Black Iris

Tracing scars.

Just giving you all a warning – this chapter gets spicy. Very low key spicy, but like, it's there. So don't say I didn't warn you.

Rose

Her lips, barely touching my collarbone. Her fingers, tracing my sides. Her braids, nestled against my cheek, twisting through my own hair. And all the while, warmth. The afternoon sun streaming through her windows, casting a spotlight on us. Her dark skin glowing golden beside me. Her brown eyes, glancing up in between gentle kisses.

"I don't want this moment to end," I whispered to her. She murmured into my skin in agreement.

We were both quiet for a moment, listening to the world around us. The birds chirping in the trees above. The river running nearby. And in the distance, the chatter of voices and the echo of laughter, the other campers in their free time, hanging by the river or by the dining hall.

"Do you think you loved her?" Charlie whispered into the quiet. The question caught me off guard, and for a second, my mind went to Gwen. When I looked at her, though, I could tell that wasn't what she meant.

"Jordan?" I whispered. When she nodded slightly, I replied, "Yeah."

She went quiet again. After a beat, I asked. "Do you think you loved him?"

She didn't need any clarification. There was only one guy I could the talking about. The boy that had toyed with her all year, yet she couldn't seem to let go of.

She nodded, and murmured, "Yeah."

I felt a twinge of pain in my chest at that, but I knew I shouldn't have. Charlie didn't seem to notice.

We were quiet for another few moments, and I felt her hand brush against my hip, inches from my scars. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about the thin white lines marring my flesh.

"Do you think you're over her?" She asked, her voice barely audible.

No, I thought. How could I be over her? She was the first girl I ever loved. The girl I first kissed. The girl that made me feel I was more than my parents. She was the girl that first made me feel special.

The girl that left me alone in that car park. The girl that didn't come back in time. The girl that didn't save me. That couldn't save me.

"Yes," I answered.

Because I had to be. If I wasn't, she could still hurt me. Even though she had done nothing wrong, she had still hurt me.

In that moment, I thought back to the first and only time we slept together after.

I had been out of hospital for about a month, and, initially against my will, Jordan had dragged me to go see a movie. It was some awful comedy that we both absolutely hated but loved to make fun of, and afterwards, we had gone back to her place. We toasted some pop tarts, then climbed up to her rickety old treehouse in the backyard. It was the same treehouse where we'd first had sex, so long before, and I could tell we were both thinking about it as we settled amongst the pillows.

We ate our pop tarts, and talked about the movie, and life, and the most random of things. In that treehouse, for the first time in a long time, I had felt normal. And when the sun set, we turned on the fairy lights strung above us, and something in the warm glow and the sugar on my lips made me ache for her.

So, without letting the feeling fade away, I had leaned across and kissed her, reaching for the hem of her dress. Startled, she had pulled away, gently grabbed my hands.

"Hey, are you sure?" She asked me.

"I'm sure," I had whispered.

Then I had kissed her, and I felt my body heat up, the way it should, and it was Jordan, my Jordan, and she'd felt so familiar and so foreign at the same time, and I lifted her dress and leant down to kiss her, moving my legs to either side of her hips. We fell into a rhythm, and my hands had slipped under fabric and she shivered and writhed beneath me, her breath slipping out in moans until she was there, riding the edge, whimpering softly, then gasping, curling into me, gripping my arm. Breathing.

When she had calmed a little, she had reached for my shirt, wanting to reciprocate, wanting to give me what I had given her. A part of me had wanted that too. But when she lifted my shirt over my head, her eyes fell onto my scars and her face fell. She had tentatively lifted a hand, barely touching the barely-healed carving above my hip. I had looked down at the jarring letters and suddenly wanted to scream at her, wanted to curse her, wanted to get as far as I could from her.

Not because I was scared of her, or thought she would ever do to me what Blake and Gwen did.

But rather, for an entirely different, horrible, cruel, and selfish reason.

And as much as I had cited when we broke up of how I was holding her back, hurting her, and keeping her in the past, I didn't break up with her because of that.

I broke up with her because every time I looked at her from that point onwards, I couldn't help but think, why wasn't it her?

A thought that I hated, but a thought that plagued me nonetheless.

Charlene's fingers brushed against the scars and I shut my eyes, forcing myself to focus on the cabin, on the sound of the birds, and the river, and the laughter in the distance.

"It will be dinnertime soon," Charlie said quietly. "We should head over. People will start to worry."

"Can't we just let them worry?" I murmured. 

She hummed. After a moment, she pushed herself up.

"Come on," she said, her voice louder this time, breaking the peaceful moment. "Before anyone notices we've been gone."

She went to grab her clothes to get dressed again, slowly getting ready to return to the real world, and I watched her, as she wrapped her braids into a loose plait and fiddled with some stray baby hairs. And I forced myself to let it all go.

Jordan was gone. She wasn't here. I had to move on.

So, I gently grabbed Charlie's hand, and tugged her back into the sheets. "Come on," I whispered. "One more round before we go back to the real world."

And she seemed like she wanted to protest, but then I started to kiss her neckline and her arguments turned to quiet moans.

"Oh, baby, those lips are going to be the death of me," she whispered, and I just grinned and crawled under the covers, shifting my body down.

And she shivered and writhed, her hand twisting through my hair, moving me where she wanted to, and her breath slipped out in moans until she was there, riding the edge, whimpering softly, then gasping, crying out, pulling me up and kissing me. Then, breathing. Breathing.

And when she rolled me over so she was on top, I didn't stop her. I didn't want to. And I didn't need to.

And I shivered, and writhed, and whimpered until I was there, and then, gasping, relaxing, shutting my eyes in the euphoria. And Charlie, gently wrapping her arms around me and resting her head in the crook of my neck.

"Thank you," I whispered.

She hummed, and kissed my shoulder.

"More than enough," she whispered. "You are more than enough, Ophelia Alto."

And I shut my eyes, and let the warmth envelope me.