Love? I frown and scratch the notion out with an imaginary mental pen. But as I walk away from her, the answer too hard to say, the urge to turn around and look at her just one more time before I go is overpowering.
It’s evidence.
It’s cold hard fact that mental pens don’t need to scratch anything out.
When had it happened? How stupid and predictable was it? The new girl - the manic, rambunctious, permanently-sugar high girl – barreling into town like a whirlwind and demanding I pay attention. Demanding I fight. Demanding everything but the one thing that’s begun to grow inside me.
I should burn it.
The plant is still young. It hasn’t flowered yet, its roots haven’t laced over my heart just yet. I can still stop it. It’s not too late. Sophia is still a strong flower in my chest. She’s the only one who should matter. Guilt sickens me. Sophia. I’m being unfaithful, aren’t I? Escorting wasn’t truly cheating – I loved none of the women. None at all. They were cows to be milked for money, and that was it. I love only Sophia. Sophia has always been there. Sophia is sick, and she needs me. I can’t abandon her, or leave her. I’m the only one she has. It was never a problem, since no other woman ever held my attention. But now…
Something tears at me, serrated and sharp.
It’s too late.
I’m an idiot, and it’s too late.
***
Avery invites Kayla and I to her Halloween party on Saturday. I’m a little wary, since Avery smiled too much at Kayla when she invited us, but I’ll go, if only to make sure Kayla doesn’t meet any trouble. And with all the popular girls who’ve had a crush on Jack forever being invited too, I triply have to go. I will be the silent protector Gotham Kayla needs.
“You’re going as that?” Kayla sniffs at my tight-fitting latex Batgirl costume. I wince and adjust a brewing camel toe.
“It’s a symbol of my commitment to justice!” I crow, and whip out a fake bat-star from my utility belt. Kayla laugh-sighs and pulls my chin up. Her mermaid costume – a skirt with a tail, drags behind her, and her bra is shimmery and made of spray-painted seashells. Her dark hair is woven with smaller shells, and her make-up is green-blue and likewise sparkly.
“Okay, just hold still and let me do your make-up, at least.”
“Make me look like an actual bat.”
“Ew! No!”
“Give me a huge proboscis nose like those weird bats in Africa.”
“Ugh!”
“Smear my face in guano.”
“Okay, that’s it, you’re being nasty and it’s running your eyeliner so you need to officially stop.”
I laugh and mime zipping my mouth shut as she works, fingers delicately smearing eye shadow and lip gloss and foundation on my face.
“They don’t even put this much makeup on dead people for open casket wakes,” I complain.
“Hush. I’m almost done.”
When she’s finished I open my eyes and look at a whole new person. Smokey eyeliner and pink gloss make me look –
“Beautiful!” Kayla claps her hands.
“Not ugly,” I correct. “Your work is great, it’s just my face. Sorry you didn’t have something nicer to work with.”
“Oh, shut up!” She smacks my shoulder. “Now c’mon. We’re gonna be late.”
She grabs her purse and keys and stops in living room, tiptoeing into her father’s study. She’s only gone for a few seconds before she dashes out, a bottle of expensive-looking whiskey in hand and squealing.
“C’mon c’mon c’mon run run run!”
I shriek in the back of my throat for no reason and run after her out the door, my cape billowing in the cool October night. The sky is steely and filled to capacity with heavy rain clouds. As we pull up to Avery’s jack o’ lantern-lined driveway, a few fat drops of rain start to fall. Orange and black lights are strung everywhere inside, bowls of orange punch and pumpkin cookies and cinnamon cakes crowd the kitchen counter. Girls dressed as skin-showing cats and nurses and witches crowd the house, and guys in football-player costumes and president costumes and rapper costumes with ridiculous gold chains stride around. I high-five the guy who’s dressed up as Pac-Man, because he’s the only creative costume here. As more people arrive, the line of booze bottles on the counter grows. As the night grows darker, the jack o’ lanterns glow eerily on the porch, the wind howling through the trees outside. Guys scare girls and girls shriek, and someone starts the music when Avery finally comes down in a resplendent princess dress, complete with a tiara, perfectly-curled red hair, and a fluffy blue ball gown.
