by G. Benson
And she knew Ollie only slightly more. Carmen knew she tasted like the fringe of summer, like passion fruit, tart on Carmen’s tongue. She tasted like distraction, like everything Carmen craved but couldn’t touch. She had eyes that watched Carmen through hallways, across rooms, spilling galaxies and solar flares. Ollie had felt the urgency in Carmen’s fingers, the scrape of her nails along the skin of her back, and had offered herself up for more. Carmen had fallen into Ollie to forget, to feel something that wasn’t her everyday. But to Carmen, it was like Ollie had driven herself into Carmen’s orbit to remember how to live.
Only this time, she hadn’t looked like that girl with the easy smile and eyes like the sky. She’d looked dimmed, clouded.
“You know them,” Dex said again when Carmen still hadn’t responded.
“Not really.”
She could feel Dex’s eyes on her for a moment before he simply said, “Okay,” and took the money held over the bar with a thanks.
Carmen was thinking of Ollie’s lips when really she should be thinking of how to hide herself from her.
They were all drunk, or past tipsy and heading there. Hazy. Slumping over each other, swaying against one another and propping each other up. Laughing at nothing, and telling stories about each other that all of them knew but that they loved to embellish every time. Two other friends had joined and shimmied in among them, their group verging on too loud and boisterous.
That grief that slicked over Ollie’s insides had dulled, softened at the edges. Sara was nuzzling her hair, and a giggle bubbled up within Ollie, but she bit it down, let it dissolve into nothing. All her emotions felt just out of reach, and she wished she could forget the watch at her wrist, the look in her father’s eyes, the hole in their house torn through the fabric of their lives.
Carmen had done that for her, for those moments while Ollie had blinked at her, shock curling in her stomach. A burst of elation at seeing the face Ollie had tried to forget had drowned it out briefly.
“How is Carmen working here?”
The words were slurred into Ollie’s ear, and she nudged Sara with her shoulder, not roughly, just hard enough to make her sit up a little.
Sara straightened. “Hi, Ollie.”
Ollie loved no one like she loved her friends. “Hi, Sara.”
“So?” Sara asked.
“So…?”
“Why is Carmen here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Go ask her.”
“I don’t think she wants to talk to me…”
Carmen’s eyes had held something panicked, the brown of them a wild spark. Not the consuming look like when she’d pushed Ollie up against a wall or the soft, needy look when they’d been drunk in a bathroom.
Ollie wanted to press her against the bar and run her nose over her neck right now, to be the one that plucked Carmen open this time. To be the one who spilled her secrets, who cracked open that serious mask that was always over her face. She wanted to watch Carmen soften under her mouth like she had the last time, to see the way her eyes changed, lulled into something else.
“You two seemed pretty chummy at the party. And then there was that whole, you know…” Sara waved her hand around. “…thing where you freaked ’cause she wasn’t at school.”
Ollie shrugged. “I thought she was a friend.”
“Maybe she still is.”
Ollie hummed an answer, trapped in something she had no words for. She didn’t know what Carmen was, why Ollie wanted to push herself against her skin and feel the imprint of her.
“Shots!” Ruin’s loud announcement inspired him to stand up and almost fall over, much to the laughter of the group.
Ollie’s lips twitched up, almost a smile—a betrayal—and she pursed them together.
Sara’s gaze was back on Ollie, deep and dark and soul-searching. “You’re allowed to laugh, Ollie.”
A lump in Ollie’s throat made swallowing hard, like she could choke. She gave a one-shouldered shrug and reached for her drink.
Sara didn’t push it for once, instead throwing her arm around Ollie’s shoulder, pulling her in tight against her and challenging Deon to a drinking competition.
Ollie liked the bar, liked the break in the routine of house parties. She liked the fact that she was with her people, no one looking at her like she was about to break, even if she felt she was about to.
They were there for hours, crowding a table and drinking more than they should, blowing birthday cash and Ruin chipping in a lot. The room didn’t seem to empty around them, and Ollie kept watching the bar, watching Carmen move from person to person. Her cheeks seemed washed out. More so than before, and she had always looked a little that way. Ollie had traced her lips along that skin on a night she wished now hadn’t been so blurred by alcohol.
Whenever Carmen ducked under the bar to bus the tables, she seemed to carefully avoid Ollie’s corner, and Ollie stalked her with her eyes, begging her to look over.
Finally, Ollie had had enough. “Have to pee!”
And no one really paid attention by that point. Instead, she headed for Carmen, on the other side of the room with a tray filled with glasses. “Can I talk to you?”
Carmen’s eyes flew up, and traced Ollie’s face, something soft at the edges before the look slammed away. She glanced around the room, made eye contact with the other bartender, then looked back to Ollie. “Okay.”
Carmen dumped the tray on the bar and led the way to a door. Suddenly, they were in an office.
In the last two hours, Ollie had slowed down, had nursed her warming beer as the others worked through more. Even still, she was foggy. She wanted to remember Carmen in front of her, to remember what they were about to say. And for all of that, Ollie had no idea why.
