Xx_RubyJane: come over
Lalalalisa_97: right now?
Xx_RubyJane: we can swim. pool just got cleaned.
I look down at my arm, where the tiny patch of poison oak has mostly faded, thanks to Jennie's quick treatment. The chlorine is probably not going to help, but I'm not going to turn down an invitation from her. Especially after that party.
Lalalalisa_97: on my way
***
It's been a week. We've talked and she stopped by once, but apparently her mom was pissed about her breaking curfew and made her babysit Suzy all week, so we've mostly been chatting on Messenger.
Biking over there is like flying down the roads, every light turning green just for me, urging me on. I get there in record time, and when she opens the door, she's smiling like seeing me is just what she needed.
"Oh my God, finally." She grabs my arm and pulls me inside. "Mom took Suzy to get frozen yogurt, and I wasn't allowed to go."
"Still being punished, huh?"
"In her mind. But she never lets us get good toppings. Only healthy ones."
I make a face. "No sprinkles?"
"Sprinkles are a birthday thing."
"Sprinkles should be an everyday thing," I say, thinking about my mom and her love of Funfetti cake. She'd always add extra sprinkles.
I follow Jennie through the house, trying not to react this time when she tosses her shirt off before we even get outside to the pool. Her red bikini is all strings and strategically placed triangles, and all I can think about is how her shoulders felt under my hands. How her legs tangled with mine as we slept, her toes tickling the arches of my feet as she breathed against my neck. Her arm held me so tight, it was like even in sleep, she was afraid of what would happen if she let go. Like I'd run.
But the truth is, the second I slipped into her bed, wrapped in her clothes, I was gone.
She dives into the pool, so smooth she barely makes a splash, and I'm still catching up, watching her instead of stripping down to my own suit. I undress, but I don't jump in. I use the steps, letting my body get used to the water, cool against my heated skin. I swim toward her.
She spits water at me as soon as I get close, and I laugh, dodging backward, splashing her in turn, and she flips over like a mermaid, shimmying off. Her dark hair's a blur that I follow beneath the water.
Floating around, just the two of us, is like catching starlight. Like she's bottled it up and spilled it out for us to play in. I drink it in, swirling around her, splashing and laughing. The longer it goes on, the closer we get, until our bodies aren't just brushing by each other, but twisting around each other, and then my back's pressed against the pool edge and her hands are on either side, so close.
"What are you looking at?" I ask her.
"You," she says.
I blink, not knowing how to answer. We're in the deep end; the only thing that's keeping me up is the sloped wall of the pool and my treading feet. But every time I move my feet, I bob forward. Close enough to touch but never quite getting there.
All I can think about is the press of her body against my back—how her knees fit into the crooks of my legs, two peas in a pod of our own making. That secret shelter of her bed, where no one could touch us.
"I wish we had some weed," she says. "I haven't gotten high since the night of the party."
"I think I read that if you look someone in the eye for a few minutes, you can get high," I say.
"Really?"
I nod. "It's got something to do with the brain chemicals."
"Ooh, Lili the Scientist," Jennie says. "Let's do it!"
"You want me to stare at you?"
"Am I that bad to look at?" she asks, batting her eyes in a way that tells me there's not a shred of insecurity behind it.
"You're ridiculous and you know it."
She pouts, which makes her even cuter, and she probably knows that, too. "I want to get high!"
"Okay. Fine." I square my shoulders and hold the pool's edge so I'm steadier. I take a breath, looking at her.
She stares back, and suddenly I'm cursing myself for suggesting this silly game, because now she's the one bobbing back and forth, in and out of my space. If I reach out, I could hook my arm around her waist. I could slide my fingers up her back, tangle with the red strings of her bikini, and ...
Maybe there is something to the whole staring-makes-you-high thing, because my head's spinning, but maybe that's just her.
Her eyes are that golden-warm that makes you fall into them, swirling in the heat until you can't imagine anything cold ever again. They shift darker against the red of her suit and the damp slick of her hair, but in the light, they shift to honey with flecks of something deeper that you want to spend your life chasing.
I could spend my life chasing her. Devotedly. Doggedly.
But she could spend her life running. I might never catch up with her. That's what's so scary about it.
"What are you thinking?" I whisper, because I have to ask. I need to know.
