder, and she’s so still, her gaze fixed on the food in her hands. “Was there ever anything you liked about me?”

  The tips of my fingers hum, and I can’t help my eyes trailing over her mouth. She was warm when I kissed her. Like how good coffee tastes on a rainy morning.

  I’d like to pull her into the bathroom and into my arms, and kiss her in the shower. I’d like to see her smile.

  Her eyes meet mine, her fingers move, and I stop breathing, wanting to hold her hand.

  I inch closer, she rises to her knees and leans over, her hand snaking inside my thigh and her mouth coming in.

  But then the door bursts open and someone sing-songs, “Hey!”

  Clay rears back, looking away as Krisjen and Amy saunter into the room, and I ball my fists, slamming my back into the wall.

  Goddammit.

  “You’re alive!” Amy giggles, carrying containers of food Coach probably got for us, not thinking we’d order room service. “That’s a relief.” Then she looks around, frowning. “Only one broken lamp? Y’all are disappointing.”

  “I thought you guys were gone all night,” Clay questions.

  I hold back my smile at the annoyance in her voice. Just get them out of here, Clay. Please.

  But the door falls shut, and Amy and Krisjen set down their stuff and take off their shoes. “We weren’t going to leave you alone,” Amy tells her.

  Her eyes dart to me and then back to Clay, and I tense at what she’s leaving unsaid. We weren’t going to leave you alone with her, she meant.

  Krisjen presses something icy to my arm, and I look, seeing her hand me a soda. “Thanks for coming to the game, by the way.”

  “Yeah, fat lotta good it did us,” Amy grumbles.

  Krisjen rolls her eyes, throwing her friend a look, and I yank the can out of her hand, giving her a tight smile as thanks.

  Yeah, like they would’ve won without me anyway. And definitely not without Clay and me.

  “I’ll take you home in the morning, okay?” Krisjen says.

  I nod.

  “Jaeger, you take that bed.” Amy points to the one on the left. “We’ll take the other one.”

  I raise my eyes and my chin, glaring at her. The three of them. In one bed. So the lesbian doesn’t molest one of them in their sleep, right? Jesus Christ.

  “Amy!” Krisjen barks. “What, did you suck down some bitch juice before we walked in? Shut up.”

  Amy lets out a bitter laugh, and I wait for Clay to step in, but she just sits there, avoiding my gaze and completely quiet.

  “So, if a guy had to crash in here with us, our parents would be fine with one of us sharing a bed with him?” Amy retorts. “It’s the same difference.”

  I glance at Clay, seeing her eyes downcast, and I know she has things to say. I know she wants them gone, but of course, nothing surprises me with Marymount girls. Once upon a time, I’d hoped I’d have some friends here, and if I didn’t, then maybe one person who thought I was worth the sacrifice if she could just be close to me. But none of them want to stand up for themselves. They either need me or tolerate me.

  “I’ll share a bed with you,” Krisjen says.

  And I shake my head, surging to my feet. “Eat me,” I say. “I don’t need any favors.”

  • • •

  Rain falls, thunder cracking across the sky, and I flash my gaze to the window, seeing the drops pummel the panes. Shadows dance across the ceiling, and I lie in bed, phone in hand, and contemplate dragging Trace’s ass out of bed to pick me up.

  Tears hang at the corners of my eyes. It shouldn’t hurt. I’m used to being seen differently, aren’t I? I close my eyes, my chin trembling.

  The girls fell asleep easily, but I haven’t slept all night. I’m ready to go home. I draw in a breath, my chest shaking, struggling to stay quiet.

  But then, the bed dips behind me, the sheet moves, and a body presses into my back, arms slipping around my waist.

  Clay’s scent surrounds me, and I open my eyes, seeing she’s no longer in the other bed with Krisjen and Amy. She holds me tightly.

  “Just let me go,” I barely whisper.

  “I can’t.”

  Her breath caresses my ear, and I have no energy to fight her. The tears fall, and I just lie there, letting her mold her body to mine, holding me tighter as she buries her nose in my hair.

  “Do you think I want it to be this hard?” I murmur in the quiet so Krisjen and Amy don’t hear. “It’s not a choice, you know?”

  She’s silent, and I stare over at the other two sleeping.

  “Sometimes I tried not to feel it,” I say. “Tried to force myself to get excited around a boy and to ignore the way my heart beat faster around…”

  But I trail off, knowing she gets the idea.

  I don’t know why I’m telling her this. It’s not that I need her to understand, because there are so many others in the world who will.

  But for some reason, I can’t stop talking. “But it wasn’t who I was,” I tell her. “I saw women everywhere. They were all I saw. I didn’t notice men the same way. How they walked or laughed or danced. I could never picture myself in a guy’s arms.” I turn over in her arms and look at her in the dark. “All I dreamed about was someone wanting me. I wanted to look over in class and see a girl looking at me the way I looked at her. Having someone touch my fingers and hold my hand or pass me notes in class. I wanted someone to have a crush on me—someone with a soft body and soft hair. Everyone else got to have that. All the fucking movies and love songs, and…” I choke on a sob, forcing it back down. “It just got so lonely, and after a while, I just got angry.”

  There were other gays at Marymount. The odds were in my favor that I wasn’t alone, but no one would out themselves in such a small town.

  Except me. I was already an outsider, because of where I come fr
om, so why hide anything else as if that would help?

  “I sneak into Wind House sometimes,” she whispers.

  I blink. The funeral home?

  “Why?” I ask.

  She’s quiet for a moment and then says, “To watch, at first.”

  Thunder rolls overhead, the rain growing harder on the windows, and we both lie on our sides, eye to eye.

  “When Henry…” She swallows. “When he died, my parents called the funeral director and let them know which hospital to pick him up at,” she tells me, keeping her voice just between us. “My mother was shattered, and Mrs. Gates held her hand and said, “‘I will be very careful with him.’”

  Mrs. Gates is the funeral director. It’s a hard enough job, I can’t imagine having to prepare children for burial.

  “She puts people back together,” Clay tells me. “She’s started to teach me how to put people back together.”

  I stare at her, barely able to see her face in the darkness, but I keep listening, because I don’t think anyone else knows this.

  “I needed to know what happens when we’re gone,” she says. “That night, I just couldn’t get it out of my head. How he was alone.”

  The kid was only ten.

  “They wouldn’t think that he was cold or scared,” she continued, “so I went to him. Broke the basement window and climbed through and stayed with him.”

  I tuck my hands under my cheek, and she does the same, taking her time.

  “Mrs. Gates found me the next morning.” I watch her. “Asleep against the wall outside his locker. She tried to send me home. Almost called my parents, but I refused to leave. I wanted to see. I needed to see what happens after we die. Where my brother went.”

  I’ll bet she put up a fight. No one says no to Clay. I almost smile, imagining the tantrum she probably threw. She was only fourteen.

  “She was so frantic.” I hear the amusement in Clay’s voice. “She didn’t know what to do. My parents would’ve killed her if they’d ever found out that she let me watch.” She paused and then continued. “Johnny Caesar came in that morning. You remember him?”

  A local rock star about seven or eight years older than us. Made a couple of albums with a small label who screwed him out of rights and royalties, but he got out from under it. Got a big record deal and was about to hit it big. Become a worldwide superstar.