Innocents

by Mary Elizabeth

  Petey snickers. “Benny boy wants to see what’s going on under those tights.”

  “What? For real?” Becka takes a drink, but doesn’t chug this time.

  Ben grins, wide and cocky, showing all his perfect teeth and shrugs like yeah, and?

  I give him a look that says if you hurt my friend, I’ll injure you, but he shrugs black suited shoulders higher.

  “Nerdy girls like to get it, too,” he says.

  When Daisy returns, she hugs me before she sits down on the other side of Thomas, next to her date.

  “I had no idea know you were going to be here,” I say. Dating isn’t something we talk about between French verb conjugation and new ways to call a slut a slut. “I’m happy you are.”

  “Me neither,” she agrees, looking over at Tweedledum. He passes her a cup from Pete, and the way Ben looks at her it’s obvious they’ve kissed.

  Daisy sips her punch, her pinkie a little bit up.

  “Folie,” she says to me, shy and genuine.

  Craziness.

  Next to me, Thomas leans further back in his seat. Just the movement in this proximity is enough to flood my veins with flutters and longing. It’s been days since we’ve really touched, and being this close but having to keep away is effortful and more tempting than usual.

  “Folie,” I agree, running fingers I want anywhere on him around the rim of my cup instead.

  Under the table, Dusty’s knee bumps the outside of my bare thigh. He presses into contact that comforts as it entices, and I press back for more.

  Keeping my eyes on Daisy’s, I motion toward her date. “Êtes-vous certain de ce garçon?”

  You sure about this boy?

  “Parfois,” she starts, coy eyes glinting candlelight as she glances at Ben.

  Relaxed with one hand on the back of his head, messing with his dark curls, he has his other on the back of her chair. He’s laid back without a care, and it makes me sure they’ve more than kissed.

  “Parfois, les filles veulent juste s’amuser aussi,” Daisy finishes.

  Sometimes, girls just want to have fun, too.

  I raise my cup with a nod and a smile more knowing than any of them realize.

  “Okay, I have no idea what that means,” Rebecka says, lifting her drink, too. “But, if L is toasting to it, then yes.”

  She taps her cup to mine, and Daisy lifts hers with ours. And when Ben does the same, so does Petey.

  With his cup raised last, Thomas slides his foot next to my foot, aligning our calves under the table and giving my heart more of what it needs as we all drink.

  WE’RE BACK on the dance floor, only this time we’re all together.

  Petey twirls Becka while Ben and Daisy dance forehead to forehead. Their hips move and their hands touch as Thomas Castor spins me in a circle that he never lets get too far from himself.

  In the blink of sky blue, we’re chest to chest and I’m high on only him.

  “Hi,” he tells me under the music. Placing his hands between my shoulders and at the small of my back, he gives contact I’ve craved and needed and can’t get enough of.

  “Hi,” I whisper back, looking up and pressing into love I’m lit on.

  As a slow song starts, he blends us more into the center of the crowd. Unseen, my heart’s beat brings me all the way close, leaving no space between soft off-white and almost black. With my left arm around his neck and his right hand steady on the small of my back, he brings my right hand up and places it over the jacket lapel that covers his heart.

  Taller than usual, eye level with his lips, I look up to see Dusty regarding me with ardor and pride that make me cling to him. And I know in this moment that tonight isn’t just for me.

  Faded dark blues glint and flicker in the kaleidoscope dark.

  “Do you know how hard it is not to kiss you when you smile like that?” he asks.

  My cheeks warm with what he does to my heartbeat, and Thomas brushes his nose along my cheek. With his lips close to my ear and his fingers curving between mine on his chest, he whispers, “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are, Bliss?”

  Surrounded in vanilla and Doublemint held close in intimate shelter, I turn my face toward his.

  “Kiss me,” I whisper.

  “I am kissing you,” he teases, pressing parted lips under my earlobe.

  I press closer while my heart pulses passion and pleading, and Thomas moves us slowly to the music.

  “I want to take you to the beach and kiss you all night,” he tells me. “I want to kiss you forever.”

