The snow has melted, leaving a dirty filigree, the wind is blowing around the grit left over from winter, the crocuses are pushing up through the mud of the desolate smashed-down lawns and you will die here.
It's the thing inside you that's killing you, but you feel like it's something grander and something smaller and all the things in between and suddenly you need to leave.
You know the monster inside of you will kill you. You'll be walking along the street, thinking of nothing, thinking of Jamie, and all at once you will turn sideways and dive off, be smashed by a foreign presence you haven't asked for. You will topple in front of her strong faceless figure without warning, you'll plunge from a bridge into a huge body of water, where she'll feel at home, her small inviting voice conspiratorial, gleeful almost, urging you over.
You're afraid of it and you're ashamed of it and although in the daytime you find it melodramatic, and whenever Jamie is close by you feel like it's a thousand miles away, you can't stop yourself. You have no desire to think about it but you do and you feel more secure knowing that your shadow is there. It's a fallback. A vice. An exit from something you don't want to leave.
It's a weapon.
You're her death as much as she's yours.
//
At night you sit in bed, besides Jamie, watching the flutter of her eyelids as she dreams, listening to her breathe. You cannot leave her alone. For all her tough acts and strong words and cheerful raspy laughs, you know she's fragile and it's unthinkable to leave her.
You turn on the lights in the living room. You make a sandwich; peanut butter. You cut it in two and eat half of it with a glass of cold milk. You sit at the kitchen island and look at the green vegetation that's peering at you from every corner. It's all very Jamie and your heart aches a little.
When you go back to bed it's three AM and Jamie is sprawled on the bed, one arm slung over her eyes, the other stretched to the side, over your pillow. The bedroom smells like sleep and like weed and like Jamie, a special sweet smell that is made of fresh soil and old leather and masculine deodorant she likes for some bizarre reason.
You climb into bed and move her gently. Jamie steers, grumbling. You lie next to her, washed by her scent and her sleepiness and her soft snores. You don't hear your beast's voice tonight and so you feel good.
Next to you, Jamie is hot. So hot she radiates heat like a small bonfire. You don't want to wake her, because she's always up so early, but you have a pressing need of seeing her deep bright eyes, of having her hands on you, so you smooth her messy curls back from her forehead, lean down, and kiss her nose.
Jamie is easy to wake up. It breaks your heart a little, to know how on edge she always is, constantly ready for the other shoe to drop. For all her big talk about living in the moment, you think she's awfully worried about the future and you want her to stop hurting.
(You want to stop being the one hurting her).
"Wha' is it?" She is rubbing the sleep from her eyes, searching for you in the relative darkness of the room, her raspy voice faded and thick with sleep.
"Nothing," you whisper, sad, and fading. "Sorry".
Suddenly you're ashamed of your neediness, of your weakness, of your reluctance, and this deep consuming desire.
Jamie is fully awake now and she's looking at you, grave and stern and biased, so soft and so loving you don't have it in you to feel too bad about waking her up.
"Poppins," she says very seriously. "What's going on?"
And it's too much, this love and this lust and this woman, wonderful and beautiful and real. This convincing and optimistic and careless woman.
(You are guilty of so many things, hopelessly in love, and you are weak for it).
You climb into her lap and her hands land on your hips in a second, without a thought. You shift, a little higher, and kiss her. Her lips are hot and she tastes like sleep. It's pleasant and raw and you rock slightly because being close to Jamie always makes you want more.
Jamie's fingers caress the skin between your underwear and your shirt, fingertips cold. She lowers her head and sucks on the skin between your shoulder and neck. It's a well-practiced move and one she knows you like. You crane your neck, arch your beck, let her nip lightly at your throat. Her hands are running up and down your back, squeezing slightly, slowing your thrusts.
"We can talk. You can tell me what's bothering you," she says it very softly, deliberately slow.
"I just want you to touch me".
You kiss her face, her brow, and her nose and her cheeks. You kiss the skin between her eyebrows and her closed eyelids and her chin. You kiss her face down to her mouth and then up, in small searching pecks, sliding your mouth against her soft skin.
"Poppins…" she sighs. She knows something is up, but she doesn't push and you don't want to talk.
You cover her mouth with your hand and you feel her smile beneath your palm. She raises two perfectly arched eyebrows and you try to keep your cool, though it isn't easy with Jamie's hands on your body, pressed tight to your skin under your shirt, and her eyes shining with dark lust.
You move your hand and smooth your fingers through her hair. You drop your forehead to her collarbone and inhale her scent. It feels unbelievably good to hold her. You can still remember the painful needles going through your body at the sight of her, long before you knew what it's like to have her writhing and arching under your palms.
"Hey," she says quietly. "Where'd ya go"?
"I'm here".
She opens her mouth to say something, but you reach down and shove your hand gently down her underwear.
Jamie's moan echoes through the room and you grin against her skin.
"Fuck." She says, her accent and your fingers between her legs twisting the sounds of the word, making it almost unintelligible. Somehow, much dirtier in her mouth.
One of her hands thread through your hair and it's very hard to believe you're the one responsible for all the sounds that she makes.
She is wet and hot against your fingertips and you need her you want her you almost combust with frustration. This sort of desperate agony, sweet hell.
You caress her, softly, enjoying the quivering of her thighs, the moans, the way she arches her back and pushes her chest into you, firm and violent and out of control.
