cameron makes a pass at you on the lake.
(secretly, you're kind of flattered. you've never been especially close- you prefer his sister, for reasons both obvious and not; but his attempt at courtship is gentle, a spooked foal huddling closer during a thunderstorm, his soft fingers around your elbow, and it's nice, to be considered in that way.)
you count six freckles on his nose before you lean away, the faint ring of contacts around his eyes like thunderstorms, like fine china, his pupils great black lakes in the sky. you think, ridiculously, of a magritte -
l'oiseau de ciel, frances or someone showed it to you -
the bird in the sky, the sky in the bird, cameron's eyes big gray-blue-black sweet and bright and apologizing softly. 'ah,' he says, like he's won a small bet or received some trivial news; 'alright.'
you sit out on the lawn with him, neatly slotted between him and frances, and they murmur to each other in greek when they think you're sleeping, a mug of rum on a sloping, grassy angle, your fingers offering no stability. even in stillness it looks like the work of a drunk and cameron says something about drugs, a turn of phrase about dionysus and ecstasy, and frances laughs in that droll, humorless way she does, and you assume it's drugs, don't you, because what else would it be.
you're drunk anyway. your head is on someone's warm shoulder and the crickets are out in force and somewhere charlotte is arguing with bunny about the rules of something-or-other and you're drifting aimlessly.
YOU ARE READING
nullius creaturae expers
Mystery / Thrillershe's a living corpse with one eye unfocused and rolling in the socket, the scar below her bangs puckered and ugly. she's something horrible and lovely and you are sick with want. her hair is damp, dark, makes you think of running your fingers throu...