  With his hand gripped over mine, his arm is firm around my waist, and his heart thumps under my palm. Dusty lets me feel his breath and teeth as he moves down my neck. Hidden from everyone, wrapped in a song about each day so sunny and blue, he gives me the sweetest, deepest kind of ache.

  The DJ picks the pace back up when the song ends, and it’s a transition. Love squeezes my hand before lowering them and takes a step back from me. I look over my shoulder to follow his eyes.

  Becka moves through the crowd, curling her fingers in my direction.

  “We are young,” she whispers over synth beats. “Heartache to heartache, we stand.”

  Smiling high, I meet my girl halfway.

  Pete’s next to her, and Thomas keeps a little distance between us, but stays behind me as I move. Daisy and Ben sway at my left, and right here, right now, it feels like we all match. Like we’re the same. Like underneath everything, Daisy, Pete, Becka, Ben, the juniors and seniors around us—me and the hoodlum that doesn’t let me out of his reach—we’re all equals.

  Love may be a battlefield, but we’re not doing any wrong. We’re kids in a crowd on the top of the world: high, wild, and innocent.

  A LITTLE less than two hours later, the full moon is high and I’m in Thomas’ lap on the dock with both my legs over his left. A night full of touching but not really being able to has caught up with us, and my secret is making good on his whisper about kissing me forever.

  Along with my shoes, we left our tipsy-tired best friends on a blanket in the sand a few minutes ago.

  Starting with my temple, Thomas kisses across my forehead first and down my nose, along my neck and across my shoulders. He’s on the bend of my elbow, making me ache on purpose. His lips sear and caress skin, but he touches me deeper than that. Love reaches every part of who I am, and the boy who taught me to kiss knows it.

  He glides his lips and teeth down my arm and tells me he loves my muscles and my bones.

  “I love your blood,” he says. “I love your veins and your ventricles.”

  He kisses my wrist and my knuckles and the curve of my thumb.

  “I love when you speak French and how soft your skin smells.” He kisses down my index finger, grazing the tip with his teeth. “I love the way you hold onto me so tight when you come.”

  “Dusty.” With my heart beating everywhere, I push his shoulder, trying to pull my hand away.

  As if I could.

  “You do,” he insists, kissing the center of my palm before bringing my open hand up to his cheek. Closing his eyes, he leans into my touch. “I love when you hold onto me.”

  Leaning my face close to his, I turn so I’m straddling his lap, and I hold onto him with both hands. With his in my hair, loosing petals and bobby pins to get his fingers in, the source of all my aching opens his mouth and I kiss him with everything I have. I kiss him as deep as our hearts go and strong as his arms are, and it makes love moan against my lips.

  “Don’t you feel it?” he asks when I break for breath, kissing down my neck. “Don’t you feel how good it could be?”

  “Thomas,” I whisper, my eyes closing and my mouth falling open as he slides his hands down my sides. Taking hold of my hips, he moves me in a slow circle along where he’s aching too.

  “I’ll be good to you, Leigh.” His words are low and burning with sincerity. “I’ll take care of you.”

  Crossing my arms around the back of his neck, I kis
s him again. I want to feel him better, so I rock up a little, onto my knees. They’ll be bruised tomorrow, but I don’t care, and when I’m where we need, this boy rolls me against himself. Slow and heavy and full of intent, his guidance makes my whole body yearn and pulse with my heedless heartflow.

  “Let me show you how loved you are,” he whispers. The soreness in his voice twists and pits sweet need into pure need. “Let me love you.”

  He moves me slower, all the way down. He holds me with purpose, but the desperation in Thomas’ tone isn’t for sex.

  I wish it was.

  This hurts worse.

  This is harder.

  “Be my girlfriend,” he whispers. Nose to nose, he smiles and the hope in it makes my chest throb around my sorry, selfish heart. He holds me closer while I break it for both of us, and kisses the side of my mouth, making it beat through pain.

  “Let me be your boyfriend.”

  I open my eyes through frustrated tears and focus on unclouded blue.

