Paper Dolls [Book Four]

by Blythe Stone

  “It’ll come,” I said reassuringly. Who knows where we would go, what we would do. We could spend the whole summer away if we wanted. That’d be fine. My mom would let me book it.

  “That reminds me. I was watching TV the other day for a whole ten minutes and there was a show on about New Zealand. We have to go there someday. I've decided. You'll love it.”

  She was more herself the more awake she became.

  “I’m sure I will… When we go,” I added. We would go.

  “Yes and France. I've always wanted to be one of those people on a beach in the South of France.”

  “What should we do now?” I asked. “This week.”

  I could make plans for us if I knew. The best way to feel better was to start the ball rolling on something that could help.

  “Oh,” Avery put her hand over my heart. My chest felt lit with fire, it was hard to pretend not to be affected by her. “I feel better now,” she said. “We don't have to go anywhere. I think I was just feeling weird about waking up like that.”

  …

  “Not that I’d complain if we were on a beach in Mexico or a cruise ship… Or even a cabin in the mountains.”

  “Once Holland leaves, we’re leaving,” I said. I didn’t care if it was just a feeling to calm her. If it could help I wanted to take her away.

  Something told me the bad dream was a poisonous virus; talk of vacationing had been her antidote.

  “I can cook for you,” she whispered. She got close to my ear, brushing it with her lips. My eyes fluttered and my breathing thinned as I smiled. “I’ve been listening to America’s Test Kitchen podcasts when I run so I can make you real food.”

  I laughed.

  “You really don’t have to cook for me,” I smiled. “But if you want me to lock you in a cabin and force you to care for me, I think I’d really like that.”

  What a tamed and lovely thing. I liked the thought of her running like that and thinking about how she was going to come home and cook for me.

  I was scared to turn and kiss her. I didn’t want her to think I just did that to try and calm her down. I wanted her too. It wasn’t some tactic. It shut us both up inside. I thought she knew.

  Before, in the shower, I hadn’t been right. Ever since the conversation at the pool, I was scared about us touching, sort of sick with myself. I needed to clear my mind and only sleep could accomplish that.

  Right now, it felt right.

  Right now I wanted to kiss her and show her what I felt.

  It was complicated; I was.

  I tried to explain it to her before but she couldn’t know.

  Emotions ruled my body I guess. I lived in a cage and I had to work with that on and off.

  Sometimes I thought she understood me but other times I knew she didn’t and I hated that the most.

  She rubbed her hand under the collar of my robe, brushing her warm palm over my heart with pressure and pulling back the way she’d come.

  I exhaled. She controlled me too well, vanquished my thoughts when she did little things.

  I turned my head and opened my eyes to look at her. I felt my tongue pinch between my teeth as I breathed and searched her, craning my neck as she felt me again and watched what she did, my eyes flickering as my head tried to swim.

  “Kiss me,” she smiled and moved her hand again.

  My eyes closed as I moved in and allowed myself the pleasure of her. She tasted like home. I felt her come inside me when I kissed her like this. My stomach sucked into itself and I felt my entire body wanting and accepting her. All from a kiss… Two lips… Just her tongue… Her one hand over my heart. Clammy skin and a world of soft patient wanting.

  “You’re everything,” I said, brows furrowing as my eyes opened up again to see her.

  “I never know what to say when you tell me things like that but they make me feel amazing and too much at the same time.”

  “Sometimes I feel you too much,” I said. It explained it all for me. Maybe not for her but for me, it made sense. She used to talk about having walls. Maybe I had those too. Maybe I always had them, even now. Sometimes I was entirely open and vulnerable. Other times you’d have to try hard to get to me and make me feel.

  It was always hard to figure out how we were different and how we were the same.

  In the shower I couldn’t take it. Any touch then would’ve killed me and it did.

  Vulnerability is strange. It’s strange to me that I can shift so much from one moment to the next; become weak, become strong.

  Maybe I wasn’t even real.

  Maybe I’m just crazy.

  “You overwhelm me sometimes. I mean, how I feel about you does and I start to think about how it will always probably be like that.”

  She was so sweet and so right…

  “I feel like I'm living a Nicholas Sparks movie adaptation but with better clothes.”

  I laughed. “I feel we’re a bit darker than that, or maybe just a bit more real,” I said, the truth sobering me out of my laughter. The tales he wrote were always epic but the love had more of a purity and less overall scandal. They always seemed like fairytales. We weren’t a fairytale. She wanted us to be The Notebook but in The Notebook someone ends up with Alzheimer’s, it’s a different kind of fucked-up and sad. I dunno...

  “Yeah, you're right.” She ran her fingers over my pulse point. “Dark, tragic, and happy all at the same time. And we aren't straight enough for Nicholas Sparks.”

  “Thank god,” I joked. Perhaps that was the only difference.

  I didn’t like thinking about it.

  I didn’t like those books.

  They didn’t feel real to me and we were real.

  Then I remembered: Avery liked those books. If she compared us to them it meant she liked us.

  That I did like. That I loved.

  “We’re probably more like modern Patricia Highsmith characters.”