“You look amazing, Ave!” Kayla shouts. Avery gives her a shark-smile and they hug in that cheek-kiss way popular girls do. Avery’s eyes whisk over me and she laughs.
“What are you supposed to be? A drowned rat?”
“Batgirl, you heathen. Duh.”
Avery sighs. “It’s a good thing I invited you. After that fountain stunt you’re the girl to go to for hilarious entertainment at your expense. You don’t mind looking like an idiot, right? Making a fool of yourself? Good. Do that tonight. A lot.”
“You forget yourself, your highness,” I sneer. “But I don’t take orders from you. So you can shove that plastic scepter up your butt and painfully poop it out later.”
Kayla barely manages to contain her laughter until Avery storms away, and then she explodes with it.
“Did you see the look on her face?”
“It won’t last. She feeds on pain and ineptitude and from the look of this crowd-” I glance around at everyone barely getting tipsy. A guy draws a penis on a jack o’ lantern and a girl pulls down an entire string of lights by getting it caught in her angel wings. “- that will be plentiful tonight.”
I wave at Wren, who walks in dressed in green as Link, from the Zelda videogames. He’s even got a cool replica plastic sword. He walks over and shyly blushes.
“H-Hey.”
Kayla sighs. “What are you supposed to be, anyway?”
“Uh, Link?” I inform her. “From Zelda?”
“Who from what? Is that a TV show?”
I roll my eyes at Wren, but he just laughs it off.
“Yeah, it’s a TV show. It came out a long time ago, though.”
“Oh, so it’s like a vintage thing. Cool.” Kayla smiles. A second later she shrieks in my ear.
“There he is!” Kayla squeals. “Promise you won’t drag him into a fountain this time, okay? I want to spend some quality time together tonight!”
I look to where Kayla is pointing – Jack just walked in. I should’ve known – that’s why all the girls in the room are whispering to each other and smiling coyly. My jaw would drop, if I wasn’t so exquisitely in control of my every facial expression. Jack’s got a pirate hat on, but it’s wrapped in a silk handkerchief and has some fake dreads attached to it, woven with beads. His loose white shirt is open, showing his collarbone and just the top of his pecs, with a vest over it and a golden compass hanging from a loop on the breast pocket. A fake sword rests on his hip. His breeches are tucked into his black leather boots, equally worn and dirty looking, and his blue eyes stand out like hard icicles with the smoldering eyeliner smudged around his eyes. He’s the spitting image of -
“Captain Jack Sparrow!” Kayla yells, and leaps into his arms. He smiles at her, then nods at me and Wren.
“Link,” He says. “May the Triforce be with you.”
Wren looks nervous, but he smiles. “Yeah. And with you.”
“Clearly Wren has the Triforce of Wisdom. I’ve got the Triforce of Courage, and you get Power,” I say. “Or not. You don’t get a triforce at all. You’re Ganon.”
Jack smirks. “I could live with being a villain.”
Wren looks impressed. “You play a lot of videogames, Isis?”
“What else does a friendless fat kid do?”
“So this entire time you’ve been calling me a nerd, but you’re secretly one?” Jack quirks a brow.
“Isis just calls e
veryone nerds. It’s her way of saying she likes you.” Kayla smiles.
I flush. “Is not!”
“Is that the best comeback you can come with tonight? ‘Is not’?” Jack makes a ‘tsk’ noise. Kayla leads him over to the kitchen, and pours him some booze. He grimaces at it, but he glances at me and takes a swig. I go in and fix myself a rum and coke, and stand by Jack.
“Do I drive you to drink or something? Thought the Ice Prince doesn’t drink.”
“I don’t. Tonight’s special.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
He jerks his head to Kayla, who squeals with a group of girls and points at Jack, then squeals louder with them.
“She’s excited, cut her some slack.”
“Excitement is not covered by my eardrum healthcare provider.”
“Every girl is excited by their first boyfriend. Let her enjoy it.”
Jack’s quiet. Someone turns on house music. The bass thumps through my chest.
“Did you?” Jack asks.
“Did I what?”
“Enjoy having your first boyfriend?”
“At first.”
I stare at Kayla’s smile, and smile into my own cup.
