Ellie
Despite everything, you are breathing relief. Jackson is easy and free and everything Boston wasn't. The place is small and alive and safe (it's safe it's safe it's safe).
People walk around with straight backs and wide smiles and friendly nods and waving hands. Men carry heavy bags. Women ride horses. An elderly lady pushes a cart and two teenagers swing tools.
Your jaw drops and you take in the easy life around you, gasping and surprised and somehow scared.
Kids play around the streets (muddy, dirty, unpaved streets), throwing balls painted neon green and painful pink and fluorescent blue. They chase each other and laugh and laugh and laugh and (you've never heard so much laughter in your entire life).
Joel is looking down at you, his eyes are wet and his smile is careful and all the anger is gone. His shoulders are heavy. He's mouth a stern line.
You look back at him and your neck hurts.
"This is it." He says and you have no idea what that means.
(You want to say 'what now?' and 'will you leave me?' and 'I am not yours' and 'where did you bring me?').
(You want to say 'how could you do that to me?' and 'you should have left me in the hospital' and 'I don't fucking believe to a word you say').
(You want to say 'I'm sorry' and 'I wish I was yours' and 'if I could make a wish, I'd be spending it all on you').
(You want to say 'please don't ever leave me'. You want to say 'stay with me'. You want to say 'I have never been so scared in my life').
You say nothing and Joel is still looking at you.
"What?" you bark, irritated at your own stupidity, at your own treacherous mind.
(You tell yourself this is for the best. You've always been on your own. You're good at this. You don't need anyone).
Joel smiles (small and sad and broken). You wince at his smile but his words are gentle and quiet and everything you wanted to hear.
"Welcome home, kiddo".
//
You taste fear at the back of your throat, bitter and scary, and uncomfortable. The boy who's standing in front of you has sandy blond hair and a sandy blond face and a sandy blond smile and he's built like a vending machine, broad shoulders and huge chest and wide hips.
His hands are on your coat are strong and he pushes you hard and it's nothing like playing and everything like a challenge and you make sure to keep your face smooth and unbothered.
"I said – what's your name?"
The air is thick, blue with smoke. It smells like burgers and beer and fire. It smells like trouble (like violence). Your face is burning red, flushed with anger and humiliation, and with something deep you don't want to let loose.
"The fuck's your problem, dude?" you grunt, low and angry and tired, your teeth clenched so hard your jaw starts to hurt.
"You're not as cool as you think you are." He spits and it's obvious he has some kind of a problem with you, even though you've never met him before.
(You've been in Jackson for a week now, and you had a bad feeling about you the entire time. You knew some shit would have to go down before you settle in completely).
"Who's this little shit?" you call to the other kids standing behind the big blond bully and a collective snigger comes from the crowd.
(Nobody answers. Nobody moves. You prepare yourself to fight).
The sandy blond boy is not happy with your lack of fear. He swings at you and you twist, moving away. He's big and tall and you know you don't stand a chance against him (not without weapons and weapons are forbidden inside the walls).
You've been in enough fights at school to know there are the kind of fights you enter for pure entertainment. Fights that are for show; impressive and fast and funny. Those kinds are playful and stupid and end quickly with few bruises and a cheer.
But there are also real fights – hard and fast and nasty. Those fights end with blood and broken teeth and painful limbs and it's nothing like playing and everything like surviving.
You don't know what this boy's intentions are and you don't really want to find out which fight is this one.
The blond boy fights without style, punching, and kicking and missing, eyes burning with hate. You move fast, fighting defensively, carefully, blocking and moving, panting (out of breath), ready to flee when the time presents itself.
"Hey!" someone's pushing through the crowd. "Stop it!" It's a girl you've never seen before. She's short and dark, all long strides and raging fury and sharp words, her eyes are hard and spitting fire. She closes her fist on the blond boy's shirt and yanks him aside, away from you, strong and angry and furious (and she doesn't look at you not even once).
"Let go of me!"
