We Told Six Lies(18)

You made it another few inches before I grabbed your ankle and stopped you from going any farther. I clasped your hips and turned you over, pushing my weight on top of you so you couldn’t move.

“You’ve been caught,” I said, feeling my body react to having you so close.

“I could get away if I wanted,” you said, your voice low, eyes roaming across my face.

“Try and move, then,” I challenged, lowering my face to your neck.

You tried to break away from my hold, but I was too heavy, too intent on keeping you beneath me. Besides, you didn’t want to escape.

I bit down on your neck, and you wrapped your legs around my waist as if to prove my point. A soft moan escaped your mouth. I pushed my hips toward you, and you were there to meet my movements. If I didn’t get off of you right then, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from tearing away your clothes.

Would you have wanted me to stop?

“Is that your brother?” you asked.

I swung my head around and realized you had the photo album open. You were staring up at it from the ground, a victorious smile on your face.

“You used your womanly ways to distract me,” I said.

“Yep.”

“So, you don’t want me to kiss you right now?”

“Nope.”

“Not even a little?”

“I despise kissing.”

I brought my mouth to yours, and you dropped the album. Looped your arms beneath mine and grasped my back. I slipped a hand beneath your rear and gently squeezed as I traced your lips with my tongue, my teeth. As I trailed kisses down your neck then back to your mouth. You tasted like chocolate, and I smiled against your mouth, knowing I’d find the top of an M&Ms bag in your pocket if I looked.

How many times had we kissed like this? A hundred? A thousand? With your arms around me and my lips on your skin, we were alive as two people could be.

I slid my hand into your hair, and though it unnerved me to do it, I pulled on it. Just a little. Just to see what you might do.

You pulled me closer. You rocked against me harder.

Your hands slipped beneath my shirt, and you dug your fingers into my shoulders.

You gave another intoxicating moan and let your head fall back. Excitement rolled through me, wondering what else I could try that’d cause you to make that sound.

“We should stop,” you said.

I rolled off of you but kept my arm beneath your head. I didn’t want you to move too far away. I still needed your warmth.

You flipped onto your stomach, and I moved my arm so it draped across your back.

“You’re not going to leave it alone, are you?” I said.

You grinned and pulled the album toward you. “I’m curious.”

“Curiosity skinned the cat.”

“Killed the cat. Not skinned. You are so disturbing.”

“Whatever.”

You opened the album, and the first picture I saw was one of Holt and me. We were in our soccer uniforms, standing on the field. I had grass stains on my shirt, and he had dirt smudged on his cheek. Holt had an orange Popsicle in his hand, its tip pointed toward the ground as he smiled for the camera.

I was looking at Holt.

Smiling at him.

“You idolized him,” you said.

I tried to hide my smile, but I couldn’t help it.

“When do I get to meet him?”

“He usually comes home on the weekends,” I said. “But he’s got finals coming up. Maybe during winter break?”

You nodded and looked back at the album, flipped through page after page of me sitting on my dad’s lap. Of me making cookies with my mom. Of Holt and I opening Christmas presents. Of Holt and I waving from bunk beds.

You flipped to blank pages. “What? That’s it?”

I got up and moved to my bed. Sat on the edge and avoided your gaze. “Mom stopped taking pictures after a while.”

You sat up, crossed your legs. “Why?”

I shrugged.

I didn’t think you’d understand, so I didn’t want to tell you. Not yet. But I felt the words boiling inside my chest anyway, working their way up my throat, sizzling on my tongue with the need to be exorcised.

“Cobain,” you ventured. “Your home is nice enough. You don’t have any major problems with your family. So something else had to have happened to you. Something made you…the way you are.”

I looked directly into your too-green eyes. “How am I?”

“Quiet,” you offered. “You block people out. You dress in head-to-toe black. You have that giant tattoo on your forearm. The music you listen to, the art you like…” You motioned to my wall. “It’s pretty dark.”

I lowered my gaze, but you were there to grab my chin. To lift my eyes back to yours. “I like it,” you said with a nod of your head and a fiendish grin. “But I also want to know why.”

I pulled away. Blurted it out. “I got sick.”

Your forehead furrowed. “Sick how?”

I shook my head, and you must have seen it then—the shadow of something more. You could sniff out the darkness, find people’s weaknesses. You didn’t use that knowledge against them, exactly, but you would use it to get what you needed. It sounds the same, but it’s not.

You pushed yourself up from the floor and moved toward me like a predator. You wanted what was in my head. Wanted to clasp it between your hands and inspect it up close.