“At first it was great. It was really great. Held hands. Went on a picnic, once. He didn’t like going in public with me much, since I was a whale. Didn’t kiss, because I was too shy. Mostly we stayed at his house or my house. Talked. Watched TV. Once he brought some pot over and I almost vomited. It was the first I smoked anything, ever.”
“Rebel,” Jack murmurs.
“I know,” I laugh. “I felt so badass. All it did was make me hungry and then I slept for fifteen hours. It wasn’t even fun.”
“But you had fun with him.”
I watch the dark soda bubble, fizz, pop. Soda can corrode stuff. Metal. Stone. I read that somewhere, once.
“Yeah. I had fun. Except it wasn’t real. He was pretending.”
Jack’s patiently quiet. I grin and shove my cup at him.
“I’m gonna go dance. Don’t drug that or anything.”
As I sway to the beat, getting lost in the nest of heat and bodies that is the dance floor, my memories fall away. Music is the best medicine. It blasts away all the thoughts in your head if it’s loud enough, and keeps them away if it’s a good enough song. I don’t ridiculous dance like I did with Wren, but I don’t dance seriously. Can you even dance seriously? Whatever, that’s a question for some tap-dance or jazz snobs. I just dance. Wildly. I throw my arms up and jump and twirl, the orange-and-black of the lights mixing with the alcohol in a pleasant haze. I can observe, however blurrily, the party from the inside out. Someone’s throwing cooked spaghetti at a wall and watching it stick. Knife-guy snuck his way in, dressed up as a serial killer in a blood-spattered apron and a fake cleaver, and he’s talking excitedly with a guy dressed up as a samurai about the fake katana he’s got. Wren’s flitting nervously around Kayla, who’s showing him all the framed baby pictures of Avery tucked behind the fridge so no one could see how embarrassingly fat and bald she used to be. Avery herself is grinding on some tall, dark guy from the swim team. A green alien costume guy slides down the banister on his belly and crashes into a wall, jumps up, and runs up the stairs to do it all over again. And Jack’s looking at me. The music changes to some slowish hip-hop and the party rages on and Avery and the guy are kissing and Kayla and Wren have disappeared and I lean back, into someone’s chest, and I don’t care whose because I’m so tired and so drunk, and I hear the clinking of beads and look up and it’s Jack.
“Shit!” I stumble away, tripping over a couple. The three of us fall in a tangle of limbs and wounded egos, and Jack pulls me up and holds my hand, tight.
“Try not to kill everyone, idiot.”
“Let go of my hand, before I scratch your eyes out.”
“You’re drunk. You’re going to fall over again.”
“I’m perfectly capable of balancing on my own!”
I wobble, and to keep myself from eating vomit-and-glitter-stained carpet, I grab Jack’s arm. The shirt is soft and white under my fingers, but his muscle is taut and smooth.
“Either you go sit down –” Jack says warningly.
“No! I want to stay here with the music!”
“Or you use me as balance. But you’re a little too drunk to dance with any sort of coordination anymore, and I don’t think anyone else wants you grabbing all over them.”
“Screw you,” I snap. “You’re just…you’re just trying to smother me!”
“Yes. In your sleep. So you’ll stop living and Kayla will be all mine,” He deadpans.
I can’t help the laugh that escapes. I sigh and lean back into his chest again. We stand like that, and he stays still, but I sway gently and he starts mimicking me.
“It’s nice not to fall,” I murmur.
“Generally speaking,” He agrees. The music changes, and it’s loud and annoying, and I pull away and go away. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere soft and quiet. I open guest bedroom doors until I find one that doesn’t have a writhing couple on the bed, and close and lock the door behind me. I flop on the soft comforter. Fancy down comforter. Fancy glass lamps twisted like sea kelp. Fancy pictures of the ocean and fancy pillows that smell like lavender. I suck it in and try to make the room stop spinning. The music still thumps below. A weight is sitting on the bed to my side. Jack. I frown and squint up at him.
“Why did you follow me?”
“You dragged me with you.”
I slump into the pillows again, my voice muffled. “Oh.”
I watch him take off his hat, his normal golden-brown hair sticking up slightly.
“You look better without the dumb dreads,” I mumble.
“I thought you liked Johnny Depp?”