"I said, stop it!" she slaps him (hard) across the face and he tumbles backward and lands on his back, head hitting the floor.
You don't stay to check how this show unfolds. You run through the streets all the way home.
//
The girl that is staring at you is young and tanned and she has curly black hair and liquid dark eyes, burning like black marble.
Her stare is burning you holy and you recognize her as your fisty savior from yesterday.
Lightning burst in blinding flashes around the sky, rain pouring on the ground, making the streets of Jackson into pools of mud.
You stand at the steps that lead to Joel's home, grocery bags in one hand and your soaked backpack in the other. It's dark and it's late and you're tired. All you want to do is crawl under the blanket and watch a movie on Joel's big-screen TV, pretending like you hate his dumb dad-jokes and grumpy commentary.
The girl is standing a little away from you, in the middle of the road. She's talking and her voice is soft and silky, but also strong and full of fight. You find that you like her immediately and you make a miserable attempt at a smile.
"The name's Dina." She announces and it's so easy to fall in love with her, you almost don't notice it.
//
"Kat's cool." You tell Dina and she makes a face. "What?"
"No, nothing. You do your own mistakes".
"You don't think she's cool?"
"Define cool".
You bite your lower lip and try not to sound like a total loser. (You try not to alert her to the fact that she is the one you want to be talking about and you're such a coward you want to smack yourself across the forehead).
You look Dina in the eye and say, "She likes comics and she draws these amazing huge pieces and she made a tattoo machine from scratch".
Dina is looking at you with her big dark eyes that you cannot read and the corner of her mouth starts curling up. You have a feeling you somehow screwed up but you're not sure how.
"For fuck's sake, El".
"What?"
Dina shakes her head and laughs a hollow kind of laugh that makes you feel empty inside.
"What?" (say it, you want to scream. Say it say it say it).
Dina can't hear your inner screaming.
"Nothing," She says. "You're such a loser." You think she means 'I love you' and you want to tell her everything (how you want to kiss her and touch her and pull her clothes off) but eventually you end up saying nothing at all and you hate yourself for the hunted look in her beautiful beautiful beautiful eyes.
//
You touch yourself and you dream and you burn your hand and you kiss Kat while your heart is pounding and your hands don't hurt so much but you are scared you are terrified you are so fucking scared.
"It's okay. You've never kissed anyone before?"
"No." you lie through your teeth and you try not to think about brown smooth skin and kind dark eyes and curly black hair and sweet sweet mouth.
Kat smiles kindly. She's soft and patient and everything you don't deserve. She shakes her head and you let her pull your jeans off and palm you over your underwear. Her fingers are firm and hot and you arch your body into hers and sigh.
She doesn't kiss you and you try not to think about how bad you want her inside of you.
(You try not to think about freckled cheeks or brown eyes or big noses or crooked smiles).
Kat is here and she's touching you and you kiss her like you're hungry. Like you can't get enough of her.
You take each other's clothes off and you don't really know what you're doing but you have dreamed about this and Kat is grazing her teeth along your jaw, your neck, your collarbones and you scratch down her smooth back.
"Shhh." She warns and you lean forward and kiss her. She's burning hot and when she presses into you and slips her tongue inside your mouth you moan (loud and wanting and embarrassing) and hold her head in your hands to make sure she doesn't pull away before you're ready to let her go.
(You don't think about how you want her jaw not to be so sharp and you don't think about how you want her palms to be rougher and you don't think about how you want her to smell of candles and fur and)
You come fast and hard, silently, like the moment before glass shatters.
(You don't think about Dina).
Dina
She's no longer a thin scared little thing. Now she's tall and muscular and strong like a desert and like the ocean and like a raging fire. Her eyes are green sea and laughing, her chestnut hair tossed and brushing her shoulders, pulled back, messy and annoying and (so goddamn cute).
She's dangerous like the sky when a storm is coming and she's gentle and kind and awkward (you are both sixteen. She's allowed to be like this) and you're not supposed to find her this damn attractive, but you do and she is.
