21 WAIT AND DROWN IN DUST
21
W AIT AND D ROWN IN D UST
Finch’s apartment in Tuck House was so different from the Manor. It had her all over it—towers of books both read and unread, stumps of candles on various surfaces, sketches pinned to the walls. Her shoes stood by the door like they were waiting for permission to leave. Her kettle was in the sink, lid off. She answered the door as if I’d caught her in the middle of something—dark hair a little damp, the collar of a T-shirt poking past her crewneck, a star-shaped pimple patch on her jaw.
“Jesus Christ, Jo,” she said as she closed the door behind me. The deadbolt slid home, and I flinched at the sound. The exhale she released let me know that it hadn’t gone unnoticed. I shrugged my backpack off, let it hit the floor with a thud, and toed my dirty sneakers off. “Did something cut your cheek? Is there blood on your jeans?”
Yes, and yes. I touched my cheek gingerly and felt thin lacerations beneath my fingers. She pulled my fingers away, suddenly so close that I could smell her—the cool mint of having just brushed her teeth, something she did every time she ate. A faint wisp of weed clinging to her clothes. The clean apple of her cologne.
“You should have told me how bad it was,” she muttered, dragging her thumb over my cheekbone, sliding all the way down to my jaw. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t reveal the way I wanted to lean into her grasp. “I hate when you lie.”
“I’m fine.”
“What did I just say? Give it up already, I’m not Caroline.”
“I don’t lie to Caroline.”
“You lie to everyone. Caroline just lets you get away with it the most.”
Finch slid her hand away and left me cold and missing it. I opened my eyes to find her surveying me again in that close, scrutinizing way. “You should shower. You can borrow something.”
I didn’t protest. I accepted the towel she thrust at me and the bundle of sweatpants and hoodie. In the bathroom I put them to my nose and shut my eyes again, breathed deep the familiar scent of her. The shower was a good idea—Rotham’s water heaters were notoriously junky but I got about ten minutes before the spray went frigid.
I found her in the kitchen again as I toweled off my hair, cozy in her clothes. My pulse still hadn’t slowed. She was smoking, the window over the sink cracked open a few inches. Blustery air blew in.
“Want a drink?” Finch asked me around the joint in her lips. She ashed it in the sink’s basin. I hovered in the doorway, feeling vulnerable there in her clothes, too-big socks on my feet.
“What do you have?”
“Whiskey, beer, gin, some old wine, as long as you smell it first and make sure it hasn’t turned into vinegar.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I’ll take the beer, thanks.”
She bent to peer into the fridge and emerged with two of the pilsners she liked, opened both bottles and passed one over. I felt the heat in her palm as our hands brushed, immediately replaced with the cold bottle. Smoke curled around me like a beckoning arm.
Finch gestured to the living area with her drink and I obeyed, following her into the room. It was really just a ratty couch and a table propped up with more books. The pillows on the couch were flattened and imprinted with the shape of Finch’s head.
“How are you feeling?”
I shrugged and tugged haplessly on the hoodie’s strings at my neck. “Shitty.”
Finch pointed the bottle at me. “Finally, honesty. I like it when you listen.”
I blushed. The sound that left my mouth was meant to be a scoff, but it faltered. Either she pretended not to notice or didn’t care. She flopped down on the couch and patted the seat beside her. I obeyed, sat and pulled my knees up to my chest, pressed my chin against the fabric of her sweatpants. The name of her high school stretched over one thigh. There was a little hole worn in the pocket.
“Are you gonna tell me what happened?”
It was already entombed somewhere unreachable. A mechanism for safety—erasing that unreality, a weak attempt at moving forward without losing myself in the process. What other option did I have? It was impossible to keep going with that scream in my ears.
I handed her my phone by way of answering. Finch turned it around and whistled at the shattered screen. “Damn, that sucks. You’ll have to go into the city to get a new one. Maybe we can stop tomorrow, after we pick up Amrita.” She looked at me from under her lashes, her eyes the same warm amber of the bottle in her hands. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, seriously. It was a deer in the road, I just swerved not to hit it.” The lie was necessary. She’d clown me if I told the truth—the boar felt so ridiculous now, so obvious in its pointed hurt. I could not trust my eyes or my heart. I kept both trained on her throat as she swallowed.
