by Blythe Stone
“If I have a dream I’ll wake you up, okay? I know you’d rather know and it’ll help.”
I didn’t want her as deprived of sleep as I was. If it was bad I would wake her up. I’d have to, if I was going to stay in the now.
“Okay,” she said looking down at me and worrying. Once she stared too long she moved down and kissed me again sort of tortured and in need.
“I’m exhausting you, aren’t I?” She asked, once she’d pulled away long enough for me to open my eyes.
“Only because you’re talking instead of kissing.” I smiled at her and waited, expecting another kiss.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” She smiled, coming up over me again and taking a long time to fall down and take my lips. I felt her tongue first and then the rest of her. Her hand in my hair was driving me nuts.
Being back at a better place made me relax again. I’d noticed how my nervous system responded to things now. I didn’t used to get so anxious at the smallest sign of anything being wrong.
I needed to go through these things with her at some point. Making her aware of what was going on with my mind and body was important.
Her body pressed into mine. She was back to feeling me. I think it calmed her too, which explained a lot.
“I think we missed the show,” I said, pointing at the TV. I chuckled and shrugged, still looking at the Amazon Video menu.
“I’ll never catch up,” she rolled her eyes.
“Not between the kissing and the crying.”
I rocked her a little, feeling energy come back a bit. “You sure you don’t need something to drink or a snack or something?”
She laid her head down on my chest and sighed. I felt her thumb stroking the skin on my neck. “Sure,” she said. I could tell she was just saying it though.
“Or… We could do this,” I picked her up and started for the bedroom, determined to move in some way.
I made it to the bed and set her down with a gentle touch. I didn’t want to toss her around. This wasn’t a brutish sort of time.
I got onto the bed and rolled into her, resting my head on her chest and listening.
“I like that I can hear you living.”
“And I like when you carry me around like a doll,” she confessed.
“Does this mean I get to dress you up?” I chuckled.
“Sure, less work for me is always good.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I moved my fingers over her sides and reached up to her hair, resting one of my hands there against her scalp.
“You’d always be wearing my favorite things. More laundry is bad.”
“I don’t care about laundry,” she said. “I can just send it out.”
“True. You’ll always wear skirts,” I thought for a moment. “Oh, except for the times when you wear those leather pants or the really nice slim slacks. Your butt looks amazing in both of those.”
“You can pick out my clothes. I don’t care,” she said honestly. “I wear what I think will turn you on anyway. Skirts on myself excite me,” a shocking admission. “I love when you touch me or fuck me under my skirt. That’s probably twisted. Sometimes clothes are sexier to me than being naked. The way you move them and don’t. It’s interesting.”
“That's not twisted. It's hot and it's true.”
She took one of my hands and moved it to the side of her thigh, pushing it onto her skin and running it slowly up while she tilted her head back into the bed in feeling my touch. “It’s a barrier you purposely breach. It just feels more scandalous,” she said. “And in public you touch me a lot in ways people don’t know. You distract me from things… Excite me. I never used to wear skirts this often.”
I was the one utterly distracted now. The way she moved my hand and the point she was making killed me in the best sense.
“Uh huh,” I muttered. “Skirts… Sure.”
She smiled up at me, pushing my hair out of my face to check on my expression. I saw her tuck her bottom lip under her teeth and search my face.
“Distracted much?” She asked, teasing me.
“Nope. I'm totally with you,” I cleared my throat.
I leaned into her touch. “You can keep doing that though.”
When she touched me I got lost in her and I liked it.
“You’ve been very serious lately,” she noted. She ran her hands along my face and let them drift again back into my hair. “Not that my little breakdown helped…”
“Hmm, serious and boringggggg,” I joked.
“Never boring,” she said, nearly breathless. “When you’re serious I get a little scared. I don’t know what you’re thinking. It’s the opposite of boring, baby. You unravel me.” She pulled me down into her and rest my head on her chest again so I’d have to hear her heart and feel it as it beat.
Her hands kept adoring me. She was serious. Fingers tangled up in my hair while her free hand stroked my skin.
“I think I need to be serious more often but there are always limits.”
“What do you mean?” She asked.
“I want to grow up but I don't want to lose my inner child.”
“Well,” she said. “That sounds very reasonable.”
No one had ever called me reasonable. It made me laugh and it made me happy. There wasn’t really a reason why, other than, it was Olivia calling me that.
“Reasonable… Hmm, don’t go telling people that. They might get the wrong idea and think that you’ve tamed me.”
“I couldn’t tame you if I tried,” she laughed.
“You’re probably right. I’ll always be wild.”
I looked off wistfully toward the window enjoying my dramatics for comic effect.
“Stop,” she laughed, pulling my face back.
“You can’t squash my acting gene. It just comes out and asserts itself at will.”
I liked to be overdramatic with Olivia but only when we were laughing together or I felt levity was needed. I had no problem channeling my inner silent movie actress.