For a moment, they stared at each other, Carmen’s arms crossed, the picture of defense. Ollie wanted to tear that apart, to pull on Carmen’s arms and watch her become pliant underneath her.
“I like your hair,” she said instead. Which was true; she did.
Carmen softened, barking a laugh. “Thanks.”
“I was worried about you,” Ollie finally said, the words slipping out before she could catch them.
That look again, that soft giving, and Carmen broke their eye contact. “You shouldn’t have been.”
“You just…disappeared.”
Carmen looked back to her. “How much do you know?”
Warmth crept over Ollie’s cheeks. “I… My friend is good with computers. I asked him to find you. I expected to find a different name on Facebook or something, some way to see if you were okay. But he found…other stuff.”
A muscle in Carmen’s cheek twitched.
Ollie stepped forward, several feet of space still between them that might as well have been thousands. She had no idea what made her close that gap. “Are you…are you okay where you are?”
Carmen stared at her for a second as if she was considering everything she could say. “I’m fine. The group place I’m in is fine. The new school sucks, but it’ll be okay.”
Relief blossomed in Ollie’s chest, something that filtered into that chasm inside her, months old and shaped like her mother. “Good. I’m glad.”
She’d imagined worse.
“Ollie.” Carmen was looking at her now, her eyebrows pushed together and a look on her face like she needed Ollie to listen. “I need you to do something for me.”
Ollie stepped closer, only a foot of space between them. The air moved as Carmen seemed to sway toward her, gaze dropping to Ollie’s mouth, even as she didn’t take a step forward.
Ollie wanted to rub the ends of Carmen’s hair between her fingertips. Her stomach flipped at the shaved part over her ear. Like this, Carmen looked edgier. Yet Ollie didn’t understand how someone’s e
yes could be that deep, that bright, a brown that looked sun-filtered, that looked filled with every thought.
“What?” Ollie’s voice was a whisper.
“Don’t mention you saw me. Make sure Sara and Deon don’t. I… The group home I’m in thinks I’m somewhere approved on the nights I’m here. They don’t know I have a job; it wouldn’t be allowed.”
There was a shadow in Carmen’s eyes, but Ollie didn’t know what it meant, and suddenly she felt drunk again, completely drunk from the way Carmen’s hand had moved to rest on Ollie’s hip, her thumb running over the skin there. She was drunk on the warmth of the breath that rested between them.
“Okay.” Ollie’s voice was still a whisper, and then Carmen grasped at her, that dark look in her eyes darkening further, deepening, and Ollie stumbled until they were flush against each other.
Carmen stepped back to sit against the table, Ollie standing between her legs.
Their lips crashed together, the warmth pulling a moan from Ollie that Carmen swallowed greedily. Fingers were against the back of her neck, nails scratching at Ollie’s scalp. That grief still thick over her insides felt quelled at the beat of blood through her veins, her heart speeding up to wash everything out.
Ollie wouldn’t tell a soul if it meant Carmen would touch her like this, would kiss her like this, would drag Ollie into a place where it didn’t feel like her life had imploded, where her father’s eyes didn’t look dead and hurt and full of pain and where Ollie didn’t feel something missing so large that she couldn’t cover up the hole—like she was clawing at her chest to stop the feeling in there.
Lips were on her neck, teeth grazing the place Ollie’s pulse pounded. Everywhere. Carmen was everywhere. For months, nothing had felt like this, had felt real. Ollie dropped her head back as a hand fell to the base of her neck, holding her closer as Carmen bit at her skin, then soothed it with her tongue. “Please.” Ollie had never whimpered like that, never begged, never asked for something in a way that left her so vulnerable.
The lips on her neck paused. “You’re drunk.”
Ollie shook her head, her hair whipping and she cupped Carmen’s cheeks, staring her straight in the eye. “I’m not.”
Carmen’s lips curled up, and Ollie couldn’t remember ever seeing something so fragile. “You kind of are.”
Sighing, Ollie rested their foreheads together, sharing the air between them. “A little.” She then caved. “Okay, a lot.”
Carmen tilted her head up, her legs wrapping tighter, and kissed her again, more gently, as if they had all the time in the world and not as if they might never see each other again.
“It’s okay.”
Regret was tied into those words, but they were also laced with sincerity. Ollie wanted to tease Carmen’s voice out of her, to carry that husk with her.
“Can I have your number?” Ollie blurted.
Carmen’s entire body tensed under her, and she shook her head. “I don’t have a phone.”
Ollie had forgotten, heavy with the feeling of Carmen’s body surrounding her and the taste of her against her lips, that she’d never been able to find a phone number. A small laugh fell from her chest. “How do you not have a phone?”
A tiny laugh puffed against her cheek, where Carmen was running her nose against the soft skin. “Just don’t.”
“Can I see you again?”
Carmen pulled back, and cool air swirled everywhere, the urge rising in Ollie’s fingertips to keep her tight against her. Carmen’s gaze darted over her face, her look unreadable, and she shook her head. “It’s impossible.”
Ollie didn’t think she could go months without this again. Not when the rage humming in her ears and the flicker of anger that fed her grief had only really dulled for the first time when Carmen’s fingers had left scratches on her back just now. “I can come back here.”