She licks her lips, and I can't help it, my eyes dip down and they stay for too long. She has to notice. I'm close to not caring.
She wouldn't act like this if she didn't feel it too. She wouldn't.
"I..." she starts to say.
A beach ball comes sailing out of nowhere, hitting me hard in the head, laughter breaking through the silence.
"Kai!" Jennie shouts as I startle away from the ball, caught so off guard that I suck in water. I surface, coughing and sputtering.
"Shit, Lisa, are you okay?" Rosie asks, hurrying over.
"Fine," I choke out, but I take her offered hand and let her pull me out of the water. I plop myself down on the edge of the pool and cough into my fist, my throat burning, the tang of chlorine thick in my mouth.
"Poor thing," Jennie says, patting my thigh.
"I'm fine," I say, eyes sliding back up to Kai. "I'm gonna dry off."
I get up and stalk past him to the stack of towels, hoping he'll leave me alone. So of course he comes right up to me as I hear Jennie ask Rosie if she has any weed.
"Look what you did." Kai thrusts his arm out at me. It's puckered with a nasty rash that oozes. I rear back from it.
"Ew," I say, wrapping myself in a towel. "Get away from me with that."
"This is your fault."
"Didn't you treat it with that lotion stuff?" I ask him.
He rolls his eyes. "I didn't have time to pick any up."
"Oh my God," Jennie exclaims behind us. "What happened?"
Kai's eyes get big and pitiful.
"The poison oak got me, babe," he says, all pathetically, and my stomach turns as she falls for his bullshit and hurries over. "I did the lotion thing like you told me," he lies. "But I must've been in a worse patch of it when Lisa made us hide in the gully."
"Oh, that looks awful," she says. "How have you been treating it since it broke out?"
"I dunno."
"Kai," she scolds. "You know better than that. Let me get the first aid kit. You need some calamine on that."
"You're the best," Kai says, but he's not looking at her when he says it; he's looking at me, his eyes gleaming.
I look away, swallowing back the sick feeling rising in my throat.
You should watch out for him, Hanni had told me. I'm starting to really see why.
He isn't just a jerk. He's manipulative as fuck.
I want to get as far away from Kai as possible, but I don't want to leave her, so I go over to where Rosie is sitting, her feet dangling in the water.
"How you been?" she asks.
"Okay. You?"
"Busy," she says. "I had family visiting."
"Is that good or bad?"
"My aunts make tamales—always a good thing. But I have to entertain my cousins. And they are exhausting."
"How old are they?" I ask.
She opens her mouth to answer, but Kai's voice rises over whatever she's about to say: "Don't put that stuff on me! It's pink!"
"Kai." Jennie sighs. I turn to look at the lounge chairs, where she's set up the first aid kit. She's trying to smear some calamine lotion on his arm. "You've gotta let me treat that. It's gross."
"I can't have pink stuff all over my arm. Get me something that's not girly."
I can't help it, I laugh, keeping it under my breath. We're across the pool from them, so Kai doesn't hear, but Rosé does.
"Don't you know even making contact with something pink will turn you gay?" she asks sarcastically, grinning at me and rolling her eyes. "He's right to be so worried."
"Festering, itchy wounds is totally better than exposing yourself to the dreaded pink," I agree solemnly.
Rosie's eyes crinkle and we laugh together, loud enough that Jennie looks over.
"What are you two giggling about?" she demands.
"Nothing," Roro says, so innocently it makes me laugh harder.
"Can you please explain to him that he needs to have the lotion on his arm?" Jennie asks Rosé. "This is ridiculous," she tells Kai.
"Get me a different color calamine lotion."
"Man, the active ingredient in the stuff turns it pink," Rosie says. "Just deal. If you don't let it heal, you're gonna end up with poison oak on your nethers."
Kai's eyes widen comically. "Give me the calamine stuff," he says instantly.
"See? Easy," Roro says to me.
"You're truly a master."
"Okay, all done," Jennie says, putting the calamine lotion away. "You need to let it dry. And you need to put more of it on tomorrow. Remember what Rosie said."
"You always take care of me," Kai says, wrapping his just-treated and still totally contagious arm around Jennie, trying to pull her close.
"Kai!" she protests, pushing him away.
"We should get going."