//
She has her own issues, and you make sure to keep your heart at guard. Jesse is a nice guy and he loves you. You think you have feelings for him as well, but he isn't Ellie and he doesn't make your heart flutter and he doesn't make your mouth dry and you don't think about him when you put your fingers between your legs and sigh and sigh and sigh into your pillow.
On days after nights like this, you are having trouble looking Ellie in the eyes and you can tell she's hurt.
"Stop acting so weird, dude. I don't care which filthy things you do with Jesse." You imagine you hear a sort of anger in her voice when she mentions your relationship with Jesse.
You almost choke on your tongue. "fuck off".
You do your best not to talk about Jesse (not to ask about Kat) and Ellie is keeping her eyes low, biting her lower lip, staying out of your reach, and there is nothing (nothing) you want more than to reach for her.
You do your thing. You two are good friends and you refuse to let your stupid flattering heart to ruin what you have with Ellie.
When it all becomes too much you kiss Jesse hard and push him back on the mattress and make him touch you touch you touch you until you forget about freckled noses and green eyes and sunburned skin and denim shirts.
Jesse doesn't say a thing and you offer no explanation and you pine and pine and pine and tell yourself to keep it sealed.
//
Your god is a falling rain. Your god is a tumbling rocks. Your god is forest fires.
You pray earnest and sad and heart-broken. The words are hard and biting in your mouth. You move, not like you've been taught, but like you feel. The longer the sentences, the harder you rock.
The pain is ripping your chest open and the tears roll down your cheeks and you keep praying, thanking, glorifying a God who is more than life and more than death and more than eternity.
Ellie is a small presence at the back of your head. her arms are solid when she hugs you, experimental and scared.
"Dina," she whispers. "Stop".
You melt into her arms and you cry and cry and cry until no tears left in you and you close your eyes and let her hold you.
Ellie
Something deep inside you snaps. Anger and pain and fear and hurt. Everything is building inside you. A knot of tension at the base of your skull, a tightness at the temples.
You breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth.
"Don't you fucking touch me!"
Joel is looking at you, eyes hurt and sad, and everything like a betrayal. It makes your blood boil. He doesn't get to feel betrayed. Not after what he's done. Not after lying to your face for so long.
There is something profoundly disturbing about the whole situation. A deep and violent wrongness.
(How could he do that? How could he do that?)
It had been a long time since you cried. It's been so long you thought you had forgotten how. You hadn't cried when your parents died. You hadn't cried when Riley died or when Tess died or when happy, funny, silly Eugene died. But you begin to cry now, in painful, jerking, lurching sobs.
It isn't death that makes you cry, chest hurting, and not enough breath in your lungs.
You gasp and choke and moan. Joel is looking at you, and you can't stand his gaze. You pushed him once, violent and angry, and everything childish and you want to do it again but you can't. you are not going to grant him the possibility to feel any less guilty.
"I'll go back," you say, wet and spitting. "But we're done".
//
There is hunger in you. hunger for something violent for something painful for something scary and inhumane. There is hunger for pain and for death and for retribution and nothing (nothing) can ease that.
//
The kiss begins silly and playful and funny.
It continues deep and scary and full of passion.
Dina rubs her thumb along your cheek and then kisses you, gently and with everything she's got. You hold her hip beneath your palms, move until you feel the warm bridge of her ribcage and the unbroken, solid, some sort of breathy promise.
She smiles into your mouth and you are very very (very) much in love. It hurts but it's a different kind of aching. you are happy (so so happy) and you think you can get used to that. Having her in your arms, panting and writhing, and blushing.
You kiss her now like you want to kiss her forever and your chest spreads open and it's warm warm warm feeling (unspoken thing). You take a deep breath and you let her inside. When she enters you you thing this is magnificent, to be this whole.
The blizzard outside roars, scary and cold and insane, and perhaps this is not the time and perhaps this is not the place but you kiss down her body anyway. You run your tongue along her and you push your fingers inside her and she guides you gently and lovingly until she's close.