You squeeze her other hand and she groans.
"Fuck, Dani!"
Her head lolls back against the headboard, baring her throat. It's a beautiful column of flesh, toned and strong and pulsing. You are hypnotized by the lines and the curves of her jaw and neck. You suck her skin, hard enough to bruise. The base of her throat pulses with rushing blood and you slip a finger inside her.
Her hips move forward in rhythm with your slow thrusts, her fingers grabbing your hair almost painfully and she gasps small low gasps into your ear.
The sensation of being with Jamie shoots a wave of arousal through your body and you groan against her when she moans a single word that isn't exactly a demand, but you don't mind if it was.
When you look up, Jamie is watching you, eyes so dark you can barely distinguish where the dilated pupils end, so hungry and lustful and drowned, you're having trouble breathing.
You cup the back of her neck and lean in, molding your bodies together in a hot panting mess. You kiss her hard and wanting and you move your hand faster now. She's moving in a crazy rhythm against your palm, grinding into you with every drop of her hips.
She's so beautiful; forehead creased, eyes squeezed tight, a blush on her cheeks. She bites down on her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood and you feel the pool in your own underwear.
You feel her orgasm building.
You roll your hips and curl your fingers and with a low moan of your name and a few hissed curse words she comes, thighs trembling, a tight heat melting around you, drenching your hand.
Slowly, you let her ride out her high, then you lean into her and kiss her again. Her tongue moves lazy against yours but when you let out a happy laugh, she grins against your mouth and suddenly, you have your back pressed against the mattress.
Her hands curl around the back of your thighs.
"C'mere, love," she whispers and your legs are wrapped around her waist and you're a panting mess underneath her by the time she kisses you again, leaving a trail of hot stinging bites down your body.
"Jamie…" you laugh and she smirks at you.
"You're so beautiful, Poppins," she says quietly and you've been called beautiful before but it never carried the same weight Jamie's whispered admiration has and you're trembling even before leans down and dips her tongue between your legs.
A string of incoherent words and noises tumble over your lips, fire spreads through your veins, and pleasure seems to make every single nerve ending in your body tingle. Jamie has a way of surprising you even after so many years together and your hands fly into her hair, encouraging and pleading and you're drowning you're drowning you're drowning in her.
When she thrusts her fingers into you, you see stars, suns and galaxies, they explode in a booming inferno behind your eyelids and you don't remember where you are, only Jamie and her low guttural groans coming from between your spread legs.
The city and the monster and the manor all lies in the past, at a great distance, burning in thought like Gomorrah.
You know your rights and your wrongs and you know when to dig deeper and when to let go.
Like Gomorrah, you dare not look.
//
Your mother married your father for reasons unknown.
At least they were unknown to you. Your mother often talked about your father, after he was gone, and she made sure to frequently underline the fact that their marriage was all wrong. She made it sound like she was forced, coerced, carried off by a crude man that she almost hated.
She used to scoff at you, in the years after your father died. She would tell you to stop acting a certain way, stop talking a certain way, stop biting your fingers like he did when he was nervous or distracted or angry. She did not tell you this because it was bad or because it was dangerous or unattractive for a young girl, but because it reminded her of him and she didn't want to be reminded.
You remember your father as a tall figure with blond grey hair and a stern look who used to walk around in jeans and sneakers the colour of mud. You remember he sometimes scooped you in his arms and kissed your cheeks and told you he was very proud of whatever it is you were doing, even though you were doing very little to make him proud.
"Stop that," your mother would say. "You'll just spoil her".
"Will I?" he always answered and he had a low and quivering tone to this particular reply, bemused and curious about the answer and it used to drive your mother crazy.
After he was gone (he died, but your mother acted as if he left, as if he decided to leave, which you guessed was easier than facing the harsh truth) your mother treated you like a stranger. Your face reminded her of him, and so did your walk and your small tics and the way you never liked boiled eggs. And like a stranger, you listen carefully, interpreting her moods. Like a stranger, you kept an eye out for sudden hostile gestures. Like a stranger, you kept quiet and kept to yourself and like a stranger – you made mistakes.
//
The day you learned your father died wasn't special. Nothing was obvious. You went to school, you came back and had a peanut butter sandwich and later that afternoon your father wasn't there. Your mother treated it like a mistake, like an attack, like it was something he did out of spite or on purpose and you were small and confused and a little hungry, because the sandwich wasn't enough.
You sat on your bed after the funeral, in your stiff black dress and uncomfortable shoes, and didn't know what to do.
You bit your fingers and when you remembered how much it upset your mother, you crushed your thumb in your fist. You listened to the shuffling downstairs.
There were no tears and no rage and no panic, only a slight confusion and desolation. There was some fear and you spent the next couple of weeks checking up on your mother at night. You weren't allowed to enter her room when the door was shut, but your mother was always a sound sleeper so you did.
You checked her breath, watched her for a moment, and then went back to bed.
Your heart fluttered and subdued.
Two months later, you met Edmund and something has changed.
//
Eddie is a good boy with bad eyes and a nasty cut on his cheek. He's crying when you spot him, sitting in the dirt, his sweater ripped and his face red and stricken with tears.
"Hi, there," you say and he stops crying. "What's going on?"
"Tony G-G-Gallagher pushed m-me." He says, choking on his breath, he wipes his face with his sleeve and smears snot all over his sweater.
