lyin' eyes

Nat knew what it was like to wake up with regret. Never this bad, though. Not only were the scratches on her arm burning in pain, but she also had a deep purple bruise on her neck right by her jaw. She’d have to kill Lottie. That was the only solution. How the hell did she keep kissing all these girls? She swore she didn’t mean to.

Rays of sunshine pooled on her bed, specks of dust dancing in the light. She must have slept at least twelve hours straight. She couldn’t even recollect what exactly had happened with Lottie. She just knew she was the last thing she thought about before falling asleep, and the first thing she thought about when she had woken up.

Fragments of the previous night worked their way into her mind as shuffling came from the kitchen.

“There’s our little girlkisser.” Jackie joked, carrying a mug of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

“Who’s mug is that?” Nat sat up, rubbing her eyes and accepting the cigarette. She pushed the mug back and Jackie understood her refusal.

“Oh… It’s mine.” Jackie lied, taking a sip of the coffee she admittedly ruined. Nat pretended not to notice the small initialed ‘S.S.’ inscription on the bottom of the mug.

“Wait.” Nat mumbled, cigarette limp between her lips. Jackie hummed. “She told you?” Nat raised her voice, eyes wide.

“You bet. The details, too.” Jackie giggled, setting her mug down on the bedside table. Nat groaned.

“Fuck, Lottie.”

“I bet you will.” Jackie quipped and Nat flicked a clump of ash at her.

“I haven’t even spoken to her yet.” Nat rubbed her temples and licked her lips contemplatively.

“You should.” Jackie nodded at the cigarette and picked it off from between Nat’s fingers, inhaling sharply. “Don’t pussy out again.” She exhaled, smoke swimming through rays of sunlight.

“You’re one to talk.”

Jackie glared at her.

“Pretty sure S.S. doesn’t stand for Sjackie Staylor does it?”

“Can we focus on you?” Jackie sighed.

“I’d rather not. I hate thinking. I’m done thinking. I will never have a thought again. Everything is complicated and mean and the world sucks.” Nat flopped backwards onto the bed, arms spread out.

“You are so damn emo.” Jackie grabbed a pillow and squeezed it to her chest, staring at the wall.

…

New Jersey was a total burnout state. But as soon as the weather got warm and the sun was out until 9 pm, the town felt like hope. It felt like there were things to do and people to see and that it didn’t all drain down into nothing. During the winter Nat would stay high or drunk and tiptoe through classes. Warm weather meant soccer. It meant walking in the sun with Van. It was weirdly optimistic, and it made Nat feel a little sick to think about. She wasn’t used to feeling so assured.

The first day it crawled over 80 degrees out, Nat was sprawled on her bed in a t-shirt and shorts, flipping through some old music magazine her mom had left. School was out in just under a week.

Sunlight was painted all over her room. It slipped through every crack in her windows and onto the bed. Smoke from her joint wafted slowly from one side of the room to the other. Music buzzed in her ears. She hated that she felt bad about feeling good. There was euphoria behind the gloss of her eyes. It was totally and completely unreal. Her fingertips ached to feel Lottie's skin on hers. She quickly discarded the thought and reached for the phone.

“Your moms house, how can I help?” Van snarked from the end of the line.

“Can we do something?” Nat waved her hand to faze out the smoke in front of her.

“Errrrr,” There was shuffling from behind the phone followed by hushed giggles. “One second.” Nat sat quietly waiting while Van and Tai bickered over something. “Yes! Yes. Arcade?” Van finally said, breathing heavily.

“You guys are gross.” Nat hung up the phone after Van confirmed a time for their hangout.

Van was outside in her busted up Subaru Legacy 15 minutes late. Nat swiped at the eyeliner smudge on her temple as she grabbed her house key.

She had to double back to grab a wad of cash from the safe in her mom’s closet and then skipped out the door. She climbed into Van’s car and shut the squeaky door lightly, wincing as if it was about to fall off.

“Jesus, was she trying to kill you?” Nat scoffed, reaching for the purple bruise on Van’s neck. She swatted her hand away.

“Do you want me to crash this thing?” Van kept her eyes on the road.

“Looks like it wouldn’t be the first time.” Nat mumbled, diverting her attention to the window.

“Are you excited for tryouts?” Van changed the subject.

“I feel good about it. And we have time anyways.”

“I heard Jackie’s up for captain.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Really?” Van turned, hands gripping the wheel.

“What? Are you?”

“I just think she’s not the best in a serious situation.”

Nat thought to herself for a moment. It wasn’t untrue. That time Melissa twisted her ankle during conditioning Jackie threw up twice before even looking at the damage.

“She’s a leader.” Nat decided, swallowing any sense of doubt.

Van didn’t respond.

The arcade was busy, a condition the two thought they had avoided when showing up on a hot day.

“Shouldn’t these people be outside doing shit?” Van grumbled from the back of the ticket line.

“Where is your sense of adventure?” Nat peered around the room, trying to find an opening in the line to cut. She groaned when nothing gave. The two of them combined had about half a second of patience and it had run out minutes ago.

By the time they got situated, Nat had grabbed Van’s arm so hard she left marks. The reason being the tall, dark-haired woman at the Sunset Riders machine. Nat yanked Van behind one of the bigger machines, breath uneven.

“Nails! Nails!” Van seethed, wriggling out of her grasp. Nat responded with a shush and a distracted look. “What?”