“Not supposed to do that,” she muttered, shaking her head, and for a moment I thought she was referring to my staring.
Irritation took over when I realized. “I had a lot on my mind. I didn’t exactly remember the textbook walk-through of what to do when an animal is in the road.”
“That’s too long of a drive, especially by yourself. I would have picked you up from the airport.”
“I wanted to be home now, on my terms.”
Now she just shook her head. Clearly the word home had done something to her. I could see it in the way she wouldn’t meet my eyes, her free hand squeezing her thigh, fingers curling in denim.
“It’s hot in here,” I said, mostly to run from that conversation.
“Want to sit on the fire escape?” Finch asked around a mouthful of beer. A drop clung to the corner of her mouth. I wanted to swipe my finger there like she had done to me, but I just nodded instead. She hefted our jackets off the hook by the door, and I followed as she crossed the room to where her bed was made up and hauled the window open. Feet first, she slid her body through the opening and out into the crisp evening.
I threw my coat on and repeated her process, awkwardly, throwing one leg over the sill and out onto the fire escape. I’d lived in this building last year and never felt sure of the fire escape’s structural integrity, but either Finch trusted it or didn’t seem to care. She slid to the left, and I filled the spot beside her. The metal was cold even through her borrowed clothes—December bit the air. I pulled my jacket tighter.
“Chilly now?” Finch asked. She threw her arm around me and pulled me into her. I rested my head on her shoulder and breathed deep. The scent of her deodorant, earthy and masculine, made me feel safe. One hand toyed with a damp strand of my hair. “You’re going to catch a cold like this. Especially if you keep drinking that.”
“It’s alright,” I answered, though I wasn’t sure if I meant the cold or the beer as I took a pull from the bottle, folding in on myself to hold the warmth in. Finch’s hand rubbed lazy circles against the fabric of my jacket.
“If I say something, promise me you won’t get mad,” Finch said. I kept my eyes shut. Whatever she said I didn’t want to see it, bright and shapeless in front of me.
“I won’t get mad,” I answered.
“You will, but don’t use it against me.”
“I’m not going to use it against you,” I insisted. Even heavy on my tongue, it tasted like the truth. I would have said anything to keep her hand on me.
Finch drank and I felt her head turn to watch the trees move in the wind. I cracked my eyes open and followed her gaze. It was nearly midnight, and I still held fast to the stories of Mother Crone coming out after dark. Anything could be imagined from the silhouettes of the humanoid topiaries. I wondered if we might be able to spot the Manor if we stood and peered down the promenade, wondered if it was still empty.
“I don’t think it’s good for you, being in that house,” Finch said at last. “I think it’s taking a toll on you.”
I stiffened. “What does a car accident have to do with the Manor?”
“It’s not just a car accident, Jo. You’re distracted all the time. You have this distant look in your eyes like you’re never fully there. Something’s wrong, and you won’t tell any of us what’s happening.”
Any of us. I knew she meant that I refused to tell her, that my silence got under her skin.
“I’m fine,” I answered immediately. Finch sighed. “I swear. I’ve just been stressed over these last few weeks with Survey and my family and everything. Holidays always take a toll on me, and I don’t want to let Moody down.”
“You don’t want to disappoint Moody or the rest of them in the Manor? I love them too, Jo, but painting isn’t life or death. It’s supposed to be something good, something that you do because you want to.”
“Maybe for you,” I snapped, sitting up. “If I don’t have this, I don’t have anything. I have to prove that I’m worth the time, the money, the effort. You’re automatically good at everything you do. It’s different.”
Finch tilted her chin up at me. “Don’t talk about things you don’t understand.”
I scoffed. “And don’t talk to me like I’m Caroline. We have the same goals.”
“I’m just trying to say that it’s not the end of the world if you don’t live up to whatever expectation Caroline has of us. We don’t all have to be twenty-three and showing at the Whitney—you can make what you want and figure the rest out along the way. There’s no time limit. Solo is Solo. Life will continue after it, regardless of the outcome.”