Ollie hated just how needy she sounded.
Carmen stood up, the motion making Ollie take a step back. “I have to get back out there.”
Without looking back, Carmen walked away. The door closed with a thud behind her, and Ollie stood alone in the office.
Carmen hadn’t said yes. But she hadn’t said no either.
Chapter 12
The stars were a blanket overhead, and Carmen had the urge to dig her fingers into the sky and pull them down around her shoulders. Ollie’s kiss was stamped over her lips. The taste of her own lies was all that had made Carmen pull away from Ollie and push her away with words she didn’t want to say. Nothing else could have made Carmen leave that room, to leave the taste and smell and feel of Ollie behind her.
Ollie deserved more than dishonesty.
When Carmen had come back in the early hours of the morning, Mattie was asleep on a sofa, wrapped in his sleeping bag and a beanie on his head. The orange glow that always filled the warehouse washed over him, and he looked bronzed. He smelled like child, like sweat. Like he used to after a day of running around school in open air. The memory made her stomach clench, and she touched his baby-soft cheek.
What the hell was she doing with her little brother? What the hell was she supposed to do with him?
Rae had been passed out on the sofa opposite him, eyeliner smudged under her eyes, lips slack with sleep. Vulnerable was never a word Carmen would have chosen for Rae, before. She was all hard lines and sharp angles with a silver tongue. But in that moment, she looked the picture of vulnerability.
On hasty feet, Carmen had headed for the roof to sit on the edge of the wall. Her entire body was thrumming, the sensation spreading from her chest and down her limbs, easing into her fingertips. Ollie had set her on fire, and Carmen was aching for something she had no words for. Her feet kicked aimlessly, heels beating a rhythm with no tune on the wall of the ledge. It was an unseasonably warm night, the kind in which you could hear the dripping of melting ice, a winter music that pattered onto garbage under the snow.
Even though it wasn’t doing a lot, she pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders, glad for the extra coat they’d dug out of a donation bin. Her breath was puffing off into the night.
Months had passed since she’d taken her brother’s hand in hers and led him onto the streets.
Yet still, somehow, she was lost with Mattie.
And, still, Ollie shadowed her.
Ollie looked like a shadow of herself. She was thinner, a look cloaking her that Carmen would never have pictured there before. The easy, quick grin Ollie had always given was gone.
She was still Ollie, though, with eyes too deep and too accepting, with fingers that clawed with the same need that Carmen’s did this time. Ollie, who opened herself up for Carmen to pluck at, to take what she wanted and leave them both breathless in the wake of it. Did Ollie know she left Carmen that way too? That when Ollie surrounded her, with her hair, her skin, with the steady, fast pulse under Carmen’s lips, that Carmen was left reeling?
It should have been terrifying, mind-numbingly scary. Instead, Carmen was left with a smile on her face as she sipped a bottle of water on the roof, reveling in a feeling of wanting more, of wanting everything.
Everything she shouldn’t want. Not with Mattie. Not after lying to Ollie about her situation. Not when she and Mattie were balanced on a knife’s edge, scared to fall either way and scared that the situation that held them up was going to slice through them and leave them in neat little pieces.
Not when Ollie looked like something had snapped inside of her.
“I can hear you thinking.”
Rae plopped down next to her, leaving mere inches between their shoulders and legs. She plucked the bottle from Carmen’s hands and took a long sip before handing it back. Her breath came out in little puffs, the two of them a duo of mist. She pulled her sleeping bag around her shoulders, gloved fingers clinging to the material.
“I’m not thinking.” The words sounded lame even to Carmen’s ears.
“You’re always thinking. Same as your brother.”
Just the mention of Mattie left Carmen with a sensation in her throat she couldn’t name. He was sprawled out downstairs, trusting that Carmen knew what she was doing when, really, she had no idea. He had no school; they existed on the fringes of society, never belonging.
She wanted Mattie to belong.
After her birthday the other month, the idea that the next would be her eighteenth had left her nervous. The reality of their situation was becoming increasingly apparent. The fact that she was supposed to prove to a court that she was the best person for her brother, after being everything for his entire life, was feeling less and less achievable.
Yet Carmen was sitting on a roof, watching the stars and finding patterns in them that made her feel mushy inside as she thought of Ollie.
She couldn’t afford to feel mushy, to feel undone.
Impossible, Carmen had said. And it was. “Was he good?”
Rae snorted. “He always is. We sparred for an hour and a half.” Rae leaned back on her hands. “He’s improving.”
“He is.” Too fast. He loved the dance, the movement. He ducked and wove and had reflexes that topped all of theirs.
“What’s got you thinking so loud?”
Carmen ran her tongue over her lip. “Nothing.”
“Yeah. Sure.” She stole Carmen’s water again and took a long swig, fingers picking at the label when she was done. “You’ve always been a loud thinker.”
Carmen hummed in response, her feet still kicking that rhythm. Once, years ago, lifetimes ago, before her mother had been such a mess, Carmen had been small and squished on her lap at the table, against her chest. Cool hands had run through her hair, and a finger had tapped her nose. “My Carmen, always thinking.”