Innocents

by Mary Elizabeth

  I laugh against glossy lips, conscious that scarlet lipstick smears across my smile. My eyes open wide, but Becka’s pulsating sapphire ones close as her soft tongue skims along my lower lip and invades my mouth with a liquor kiss.

  If she were Thomas, I’d tangle my hands in her hair or dig my fingertips into her skin, but this is love’s sister, and Becka’s too soft, too small. Wrapping my arms around her lower back feels wrong and too intimate. I settle for holding onto her sides.

  The kiss ends when our teeth bash and we both start to laugh.

  “Now you’ve had your first kiss,” Rebecka says, as if she’s done me a favor.

  The mouth raider jumps off my lap and settles on Smitty’s. Boozed up, my friends joke about the lipstick painted from my chin to my nose, unaware that I’m not blushing because I liked it.

  Oliver leans over and whispers, “That didn’t count.”

  Jackie reaches for the beer bottle in the center of the table and spins it. “Who’s ready to play?” she asks.

  As the emerald bottle casts a green-yellow reflection on the table from the light above and whirls, I’m afraid to be kissed by anyone other than Thomas tonight.

  But maybe I shouldn’t be.

  The boy my heart belongs to didn’t come home for my birthday party. But Oliver and the others are happily here, celebrating my life. They’d never make me blue on a day like this, but the last conversation I had with Dusty today was maddening. And about Valarie.

  She slept with Ben.

  “Why?” I asked her in the girls’ restroom.

  “It’s not a big deal,” she said, folding a stick of gum into her mouth.

  “You’ve hooked up with all three of them?”

  She shook her head. “Not Petey. He belongs to Kelly.”

  When I later questioned Thomas about it, his answer was simple. “We don’t fight on birthdays, remember?”

  Oliver pushes my red plastic cup back in front of me as the first spin lands on Laura; she and Jackie share a simple kiss.

  Stupid cute and skater boy buff, the sketcher with charcoal stained fingertips scoots his chair closer to mine. He and Erin didn’t get back together, and he hasn’t talked about her. I sometimes catch him looking at me, but Oliver isn’t the pushy type. He’s polite in his affection. And in a perfect world, maybe it would work between us.

  Laura spins the bottle and it lands on Becka. Becka spins the bottle and it lands on me. After lightly pressing our lips together, I take a drink from my cup, and with a tipsy head, I lean over the table and twirl cool glass.

  Becka ducks and the bottle points to Smitty.

  “Shouldn’t there be a rule against kissing my best friend’s boyfriend?” I ask, pulling my hair up into a messy ponytail.

  Straightedge, Smitty’s cheeks redden. Smashed, his girlfriend reaches into her pocket and presents a crumbled pack of smokes.

  “I stole them from Dusty,” she says. Becka places one at the corner of her mouth and tries to light the cigarette with a flickering purple lighter. “Do it.”

  Smitty kisses me on the cheek.

  Becka boos.

  Hal takes his turn and it stops on his girlfriend. Amidst their kiss, dirty and long, we play without them. And since Chris and Oliver are the only two who haven’t had a spin, it’s decided one of them has control of the bottle.

  Skater boy doesn’t hesitate and it lands on me.

  The room becomes uncomfortably warm, and light perspiration dampens my hairline. Confusing my scratching fear with innocent nervousness, I fan my face with my hands, and everyone laughs.

  “I can spin again,” considerate and calm offers in a low voice, giving me an out.

  Drawn to the boy who has always made me feel like I was enough, I shake my head. Oliver turns my chair toward himself and four wooden legs protest against stone tiles. A small smile plays on his lips, and something in the sincerity of his expression unhinges a need to forget about Thomas and kiss him.

  Oliver inhales right before our lips touch.

  He tastes like spiced rum, and his mouth is as warm as his eyes. But his kiss isn’t as patient as his behavior. Oliver brings his body closer to mine and nips my bottom lip before pushing his tongue against my own. My hands easily find themselves clutching onto my partner, and fear fades, sparking eagerness.

  As I drive thoughts of crooked smirks and blue eyes gone black from my mind, the front door opens and I know it’s love.