  And find only love.

  It makes me feel like we can do this. Like tonight’s been a testament. Like let all the pieces fall where they may and let everyone we’ve lied to pick sides. I don’t care, because this person loves me more than any of it, and love is more.

  Filling my lungs with vanilla and ocean air, I’m about to nod my head. Yes is on my lips when movement on the beach catches my attention.

  My heart stops, and I freeze.

  Thomas freezes, too, securing me to himself like we’re in danger, but he’s facing the water. He can’t see what I see, and it has to stay that way.

  “What?” he asks quietly, raw protectiveness dark in his tone.

  “Kiss me,” I say quickly, bringing our lips back together, holding onto him like I know he loves.

  With his face in my hands and his mouth under mine, I try to make sense of what’s happening in the sand and how to deal with it, but thinking while we kiss doesn’t work.

  Pulling back for needed air, I rock my weight against Thomas to keep his eyes closed, and it works.

  For him.

  I move with forced rhythm, and caught up as love is—between pressure that thrills and the answer he’s dying for—he can tell.

  “Kiss me, kiss me,” I tell him again, but blue eyes are open and looking right through me.

  “What the fuck?” he asks, pushing me back and standing up.

  But I don’t know how to answer him.

  So he turns around.

  Our friends are awake, but we’re not caught. We’re safe, but it’s because Pete’s on top of Becka, and she’s holding him to herself. With her hair halfway undone and her dress bunched up, she has her bare legs around the boy who always pushes her, and he’s got his mouth all over her neck and chest.

  For a second, it’s impossible to do anything but stare. But then Thomas rushes past me.

  I reach out and chase after him, but it’s too late.

  He’s already gone.

  I want Her badly.

  The rush in my blood.

  The tightness in my chest.

  The tingle in my fingertips.

  I try to stay away, but this bitch calls out for me.

  The escape.

  The relief.

  The itch in the back of my throat and the numbness in my gums.

  The only thing that stops me from using is the girl who sleeps next to me.

  She’s what matters.

  She’s worth it.

  Bliss is everything.

  She helps me deny cocaine’s whispers.

  “Did you think Smitty was going to be okay with you kissing him?” I lean against my sister’s door frame.

  The girl who won’t say yes and Rebecka sit on the floor against the bed, glued together like best friends should be. Other than the sounds of Becka’s brokenhearted cries and the ceiling fan spinning on high, the dimly lit room is void of its usual music and laughter.

  “You did this. You’re the reason he broke up with you,” I say, curving the right side of my mouth up. “Why are you crying?”

  The un-believability in Leighlee’s expression knocks the wind from my lungs. It’s the same look she gave me last night after I pulled Petey off of my sister—only disappointment has had time to set overnight. All I see in her tired, colorless face is indifference and smeared eyeliner.

  I love you more than she does, cocaine whispers.

  “Go away, Dusty,” Becka mumbles, voice thick with tears. Her face crumbles and lasts night’s hair veils her profile as she drops her head into her hands.

  I feel a small pang of sympathy for the forsaken, but my aim is not with the fair-haired betrayer. It’s with the strawberry blonde who left me abandoned with the tempting taunts from the one cunt who won’t leave me alone.

  I didn’t ruin the prom for defending my sister’s honor.

  “Stay away from my friends, Becka,” I say, taking a step back.

  Bliss scoffs and shakes her head. Her flowerless curls hang around her face.

  “I hate you,” my sister cries.

  “Hate me all you want. Don’t hook up with Pete again.”

  My girl gets up and approaches the door with carpet impressions on her legs from sitting for too long. Her stare makes me feel two pathetic feet tall, but she’s where I want to be.

  “You’re an asshole,” she says.

  I open my mouth to reply, but she slams the door in my face.

  “LIFT UP,” I say, hooking my fingers under Leigh’s underwear.

  The TV is off and the room is dark with the exception of the few tea lights Bliss lit when she came in. Red lace slips down her legs easily, and I love her half-dressed, exposed and flushed from where she’s the warmest to the tip of her nose. I kiss the inside of her knee against the faded scar she got when she tried to skateboard one summer, and then sit up on my knees and take of my shirt.

