by G. Benson
That was it. One memory to cling to that didn’t smell like spirits or wasn’t jabbed through with the sting of heroin, nights alone, and learning to pull the cupboards apart to find something edible.
“You want to talk about it?”
Did she? She thought about letting the words out, of telling Rae about the fear that had laced her spine and iced her stomach at the sight of kids from her school. Or about the fact that those kids could tell someone, and then she and Mattie would have to run. Or about how she didn’t think a way to ever crawl out of the crack in the system she’d burrowed into existed. No way to get Mattie into a world he could join.
Or even about the girl Carmen was making a habit of kissing, even as she knew she shouldn’t.
What did they say? Once was an accident. Twice a coincidence.
Was three times a habit?
But that was something, one thing that felt like hers. Something to pull out and go over when she was lost, to hold close to her thumping heart, something that was all for her.
“Do I want to talk about it, Rae? No.”
Rae hummed her understanding, her feet in beat with Carmen’s own. She didn’t need to say it. If Carmen ever wanted to talk about it, Rae made it clear just by being herself that she was available.
Twenty minutes later, half-asleep and rumpled, Mattie emerged with his sleeping bag around his shoulders. Carmen scooted back a little, and minutes later he was asleep again between them, nestled into her side, his toes under Rae’s thighs, and Carmen’s fingers against his scalp. Rae’s arm lay securely over him, anchoring him in place.
Sometimes, Carmen thought she should have waited to see where Mattie would have ended up in the foster care system. At times, she played with the idea of handing him in. Ensuring his safety, his education.
Most of the time, though, she felt like both of them were where they belonged.
Chapter 13
Alcohol was an evil thing.
Ollie spent Saturday hungover and tracing her fingers over her lips, as if this would help imprint the feeling of Carmen there forever. Her dad disappeared into his office, and Ollie made a nest on the modular sofa, which Sara later invaded before the grief could crawl its way through the hangover and ruin Ollie entirely. They watched Netflix and ate too much junk food. All afternoon, they napped on and off, legs entwined and equally grumpy with each other.
Each time Ollie fell asleep, she took with her the memory of how soft the skin of Carmen’s stomach had been under her fingertips and the look in her eyes as she’d searched Ollie’s. The entire encounter had left Ollie feeling as though someone was really seeing her for the first time in too long.
It wasn’t until Sunday in Deon’s basement, when Sara and Deon and some others were sprawled over a blanket and the sofa, that they really talked about Friday night.
“Ollie?” It was Deon’s voice.
“Mm?” The sun was weakly making its way through the tiny window near the ceiling, just managing to hit Ollie’s face, and she was trying to enjoy it. She really should be reading her book for English. It was spread open over her chest as she lay on her back, and maybe she could absorb some of it that way. That was how that worked, right?
“Did you get Carmen’s number?”
And then everyone was looking at her.
Grateful for the hood pulled just over her eyes, Ollie shook her head. “No. And, uh, she asked that we don’t tell anyone we saw her.”
Now they were all looking at her more intently. She could feel it.
“Why?” Deon asked.
Ollie gave a one-shouldered shrug, curling her fingers over the cover of her book. “Something about the home she’s in wouldn’t like her working there.”
“Yeah, those places can be shit.”
Something brittle was in Sara’s voice, and Ollie pushed up on her elbows to be able to see her. “They monitor everything you do. I’m surprised she can even get away with working there. The one I was in had a really strict curfew. We couldn’t even go out for a walk in the afternoon.” Sara’s face clouded a little, and Ollie threw her foot over hers. “I won’t breathe a word.”
The rest, like Ollie had known they would, all mumbled their agreement.
Here, in the basement, for the first time in ages, Ollie didn’t feel completely heavy. Since Friday night, she’d been thinking that the only time she’d managed to forget was with Carmen sighing into her mouth.
That night, Ollie and her father sat on opposite ends of the sofa staring at the television. The gap between them expanded and undulated.
“How…how are you?” The words floated out, misted in the air. Fell to nothing.
Ollie blinked at the TV and tried to ignore the way the words didn’t even touch her. “Fine.”
She could feel him then, his eyes on her, looking at her, and Ollie didn’t know if she wanted to fall into that look or curl away from it and run.
“If you’re not okay, you can… It’s fine. You can talk to me.”
The words sounded rehearsed. Had he muttered them to himself? How often had he stared at her, trying to work up to saying that?
“I’m fine.”
That gap somehow grew broader even as neither of them moved.
Her mother had loved to sprawl over the sofa with both of them, to sit in between them, a foot buried under Ollie’s father’s leg and an arm around Ollie’s shoulder. Or, when Ollie was being prickly, near enough so Ollie always knew she could get over herself and inch closer.
Her mother always insisted on watching B-grade scary movies, ones they all groaned about and pretended to hate. But they never went to bed until they finished them.
Some nights, Ollie had left her room for water and would find them laid out, a pair of spoons pressed close. More often than not, one or both of them would be asleep, and Ollie wouldn’t even have the heart to roll her eyes. When she had been tiny, they’d pull apart and pull her between them, a created space Ollie had always slotted into perfectly.
