True North

by Nicole French

  Immediately, my shoulders tense. I fuckin’ hate that name. It’s a name that reminds me that to some people, I’m always going to be some rat from the street. A blue-collar schmuck not worth their time.

  “Ah,” Shama says as she catches my face. “Sorry. Force of habit, but I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  I relax, a bit surprised. “Maybe don’t call me that anymore. I haven’t worked at FedEx in more than a year, you know?”

  “Well, maybe don’t look so damn pleased with yourself that you look good in your uniform. That’s what uniforms do. They would make Shrek look hot.”

  I chuckle, and Shama goes into the kitchen, where she grabs a beer from the fridge and tosses it to me. I sit down on the couch, the only furniture still in the mostly empty living room. They bought it last weekend, but other than that, there’s not much else in here yet.

  “I forget you guys are twenty-one now,” I say as I crack open the can. “No more fake IDs, huh?”

  Shama snorts. “Now who’s stuck in the past?” she asks as she goes back to the boxes.

  “How’d the week go, with your classes starting and everything?”

  Shama shrugs. “Mine don’t start until next week.”

  I frown. And then it registers that Shama’s putting stuff in the boxes, not taking shit out. Through her bedroom door, everything is packed up tight. “Didn’t you just move in here?”

  “Ah, not really. I got a late acceptance to a study abroad program in London. I’m leaving next week.”

  For a second, I’m not sure if I heard that right. “You’re what?”

  Shama sets the tape down on the box and comes to sit next to me on the couch. “She didn’t tell you?”

  I shake my head. “Layla didn’t tell me anything about that.”

  Shama shrugs. “I just found out last week. I’m guessing she didn’t want you to worry about her.”

  I’m about to say there’s nothing to worry about, except, of course, there is. It’s not that Layla’s not old enough to be living on her own––obviously that’s fine. But I know my girl well enough to know that she doesn’t actually want to be alone. That she’s felt alone most of her life. I honestly think she liked living in the dorms, sharing a tiny apartment with three other girls, because it made that feeling go away.

  But last year she lost most of those friends, and now Shama’s taking off too? Shit. Now I know why she was so sad last weekend. One more thing this week she didn’t tell me during our brief conversations at night. I try not to let it bug me, but it does.

  “So, hey,” Shama says. “I think maybe you should know something.”

  I look up. Shit, what else?

  Shama glances nervously toward the front door, but obviously no one is there. She gets up and scurries into Layla’s room, then comes out carrying a small orange prescription container. She tosses it to me with a light rattle, then comes to sit on the couch next to me.

  “What’s this?” I examine the bottle, reading the label. “Diazepam? This says Layla’s name on it.”

  “Valium,” Shama clarifies. “It’s for her panic attacks.”

  I look up. “Panic attacks? What the hell?”

  Shama sighs. “I knew she hadn’t told you. But I’m leaving on Monday, and someone here needs to know. She was diagnosed this summer with PTSD after everything that happened with Giancarlo.”

  I stare at the bottle, unsure of what I’m hearing. “Did she tell you this?”

  Shama shakes her head. “I called her mom after I heard one of the attacks. Cheryl told me a lot more than Layla probably would want.”

  “PTSD? Isn’t that what like, combat soldiers get?” I’ve heard of war vets having PTSD, but not normal people.

  “I looked it up, but honestly, I don’t know that much about it,” Shama says. “But I think anyone who’s endured significant trauma can experience it. And I would consider what happened with…him to be a trauma, don’t you think?”

  In a second, I’m back in that room. I’m looking at that guy, who sliced his wrist just to fuck with Layla’s mind, dripping blood all over her while he slams his fist into her face again and again. Forcing himself between her legs.

  I rub my hand violently across my face. “I mean, sure. Yeah. The guy abducted her, abused her, pummeled her, and tried to rape her.” I close my eyes, shoving away the image before that wave of rage overtakes me again. Fuck. Instead I focus on where I am. This conversation. Right now. “Why are you telling me this?”

  Shama takes another long drink of her beer. “I’m telling you because I’m worried about her. You know Lay. She won’t say anything because she won’t want to burden you. She loves you like crazy––I hope you know that.”

