by G. Benson
Carmen shrugged. “I think so.”
Ollie swiveled so she was between Carmen’s legs and looked at her, her face screwed up. “So they just don’t care?”
Carmen blinked, not sure where that had come from. “What?”
“You’re still a minor, but they just kind of…let you fall through the cracks?”
“Um…” Carmen looked to Deon, who just shrugged at her, so she looked back to Ollie, who had a roiling storm of anger in her eyes. “It’s a good thing… I’m not going back to foster care.”
“But they should still care.”
Ollie was angry for her. Out of nowhere, a lump grew in Carmen’s throat at the thought, her voice coming out too tight. “I think the system is just overloaded.” She ran a hand through Ollie’s hair again. “And they prefer to focus on younger kids, I guess.”
“It’s still wrong.” Ollie was the picture of protective.
A pinging sound made them both turn to Deon. He was already looking back at the screens, his back to them.
“I’m in the hospital’s system. Right.” He typed for a minute that went on for an eternity. “Here it is…discharged to the care of DCF, cleared medically, needs bed rest for a few days. Needs a follow-up to check if his fractured orbital socket is healing. Headaches to be expected up to several weeks post event. Psych referral. Released only with pain medication.” He turned to Carmen. “He seems fine.”
Carmen let out a long breath. She’d believe it when she saw it, but for now, it would have to be enough.
On Monday, he’d be back at school, and Carmen would be able to see him.
“Thanks, Deon.” She looked him straight in the eye, and he blinked, seeming surprised at whatever he saw in her gaze. “Seriously. Thank you.”
There was something about Carmen. Something in the depths of her eyes that would always make Ollie think of woodsmoke and whiskey. Not of drunkenness, but of a taste that ran so deep it took days to appreciate its worth. She held a seriousness that went through to her very core. When it cracked a little, spilling over as she laughed, when she turned silly about something Ollie had said, she looked like who she was under it all: a seventeen-year-old who stared at Ollie like she herself had hung the stars in the sky.
She’d never know what had pulled her into Carmen’s orbit, if it was those eyes or that seriousness or the way she’d leaned against the lockers the first time Ollie really remembered noticing her. All those sharp angles and haunted eyes and cheekbones she’d worship if she could.
Mostly, it was just Carmen and everything that made her, her.
And the more Ollie had gotten to know her, the more she had fallen into something she had no urge to catch herself from. She tumbled and caught up speed, and all she could do was close her eyes and lose herself to it.
Learning about Mattie should have given her pause. But instead, Ollie found herself filled with admiration. Carmen had kept her brother and herself together through things Ollie had no understanding of. She had fought for him, and she knew she’d fight for him until she died.
Sometimes, it all seemed a little complicated.
What would it mean for them? Two seventeen-year-olds melding together like they were? That one of them would have a kid they were responsible for?
But that seemed like a problem that was intangible and far away.
With all of this clouding her mind when they left Deon’s, Ollie ran her thumb over Carmen’s hand in her own as they walked through the door to Ollie’s house.
Ollie introduced her father and Carmen as simply as she could. “Carmen, my dad, Calvin. Dad, Carmen.”
And Carmen held her hand out solemnly, and they shook, the coffee table between them just small enough for her father to reach across. The smile on his face was the only genuine one she’d seen since her mother had died.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Carmen.”
“You too.”
Ollie watched her father’s face, for once not flinching from the truth of it. He was thinner, the gray that speckled his beard a little more pronounced than before. Lines around his eyes didn’t make her think of laughter anymore. But when he smiled at Carmen, he was more him than she’d seen in a long while. So much so that Ollie’s chest ached.
“That’s a nasty bruise.”
In the stillness of the living room, Ollie could have kicked herself. She should have filled her father in before. But it didn’t feel like Ollie’s story to tell.
Carmen’s gaze flicked to Ollie then back to her father. “I, uh, work in a bar, and some pretty horrible guys came in to cause trouble.”
Ollie’s father’s eyes widened a little. “But you’re okay?” At her nod, he asked, “A bar? Aren’t you too young to work in a bar? What about school?”
“I don’t work with the alcohol. And I don’t go to school. Not, um, anymore.”
Carmen slid her hands into her back pockets, but Ollie rescued one, entwining their fingers between them. Her father didn’t even blink at that, and affection for him swelled in her chest.
“Carmen’s mom died last year. She left school and got a job to avoid going into foster care.”
For a moment, her father watched them both, his eyes deep and dark. “I’m very sorry to hear about your mother, Carmen. And about… Are you doing okay?”
Carmen swallowed, the motion visible. “I am, thank you. I have a place to stay, and soon I hope to be somewhere a bit more permanent.”
“Well, you’re always welcome here for dinner, or anything else.”
Carmen hadn’t looked away from Ollie’s father, not once. “Thank you.”