At the memory, Ollie suddenly couldn’t breathe.
Her fingertips were tingling. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and it was as if she wasn’t on the sofa, wasn’t really anywhere. Her fingers hooked into the material in a desperate attempt to ground herself, but she couldn’t really feel it. The counsellor at school had suggested antianxiety medications again, but Ollie had shied away from the idea. Before, her anxiety had seemed obscure, like everything and nothing was the cause. Now it was solid, obvious to her what caused her pulse to race: a part of her worried she’d lose the one connection to her mother if she dulled the pain around her death.
So she worked with breathing exercises, but there were times she forgot how to breathe at all.
Without saying good night, and before her father could notice Ollie was having issues remembering how to function, she got up and left him to that gap, that woman-shaped hole. With gasping breaths, she crawled into bed, and choked hyperventilating breaths into her pillow, unable to even cry.
School was a blur, and still her teachers left her alone. They had for months, even with her unexplained missed classes. Now she wasn’t absent as often, and they left her to stare out the window and disappear into her head. How long would they let her get away with that?
Art was the one class she let herself get lost in. She slashed color and poured herself into images even she couldn’t make sense of. She filled canvases and made a portfolio dedicated to loss: reds and blacks and blues so deep they were almost obsidian. Her teacher’s eyes would run over them with a look too deep and with praise on her lips even as her brows knitted together.
On one Tuesday, without thinking, Ollie painted in a color like whiskey. Eyes stared back at her from the paper, eyebrows together, a furrow between them. That look from Carmen had been following Ollie since she’d first ca
ught sight of her near the lockers. Since she’d been pulled back behind some bleachers and seen desperation. Since she’d walked into that bar, where Carmen had looked at her as if she wanted to be her undoing.
On Wednesday, Ollie gave in.
It was six o’clock. Her father was working late, and twilight was trickling in through the windows. Ollie was trying to study, was trying to get herself back on track. She wanted to leave behind the mess she’d been in the last few months, but her leg wouldn’t stop bouncing, and her mother’s watch was ticking on her wrist.
She wanted to hear the door open downstairs and hear her mother call her name. She wanted her mother’s hands against her neck, cool and reassuring. She wanted to hear her mother laugh or murmur or even ask her what she wanted to do when she graduated, what she was going to study—any of those questions that used to make Ollie feel like she was drowning but which she’d started to realize were actually there to buoy her up.
But Ollie heard nothing.
Then she was grabbing her bag, checking that she had her keys and phone, and was out the door. With one quick message, Sara and Deon met her thirty minutes later at the bus stop.
“On a Wednesday?” Deon asked.
“Why not?”
“I, for one, think this is a great idea.”
“Of course you do, Sara.” Deon rolled his eyes before looking back at Ollie. The playful look fell away to something deeper. “You okay?”
“Mhm.”
The bus trip took forever, and Sara slipped out a hip flask the three passed between each other on the backseat. Ollie only took two sips. She just wanted to burn the nerves away but remembered the way Carmen’s lips had stilled on her neck as she’d asked, “Are you drunk?”
And then she’d pulled away.
They got off the bus, feeling slightly less secure in that neighborhood than when they’d been flush with alcohol and with Ruin. Melting snow was layered over everything. They slipped quickly into the bar.
The difference in atmosphere was staggering. The odd patron was scattered around, the music quieter, the entire vibe less charged and more chill. They piled onto stools at one end of the bar, and the big bartender from the other night walked over to them. He looked so rough around the edges, but when he smiled, he made her think of coffee, warm over your tongue.
“Hey, Deon.”
“Hey, Dex.”
Apparently they’d bonded.
“Dex.” Deon put an elbow on the bar and gestured to Sara and Ollie. “Do you remember my friends? Sara and Ollie?”
Dex’s gaze swept over them, hovering over Ollie a moment later, and her cheeks went hot.
Did he know something?
He focused on Sara. “You’re the one who did three tequila shots in one go.”
Sara grimaced. “Don’t remind me.”
He smirked. “Fair enough. What can I get you all?”
Ollie didn’t hear their answers, because she heard a door open and close quickly, and she turned a little to see Carmen walking in from the office before she stopped dead, staring at Ollie, her face completely unreadable.
Voices murmured next to her.
Carmen’s hair looked damp and was curling at the ends around her face. Maybe she’d showered right before work. Would she smell like shampoo? Body wash? What type? She stared at Ollie, her eyebrows furrowed in the manner Ollie had so desperately tried to capture on paper.
No one looked at Ollie like that.
Consuming. Knowing.
And then Carmen was moving again, ducking under the bar to stand next to Dex, her hand against the edge of the bar top as she pressed against the edge.
Ollie blinked and tried to remember not to look enraptured. A beer was somehow in front of her. Sara’s was already in her hand, and Deon was taking a sip of his.
Carmen looked between all of them. “Hey, Sara. Deon.” Her eyes caught Ollie’s and something permanent inside Ollie shifted. “Hi, Ollie.”