  I nod. “I know. And, just so you know, the feeling is mutual. She—she’s everything to me, Shama. I love her so fuckin’ much.”

  She nods with a small smile. “I know you do. She’s lucky to have you.”

  For some reason, her endorsement feels really, really good. I don’t know why it means so much to me that this rich, twenty-one-year-old chick from New Jersey gives me her approval, but it does.

  “Thanks,” is all I say. “So…these attacks. What do they look like?”

  Shama presses her lips together. “She’s pretty good at keeping them secret. But honestly, I think that’s why she doesn’t go out much. I think she’s afraid of being psycho around people. The city freaks her out.” She passes her beer from hand to hand a few times. “I’m kind of worried about what she’ll do without someone here with her. That’s the real reason I’m telling you.”

  I weigh the words. Suddenly, a lot of Layla’s behavior becomes clearer. Her skittish looks. Sudden withdrawals. The way she freezes up, shies from my touch. I don’t say anything to Shama about our challenges in the bedroom, but I bet she knows. Girls tell each other everything.

  “I hear them,” Shama says sadly. “Sometimes she’ll wake up at night, and I’ll hear her shouting out about it. A few times I’ve gotten home when she’s in the shower, and she sounds like a wild animal.”

  My chest constricts. Fuck. What has Layla been dealing with? And why the fuck hasn’t she told me?

  “She’s supposed to have weekly sessions with a therapist, but she hasn’t gone since she got to New York,” Shama says as she stands up. She puts her empty can into the trash in the kitchen. “If you can help her see someone again, I think it would be good.”

  Dumbfounded, I stay on the couch, processing. Shama stops on her way back to her room, standing behind the couch.

  “Hey, Nico?”

  I look up. “Huh?”

  Her expression is sympathetic. “I know it’s a lot. But for what it’s worth, she doesn’t have those episodes when you’re around. I think you make her feel safe.”

  She holds out her hand for the pills, then leaves me to brood while she returns the bottle to Layla’s room and goes back to packing boxes. I just sit on the couch, lost in thought. Because as glad as I am that I’m something good in Layla’s life, there’s the other reality to contend with: I can’t always be with her. At some point, she needs to feel safe on her own.

  The front door opens with a bang, and my girl herself strides in, red-faced and bright-eyed when she spots me on the couch. She drops her bags on the floor, and before I can even get up, she’s flying at me, covering my face with enough kisses to make me laugh and forget about the bomb her roommate just dropped.

  “Ah! I missed you this week,” she exclaims as she nuzzles her nose to mine.

  I open my lips and pull her close for another hungry kiss. She has no fuckin’ clue. All day long, I have to think about things like escape routes and oxygen levels. But then I come back to my apartment, hungry for her voice more than I want the Dominican food I pick up on my way back. I fall asleep thinking about her, and wake up dreaming about her face.

  It’s only been five days since we saw each other last, but it feels like five weeks. Which is why suddenly we’re zero to sixty in about ten s
econds flat, I’m hard as a rock, and Layla’s got her hands up my shirt while we’re devouring each other.

  “Dudes, get a room,” Shama says loudly as she pulls a loud piece of tape across her box.

  Layla breaks away with a flush. I can’t do anything but grin.

  “You really shouldn’t wear that uniform unless we’re alone,” she murmurs, pulling down my shirt.

  My grin just about splits my face. Oh, I’m definitely going to wear the uniform again. I may not ever take it off.

  Layla bites her lip, then turns. “Sorry, Shams. We’ll be good.”

  “Nah, don’t worry about it,” Shama says as she closes the last box. “But I’m sorry I can’t give you the house tonight. I have to finish packing before the movers come in the morning.”

  “It’s okay.” Layla turns back to me and delivers another kiss that’s sweeter, but could easily turn feral if she just gave it a few more seconds. “I’m glad to see you,” she says, blue eyes glowing. “Pizza and a movie? Or do you want to go out?”

  I shake my head. I’m dead tired. Vegging out on the couch with a pie and my girl sounds like a winning lottery ticket. Shit, she’s my winning lottery ticket.