  I abruptly fall back into my chair and wipe my lips dry on the back of my hand. I don’t meet confused brown eyes with my watering green ones. I reach for my cup and swallow its contents as the boys crash our party.

  “What is this?” Petey asks. He kills the music and flips on the other the kitchen lights, illuminating the entire area and killing the guarded mood.

  Ben pulls my ponytail before turning my empty Solo cup upside down. “Are you guys drunk?” he asks.

  “Are you?” Rebecka fires back. I follow her eyes into Ben’s and see the same enlarged pupils there that I see in Thomas’.

  Dusty approaches my left side, dressed in clay-caked baseball pants and an old shirt. His hat is on backwards, and his knuckles are scabbed. The scent of cut grass and pot lingers on his skin and clothes, and my boy’s dark eyes shift from the stolen pack of cigarettes to the beer bottle in the center of the table pointed at me.

  “Everyone get out,” he says tonelessly, as if we’re boring him.

  Jackie, Laura, and Chris all scoot their chairs back, but Becka stands to her feet and says, “Sit.”

  Petey and Ben lean back against the stove with silly smirks across their mindless faces. Their leader moves away from his drunk little sister to the back door and opens it, motioning for everyone to get up and leave.

  “You knew I was having people over for Bliss’ birthday, Thomas,” Becka argues, slurring. She sways on her feet, holding on to Hal’s shoulder to keep upright.

  I look down, unable to watch this mess. Oliver lightly touches my arm, but I move it away before my troublemaker misplaces his anger onto him.

  “I was supposed to be here,” Dusty replies.

  “It’s two o’clock in the morning.” Rebecka stomps her foot. “You ruined her birthday, jerk.”

  “She’ll get over it.” Mischief laughs.

  I look up at the epitome of hustle and swag, who tricks the room into believing we’re the problem with his careless stance and detached leer. But there’s panic in his eyes only I can see.

  “Did you get your first kiss, Leighlee?” he asks. “Was it sweet, little girl?”

  Oliver moves in his seat beside me, and the friends good enough not to miss my birthday look to me with sympathetic expressions and small smiles. Their pity angers me, and I’m sick of being felt sorry for.

  “Yeah,” I answer, finding strength in the truth. “Twice.”

  The boy who has a response for everything is wordless and doesn’t stand as tall. His bottomless eyes practically ripple with anger, and my heart aches to fix his suffering. Dusty’s dark stare murders my determination.

  Choked with guilt, I’m about to leave when Rebecka suddenly holds her hands over her stomach. Petey grabs the trash can, but he isn’t fast enough.

  Little sister folds over and pukes on the fancy kitchen floor.

  “Gross,” Ben covers his nose in the bend of his elbow while grabbing dishtowels from the cupboard.

  I shove my chair back and stand up, but the room tilts and the consequences of how much I’ve had to drink hit my head. Ignoring the slight spin of the four walls around me, I hold my girl’s hair back while she spills her guts.

  “Get the fuck out,” Thomas says again. His tone edges on violent.

  Everyone with the exception of Hal and Oliver leave. They linger anxiously beside Becka and me while Pete helps my best girl over the trash can, and Ben throws towels over the mess.

  “I’ll get her cleaned up,” Petey says, pushing soiled hair out of Rebecka’s face.

  Ben soaks u
p what he can, but the smell is so repulsive it’s hard to focus on anything other than not becoming sick myself.

  “You guys need to go,” Thomas speaks up.

  Oliver sticks his hands in his pockets and says evenly, “We’re going.”

  I need air.

  “I’ll walk you out,” I volunteer.

  “Don’t leave the driveway, Leigh,” Dusty says as I walk past him onto the back porch.

  I inhale and exhale lungfuls of clean, cool night air as my stomach tightens and my mouth fills with thick saliva. Strangled with threatening sickness, I hurry past Oliver and Smitty to the lightless driveway and cough to keep from throwing up.

  Jagged pebbles and cracked pavement stab at the bottom of my bare feet. The trees surrounding the Castors’ house sway lightly in the clarifying breeze, and as I walk around the side of the two story home, moths and flying beetles show themselves in the porch light.