Her name sounded like water over rocks, an ebbing tide. “Hi, Carmen.”
“Carmen!” Sara grinned. “Hi. Sorry about the drunkenness the other night. You know how it is.”
Carmen smiled slightly, her lips quirking. “No problem. If you ask me, you were far drunker at that party.”
Sara put her beer down, her elbows on the bar, her eyes twinkling. “I think everyone was drunker at that party.”
Carmen’s gaze flicked to Ollie’s before they landed back on Sara. “I enjoyed myself.”
Ollie’s cheeks warmed even more.
Somehow, later, Ollie was at one end of the bar on a stool while Carmen was unloading trays of glasses. At the other end, Sara and Deon chatted with Dex, or just each other when he was pulled away. Ollie still nursed the same beer, the liquid warm and a little stale.
Ollie leaned an elbow on the bar top and propped her chin in her hand languidly. She watched Carmen, the way she moved, steadily and sure. She was a little ashen, something still etched in her eyes that haunted Ollie. She didn’t know what to do with the feeling—if she wanted to throw herself at a canvas or pull Carmen against her.
Out of nowhere, the desire rose up to ask Carmen if she missed her mother like Ollie missed hers.
But that would be like stripping her feelings down.
“Do you like working here?” The question was inane, but Ollie wanted to know. She wanted to know everything, if she were honest. She wanted to sit and pluck Carmen apart until she knew her inside out. Besides, if she didn’t ask that question, she’d ask the mother one, and that left Ollie’s chest feeling tight.
Carmen wiped water marks off one of the glasses. “I do.” Ollie just blinked, so Carmen kept going. “It’s relaxing and easy. It’s work.”
“How do you get to work? From what I heard, it’s hard to have a job when you’re in one of those homes.”
Something faltered in Carmen’s movements, something barely noticeable, and if Ollie hadn’t been watching her so intently, she wouldn’t have noticed. Carmen didn’t stop working.
“It is,” she said finally. “I guess I’m lucky.”
“How’s school?” Even though Ollie wanted to know everything, she didn’t want to be asking questions that sounded so ridiculous. A barrier sprung between them, one always kind of there, which felt like unshared history. Ollie didn’t know how to scramble at it, how to tear it down to their feet so it could be easily crossed.
“It’s fine.”
That answer felt hollow. “Look, if you don’t want to talk…”
Carmen’s gaze flew up, and her hand landed on Ollie’s, who sat back down before she’d even managed to stand properly. “No, it’s not that. I’m sorry.” Carmen met her eyes, then studied her for a moment. “What’s happened to you, Ollie?”
That barrier was suddenly shattered, and Ollie was left winded at the lack of warning. She blinked at Carmen and swallowed, unable to look away. “What do you mean?” Her voice cracked, and Ollie resented it.
Carmen pushed a tray aside and leaned against the bar, their faces a foot apart. She cocked her head, her gaze all over Ollie’s face before coming back to her eyes. That look was back, the one that left Ollie with need at the back of her throat.
“What’s happened to you, Ollie?” Carmen repeated, her voice low and like gravel. “Something’s changed.”
Fingers of panic clawed at her back, and Ollie had the urge to run away. A lump was in her throat so big that Ollie didn’t know how she could breathe or even swallow as heavily as she did. She looked down at the end of the bar—her friends were completely distracted—and back to Carmen. She shook her head once, her lips a tight line. “Come with me?” She stood and started to walk to the office they had gone to last time, but fingers grabbed at her hand.
“Not there,” Carmen
said. “Someone’s in there.”
So Ollie followed her toward another room, filled with crates and pallets and cartons.
Once inside, Ollie closed the door and leaned against it, heart hammering in her chest. Carmen stood in front of her, an inch of space between them now and her gaze glued to Ollie as tears brimmed in Ollie’s eyes. Angrily she swiped at them with both hands, fingers digging into the softness of her skin.
Everything in her stilled when Carmen curled her fingers around Ollie’s wrists. She brushed her thumbs over the wetness of her cheeks.
“What happened?” Carmen’s words were a whisper over Ollie’s skin. Her breath was warm and sweet, and Ollie closed her eyes, dropping her head back onto the door behind her.
The words always hurt to say, and she didn’t know how to tell Carmen, how to shape the sounds that formed the story of the gaping, black space her mother had left, how to explain the revulsion, misdirected and toxic, that was bubbling in her stomach at her father: why was he here and she wasn’t? And then there was the blinding guilt, because it wasn’t that she didn’t want her father. It was that she wanted both of them, and only having one felt like a constant reminder of the other’s absence.
How did she word the loneliness that swelled in her chest at night, when she used to hear the sound of her father tiptoeing out for water but now heard the clink of a liquor bottle against a glass? How did she communicate the utter lost feeling when she thought of the next year, the next two, of making decisions about her life when she had no idea what she wanted? How did she explain the way something in her had twisted and bent?
She had no words, but neither did Carmen, with her evasive answers and the way she disappeared in and out of Ollie’s life yet watched Ollie like she was the only thing holding her to her own. Ollie had no words, but she did know something that helped, something she wanted.