"Don't cry now," you say and offer him your hand. He grabs it. His fingers are cold and sticky and when he scrambles to his feet, you're a little surprised to realise he's slightly taller than you. Sitting on the ground he looked small.
"I'm Danielle. Danielle Clayton." You tell him.
He smiles through his tears a queasy sort of smile. "I'm Edmund O'mara. But everybody calls me Eddie".
"Okay, Eddie. Let's get you inside".
You help him in silence. When you enter the school building, three boys snigger. Eddie pushes you away a little, panicked and embarrassed and you try not to act offended.
"I'm okay now," he says and you hear the lie in his voice. "We should get to class before we get into trouble".
"You need to get your cut checked." You point out.
Later, you don't really remember how it all unfolded. You don't have a real recollection of events. You don't know why you kept by his side when the nurse checked his bruises or when his mother was summoned to school, or why, two days later, on a Saturday afternoon, when the world was bathed in dark orange and the weather has cooled down, you showed up at his house with a workbook and the homework due in on next week.
"Good morning, Mrs. O'mara." You smile at his mother when she opens the door. She's an impressive woman; tall and elegant and she has a gentle smile painted in red lipstick. Her eyes light up when she peers down at you.
"Hello, sweetheart," she says and her voice is like honey. Like chocolate. Like music. "I'm sorry, I don't think I know you. Is there anything I can help you with?" she's curious but not mean and her voice is nothing like your mother's. It has a worried tone in it.
Your heart swells at her gentle question.
"I'm Danielle," you tell her with more confidence than you feel and you clutch your backpack to your chest. "I'm going to be Edmund's new best friend".
//
As days become months and months become years, the only permanent thing in your life is Eddie and his family. You spend your Sundays with them when your mother is too busy with whatever it is she's doing. You eat with his family and drive to the beach with them and watch their TV in their family room.
Eddie's father is a young enough man with a good smile and he calls you "little miss" and his mother is soft and loving and everything your mother isn't. She strokes your hair and kisses your cheek and she says "be careful" and "watch out" and "oh, Danielle. Bless you, you sweet thing". He has two brothers who treat you like the little sister they don't have and when dessert is served, you always get a bigger portion without any complaints on their end.
Your mother is absent and if it wasn't for you, you don't think she would have remembered to eat or pay the bills or call on a male neighbour to fix something that has been broken.
She's good with the male population. She smiles and dances and wears beautiful clothes, she goes out on dates and flirts with them, but she looks at you as if she doesn't really know who you are.
(Eddie's mother tries to invite her a couple of times, for lunch or for dinner or for a girls night, but she declines or pretends to be busy or simpley doesn't show up).
You do your best. You cook her meals and bring her coffee and the Sunday newspaper, but it fails to impress her and soon you drop your attempts and just provide the bare minimum.
(Sometimes she gives you twenty dollar bills to buy groceries. Sometimes she doesn't).
When you turn ten, your mother starts drinking and you spend more and more time with Eddie.
You realise something is wrong with you when Eddie admires a TV actress one night, pushing his new glasses up his nose, and you find yourself nodding along with his loud admiration.
"You probably don't understand that," he says in his grown up voice and you stop nodding.
"Why not?"
"Well," he says as if it's obvious. "Because you're a girl".
"Don't be an idiot," his brother, Carson, shoves at him with his foot. You and Eddie sit on the floor, and his two brothers sit on the sofa above you. There is enough room for both of you on the sofa as well, right between them, but you make a point of stretching on the carpet, like two cats.
When Carson shoves at him again, you look up at him and so does Eddie.
"She's a girl!" he points out. "She can't know if another girl is pretty".
"Of course she can! She has eyes! She isn't blind!"
They are talking about you as if you aren't there and your cheeks flush bright red. You know they don't mean anything by it, but it's a habit a lot of people have and you think by this point it shouldn't even bother you.
(It does and you swallow the bitterness and bite on your thumb).
"She can think that he – " Eddie points at a smiling man in a suit who is currently shown in a close-up, on the small TV. "Is beautiful. Because she's a girl and this is how it works. But how can she tell if another girl is beautiful?"
Carson rolls his eyes in the way he adopted a few weeks ago. He's older than you, fourteen, and it's a miracle he's still hanging out with you whenever you're around. Carson, unlike his two brothers, doesn't care too much about what people think.
"So," you say in a hushed voice, hopping no one will notice you've spoken, but of course they do. "I can only think boys are beautiful?"
"Yes." Says Eddie in the same time Carson says "no!" and Simon grunts out loud and says, "here we go" in his best imitation of their father's tired tone.
You're confused and your heart is suddenly beating too fast. A rush of pulse drowns the next thing Carson says in a roar and you only catch Eddie's reply.
"Because this is how it is! Boys like girls and girls like boys. It's normal. Why are you even arguing with me?"
It pierces you right in the heart and you lower your gaze before anyone can catch the horrified look on your face.
(Normal, you think in a desperate sort of panic. This is how it is. Boys like girls and girls like boys. Everything else is not normal).
You look at the screen and watch the male actors carefully. Some of them are handsome. Some of them are not, but none of them make your eyes linger. Not like the lead actress, with her big bright eyes and flowing hair and tight dress.
You're ten and you already know something is wrong with you.
//
"Danielle!" a girl is chasing you from across the field. "Wait!" She's older and she is wearing a sailor's dress. Her hair is done and she is smiling. You think you know her but you don't remember her name and you don't know why she's calling for you.