  “Wait up, Leigh,” Oliver calls from behind.

  I stop a few feet shy of Hal’s old Corolla, sun faded and misty with condensation. My best friend’s boyfriend sighs, dragging his hand through his wavy blonde hair, multiple strings, braids, and bonds around his wrist representing his girl inside—being taken care of by another.

  “I’ll have her call you in the morning,” I say softly.

  Accepting my answer with low-slung shoulders and slow steps, Smitty nods as he walks to his vehicle, leaving me and Oliver by ourselves. With the warmth of his kiss sunken deep into my lips, I can’t bring myself to look at him.

  “I should get back inside,” I say, staring down at my feet.

  He doesn’t stop me from walking away, and I don’t look back. While climbing the porch steps, I suddenly feel disgraceful without a bra on. My skirt feels too short, and the makeup that’s not supposed to be on my face is heavy. I wipe smeared mascara away from under my eyes and pull tight cotton down my legs before stepping through the back door into the house.

  Dusty’s on his hands and knees, cleaning up his sister’s mess with stomach-soaked towels while Ben stands beside him with an open garbage bag in his hands.

  “Go to bed, Leighlee.” Thomas regards me with this voice but not his eyes. “And put some clothes on.”

  Petey has Rebecka in the second floor bathroom propped over the sink, attempting to brush her teeth. Drunk and messy spits out suds and gags on her toothbrush, unable to stand on her own.

  “A little help?” Pete asks. He holds out her white and pink toothbrush for me.

  We carry the white-teethed teen to her room and slip her out of her shoes, and Pete hangs back while I change Becka out of her soiled clothes. Despite rinsing her hair clean and brushing her teeth, my girl smells like puke with a hint of rum.

  “You guys really fucked up,” Rebecka’s watcher says from the corner of the room.

  I look over my shoulder and take a seat on the edge of the bed. A combination of anger and apprehension winds my unsettled stomach, and Petey sits beside me with a sigh and a hand in his hair.

  “Did you actually think that shit was going to fly?” he asks, speaking in hushed tones so as not to wake the inebriated.

  “I wasn’t aware that we needed a babysitting crew,” I say.

  “Now you do,” he says.

  Light eyes pried wide open fade into the shadows of his face, dismissing the normal spark I love about him. His posture is tense, and I don’t know if he realizes he’s grinding his teeth.

  “You might trust those kids,” he continues, “but we don’t.”

  In spite of his strange seriousness, I laugh out loud. Because fuck him.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s you guys who can’t be trusted,” I say, shaking my head.

  Dark pupils soften before my eyes. “Maybe, but not with you two. It’s not the same with little sisters.”

  “GET UP,” the silhouette in the doorway says.

  “I can’t leave her,” I say of the girl who hasn’t moved since she was put in bed.

  “She’ll be fine.”

  I tiptoe down the hallway, still drunk and dirty. I want to change out of these clothes and shower before I have this argument with Thomas, but as soon as I walk into his room, I know that’s not going to happen.

  I shut the door and sit on his bed.

  A beat and a pause, then I ask, “Where were you tonight?”

  “Getting some shit,” he answers. Trouble leans back on his computer desk and crosses his arms over his chest. Stretched pupils totally consume the blue I adore.

  The taste of flat soda and alcohol lingers on my dehydrated tongue, and my need for water outweighs my need to stare into eyes I don’t recognize. I reach for the water bottle I always leave on the nightstand, but instead of grabbing Aquafina, I pick up a small baggie containing what looks like an uneven clump of white powder.

  “Put that down,” Dusty says from across the room.

  I bring the bag close enough to my eyes to see the chalky texture of what’s inside, like unsifted murky flour. But flicking the small mass doesn’t cause it to fall apart like baking ingredients would. The dingy rock is solid under my fingernail.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  After splitting the baggie’s press-n-seal bond, I bring its contents under my nose. Before I can register a scent, this boy plucks the riddle from my hands and shoves it in his back pocket.

  “Some shit,” he answers, handing me the bottle of water I wanted in the first place.

  I push the peace offering out of my face. “Tell me.”

  He tries to walk away, but I grab onto his wrist; his pulse sails under my fingertips.