They sat down for the lasagna her father had made. Never the cook, her mother had left everything burned or underdone. Not her father, though. He made the best meals and had only recently been cooking again. Their forks clattered against their plates, and Ollie sat across from Carmen, their feet together under the table.
“How did you two meet, then?”
Carmen looked from Ollie to her father. “At school, before I left. Ollie ran into me.”
Ollie would never admit she’d done it completely on purpose.
Her father rolled his eyes. “Always a little klutz. When she was around two, she used to climb everything. Once, we turned our backs for a second and she’d climbed the shower curtain.”
The laugh Carmen gave was delighted, and it stopped short the embarrassed protest coming out of Ollie; the sound was charming.
“The shower curtain?” Carmen looked to Ollie, who crossed her arms and shrugged with a smirk. She looked back to Ollie’s father. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. Before she could even walk properly, she managed to get onto the back of the sofa and roll off.” He grimaced. “It didn’t stop her from trying again the next day.”
“What can I say?” Ollie grinned. “I’m an adventurer.”
“Yet you hate sports.”
Ollie made a face. “I do.”
Her father made an exaggerated pout, and Ollie was giddy with how normal things were. She’d missed this, the ease, the way her father liked to tease and she’d push back. Unlike before, though, it was with less annoyance and, instead, with appreciation sitting heavy in the back of her throat.
“I tried so hard to get you into something.” He turned to Carmen. “I even tried rock climbing, but to no avail. She grew out of that and just wanted to draw all over everything.”
Carmen was listening attentively to everything he said.
“Do you like any sports, Carmen?”
That got them into a conversation about soccer that Ollie quickly tuned out of. She was content to watch the way those lines around her father’s eyes were still laugh lines, despite what she’d thought. It turned out she’d only needed to see him smile to learn that. Did it ache in
side him at times, like it did with her, to smile? Like it was cheating on their grief for her mom?
Carmen’s hands gestured, and she smiled easily. She’d seemed more relaxed since they’d left Deon’s, but to see her at ease with her dad left Ollie warm inside.
When they finished, Ollie and Carmen collected the dishes, the rule in the house that whoever cooked got out of washing duty. They bumped elbows as they rinsed them, and Ollie loaded the dishwasher, not saying anything when it was clear Carmen had never used one. Finished, she led the way to her room, falling onto her bed and yanking her glasses off. Clearly being mindful of her ribs, Carmen followed a little more gingerly. Ollie shuffled close, their chests together and their heads on the same pillow.
“That went well.” She kept her voice low. Carmen had once told her she loved it like that, that it was like gravel, like the sound an asteroid would make passing by stars. The words had left Ollie dizzy for days.
Sometimes, Ollie grossed herself out with her feelings for Carmen.
“Your dad is nice.”
“He is.” Ollie’s tugged softly at Carmen’s thigh, and Carmen followed the lead, her leg going over Ollie’s hip. “I wish,” she said, her voice still low, a bass line, “you could have met my mom.”
The look in Carmen’s eyes darkened. She wriggled a little closer. “Me too.”
“Carmen…” Ollie waited until Carmen was looking her right in the eyes—easy to do with barely even air between them. “If you ever want to talk about anything, you can. About foster care, before, or your mom…”
Ollie could only stare at her and hope Carmen knew she meant it, every word, and that if she didn’t want to share yet, that was fine too. She’d take it in pieces, in a torrent, broken up, or altogether. Whatever Carmen wanted to share with her, Ollie wanted to hear it.
“Thank you.”
Those words breathed over Ollie’s lips and tasted like something Ollie wanted to preserve. Carmen closed the gap, minuscule anyway, and kissed Ollie gently, a gift in itself, a touching of lips and tongue.
Ollie never wanted it to end.
Chapter 23
Something was missing.
That was obvious. To everyone. Carmen could tell it was obvious. She knew that missing Mattie was layered over her smile, that the absence of him sat in the back of her gaze. Everything Carmen had done for almost a year had been with him in mind.
That wasn’t true.
It had been like that since he’d been born, really.
Everyone looked at her and knew she felt as if something had been shaved away. Ollie did her best to keep her distracted, and Carmen, at times, could let herself disappear into that. The warmth of her eyes, the way Ollie kissed her like the world was coming down. Or was it like the world was being built up? Sometimes she wasn’t sure which it was and wondered if it could do both, all at the same time.
Rae brought her books. Where she found them, Carmen didn’t ask. But she appreciated them. It helped, to fall into another world, one so different from her own. If she could, Jia sat with her, even if it was only while Carmen read and Jia went over things in her room, papers spread out in front of her. Sometimes, Jia sat next to her on the roof and talked over the plan with her in circles until Carmen had no choice but to admit she’d done the right thing. Dex gave her more hours. As many as he could, it seemed. So, through the evening, Carmen threw herself into the bar.
It had never been so clean.