“Seriously Palmer, shut up.” Nat’s head poked out from behind the machine, eyes searching for Lottie. Her gaze settled on her again. Her breath caught in her throat as she watched her elbow Laura Lee in the stomach, laughing.

Van had sat down on the floor, playing with her hairband.

“Van, let’s go.” Nat spoke bitterly.

“Dude what, we just got here.”

“Now, come on.”

Van threw her hands up defensively and listened, unfit to get in a fight with a seething Nat. She complied as Nat dragged her out the back door, not stopping until they reached the car.

“You are a crazy person. What was that about?” Van unlocked the car and slid in.

“Nothing.”

“You are so bad at lying.”

Nat didn’t respond and didn’t speak for the rest of the car ride. Van didn’t push any further. Nat had a few questions about what Lottie and Laura Lee had been doing together, but shoved them into the farthest corner of her mind and dozed off in the passenger seat. Van shook her awake when they arrived at her home.

Nat blinked until the blurriness cleared from her eyes. She was halfway out of the car before she spoke.

“Van.” Nat cleared her throat. “How did you know you liked Tai?”

Van got a look in her eye that was so sincere it almost made Nat gag.

“Um. I don’t know. I think it was after that game against Sterling.”

“No shots conceded. Yeah, I remember.”

Van diverted her gaze and smiled at her hands.

“Tai came up to me in the locker room after the game. She was smiling all stupid. It wasn’t anything special. She congratulated me on my performance.” Van was almost whispering. Her eyes were glossy, as if she had begun to tear up. Nat’s breath trembled.

“It was like staring at the fucking sun. She just cares so much. It’s like the air I breathe comes from her lungs. She’s unlike anyone I’ve ever liked before, to be honest. In beautiful ways.”

Nat felt the words lodge in her throat and she could only swallow as she watched Van speak. Van coughed and met Nat’s eyes again.

“This about Gavin?” She asked.

Nat shook her head slowly.

“Good.” Van responded. She brought a hand up to the wheel. “She’s so much better than that lowlife.”

Nat stared until Van turned her attention back to the dashboard. She shut the door softly and shoved her hands in her pockets as she turned to walk home.

She wished she had the courage to know how to feel about Lottie. She wished she could name that feeling in her gut love and not fear. She wished she didn’t hurt so good when she thought about Lottie. It was exactly as Van had said it. She cared. Not like Gavin, or Jackie, or anyone else. She cared like she could only breathe if Nat did too.

It took her four hours to fall asleep that night.

…

School was so close to done that none of her classes actually counted anymore. She hadn’t shown up to English in weeks, and had no intention of starting.

Everything had blended together into thoughts about Lottie. It was embarrassing how much she thought of someone who wasn’t the guy she was “dating”. Yet she never once considered that it might have been wrong.

She hadn’t spoken to Lottie since the kiss and was truthfully too scared to. She had seen Gavin once for dinner but it all blurred past. She couldn’t recall a single thing they had spoken about but was still replaying the way Lottie bit her bottom lip in the nurse's office.

Math had drowned out into the cassette in Nat’s walkman and the running game of tic-tac-toe she had going with Van. She barely even registered when the classroom door swung wide open halfway through class.

Whispers met her teacher's ear and Nat looked up in response to her name. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw Lottie Matthews pointing at her from the front of the room. This was not happening. Lottie was curling her hair with her finger innocently, like she wasn’t actively scaring the shit out of Nat.

Maybe it was Nat reading into things, and Lottie just didn’t care as much about the kiss as Nat had. Nat quickly denied the idea of “caring” about it once the thought crossed her mind. She had absolutely zero idea what she was gonna say to Lottie.

“Ms. Scatorccio, yearbook needs you.” Her teacher repeated. Lottie flashed a hall pass and grinned. Van had turned around and was doodling on Taissa’s paper, so Nat just dropped her pencil onto the desk and followed Lottie out the door. An uncomfortable minute of silence ensued before Nat spoke shakily.

“I didn’t know you were in yearbook.” Nat watched Lottie's skirt swish as she walked.

“I’m not.” Lottie turned on her heel and ripped the hall pass in two, Nat now recognizing the handwriting as a shitty attempt at the administrator's signature.

“Why-” Nat reached out to inspect the pass but stopped when Lottie grabbed her wrist. Flames danced in her eyes and hunger played on her lips. “You sick little…” Nat trailed off as Lottie’s hand slid across her jaw. She could feel her breath on her lips. Lottie pressed Nat against the cold concrete walls of the corridor in one swift move.

“What are you trying to start?” Lottie giggled lightly.

Nat felt a smile tug at her lips and had to act before Lottie noticed. She grabbed the back of Lottie’s head and pulled her into a kiss, lips working against hers in desperation. The taste of her chapstick was familiar.

Her whole body was on fire within seconds. Lottie’s hands were on her waist, her fingers smooth and warm. It was euphoric and so, so wrong. Nat knew better than this and yet refused to adhere to it. Lottie’s lips were addicting. Once she started she just couldn’t stop.

Footsteps interrupted them. Nat jumped to smooth out her shirt and Lottie ran a hand through her hair.

“Um. Shit. Thank you.” Was all Lottie got out before she made awkward eye contact with the student that walked by and held her breath until he passed. She let out a laugh as soon as he was gone.

Nat watched the way her eyes shone. Jackie was right. She was so beyond fucked.