(Probably has something to do with the school council or some paper you submitted too early or a request for a certain snack for the spring ball).
You stop. The playground is empty and you really should get back to class, but she's waving her hand and you just stand there, feet planted in the ground, eyes fixed on her.
"Thank you for what you said today." She says and it down on you like a ton of bricks.
"Don't mention it." You answer, and you really don't want her to mention it because you feel self-conscious and nosy and silly and you really really really need to learn how to bite your tongue and look the other way.
"No, I mean it," she says and she has tears in her eyes. "It was very brave".
"He shouldn't have teased you," you answer truthfully and shrug your shoulders.
(Stop talking, you think desperately as the girl rocks back and forth on her heels. Let me go back to class. Pretend like nothing had happened. For the love of God, stop looking at me like that).
"No," she says and she's fidgeting. You're fidgeting too because she's standing very close and you can smell her salty skin and flowery shampoo and something very dangerous sparks inside your chest. "He shouldn't have said what he said. Thank you for stepping in, anyway".
"You're welcome".
"Here," she says, leans in, and kisses you on your lips.
Your heart swells. You move back, open your mouth to say something, but she's already turned her back on you and she's running away, face hidden behind her palms.
You're fifteen and something is wrong with you because you know you shouldn't, but you want her to kiss you again.
//
"Kiss me." You tell Eddie when the sun is up in the sky and sweat is gathering on your neck and you're dragging your feet on your way back from school. It's almost summer and Eddie's black hair is plastered to his forehead. He has a mustache of sweat above his upper lip, damping the darkness that's starting to cover the flesh around his mouth.
"What?" his eyes are big and round and panicked.
"I said kiss me".
"Why?"
You take a deep breath and still yourself. "I dare you to kiss me".
He does, gingerly, carefully. He presses his mouth to yours for a long moment, then moves away. His eyes are huge and terrified behind his shining glasses and your heart doesn't even falter. You're disappointed. You're scared.
"What was that for?" Eddie is smiling a big dopey smile. It's obvious he doesn't share your lack of feelings.
You shrug and tug him along. He doesn't say anything. You don't mention it again.
//
Your mother's drinking is getting out of hand.
You used to come home to her sitting on the porch with a glass of wine and a smile, chattering away on the telephone, with the string streching through the house. Now she spends all her time up in her room, sometimes she sits on her bed, sometimes she lays on the floor. The door is never closed.
You are trying to keep your distance, stay clear from her. You still consider her your responsibility, but it's becoming irritating and an interruption to your otherwise happy life. It makes you feel guilty and sad because she's your mother.
Sometimes, when she's drunker than usual, she chases you around the house, stumbling, shouting your father's name at empty walls. sometimes she becomes affectionate and she kisses you and hugs you as if you were a baby, though you can't remember a time when she did that when you were smaller, or when your father was still alive.
You start to avoid her. She doesn't remember much about these episodes when she's sober and you don't talk about it. Instead, you stay late over at Eddie's house and you make yourself useful. You help his mother make lasagna, clean the kitchen, dust the shelves. You help her with the groceries and the laundry and sometimes with her garden, though you know nothing about plants and you're fairly sure you killed a couple of them by accident.
"Danielle," she says in a sigh and you're scared she's gonna ask you to leave. "You're such a sweet little thing. What would I do without you, honey?"
You beam at her, happy to be of service for someone who will remember it tomorrow and you swallow your tears and bite the flesh around your nails until your fingers bleed.
You are fifteen and you can't monitor your mother's level of drunkness so you don't. You make plans, avoiding being cornered by her. You push her gently away when she tries to fieng interest and after two or three times, she stops asking questions at all.
When you think you've stretched Eddie's family's hospitality to the fullest, you go home. He protests and so does his mother, but you say you promised to help at home and they let you go, reluctantly, each for a very different reason.
When you reach home you find out that your mother is out of alcohol and in no shape to go out and get more. She shoves you and begs you to go and get a bottle of wine. You point out to her you're not allowed and she breaks a lot of glasses in the kitchen and then passes out on the couch in the living room. In the morning you enter the kitchen and find a small chaos of broken glass and a pool of blood. She must have cut herself, by accident on or purpose, you've never found out.
When you get your first period, it's Judy who deals with it. She explains what will happen from now on, she tells you that bloodstains will come off easier if you soak them first in cold water and she shows you how to use the different products.
"You must be careful with boys, now." She tells you in a worried sort of tone.
"What boys?" you puzzle at her, eyes big, ears burning red.
She pats your hand gently. "It's important, Danielle. You must listen carefully. If Eddie wants to do anything more than kissing, you tell him no".
"More than kissing?" You feel like a complete moron for not catching up. "Like what?"
"You'll see." She tells you. "Boys have all kinds of ideas at this age, but you can tell him no. You will tell him no, at least for the time being. And when you're both older, we will have a different conversation. Okay?"
"Okay." You say because it seems to be the answer she's looking for and she brushes your hair with adoring fingers and hugs you tight.
"Good girl".
//
Judy, you think when you're much older and can't quite remember the exact shade of her eyes or how she smelled like expensive makeup and home-made cookies, was an authority on all kinds of things and she made sure you were safe. She told you about pains and distress and how things can be ignored and how others couldn't.