  “Wait?” I laughed. “You’ve read Highsmith? When?” I looked over at her with skepticism. Avery only ever seemed to read plays when she had books in her hands.

  “I kind of went on a lesbian fiction binge about the time Skylar and I were watching The L Word. So, I read The Price of Salt and it was a collection of her books so I read The Talented Mr. Ripley too.”

  Skylar… Of course. Root of everything mischievous.

  “Interesting,” I said. “I love The Price of Salt. I felt about as crazy as Therese in that book when I met you. It’d be fun to read it again knowing now what I know. I’m actually starting to wonder if you’re more educated on the lesbian front than I am,” I posed. “You have all these sweet little secrets you keep. I see us like Murakami. Tragic and destined. Two very different people who can feel each other across miles and cityscapes. Two people who need desperately to heal and can’t possibly do that without the help of each other. That book I was reading when I met you was oddly fitting. It had a stupid wrap-up happy ending but those two were so different and they needed each other. One so lonely and just walking through life without much purpose or love the other so wrongly treated and in desperate need of repair. Lots of things happened in that book that were strange and screwed up but the overall feeling of those two reminds me of us… Before I met you I could’ve easily wandered off to Japan and become a simple math teacher just to isolate myself from my old world and be alone.”

  “I need to read this book then. I know I read a few chapters when we were at the lodge but it was in the middle where your bookmark was and I’d like to start at the beginning.”

  “It’s odd… It’s more a feeling than anything. I found it addicting. But that’s not the point.”

  “You just described part of how I feel in general about us. What’s the point then?”

  “I mean, you don’t need to read the book,” I laughed. “It’s a really weird book and it’s actually over a thousand pages. It’s not the story that’s important. It’s that relationship and how it felt for them. I also mean I don’t need the story to
be gay at all to find us in it. The point is we’re more than just archetypes colliding, I guess. We’re a feeling.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “No, definitely not. I see us, or elements of us, in a lot of different things. Plays… Books… People I see.... I always had trouble connecting before you. Now, I see patterns.”

  “Patterns?” I asked.

  “Of behavior, mostly, and other things but I am a lot more self-aware. It’s a little painful sometimes.”

  “Okay, what are you talking about?” I laughed awkwardly.

  She shrugged a shoulder. “I used to just go along and not pay a lot of attention to what I was doing in life or where I was going. I liked not thinking about it that much and now I think about it… a lot. Everything I’ve done and all the things we will do. The painful part comes with the regret over the past and decisions I made. I have to remind myself that I can’t control or change it.”

  “That’s healthy though, isn’t it?” I asked. “That’s growing up…” Now we both sounded like Tengo from 1Q84. “Would you rather not think?” I asked.

  That was the question that’d been plaguing me for months actually.

  Avery seemed to want to think. Why would she choose me if that wasn’t true. I don’t let her rest. I cause her to think. I ask stupid questions that drive her mad. I wasn’t the sort of person you could just get lost with personality-wise. When we had sex maybe but not from day-to-day in our walking, talking, lives.

  Over the months though she did lose sight of me and go back to her sort of way of just doing.

  That had to mean something.

  It was more than just routine.

  Maybe it was healthier for her to have someone who didn’t make her think about everything.

  “No, I was dead inside most of the time. I’d much rather have the real feelings now that I’ve experienced it both ways.”

  “What about the past few months compared to the last few days?” I asked, needing to know. The past few months had been an in-between. She had me but I let her get lost and just do. She could find safety but be a little dead…

  “I’m better than the last few months. I let myself skate by again.” Her brow scrunched and she put her leg over my body.

  “I like that you make me think.”

  “Yes, but then you have terrifying dreams and you wake up like you did…”

  “I don’t mind the dreams because I wake up. They remind me to be alive. They might be scary but maybe being scared isn’t bad. That doesn’t define you. What you do with the fear does.”

  I didn’t know what to say…

  Both times she’d been in those places she’d come out of things more than destroyed.

  “I mind the dreams,” I said. Pregnant me? Being killed by Ben? Avery killing herself for me? All the other things she didn’t say…

  “But they’re not real.” She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “You… me… this, right here, we’re real. Dreams can’t take that away and I have to deal with what happened somehow. We can’t change it.”

  “Still,” I said. “They’re bullshit. I wish I could take them out of you one-by-one, dilute them with solvent, and dump whatever remains right into the ocean. No possibility that they could come back. That’d be nice.”

  “It would be nice,” she yawned, covering her mouth and then laying her head down. “If you could delete things from my head that would be great. Dangerous but great. What about you? There must be something you’d want gone.”

  “I don’t think so, actually,” I said. “I have a lot of memories and dreams but I think they’re important. But my nightmares aren’t as intense as yours. When I wake up, I wake up.”

  “I think I need everything to really be able to appreciate what I have. I’d be different if we started to erase things. Maybe you wouldn’t love me as much.”

  “I need mine to understand. My worst memory is you flying out of that hotel room. I can’t even erase that though because that brings us here...” I confessed.

  “Exactly,” she said. “So, I think we just need to be happy that we have each other. That’s a lot of happiness to ask of the world.”

  “I just think the world’s been unfair to you,” I said. “You don’t need all of those bad memories to retain who you are. Maybe some but not all.”