Her fingers twist in your hair and tugs at your body and she stills, tense and tight and you can feel her orgasm before she realizes what the hell is going on and she comes with so much power you almost sob at how perfect this all is.
Dina is laughing, flushed, and sweaty. Her hips are still shaking and you bring her down gently before you let her flip you on your back.
You kiss her messy and terrible. You kiss her hot and needy. You kiss her like she's something sacred.
Dina's hands snake around your body and she looks at you very tenderly and there is a soft question in her eyes. You nod and breathe "yes" and you're lost in her. thoroughly and genuinely.
Her body is something unknown. Something familiar.
She whispers words against your skin and you bury your face in her neck when you come.
//
You have never prayed in your life. You were raised to believe in the here and now, in the infected and in running and in surviving. You remember from when you were small, everybody around believed in science and cognition and recognition and nothing supernatural and it seems so strange and foreign and mysterious.
Dina prays. She sleeps with you and lets you kiss her and you watch her touch herself and blush bright red. You watch her fingers on her body, something teasing, almost mean, and something is tasting a path straight up from the center of you and it doesn't take you long to recognize the desire that rises in you and
(Dina prays).
"I feel like God wouldn't approve." You say tentatively and kinda scared because a higher power is so beyond your comfort zone you almost run away.
JJ is fast asleep in his crib, just around the corner, and it's a rare intimate occasion you are not willing to pass.
Dina smiles. "That's not true," she reassures you. "My God loves love. He loves me loving you".
"Like this?" you ask, because gods are jealous jealous things and you don't believe in a higher power and you don't believe in luck and you don't believe in prayers, but Dina does and it's enough.
You end up falling asleep in your underwear after you kiss her. Dina smells of shampoo and clean sweat and she's pressed against your hip, hot and heavy and soft.
(You've never seen someone pray with this kind of quiet reverence like Dina).
//
You run your fingers over her nose, trace her brows, the bow of her lip, the curve of her cheeks.
You think about poetry and how you will never be brave enough to tell her all the things you write in your journal. You swallow and think how much you want to let her know how brave she is and how terrified you are and
"I love you".
It's not the first time you said it, but somehow it feels like it and you feel silly and clumsy and you hope Dina will never find out what a total loser you are.
It comes out of nowhere and Dina's eyes grow wide (wider) and you panic.
Then she says "I love you too." In her special kind of voice and she is so so beautiful you have to take a breath because you're feeling so many things.
When you touch her when you taste her, it's a little different and a little odd and her body responds easy and light and young.
You find her clit easily and you drive her over the edge and when she twists in your arms you have to tug at her hair and you have to kiss her and you have to tell her again and again and again just how much you fucking love her.
When you touch her, when she comes, when she puts her mouth on you and talks a steady stream of dirty words into your ear, you begin to pray and you think like this like this. Like this is not hard to say the words.
Dina
Ellie's eyes are sad and cold and nothing like home. She doesn't smile, and when she does her smiles are small and humorless and something like pain (something like grieving, something like darkness). The look in her eyes makes her look so old (too old. Old before her time) and your heart is tight and painful and bleeding in your chest.
You say "You can't change everything. There are some things better left untouched".
You say "Stay here. With me".
You say "Touch me like this. Like this. Like this".
Later, when you're in bed together, she plays with your fingers and you look at her knuckles, the blue of her blood blooming across them. Darker in between the bones. You kiss her hand and say nothing.
She turns over and lets you hold her and when she cries you kiss the back of her neck and breathe her in. You love her so much it hurts.
"Stay." You tell her.
She laces your fingers together and it's an odd comfort but comfort nonetheless and it hurts it hurts it hurts.
(She doesn't promise you to stay and you find yourself counting the day to her departure).
(Some people, you know, are flight risks. It's no shortcomings of yours that Ellie cannot keep her feet on the ground, it's not your fault that she cannot stand in one place. When she leaves you to convince yourself she isn't leaving you)
(She's just leaving).