"Whatever he asks you to do, you need to know that it's perfectly normal to say no." she always said as you were growing and Eddie was becoming more and more persistent. "If it really bothers him, he can take care of himself".
"He's my boyfriend." You always answered, as if it was enough. As if repeating it to her will make you feel better, feel more than the empty nothingness, the slow panic, you were feeling then.
You used to smile at her with tears in your eyes. She used to hug you and you used to let her because you starved for human connection that wasn't hiding an agenda behind it. She used to smooth your hair and kiss your brow and rock you in her arms like you were a baby.
"Oh, my beautiful girl," she used to say. "My beautiful beautiful girl," and you wanted to protest and say something sooner, but how could you?
//
"All the girls do it!" Eddie whines, low and desperate, right into your ear. "It's dark, no one will see".
"I don't want to".
"But everybody does it, Danielle! It's okay, it's not going to hurt me".
You're at the movie theater and you're trying very hard to concentrate on the plot, on the scenes, on the story that's unraveling slowly on the huge screen in front of you, though it's been hard to do so with Eddie by your side. Eddie, who is a hot grumbling presence pressed to your right arm and he tugs at your sleeve with two fingers.
"Danielle…"
"No!" you snap at him, it's a whisper but you still manage to sound harsh. He sags back in his sit, sulking. When you glance down, you see a bulge at the front of his pants and you barely manage to restrain a laugh, because he's making a fool out of himself for no good reason.
"We're sixteen!" he grumbles, not looking at you. "We're going to do it anyway, sooner or later".
"Not here," you answer, face turned from him, eyes fixed on the screen. "Not today".
"What if you marry me? If you marry me, it will be okay".
"Tonight?" you don't mean for it to sound so ugly, but it comes out biting. Angry. Almost mean.
A couple of sits to your left, a dark-skined girl with beautiful curly short hair sends a smile at you and you melt. Her teeth are white and in the flickering illumination, she looks like she's made of fantastic marble.
Your face turns red and you almost choke on your tongue. She winks at you, bold and teasing and very very lovely.
Eddie, who doesn't witness the quick exchange, too wrapped up in his misery and unanswered pleas, huffs.
"No, of course not," he tries to sound reasonable but he sounds impatient. "But soon. Maybe in two years?"
A cold dread travels through your body, raising the small hairs on your arms. He isn't asking, you realise with a horrifying revelation. He's stating a fact as if it's inevitable. Written in the stars.
"Eddie!" you say and you feel small and trapped and unimportant. "Hush. You're spoiling the movie".
He doesn't talk to you for the next two days. You feel lonely and sad and when you meet again, you kiss him with a sort of terrified desperation and he guides your hand down his pants and you try to think about anything that isn't the burnings, hardening flesh in your fist.
"It's alright," he says when you begin to shake. "Don't worry. It's good. It feels really good".
You want to cry because you don't want to be doing it and he's a little damp and a little sticky and kind of rubbery in your hand and a cold panic is sweeping you off your feet.
You try not to think about it as you pump your hand. Instead, you picture the dark-skinned girl from the theater and you wonder what will it be like to slide your hand down her pants, to have her, and not Eddie, kissing you shoulder and sighing in your ear and groaning, moaning, writhing, beneath your hands.
When he is done and you wipe your hand on a paper towel he gives you with a smile and with stars in his eyes, he leans in and kisses your cheek.
"It was good, wasn't it?"
No, you think. It wasn't. And you're too much of a coward to tell him that, so you smile and put your head on his shoulder and close your eyes.
//
Judy knows something is up, and you try harder because you don't understand what's going on and you sure she wouldn't either.
You don't feel about Eddie the way you should. You don't sit around wondering what he's doing or when he will call. You like him because he's your best friend, but you're not in love with him and you feel like a fraud. None of the teenage magazines describe what you're feeling, nothing they describe applies to you.
Partly, Eddie is not a serious matter because he's Eddie and you've known him ever since he was beaten by bigger boys. Long before he even wore golden-rimmed glasses. So he's not a serious matter, but at the same time, he is.
You dread the weekends because then he expects you to shove your hand down his pants. He wants to touch you too, but you push him away. He seems to like it well enough, your pretend modesty, your so-called shyness.
What you long for is other things. You think about girls or at least the serious parts of their bodies. You sit in class and you are hyper-aware of their bodies. They create the same noises and the same silence your body does and when you're alone, it's their bodies you are thinking about.
You study feminine hands and the way they hold their cigarettes. You study the slope of their shoulders and the angle of their hips. You study their mouths and their jaws and the swell of their breasts and you do it secretly. You look sideways, you examine in different lights and you never ever do it too obviously.
You make a point of wearing skirts and pastel colours that goes with your fair hair and your trained smile. You don't have many friends, mainly Eddie and his buddies, and they don't see you for what you are, so it's a relief.
//
The snow is melting from the lawns, mud reappears on the floors, in the kitchen at home, at school, and Eddie circles you warily, talking about a wedding you haven't agreed to.
The coversations with him are artificially normal, as you walk home from school. You stop at a store for licorice whips, which Eddie like and you don't and you stroll along him as he sucks happily on his candy.
There is a sinking feeling in your gut, a held-back tearfulness you experience lately in his presence. Eddie is good and you feel wicked for not feeling the same way he does. When he talks, waving his half munched licorice, there is no accusation. His voice is excited. Calm. Reasonable.