  “You’re biased. You can’t be trusted,” she teased.

  “Yeah, well… I don’t care,” I said defiantly.

  “I love you,” was all she said.

  “See, I couldn’t even use you as a test subject,” I joked. “I’d be too scared I’d accidentally erase something good in there.” I moved up onto her and ran a hand through her hair. “That wouldn’t do. Mad scientist me could really wreck you,” I smiled down on her.

  “Mad scientist you is very attractive,” she said.

  “Mmmhmmm,” I said, leaning down and kissing her.

  “Do you have a lab coat and safety goggles?”

  She put her cheek against mine.

  My father owns his own expensive labs. “Of course I do,” I said. I’m the dork who has multiple lab coats and all with my name embroidered into them.

  “Will you take me and show me the lab you work in?”

  She gave me her secret smile. The one that told me she was thinking all sorts of thoughts, none of them very innocent.

  “Of course,” I said. “But you’ll have to follow code and be professional. A lab is no place for defiance.” A sly grin took over my lips, “but we’d have to go after hours. My father doesn’t like it when I play.”

  Avery’s type of play was a lot different than mine.

  If Holland wasn’t here I would take her right now.

  “I swear I’ll be appropriate,” she hummed and tapped her chin with two fingers. “Doesn’t mean my thoughts have to be appropriate.”

  “Yeah, I have no illusions about you Miss Lockhart. I’m pretty certain you’re incapable of doing away with those thoughts.”

  “That is correct Miss Holbrook. You have made me into a sex addict.”

  “Umm… Excuse me?” I pretended to be offended. “You are aware that you started all of this, right?”

  “No, you kissed me first. Then you got me addicted to you. It was clever really. I have to give you credit.”

  “I may have kissed you but the sex was alllll you,” I said incredulously.

  Kissing was still my favorite. I told her that often. But she started the sex, I tried to resist, she made it impossible.

  “Oh, well in that case I guess we don’t ever have to do it again. We could just kiss for the rest of our lives,” she shook her head at me.

  “Oh this will be fun,” I said. “I’d like to see how long you can last.” Just the thought was amusing. Avery was ALWAYS reaching for sex. In a lot of ways she felt like she owned me and I wanted her to, so it wasn’t wrong, but still, she initiated usually. I liked teasing her, it was my favorite thing.

  “Sounds like a bet to me. Name your terms.”

  “Are you serious?” I asked smiling stupidly.

  Now was a bad time for this game. We were going into spring break. I would drive her nuts! She’d have no distractions.

  “Of course I am,” she nodded and held my gaze.

  “Okay, then,” I said, raising my eyebrows and trying not to let out a: you just screwed yourself, laugh. “My terms are simple. Everything goes except this,” I took her hand and lowered it down to my center and rubbed, reacting on purpose and letting out a small whine. “You can touch me anywhere but here,” I said, making her rub again and again as I teased, already more than turned on by just the prospect of torturing her.

  Avery tried not to react but it was instant. Her lips parted and her eyes slid down to where I held her hand. “Okay, and if I win, what do I get,” she breathed.

  I made her rub me a little more. I wanted to start out with an advantage. I moaned. “What do you want?” I asked, using her. My nipples were already too hard and I knew I’d miss this just by knowing I
couldn’t have it.

  She couldn’t speak. She just closed her eyes and felt me, knowing that it would be the last time for awhile.

  “What you did to me the other night with the vibrator.”

  Ug.. That wasn’t fair.

  I could do that right now. That wasn’t a punishment for me in any way, it was bait.

  “Okay,” I said. “What are your terms?” I was so close now, my eyes were closed and I was imagining her reward as I felt her down there.

  She pulled her hand away from me and sighed. “If I lose it’s your choice of what happens.”

  “But I can touch you anywhere?” I challenged, demonstrating a slow and painful tease down her side. “Anywhere but here?” I moved my hand over her center and kept it an inch away so she could feel its closeness and its absence.

  “Yes,” she bit.

  “You're sure?” I said, letting my hand fall and pushing it into her to demonstrate what she would miss.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” she looked me in the eye and pushed herself into my hand. “What do you want if I lose?”

  My eyes darkened as I grinned. Seeing her needy for me always got me the most. “If you lose,” I said. “You have to surprise me…” I stopped to think about. “I'll pick the time and the place but you'll have to do what I say.”

  I was scared of that now. It would be a punishment for me… A reason not to let her be the one to lose, to beat her to the punch.

  I was instantly scared.

  I could always choose not to make her follow through…

  “Deal,” she extended her hand for me to shake.

  I didn't do it though, I dipped down her body and tasted her one last time, humming into her sex before coming back up and shaking her hand.

  Chapter Ten

  Avery

  Whatever insanity led me to make this bet was going to have to carry me through because I didn’t intend to lose. I could be competitive and the way Olivia looked at me when I suggested the whole thing made me even more determined.

  She didn’t think I could hold out for even a day. I could see it in the way she smirked at me. Even if I did lose, it would be fun to play. I thought about it that morning when we went to breakfast with Holland and while we drove her to the airport.