But with the information Deon had managed to get ahold of in mind, Carmen tried to relax. To accept that Mattie was okay, physically at least. But sometimes, that just didn’t quite click in her brain. Her feet would start to carry her from the bar to the office, the idea of checking on Mattie blooming in the back of her mind before she could stop it. Her hand would reach for him in the bed, a reflex. She’d read something in one of Rae’s books, a sentence she knew he’d like, and would want to tell him. She would look up, a flutter of panic in her chest because she hadn’t checked on him, and would stare wildly around, anxious to lay eyes on him. Then the jarring knowledge that he wasn’t there would crash over her, and she’d try to drag her gaze back to her book.
It was like trying to shake her shadow.
“You okay?”
Carmen looked up from the glasses she was unstacking, the blue of Ollie’s eyes watching her, clouded with concern. Carmen glanced around the bar. It was Sunday evening and everything was quiet. The crowd that had appeared for an afternoon football game had slowly filtered out. They’d be closing soon. Sundays were always an early close.
With a shrug, Carmen fell against the bar, her chin heavy in her hand, elbow against the bar top. She could just say she was fine. The reflex to do so coiled in her stomach, ready to kick in. “I was thinking.”
She surprised herself.
Ollie smiled, the action crinkling around her eyes just a little. She put her crossed arms on the bar, a foot of space between their limbs, and leaned forward. “That was obvious.” She cocked her head. “What were you thinking?”
Carmen dropped her gaze, taking in a deep breath and trying to calm the parts of her that itched to turn and walk away from this conversation. It was as if something were crawling along her nerve endings, leaving her too exposed. “About Mattie. About the last time we were separated.”
Silence stretched on a bit too long. Maybe Carmen shouldn’t open up. Putting everything on Ollie was a stupid idea. There was too much.
When Carmen finally glanced up, Ollie was still looking at her steadily. Her eyes were clear and sure, and Carmen could just tell she was waiting to hear more. Even though Carmen knew the bar was empty, that Dex was out the back, doing the books, she looked around before continuing, then fixed her gaze back on the bar top. Sometimes eye contact made her feel stripped bare. She traced the grain of the wood with her thumbnail.
“It was hard then, really hard. They put us in separate homes, and I went through three before I ended up on the streets. One was okay, the others not great, but the last one was…not nice. They were angry, loud, and violent.”
Her voice was low, the sound rumbling in her throat. In spite of herself, she looked up, the feel of Ollie’s eyes like a burn against her cheeks. Ollie was still watching her steadily, but her eyebrows had pushed together. Something clenched in her jaw. “Being without Mattie then was the hardest part about being on the streets. But he was five, and it was so obvious then that the foster place was better for him, even if he hated it. But this time…”
Fingers brushed over Carmen’s, the touch slight and warm.
Everything Carmen could say caught in her throat, mingled together, and became difficult to pick apart. The music in the bar stopped, the silence almost deafening.
“This time,” Ollie spoke, and Carmen met her eyes again, “this time, you guys went through even more together. You started this together. You’ve had years of being his person, and now he’s gone because he got hurt. It feels like a hole left behind.” Too much understanding was in those words. “Something huge. And you want him back but feel bad because you think he’s probably better off in a foster home. But you’re worried it will be a bad one. You’re worried you won’t get him back. And that hole just keeps getting bigger.”
They didn’t break eye contact, the moment swelling around them. Carmen twisted her hand, entwining Ollie’s fingers with her own.
“Yeah.”
Because that was exactly it.
“Carmen?”
“Mm?”
“How did you find them, last time? Dex and Rae and Jia?”
It was hard not to smile at that. She settled against the bar top more comfortably, one knee bent so she could press her toe against the ground. Their hands stayed clasped between them, Ollie blinking at her. Attentive.
“I was a little bit of a mess. I was thirte
en and angry and felt like the whole world was against me. I missed Mattie, and I even missed my mom, which made me angrier. I ran from the home one night when the guy there got drunk and angry. He threw things. He got… I had some bruises.” The hand in her own squeezed tightly, and Carmen’s breath caught at the feeling, at the hardness in Ollie’s eyes. At someone being angry for her. “I was on the street for a little over a week. Maybe two? It was horrible. I was cold and hungry, and I tried to steal some food and had to run.” She laughed then, the sound light. It didn’t hurt to think about anymore. “I was useless, Ollie.”
Ollie squeezed her hand again, eyes intent and not leaving her.
“Are you sure you want to listen to all this?”
Ollie nodded, her hair bouncing around her head. “Of course I am. I want to know anything you want to tell me.”
The sincerity in her voice could mend even the fractured sensation in Carmen’s chest. “I ran into the wrong people, and I picked a fight. I don’t know why. I was getting pummeled, when suddenly they were all running off. Someone pulled me up off the ground and dusted off my shoulders.”
“Rae?” Ollie asked.
Carmen snorted. “Yeah, Rae. She seemed so old to me. And she stood over me with bruised knuckles, looking me up and down. Finally, she rolled her eyes and told me to come with her. I had no idea what was going on.”