“Do you feel like acting right now?” She asked, curious. “What’s that like for you? I think I can only act like that when it’s silly. I’m too raw. Feel it too much. Like the other day,” she said.
“I don’t really feel like acting. I think I just do that kind of silly dramatization when I need to laugh. To break my own tension. When I’m really acting it’s different.”
I shrugged a shoulder and sighed as she continued to run her slender fingers through my hair. I wasn’t a great actress but it was something that took me away from my real life. It let me be someone else for awhile.
“How’s it different?” She wondered, never leaving one thought unexcavated.
“If I’m having a good night I change into someone else completely. I just become a character. Sometimes it’s nice not to be me for awhile and to deal with a character’s issues and story. I’m not that great at it though so it’s just for fun.”
“You must be great,” she said. “I hate that I haven’t gotten to see you in something. You’re always top-billed. Why would you say you’re not great?”
“For High School I’m good. I’m just not the kind of good that would make it a career choice.”
“It's never about being better though,” Olivia said. “It’s about being lucky and meeting the right people.”
“That’s true. I wouldn’t want to act if I wasn’t amazing though and I don’t like the thought of being evaluated like people are when they do auditions. I would hate that whole life.”
You had to maintain looks and worry about your appearance too much in that business. I never really thought about things like that. I was pretty enough to attract people. That was about as far as my awareness of my own beauty went. Except that Olivia thought I was hot. That was all that really mattered to me.
“But if you love it and you’re genuine and you believe in what you do, there wouldn’t be negatives there.”
“True. I just wouldn’t want people staring at
me or after me, parsing everything I said. If I was successful that’s what it would probably be like. I don’t like people in my business.”
“You’re right, that would be stressful.”
“So, I’ll just be your kept woman and we can live happily ever after with two dogs, a cat, and house with a pool.”
I waved my hands in the air over me. “The end!”
“And how am I supposed to entertain you?” She asked. “You said it yourself, you’ll always be wild.”
“Hmm, you could play with me.” I winked. “You know things like Monopoly and The Game of Life. Though, I peg you more as a Battleship person… Or Risk. I could see you kicking my ass at Risk.”
We had never talked about board games. I found myself wondering if she played Chess. I’d always had this image in my head of the kind of person that would play that game. It was pleasing. I’d bet that she at least knew how.
“Or maybe even Chess.”
“Okay, this is going to sound sort of depressing,” she said bracing me. “I haven’t really played many board games with live people in the same room who were actually excited to play with me.”
“Does that mean you played them online?”
My hands clapped together. I could see her on her computer playing.
“For the most part, yes,” she said. “I’ve played a few with other people in person but it was never a repeat venture. Mostly I’ve only done those things online or on a console or just sort of alone as an experiment… I watch a lot of Youtube videos of other people playing games...”
“Aww, baby, I don’t know how but you always make me want to die of adorable. I want to play with you now. Maybe we can get a board game and do that while we’re here.”
I knew how competitive she could get and I didn’t mind bringing that out in the least. It was one of the perks of the whole idea.
“Our list is growing,” she said.
“Yep, you only have yourself to blame for this addition. If you weren’t so cute I wouldn’t have thought of it.”
We only had a week here but I wanted to fill it with things that we’d never done before. All of it just the two of us enjoying each other. My admission to her solidified my desire to enjoy the peace while it lasted. When we went back, things were going to be different.
They couldn’t go back to how it was before. We both needed more. I couldn’t let myself get lost again. Ben was still with me no matter how much I wanted it not to be true. He was in the tremors in my hands when I knew I was safe and couldn’t feel it.
He haunted my dreams and he violated me even when he was miles away in a cell. Mentally, physically, and spiritually… He cut me every day, deep, and in ways I hadn’t even realized. There were so many symptoms I hadn’t even told her about yet and I needed her to know. She didn’t trigger me, things did.
The glint of light off metal sent me into a different place at unexpected times. A touch in the wrong places when I didn’t know it was coming made me panic. Fear and depression made me unable to focus. Sometimes, I just got stressed to the point that it didn’t matter anymore. My mind was flung to the sun and I became too bright. Things became too beautiful and I could swim an entire ocean. That was the case.
Chapter Nineteen
Olivia
I let Avery adore me a little, even though I knew I no longer deserved it. What kind of person was I? What kind of person could just not see such an obvious thing?!
It hurt to think about it. It really hurt.
But she needed me. She needed me not to be sad. She needed me to pretend I hadn’t completely failed her in every way. And that was hard for me. It was really really hard.
I could pretend with her. I knew I could.
It hurt me though. It hurt that she wouldn’t notice that underneath I was screaming.
I couldn’t choose though. I couldn’t choose between letting her see how I really felt, letting her down, and being completely full of it and seeing her happy. I wanted her happy. Obviously. I always wanted that. Which is why this was so fucking hard.
“Babe? Did you find something?” Her voice touched those spaces in me only she could reach. The spaces that needed attention, needed soothing. Only Avery could go there so easily. Only she could console me so well, find my hidden areas and stroke them with just one word or one phrase. I’d never felt that from anyone else.