She's still frowning at him, her nose all scrunched up.
"Where?"
"Rosé's parents are on vacation, remember? We're going to hang. Say bye to Lisa and get your stuff. Hurry up." He pushes her lightly to get her going, but she plants her feet, her scowl deepening to a glower that I've never seen on her face before. I'm petty enough to admit that I like that she seems so pissed at him all of a sudden.
"What the fuck, Kai? Lisa's invited, too," Rosie says. "I'd love for you to come," she says to me with a smile.
"Thanks," I say.
"No thanks," Jennie says firmly, coming over and grabbing my arm. "Lisa and I have other plans."
"What kind of plans?" Kai demands.
"None of your business!" Jennie trills. "You're not in charge of my schedule, Kai."
"Whatever," he says and stomps off like a pissed-off toddler.
"I'll see you girls later," Rosie says.
"Honestly," Jennie says, pulling on her shorts and shirt. I follow her but barely have time to finish buttoning my shorts before she's walking again. "He's so obvious." She liberates a bottle of vodka from the bar cart by the pool, tucking it under her shirt. "Let's go to our spot on the tracks."
"Near the bridge?"
She nods.
"Has he always been this possessive?" I ask, trying to make it sound as casual as possible as we head down her long driveway. I can't get what Hanni said about Kai out of my head.
"Like all guys," she says.
"You keep saying stuff like that."
She looks over her shoulder, shooting me a confused look. "What are you talking about?"
"You keep talking about all this bad shit that Kai does, usually to you, and you keep saying all guys do that."
"Yeah?"
"I don't think they do. I just think the shitty ones act like that."
Her eyebrows rise so swiftly my instinct is to backtrack. "How would you know?" she asks.
But instead, I meet her, barb for barb. I'm ready for her bullshit.
"Oh, you know me," I say, breezing past her. "I told you about all those parties where I danced on tables. You think I haven't had my share of rendezvous with men? I've left a trail of hearts behind me!" I waggle my eyebrows, making it sound as silly and exaggerated as possible, and she bursts out laughing, all the tension in her body transforming into joy for a moment. "There you are," I say, which makes her go quiet, too fast, like a CD skipping.
"Kai's not always bad," she insists. "I know he wanted to ditch everyone at the barn...."
"That was pretty quick thinking, getting his keys," I say, grabbing my bike.
"It's not the first time I've had to do that," she says before jumping on her bike. She sails ahead of me, her hair streaming out behind her like a silk scarf as I pump my pedals to catch up.
We leave our bikes at the spot near the tracks, leaning them against the trees where they won't be found. Jennie tiptoes along the rail, her hands held out for balance, jumping back and forth in a zigzag along the tracks on her tippy-toes. There's a coltish grace in her; I see why she wins all the competitions. When she's feeling it, you can't take your eyes off her. When she's unguarded? She's incandescent.
She'd shine so brightly if she let herself. If she knew herself, trusted herself.
But who the fuck am I to talk? I can barely trust my own heart and the breath in my lungs around her. It's like she sucks it all out of me—my breath and my heart and all the pieces of my soul that are left.
"When I was little," Jennie announces, her voice grandiose enough to let me know that the vodka she'd shot was kicking in. "My mom used to put me in these little cupcake dresses, and the skirts would fly up when I twirled." She spins on one foot on the rail, a slow-motion twirl that has her laughing and almost falling. "So of course, my mom told me to stop twirling. It wasn't ladylike. And we must be ladylike." Jennie shakes her head back and forth, jabbering to imitate her mother. "Be ladylike and still, Jennie. Movement is for dance class and competition and not anywhere else." She sighs, her shoulders slumping. "She's doing the same thing to Suzy. She's gonna kill her love of it."
"Is that what she did to you?"
Jennie's silent, staring out at the bridge ahead. "I'll race you," she says.
"Jennie—" I start to say, but she's already making a run for it.
"I swear to God, this girl," I mutter to myself, and then I dash after. I can't see her; the curve in the tracks disappears into the trees here, and when I hear the whistle of the train, the fear is like an electric shock to my entire body.
"Jennie!" I pelt forward, taking the blind curve so fast the world blurs around me. All I can see is her, standing there, vodka bottle in one hand, her back to the train that's heading toward her.