"I think of going into economics. Dad says it's a good direction. Sensible. And he can hook me up later with some big company, so we'll have nothing to worry about, money-wise".
You're a coward. Fearful little girl. Nothing has changed and nothing will ever change and you're bound to spend the rest of your life feeling less than.
"I always wanted to be a teacher." You mumble.
Eddie beams at you and for a split second, you feel like you could fall in love with him. He is tall and dark and good, not the boy you've met so many years ago, but a man with broad shoulders and good inistincts and it's like stepping off a cliff and believing the air will hold you.
(There is nothing you want more than to command your heart to love him. Properly this time. Like you were meant to. Like normal).
"That's a great idea!" his smile is almost splitting his cheeks and you feel daring and happy and light-headed. Whatever binds you to him is a good thing. He is your home and your future. He is your best friend.
"Right?" you smile up at him. When did he become so big?
Eddie wraps his arms around you and crushes you to him. He smells of processed sugar and salty skin and clean sweat. He smells like himself.
"And once you are pregnant you could just reduce hours!" and you are hit by a ton of bricks.
"What?" you say into his chest.
Eddie doesn't look fazed when you move out of his embrace. He is still smiling, drowning in future memories, in a life he already planned to the very last detail.
"Think about it, Danielle!" he's excited and you are shocked and hurt and bewildered. "It's not a very important job, so you could leave it anytime. It doesn't even pay well, but that's alright because I'll be making enough money to cover everything".
You turn from him.
"Danielle?"
"Is this a goddamn joke?" you grit between your teeth. "Because if it is, it isn't funny".
"What?" he's surprised at your reaction and you know he doesn't understand what he's done wrong. The airy feeling is gone and you are weighted down by the truth. He doesn't see you. He sees Danielle, perfect smiley Danielle, someone to care for him and feed him and play house with him, but it isn't you and he has never seen you.
You want to turn and walk away. You want to leave him behind.
You don't.
Your anger is as much at yourself as at him.
//
One night Eddie is out with his friends, so you stay at home. Your mother is locked in her room. This is not usual but it's a silent agreement. You haven't spoken to her in a couple of days and she didn't drink today so you dim it a good enough day and try to focus on your homework. You have a paper due and you're behind on your reading.
You sit in your bedroom and it's dark. You're wrapped in your father's old sweater, listening to the wheezing sounds of your mother from her room down the corridor.
Love, you think, blurs your vision but when it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever, and lately you've been seeing Eddie for who he is. Not a bad guy, but not someone for you. it's like the tide going out, revealing whatever's been thrown away and sunk; broken bottles and old gloves and rusting pop cans. Bones. Old memories. The kind of thing you see sitting in the darkness with open eyes, not knowing the future. The ruin you've made out of your own life.
Your body is stiff and inert and without will.
You force yourself to stand up but you don't feel anything. You force yourself to go to the kitchen and grab a drink and you don't feel anything. You force yourself to put on your jacket and go for a walk and as you are circling your neighbourhood, you don't feel anything.
Cars slide by, a muffled rushing. The world is dark except for the lights coming from the lamp posts above you and in the half-light, the gloomy glim, you notice someone standing on the deserted street.
You can feel the pull of the earth on you, the dragging of its dark curve of gravity, the space between the atoms you could fall so easily through.
"Danielle? Danielle Clayton? Well what do you know!"
The voice is familiar and cheerful in the empty street. Clear.
"I almost didn't recognise you!" The young woman the voice belongs to doesn't leave you a choice. It has a force of an order. The difference between jumping and being pushed.
You force a cheerless smile on your face. "Margaret!" you exclaim and hope you're right.
"As I live and breathe!" Says the woman and your ears are ringing. "I thought I'd never see you again!"
She wraps you in a hug and for a moment, you stand there and remember how you stepped in, how you chased the bully away, how she kissed you in the schoolyard and then disappeared.
"My gosh! You haven't changed one bit".
"I hope it's not true," you choke through tears and gritted teeth and gradually it becomes so easy to feign a happy tone you almost convince yourself.
"Well, no. We're older now, of course. But I could have recognised you anyplace, anytime. It's so good to see you!"
"You too," and it's just something you're supposed to say because you don't actually know that much about her. She's been transferred to another school at the end of that year, and because she was older and didn't live in the same neighbourhood, you haven't kept in touch.
"Don't tell me. You married that quack, Edmund O'Mara".
"Not yet," you say and your shoulders sag.
"Good!" there's a playful glint in her eye. "Then maybe i still got a chance!"
She's standing too close and she smells too nice and you're too sad and too confused and too angry to think straight. The street is empty and it's dark and the street-lamp above you is flickering and going off. For all those reasons and many more, your brain short-circuits and you surge forward, determined to make yourself feel better.
You grab her shoulders with crooked fingers and crash your mouth on hers. She's taller so you have to stretch on your tip-toes. For a horrible moment you think you're going to pass out, or she's going to push you away, but Margaret doesn't move. Then, slowly, very very slowly, she puts her arms around your neck and there's a whispering sound coming from her when she opens her mouth against your lips and kisses you like she means it.
And it's scary and real and frightening, this tall woman kissing you. You kissing her. You have no business kissing her, it's a cosmic interruption, a stupid mistake, an accident if there ever was one and you feel like someone is pranking you.