  With an expression free of emotion and a tone as lifeless, Dusty says, “Coke.”

  “Cocaine,” I say, assessing dark eyes. “How long have you been doing this?”

  Thomas takes a seat beside me and shrugs. “Since my birthday, I guess.”

  That answer drains the warmth from my body as I remember the night this boy broke into my house, and every distant day since.

  “Did you kiss him?” he asks.

  My answer comes without thought. “Yes.”

  Wrecked with crippling unease, I stand, but Dusty reaches out for my hips and turns me around. I fall to his feet, repentant and confused and crying. Waxy residue from his sister’s kiss lingers on the skin around my mouth, and I remember with perfect clarity what Oliver’s lips felt like against mine.

  “Look at me,” love says firmly from above. He brushes his fingers across my cheeks, ridding me of salty tears.

  I press my forehead to his knee so he can’t touch my face.

  He lifts me to my feet in one swift motion and kisses the side of neck, my temple, and over my crying eyes.

  “My cherished,” he whispers. “My girl.”

  I jam my palm under his jaw and push his face away, but my pathetic attempts for space are nothing compared to his fight for closeness. Dusty spins me around so my back is against his chest, and he holds my arms down at my sides.

  “Don’t kiss me,” I cry.

  His teeth sink into the top of my shoulder, and the cutting pain replaces loathing with longing. Cries of sadness change into cries of pleasure, and instead of pushing him away, I sink further in—desperate to the point of madness.

  When my body hits the mattress, I touch the open wound at the bend of my neck. Blood smears across my fingertips, but I gladly bleed for this person.

  “Do you think I was just going to let him kiss you?” Thomas asks, pulling at my top until stitches break and seams come apart.

  When my chest is bare, crazy love spreads my knees wide open and falls between me as his teeth split skin over my heart.

  Black eyes hover above mine, and Dusty’s smirk is ridiculous. He covers my mouth with his right hand before grazing his teeth along my collarbone. Soft kisses up the side of my neck tease, but open lips and a warm tongue fulfill. I can feel blood vessels break and pale thin skin turn purple under his kiss.

  I pull his head back by his hair and laug
h because he laughs.

  “Come on, little girl,” he provokes. Thomas moves harshly against my soft, warm middle.

  Tingling from the tips of my toes up, I latch onto the side of Dusty’s neck and suck until I break veins and bruise skin. Leaving one side wounded with many marks, I move to the other side as tingles stir into bursts.

  Gasping breaths and needy groans break silence, and my fingernails break skin down Dusty’s arms. I can’t get his shirt off fast enough, and my skirt bunches around my waist.

  “We can tell everyone,” he whispers brokenheartedly as our bare chests touch.

  As tears run down his face, I wonder how much power Thomas really has.

  “Don’t kiss him again, Bliss …”

  “Don’t cry.” I press my lips to his, licking away tears.

  “Be my girlfriend.” He’s hard between me, moving his hips in slow little circles.

  “No.”

  “Because of him?” He stops pushing. He stops breathing.

  “Because no one can know. Not yet.”

  I refuse to be his girlfriend when it’s a kiss with Oliver that led us into it. I won’t officially be his until I’m the only one that is.

  “Leigh,” he says, gripping the sheets beside my head. “Don’t leave me.”

  “I’m here,” I say.

  “Are you?”

  “This isn’t right,” I reply as one of his tears falls onto my face.

  “Show me you love me,” he says, moving against me with harder strokes. “Show me you need me.”

  Desperately, I ask, “What more can I do?”

  Thomas slips off the bed and pulls lace underwear down my legs until they’re lost on the floor. He parts my knees, holding them wide open at my thighs and stares at me completely bare, shamelessly with eyes hooded from crying and lips swollen from kissing.

  When he stands tall, I leave my legs open for him. Dusty unbuttons the front of his dirty baseball pants, and my heart beats love.

  His skin is soft against the insides of my thighs, but he’s hard sliding along me. I’ve wanted this for so long, and now that it’s here, reality is harsh and I’m terrified. My knees shake at his sides, and I hide my face in his neck while he reaches between us, lining himself up.