“Is that why you dressed up as him? Because I like him?”
Jack makes a show of standing quickly and putting his hat on the farthest chair. “No. Of course not. It was just what I had in my closet from last year.”
“There’s a price tag on your vest.”
The tiniest of cringes passes through him, but he hides it well and turns back to me, eyes all cold and dangerous-looking.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s okay,” I sigh into the pillow. “You don’t have to get all defensive. If you did it for me that’s okay. Weird, but okay.”
The coldness fades from his eyes, and he comes back and sits on the bed.
“You’re so conceited. Like I would ever pick a costume just for you,” He scoffs.
“I know. I was kidding. I know you’d rather…rather throw me in a pit than do something for me. I wouldn’t do anything for you, either.”
Liar.
I roll over, my cape cocooning me like a burrito. I pull my mask off and throw it over the bed.
“I drank too much.”
“I know. I’ll get you some water.”
Instead of fighting it like I know I should, I relent.
“Okay.”
He comes back with a glass of water, and I drink greedily. Some of it slips down my chin and I make a face and wipe it away.
“I’m gross. Look at me – getting all sloppy in front of my mortal enemy. Unexecutable. Inexhaustible. Un…un…under the sea.”
“Inexcusable,” Jack offers.
“Yes!” I point at him. “Yes. That.”
There’s a shriek from downstairs and someone yells ‘oh god I’m bleeding’.
“So if,” I sit up on my elbows. He’s right in front of my face, sitting on the side of the bed, his knee level with my eyes. “So if Kayla makes you have sex, do I owe you money?”
He snorts, and looks down at me. His fingers stop playing with the hem of his shirt.
“I’m not having sex with Kayla.”
“But you’re going out.”
“Not really.”
“You can’t…you can’t string her along like that! She really likes you!”
“And so do a
dozen other girls,” he says wearily.
“Yeah? Well sorry we like you,” I snap.
Jack freezes. I freeze.
“’We’?” He asks.
It all happens so fast, like a shooting star, a lighting bolt; all the feelings I buried, all the things I wanted to say, all my fears batter down the bomb safe doors I’d been keeping over them, helped by booze and exhaustion and emotional bruises that left me soft and ripe for the picking.
“I like you.”
I reach out for his hand, my own trembling. His fingers look so long and slender, and gentle. They feel smooth, and warm. I take hold of a few of them, like they’re a lifeline. A raft in the sea. A rope in a deep hole.
“You smell good,” I say. “And you’re fun to pick on. And I like your mom. You’re smart. Kind of dumb, but also kind of smart. I had fun. With the war. And the kiss. And the date. And you called me beautiful and it was nice. So even if we never battle again, even if you hate me forever for saying I like you, thank you. Thank you a lot -”
I never get to finish.
Jack leans down, his lips on mine, and I roll over and push myself up, and he pushes back, and I’m against the pillows and headboard and he’s kissing me –
- and this time she kisses back. This time she is not shocked into motionlessness. This time there is no one watching. This time she is hungry. This time, she darts her tongue out, kisses the corner of my lips, bites at my bottom one and pulls, hard, and I make a noise between a strangled groan and a hitching of breath. She’s curious, and inexperienced, but curious and stubborn and looking for something, anything, to kiss, anything to put her hands on –
- his neck tastes even better, and his throat is soft, and his adam’s apple goes up and down as he swallows nervously (nervously?) and I pull away and murmur happily against his skin.
“I can feel your pulse on my lips.”
- and she has no idea what she is saying and how it’s wrecking havoc, how it sends a molten jolt of static electricity down my spine, through my stomach, and straight to my crotch. The thin pirate pants betray everything. My own body surprises me – I had no idea it longed for her with this buzzing, frantic intensity. It wants to taste her, tease her, fuck her with the slowest, softest, deepest mercy, the kind that’ll curl her toes and make her beg. I press against her harder and wrap my arm around her waist and she giggles (giggles!) and my every instinct screams at me to move down her body, to pull the ludicrously hot latex suit off inch by inch and drag my mouth over her collarbone, her breasts, her stomach, between her legs until she is screaming for me, screaming and panting my name and she forgets all about that bastard, all about pain, all about sadness –