another side

chapter nine

We started seeing each other quite regularly after that. After school, at weekends. She would always appear at my door. Half the time she would just smile at me and, knowing my family's schedule practically by heart, leap on me and take me straight to bed. Other times she'd offer me a hand and we would go for a walk together, talking about a weird concoction of nothing and everything at the same time. We never left our cul-de-sac, circling it like a flock of birds and hiding our entangled fingers in the pocket of her off-white faux fur coat. In a little town where everyone knows everyone it was a risk for us to have been out together in the first place, but we took it. Luckily the only people who ever noticed were our parents who never really thought much of it. Well, and Maya actually, but she was too polite to say anything. I didn't know what she thought was going on.

It felt pretty good. The only thing was, anytime anything got a bit too romantic or serious, Carmen withdrew completely. There would be a short while where I would only see her when she wanted to sleep with me until she calmed down again. It ached like the wound of a thousand arrows when she was like that. I wouldn't deny her what she wanted because I would give anything to be near her, but it destroyed me that she didn't want to completely be with me. Every time she coiled her body around mine or spoke in her sweet, hushed tones I fell harder for her, but every time I tried to let her know she went stiff and pulled away.

During one of these times I was sitting at home with Maya, playing Jack Change It with a pack of old cards she had found while cleaning out her room. My mum had bought them on a flight, so they all had little pictures of planes on the back.

"Pick up two." I said, slamming the two of hearts triumphantly down on the pile.

She responded by swiftly placing the two of diamonds on top.

"Pick up four." She chimed.

"Oh, fuck you." I muttered, counting out my cards from the other pile and adding them to my collection. I had been so close to winning, God dammit. I used my two too soon.

"Jack change it to spades." Maya said as she placed her card down. I prepared the seven of spades in my hand, but I dropped my cards the second the door knocked. I was sure Carmen must have come round, ready to be a real couple again. She knew Maya would be here, so she knew coming for sex would have been redundant. Maya rolled her eyes as I sprang up and answered the door. It was Carmen alright, but she didn't look like she was about to go for her walk.

She wasn't wearing much – certainly not her fluffy coat and little bobble hat she wore when we went walking together. She looked tired as hell and had tried to smother that with makeup. She looked ready to kill.

"Hey-" I began, but she stopped me with her lips against mine. I jumped back. "Carmen, my sister is here!"

"She is?" Carmen's smile – fake as it already may have been – dropped like a penny. "Okay then."

She immediately turned and began walking up the street. I wanted to shout out to her, to hold her hand, to have her pet my hair, but all I could do was crumble.

Pathetic sobs escaped my lips and I felt the tap of tears turned on and my cheeks dampen. I crumpled into a ball on my doorstep, heaving breaths and making god awful squeaking sounds. I had thought Carmen was long gone, but when I looked up after my fit had ended she was hovering there, blocking the light. She held out her hand to me.

We stopped back at her house and she grabbed her coat off the hook, opting to wrap it around me instead of wearing it. She still said nothing, but her thumb gently brushing off the top of my hand was enough to help me to breathe. She led me to a little wall where I could remember my sister and I sitting when it snowed at Christmas and building snowmen with carrot noses. We sat down, wordless as ever, but when I put my head on her shoulder she entangled her nails in my hair.