  “Do you love me?” I ask, bracing her left leg around my hip. Lowered between her open thighs, I reach between us and pull myself out of my basketball shorts. “Could you live without me? Would you want to?”

  Exhausting all the self-control I possess, I rock slowly against my girl, but not into her. Pretty lipstick-stained lips part into a small smile, and her back slightly raises from the mattress before relaxing.

  She’s virgin new. Her body is warm and she smells like Heaven.

  “Could you ever let someone besides me touch you like this? See you like this?”

  Leighlee’s nipples harden as her mouth slowly falls open. She digs her feet into the mattress while I stroke slowly, and pieces of red-yellow hair stick to her lips. My girl pierces her dark purple nails into my biceps, holding onto my arms until she can’t anymore. Then she grips onto the bed sheets and pulls.

  The head of my cock pulls at her opening, and I whisper, “Let me.”

  Her voice is small, but bold.

  “Could you?” she asks. “Could you ever let anyone touch you like this?”

  I push her wrists into the mattress, pinning her beneath me. She allows the small intrusion of her innocence, but withholds delinquency with her empty stare.

  “Answer me,” she says. “Could you? Have you? Tell me no one has ever been with you like this.”

  Heavy eyelids close and I squeeze them tightly as my arms shake. I can almost feel how good love will be from the inside—warm, binding—to be that close to her.

  For her to threaten to take it away before I’ve had it is unendurable.

  “Where are you?” I ask, opening my eyes.

  “I’m right here,” she says. “Where the fuck are you?”

  “Don’t do this.” I kiss her wet eyelids, lick her tears away, and drink her sadness. “Don’t be away from me. It’s a rule, remember?”

  Lips that taste like candy touch mine, and Bliss kisses me like she means it—like it’s worth something. When that isn’t close enough, she uses her feet to push my shorts down to my ankles. Full of pent up readiness and illicit love, every undressed in
ch of me touches every bare part of her, and there is devotion here.

  Love is devastating.

  Her nails scratch from my shoulders to my lower back; skin splits and blood beads from small wounds.

  “Slow down, princess,” I say through the stinging ache.

  Burnt wicks swim in melted unscented wax, and one by one, three candles flicker out. Blinded by darkness, not even the moon is out tonight. While my eyes adjust, I rely on my other senses and brush my fingers up Leighlee’s side. Goose bumps rise under my curious prints, and her skin is delicate under my palms.

  As my vision adjusts and the shape of love’s figure forms, my ears pick up the low sound of raspy breaths and tiny whines. I kiss each of her cheeks, and I lick my bottom lip, treasuring the salted trace of the saddest tears.

  “I want it to be me and you,” my girl says like a whisper.

  “It is,” I reply sharply, controlling my pitch before I continue. “It’s been months …”

  “I want to, but I can’t be your girlfriend, Thomas. We can’t have sex until I’m the only one you’re having sex with.”

  “Bliss, I’ve been straight. It’s been months—”

  “Don’t lie to me anymore.” She moves her bangs away from her forehead and exhales a breath between her lips.

  Powerless against the scratching panic scraping from my chest to my throat, I sit up on my knees and scrub my hands down my heated face before leaving the bed.

  “You treat me like I haven’t been trying,” I say, bringing my shorts up to my waist.

  My girl covers herself in my sheet and rests against my pillows. She stares up at the ceiling, disregarding my open soul.

  Why put in effort if she won’t return it? One phone call to Casper is all it would take to end this constant struggle not to give in to the rush of obscurity. Thinking about it shifts whispers to screams. Cocaine chews on my fragile determination, pulling my conscience between her teeth, and swallowing mouthfuls of my humanity.

  She wanted you before she kissed that boy, she taunts, wiping mortality from her lips.

  “I’ll kill that motherfucker,” I say. Anger shelters homeless grit.

  Baby rolls her glassy eyes. “This has nothing to do with him.”