Explicit [GirlxGirl - Complete]

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Lianna opens the turning table lid. Her fingers hover over the stack of records. She wiggles them, sensing them with just the tips of her fingers. She looks ridiculous. But when her eyes close and she selects a record at random—or by the pull of the universe—I fall deeper into whatever is happening between us. She pulls the record out, wipes away the dust, and sets it on the turning table.

A crackling noise fades into the scratchy voice of a woman. She sings about injustice and the fall of man. I don't know her, I don't know what she lived through, but it's as if she singing the words that are painted on the inside of my chest. The colors mix with the words, the pain drifting in and out as my thoughts are doing right now. I stare at the space between Lianna and the turntable. The box of records is full of her memories.

And then there are the pictures. The ones in my hands now are of the forest, the brick walls of the school that had caged us in, and the setting sun above the convenience store at the corner. Each picture highlights a piece of Lianna. She's free, chained, and flying all at once. I chasing after her, wanting to take a piece for myself, but she only smiles back at me. She knows she can't be caught.

She hops onto the bed. It shakes under her weight. Her blond hair falls down on my cheeks as she hovers above me.

I want to trace her nose with the tip of my finger. I want to paint the plains of her face and drift from this hot day into a cold winter night with our bodies pressed one another. This urgent feeling came upon me so fast, I was struck, frozen by the strange lust that filled my body. Lianna knew this feeling better than I did. She knew how to handle it; she knew how to work it to her advantage.

I was afraid of it.

She leaned down. Her nose touches mine. The music surrounds us as our heavy breaths mix. I turn my head right went she leans to kiss me. Her lips press against my jaw. They slide down and they're resting on my neck. She presses them to my pulse.

My hands clench the bedsheets. The pictures crumple in my hand. I force my eyes open and my fingers apart so I don't damage her photographs.

"Maya..."

I gently push her away from me. She rolls to the side of the bed.

"I don't want to do this. Not right now."

She nods, but there's hesitation.

This isn't her fault. I was the one so determined to flush out the vile things in the school. I had no idea what was waiting for me on the other side of that door.

The flashes of those images won't leave me alone. I can just see her, there, gagging as he forced her to do the unimaginable.

I squeezed my eyes close until it hurt, hoping that someway the pain would make all the memories go away as well. There was no treatment for this. I knew the truth and I'd wanted to know it since Lianna had shown me to scare me. When this began, she'd thought of it only as a game. Looking back at it now, I wondered what had happened to her to make her so cold.

Without realizing it, I was lumping her into the same pile I was lumping coach.

The teachers might know about this too.

I was sick to my stomach. I placed my hand over my stomach, a futile attempt to make the feeling go away.

"Did you know?"

A beat passed.

I was breaking my own words. Though in my head, I was screaming for Lianna to not answer, I had to know. The curiosity was tearing me apart. I already knew what was going on. I just hoped that there hadn't been anything I could've done to prevent it.