Her kiss is sweet and languid, like she does it every day, kissing strangers on empty streets. Her arms around you are soft and it's a treat. It's a stolen pleasure you can't afford. A secret that must be hidden.
It's simple.
She kisses you.
You kiss her back.
//
The next day you wake up, you eat some toast and an egg, mushing it up in a cup of coffee. You put on your nice clothes and you do some stretching on the floor of your bedroom, the memory of the kiss still lingering hotly on your mouth.
In less than two hours you're meeting with Eddie. You cannot be thinking about anything but him.
You leaf through the morning paper your mother brought in this morning but you don't read much. You don't know what you're supposed to be doing, after such a heated night. You're impatient to be gone, back to Eddie and his safe arms, where you feel nothing but your long acquainted anxiety. At least you know how you are supposed to act with him.
You're a complete stranger to yourself right now.
You walk along the streets, different streets to your rout last night. You used to walk these streets with Eddie, for a long time. Now they feel wrong and foreign. Behind the cold lamp-posts, there are shadows, stretching ahead of you. They will not shrink. They will not disappear. They are here to stay.
You walk to Eddie's house, slightly uphill. His white big house is the same as before. You can see through the first-floor windows. It's the beginning of the weekend and Judy is in the kitchen, making some sort of late breakfast, like she doesn't believe you could possibly take care of that on your own, outside her reach.
Carson is sitting on the front porch. He has a glass of iced tea and a smile and when you move closer, he waves.
You wave back, wonderingly.
"Hey, sister-in-law!" He beams at you. Carson has a way of carelessness about him. He is sensitive and he pays attention but he likes to rile people up as if he's trying to figure which button is the right one. He doesn't push them all at once, but tentatively, almost softly.
"Hey, there." You answer.
He has a scruffy look about him, something in his unshaved chin and messy hair.
"Eddie hasn't come down yet. Come sit with me for a moment".
"I should go inside, really. Say hello to your mum".
He waves his hand, and you scan him nervously. Carson always had this particular air about him, like he sees more than he is willing to tell. You like him, but he makes you uneasy. Now, when you have a real secret to protect, very suddenly you're scared.
You sit next to him, alert. Carson is talking in his easy manner and you feel like you're being dragged along the rope. You're out of control and the small hairs on your arms and the back of your neck are standing straight up.
You're dizzy. What a reckless idiot you were last night. Someone could have seen. Margaret could have told anyone. You don't know anything about her, besides how her lips feel against yours and how firm her arm is around your body when she leans in.
You open your mouth and close it again.
"Danielle?" Carson is watching you with eyes like Eddie's. They all have the same huge wet eyes, nothing like the sharp spheres their mother possesses.
"Hmm?" It's a breath more than anything else. Panicked, on the verge of hysteria.
He puts a gentle hand on the back of your palm. Carson's hands are soft. Warm. "You don't have to marry him, you know".
"What?"
"Eddie. You don't have to marry him." He is talking fast, his voice is low and urgent. He's trying to tell you something you are too scared to hear.
"Listen, you're a smart girl. You're young and beautiful and your whole life's ahead of you. It's not your duty to indulge him. It's not your duty to take care of him or marry him".
"I want to." You blurt out and you don't, but you can't let Carson know that.
"No, you don't. And quite frankly, you're not a very good lier".
You puzzle at him. He's so bright and happy and easy, you're having trouble understanding what exactly he's saying.
"You deserve to be happy".
You watch him as something bright flickers and dies in his eyes. You pull back within yourself and your nose is filled with a distant smell of grass and soil and cigarette smoke.
"I – " he says with a sort of anger you never associated with him. "I deserve to be happy!"
"Alright," you get up, pulling away from him. "Bye-bye, now!" and you move inside the house, where Judy exclaims happily when she sees you and wraps you in a bone-crushing hug.
"Honey!" she says. "I was just starting to worry you'd never come".
The familiar sinking feeling of disappointment and fear and emptiness weights you down and it's too familiar to panic over. Your smile flutters, just a little, and you hug her back.
"No, of course not. I'm here".
//
Your heart plummets when you see the seamstress. Big black eyes and olive coloured skin and the prettiest smile you've ever seen. She moves you here, then she moves you there. She raises your arm, drops on her knees in front of you. Her hands are steady on your shoulders, on your waist.
You greet your teeth and smile and nod and say 'please' and 'thank you'. She doesn't talk to you. Her comments are few and far in between but her eyes are so clear and dark, you can hardly bring yourself to keep still.
She leads you here, leads you there. She measures you. You feel patty, like a doll in her arms. You feel weak.
Your mother is very invested in the wedding, and so is Judy. Eddie is nowhere to be found and you feel alone. If not for your job, if not for twenty-five odd pairs of eyes, if not for the small people and their attentive care and the fact that you need to be prepared for the next class, you think you would have crumbled. Withered. Ceased to exist.
The planning is stressful. The price tags are crazy. Even the dark-haired girl that's measuring you for further work is taking more than you feel comfortable to give.
Eddie dismisses your worries, but you hate to spend so much money. Not because you don't want the wedding (which you really don't) but because it seems like a horrible waste.
(Judy laughs at your worries, says they are happy to pay for everything. She says it will be perfect. Your mother gives you a stern look and hisses at you to quit being cheap. It goes unsaid, but she means 'quit being like your father'. Eddie smiles, Carson nods his head and squeezes your shoulder and hangs his chin and doesn't say anything).