  I turn my baseball hat backward so I can kiss her again, more thoroughly. God, I really can’t stop. “You order the pizza. I’ll pick through your DVDs and see if I can find something that won’t cost me my man card.”

  Layla giggles, but seriously. She and her friends have way too many chick flicks in their movie collection.

  Within an hour, we’re on the couch like we’ve been there all night, lounging lengthwise over the cushions, Layla’s back spoons against my front with my arm draped over her middle as we fit together, two pieces of a puzzle. Every now and then, she turns over, nuzzles into my chest, and sighs. Every so often, I get a whiff of her scent––coconut. Midway through the movie, Layla’s asleep on my chest, and I’m almost out myself, but I keep waking myself up because I don’t want to miss it. Not the movie––I’ve seen Top Gun about a million times. Her.

  Sometimes I can’t believe that we’re finally here again. That finally we have something like normal together. Layla sighs and burrows into me a little more. I drop a kiss on her forehead, and she murmurs something sweet and unintelligible against my shirt. My heart hurts, but in a good way. Like it can’t totally understand this level of happiness.

  Still, even as I watch Tom Cruise whizzing his jet all over the Indian Ocean, I can’t help if any minute, Layla’s going to wake up with that look of terror in her eyes. I wonder if she took one of those pills today or not. And mostly I wonder what else she’s not telling me.

  ~

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Layla

  At some point, Nico moves us both to my bed for the rest of the night, and we spend the majority of Saturday morning there too, including a solid forty-five minutes he spent mostly under my sheets while I shouted at the ceiling. He wanted to do more. I wanted to do more. But every time he crept over me and I felt him there, right between the slipperiest parts of me, I would freeze. I wanted it. So. Bad. But the rest of my body would stiffen and close up. And Nico would move to the side, turn me in his arms, and hold me until the feeling passed.

  I hate it. I hate it so much. I just want to be normal again.

  We sleeping in and study together for another several hours while Nico reads his assignments for the weekend, I start my first assignments for a class I’m taking on Brazilian political history, and the movers come for Shama’s stuff. The normal comes back, little by little. So in the middle of the afternoon, when I return from taking a shower to find Nico sitting at my desk, passing the prescription bottle of Valium back and forth between his big hands, the realization of the farce slams into my gut like a freight train.

  “Where did you get that?” I ask as I enter, shaking out my hair.

  Nico looks up. He’s dressed again in his uniform, which is now creased, but still makes him look indecently handsome. “I was looking for a pen and found them in your desk. But actually, Shama mentioned last night that you were taking them.” He sets the bottle on the table like it might explode and looks at the instructions that come with them. “Those have some serious side effects, baby.”

  I sit down on the bed, pulling my robe tight over my body. “I only take them at night. When I––when I can’t get back to sleep.” I shake my head. “I don’t like them. They make me feel woozy.”

  He frowns. “Why can’t you sleep?”

  I sigh and wrap my arms around my waist. Nico watches the motion, and his frown deepens.

  “I just…I worry.”

  That’s all I can say. How can I tell him about the psychotic dreams I have when I don’t take them? Dreams about giant Giancarlo stepping on a tiny Nico. Dreams about long, skeletal hands encircling my neck and never letting go. Dreams about losing my breath. Losing my life.

  Nico drums his fingers on the desk top for a moment and sets down the instructions. “They used to drug us with this kind of shit at Tryon, you know. Way worse than this, actually. But this is bad enough.”

  I cringe. He barely ever talks about the two years he spent at the detention facility, mostly because I know it hurts. They aren’t memories he likes to relive, but here he is, bringing them up for me.

  When Nico looks up, his big eyes have softened. “I hated it too.”

  I sit down across from him on the bed. “Why did they give it to you?”

  “They overmedicated us. A lot of kids had real problems. Kids who came from homes where they’d had seriously bad shit happen to them all their lives, way, way worse than mine ever was. Their minds couldn’t deal with it, and they really didn’t have many ways to learn how.” He fingers the bottle again, then pushes it away before looking back up at me. “But this doesn’t fix things, baby.”