“What? Yeah,” I said, feeling her hand at my waist as I stood on my toes and pulled a game from the cabinet. Her body behind mine was so concrete and supportive. Where I was a jittery unstable mental patient, she was a solid attractive rock. I couldn’t take how amazing she was. It hurt me now. It hurt me because I fucked up. I fucked up so badly. All this time I’d been thinking so off-base. And she’d been… Alone.
“I knew they’d have something,” I said, trying to smile through it. Trying to make my pertinent stray tears just seem like sleepiness or happiness or normalcy.
“We should get some wine or something,” I said. “Do you want me to cook? I can make something.”
I just wanted to run away. It’s so bad. I just wanted to find a room and freak the fuck out all alone. She couldn’t know what this felt like. She couldn’t know how all this time I thought I’d been helping in holding back but I was so fucking wrong and I’d hurt her by not being there.
How could I be right for her? How could I help at all? Everything I did brought up the bad. Everything I did disrupted her, made things more intense.
She said the opposite. She always said I was good for her. But how could it be good that I didn’t even know?! How could that be good?!
It can’t. It just can’t.
I fucked up.
“Yes, please,” she was standing close, so close. “I’m starving now that you mention it.”
“Okay,” I laughed. “Take this,” I pushed the game into her hands. “Any requests?”
“Oh, I’ve never played this,” she took the game and turned, walking toward the kitchen. “I really don’t care. Surprise me. You know what I like anyway.”
“Alright,” I smiled, stealing her face into my hands and kissing her with that stupid board game in between us. Distractions were good. I needed to get my mind off of how idiotic I’d been, how hurtful, how anti-good.
“Relax,” I said. Funny, I wasn't sure if I was talking to her or to me.
“I will try and I’ll just start reading the rulebook to this game. Can’t have you cheating or anything.”
She sat down at the large dining table while I moved in near the fridge and started figuring out what to make. I could see her over the island, watching me with the rulebook in her hand. She wasn’t reading it like she said she would. Instead she had this love-haze focus going on.
I smiled back at her and then collected myself, turning away.
We bought all kinds of stuff at the store. What I really wanted was some salsa or guacamole but Avery needed some real food. She was like a boy in that way. She could eat way more than me and she was usually starving no matter how much we ate.
I pulled a few things from the fridge and just started to chop them up.
“Music?” I asked, once my hands were full and I was beginning to feel a light sweat coming on. Anxiety riddled me.
I pulled a bowl out and started to fill it: tomatoes first, then cilantro, then some limes squeezed so hard it hurt my hands. Red wine vinegar, an avocado, some jalapenos, onion, onion, onion. The balance was annoying but I added some spices and got it close enough to test.
I mixed it up fast and pulled some chips from the cupboard.
“Here,” I said, walking it over to her and setting it down. “Does it need anything?” I asked, taking a chip and dipping it, bringing it up to her mouth.
She opened and bit, her eyes closing as she tasted.
“Mmm, it’s good. Keep it the way it is.”
She set the game aside and moved toward the remote that controlled the satellite radio. “What do you want to hear?”
“Any
thing you like,” I said, turning away and moving to pull the halibut from the fridge. I’d gotten artichokes on a whim, that would work hopefully.
I set to cooking, knowing that with melted butter it would all be a feast, a tasty adventure. Avery probably didn’t like artichokes or halibut but I wanted her to try at least. She said she wanted firsts. This would be that. How I wound up in love with a person who had never eaten an artichoke was beyond me.
I paced myself, aiming for perfection. She ate chips across from me and set up the game. In all seriousness, I wasn’t too excited about the game or the food or anything anymore. I didn’t know what to do with her. I felt like I was doing everything wrong and I hated that feeling, I hated it too much.
When the food was done I felt a little scared. I plated everything a little shakily and brought it all over to her.
“I know this isn’t your usual,” I said. I’d roasted backup veggies just in case she hated it so much she couldn’t even stomach it. Artichokes and fish were both things that took longer than the norm to cook.
I reached over the island and pulled the wine bottle back, filling up her glass and then mine.
“Go on then,” I pushed, drinking a bit of wine and hoping I hadn’t ruined her life. “If it’s horrible I can make you mac and cheese. No harm no foul.”
She picked at the white flaky fish.
“Here,” I said, taking her fork and dipping the bit she had taken right into the butter. “Like this,” I said, turning toward her and bringing the fork up to her mouth.
She took the food and chewed, thoughtful and tasting. It was a few moments before she nodded. “Okay, I like it,” she smiled, maybe lying. “It’s actually really good. I’m halfway between happy and pissed that I haven’t ever had fish like this.”
She went on eating, using the butter like I’d shown her and taking sips of her wine in between. She looked up at me and caught me watching.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” She asked, putting down a fork full of food.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Eat.” She had me grinning eventhough I was still upset. I pulled a leaf off my artichoke and dipped it in butter, scraping the meat of it off and tasting it happily.