"You look so beautiful," the girl is smiling at you. Judy and your mother went downstairs, for another wine refill and to take some break. They told you to stay put, and that they will be back in just a few minutes, which means they will probably take more than half an hour to find their tipsy way back to the room.
"Thank you." You say and you mean it, though you feel silly in the stiff fabric of Judy's dress.
The girl is smiling. Her eyelids are curved and pure, like a carved saint. Her arms are raised halfway to your shoulders. Breath goes into her, and out and she is so graceful, just standing there.
You take a ragged breath.
"Actually, I – " you're not sure what you're about to say when she leans in and kisses you.
You're still trying to think of something to say while she presses closer. She gives you small kisses, all over your face. Her eyes are closed and you're mortified.
"Is this okay?" she asks in a small voice and you think 'no' you think 'how can it be?' you think 'please don't do this to me'.
"I – "
"Don't move," she whispers and you can't move anyway, because you're paralyzed with apprehension. You don't know if it's your own lack of bravery or the girls' sheer magnitude of her body, now that you're as close as you ever dared to dream.
She is very gradual. She slides her hands up your back, then undoes the buttons of your dress, one button at a time, fumbling as her fingers are eager to touch your skin. She pulls you in, smoothes you as if you're a velvet cushion, and although you've been told it's going to hurt, it's less like being torn apart and more like falling into a river. The girl puts her mouth on your throat, growls, and groans as she works her fingers between your legs and you're shocked into silence.
She's a long drink of water and you are so thirsty, you're parched as if you've been wandering in the desert all of your life.
You don't fit together perfectly, standing up and moving, rocking like crazy, knowing at any moment the door might open and you'll be caught in an act you know on a cellular level is forbidden.
"Shh," she says when you whine slightly, something grand and shuttering building in your chest. "Shh!" and you're surprised to discover a cold dread shooting through you as her fingers find a certain spot inside you, as your body goes stiff, as a wave of white-hot pleasure goes through you, painting your world dark.
Something trickles down your thigh and you lean bonelessly into her arms. She holds you for a moment, then smoothes your hair, kisses your lips once, twice, the third time's a lingering kiss that you don't want for it to end, and then she detaches herself from you and turns her back to you.
When your mother and Judy enter the room, twenty minutes later, you're the picture of calm, and only the girl's lingering touches on your back and her bright secret smile she sends your way, makes you shiver with something that isn't fear and isn't lust.
You think you've imagined the whole thing, some heated nightmare, distant dream, but then you excuse yourself to use the restroom and there is wet evidence between your legs and when you touch yourslef, the flesh is hot and raw and sensitive and you know it was real.
It takes you ten whole minutes to gether enough bravery to go back out there, and when you do, the girl is gone and Judy informs you she'll be back for the wedding day.
//
Jamie makes a face. You are laying in bed, tangled together, still a little sweaty and breathless from before. You have your arms wrapped around her thin body and she nuzzles into your neck. She's warm against your body, smooth and perfect with the exception of one angry scar on the back of her shoulder.
You trace your fingers down her scar. You kiss her cheek. She breathes you in in a sharp inhale and you smile and press your mouth to her lips.
"I'm jealous." She complains and her voice is a little drawling with a slight hesitation in it, a slight foreign flavour, the hint of a list; low, raspy but with a soft surface. You used to think of it as strange, used to struggle to understand her, but now it's home. A glazed chocolate with a soft buttery centre. Sweet, but good for you.
You want to haunt all the people who make your past with every bit of space there is between you and whatever led you to Jamie's bed, right here in Vermont. You're ready to jump and fight heaven and hell for a two worded sentence and you know it's the shadow inside your bones and not you, but it doesn't feel much different.
The beast roars and it echoes through your body. You want to sink your teeth in flesh and muscle. You want to wipe clean the days before Jamie. There is so much blood pumping through your body, you can smell it, can almost taste in at the tip of your tongue and you shift, tense your muscles.
Jamie looks worried. "Dani?"
"Nothing. It's nothing." And you smile your brightest smile.
"Didn't mean to sound so –"
"No," you cut her off. "Stop. I know. I – " your voice breaks down and Jamie's voice and Jamie's eyes and Jamie's smell all rush through you. Your vision is slightly blurred with tears you are not planning to shed.
"Hey," she tightens her grip around your body. "I asked. I want to know".
"It's silly".
"It isn't. It isn't, you hear me?" her eyes are darting between yours. Searching one eye, then the other. The blue. Then the brown.
"Alright there, Poppins?"
"Yeah," you nod slowly.
Jamie chuckles. "Still jealous, though. Nothing to do 'bout it".
You wrap your arms more firmly around her and press your nose to her temple.
"There isn't much to tell after that," you try to pour as much cheerfulness as possible into your tone. Jamie's worried eyes and cocked eyebrow tell you she doesn't quite buy the dismissive tone.
You grab her neck and tug her down to kiss her, needing the contact to ground you, to assure you, to still you.
It doesn't work the way you want it, dread still clawing at your insides, but at least the murky ghost is calm now. You're not trembling anymore.
"Whatever it was, it's all in the past," you tell her. You raise your eyes, searching hers. Jamies features are relaxed and her nose is twitching a little. "Not everything we are dealing with is bound to end in happiness, but right now we are here, you and me, and nothing is more perfect".
"Perfect." She agrees, the word a bit odd and very familiar on her lips.