  “You make me sound like a crazy person,” I whisper, staring at the floor.

  I don’t blame him. Sometimes I do feel crazy. Everywhere I look, that same shadow follows me. At school. In my sleep. When I close my eyes. And sometimes when they’re open too. Only two things seem to make him go away: these pills and Nico. And Nico can’t be around me all the time.

  A finger tips up my chin, and I find Nico looking at me with sympathy. Understanding.

  “No, baby,” he says. “I’ve just been there. And what that fucker did to you last spring, I don’t want it to poison you for the rest of your life. Take these pills if you need ’em, but they won’t make it go away. You gotta find a way to deal with what’s going on inside you, not numb it.”

  I take a deep breath, suddenly unable to prevent a tear from sliding down my cheek. Silently, I get off the bed and crawl into his lap, where he pulls me close and strokes my back, humming softly. He really is the best therapy I could ever ask for.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “God, I’m so fucked up, aren’t I? You can’t even have sex with your own girlfriend because she’s too freaked out.”

  “Stop. I’m not here for that. I’m here for you. All of you. However you come.”

  He looks down and catches a glimpse of my cleavage, then exhales like he’s in pain. His full lips purse, and I kiss them, because I can. Reflexively, my hips roll into the length suddenly pressing between them.

  “Mm,” Nico groans. “You don’t make it easy on a guy, though, NYU. And fuck. I gotta go. I’m supposed to be at AJ’s by eight, and I still have to go back uptown to get my fuckin’ monkey suit.”

  “You need to just bring a bunch of clothes here, not just a change,” I say as I get up and go look for some clothes of my own. “That way when you come on Fridays, you can just stay until you absolutely have to go on Saturdays.”

  I stop, realizing what I’m saying here, and flush. “I mean…if you want to. No pressure.”

  Immediately, I want to smack myself in the head. Stupid, stupid! You only just got back together all of five minutes ago. You’ve had sex one terrible time in a nightclub, and now you’re offering him closet spac
e?

  But before I can turn around, Nico encircles me from behind, his strong arms wrapped around my waist.

  “You really want me here all weekend?” he asks, his low voice rumbling against my neck. One hand slips under the fabric of my robe, playing over my bare stomach.

  The effect is immediate. I sigh, melting into his touch as the rest of me wakes up fully. “I do.”

  There’s another low rumble of contentment. “Good. I want to be here too. Probably too much.”

  He trails a few delicious kisses up and down my neck, running his teeth over my earlobe and catching it between them for a split-second.

  I press back into him and moan. “Do you…do you have to go right away?”

  Slowly, my head is tipped back, and with an open, warm mouth, Nico delivers a kiss that erases all doubts. Our tongues twist together delicately, a dance we never forget. I press back more against his tented pants––he’s ready now. He wants this as badly as I do.

  “Are you? Are you sure?” he murmurs.

  Am I sure? I’m sure I want to feel good. I want to feel normal, and this––this insane, magnetic connection we’ve always had––is our normal.

  I nod and then suck on his full lower lip. Nico groans. The hands at my waist slowly undo my robe so that it hangs open over my still-damp, naked body.

  Nico sucks in a breath as he looks down my front. He cups my breasts with both hands, brushing his thumbs over my aching nipples.

  “Can I make you come, baby?” he asks as he sucks on my earlobe again.

  I hum. “Mmmmmm.”

  In the mirror hung over my closet door, we both watch, transfixed, as he slides a hand down my front and places two fingers over my clit.

  “Look at you,” he says as he runs his teeth up and down my neck. “So fucking beautiful. You drive me crazy, baby, you know that?”

  I can feel his rigid length pressed against the cleft of my ass. In the back of my mind, I see us clearly: me pressed against this mirror, bent over so he can thrust his cock into my depths. I want it so badly…and at the same time, I’m content to fall against him and let him continue the insistent caresses he’s started. His fingers continue their work while his other hand drifts from my breasts, over my stomach, and around my back. It palms my ass and squeezes lightly, playing with the curves of Nico’s favorite body part.