Everything shook. I pressed my hands down into my lap to disguise the shiver. “But what if I want the same thing that she does? Is it so wrong for me to want to be good at what I love?”
Something passed in front of the lights lining the sidewalk. It cast us in a beat of dark as the trees rustled. Someone whooped, distant and joyful. I could almost picture Caroline with her head tipped back and her hands cupped around her mouth, delight spilling out into the dark.
Finch dragged a hand through my hair and let it linger. I kept my eyes trained on the divot above her top lip, the little scar beside her cupid’s bow. “You’re good already, Jo.”
I shook my head, pushed it into her palm. I’d die if she took her hand away. It was like a third arm propelling me forward, keeping me upright.
“You don’t belong to them,” Finch said, under her breath. Her pupils were blown wide. I wanted to run my finger along the edge of her iris until my hand passed through her face. “You’re your own person.”
Maybe, once. But I hadn’t belonged to myself since the Boar King. Since the stick-and-pokes in the kitchen branding me theirs. Since the first day I stepped onto campus, all those years ago, and found Amrita waiting in the room we shared.
I knew Finch could see that in me, and that was why she’d said anything at all. She could map out my indistinct edges, the places where I’d melted into the rest of them until our boundaries couldn’t be deciphered. That was what proved it to me—that she’d been watching. That she’d been paying attention.
The lines between the two of us were more definitive. Clearer delineation to cross, if I wanted to cross.
Of course, I wanted to cross.
Everything about her was handsome: brows drawn up in the center with concern, the faintest pink to her cheeks, the soft parting of her mouth. Why not take that leap? What could I possibly have left to lose? There, with my face in Finch’s hands, was one of the last places I felt safe.
“What if I want to be yours?” I said. There was a beat of quiet, and then Finch’s head lolled to the side. She gave me a wry smile.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying,” I answered, trying to sound like it was the truth. “Everyone already thinks we’re fucking. Why not prove them right?”
“You’re ridiculous,” Finch said. But she kept stroking her thumb across my jaw. Her hand was cold, her skin dry. She kept her fingers looped loosely around her beer bottle with the other hand. “Caroline would kill me. Amrita would put a stake through my heart. Saz—well, I guess Saz would love it.”
“What about me?” I said indignantly. “Why would you be the only one who gets in trouble?”
Finch sighed. “Because you’re theirs, Jo, in a way that I’m not. Don’t roll your eyes, you know exactly what I’m trying to say. They always think that they’re protecting you from me.”
I wanted to tell her she was wrong, but I was afraid of sounding naive. They loved me, and they thought I could be weak. Those two ideas could exist simultaneously even if they took me apart in the process. Finch was somehow able to keep herself separate from that devouring. There was something about her that wouldn’t lend itself to uniformity, and kept her just outside of our perfect circle.
But I was the combined effect of them. All their pieces and quirks and mannerisms were made anew on my face. I wore them all the time.
“I can make my own decisions,” I whispered.
Her elbow brushed mine. I could feel the touch all the way through my body like her hot hands were already dragging their way up my thighs, fingertips digging into the skin.
“It would be a bad idea,” she said, as if trying to convince herself.
“I’m all bad ideas.”
Finch laughed. “Yeah, you are.”
She leaned into me. I stared at her mouth, willing her closer. Her hand cupped the base of my skull and her beer thumped against my knee and Finch pressed her lips to mine in an open-mouthed kiss that cooked me all the way down to my feet.
I drew in a sharp breath. The sound passed between us, shared. She kissed me like she’d been counting down the seconds. We moved, I leaning to make room and she following to press between my legs. I heard her beer tip and clatter against the rungs of the fire escape, spilling between the cracks.
“Fuck,” she said against my cheek, laughing, and a laugh bubbled out of my chest too. I was giddy with the feeling of her so near me. The fire escape was a cold cage beneath my back. Her fingers twined in the bars beside my head as she kissed me again—there was the warm brush of her tongue against mine, the cave that her hair made around us, the shadows of her lashes against her cheek. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure she could taste it.
“Bad idea?” she asked when she finally pulled away. Her smile was big and shy. I loved her so much that it felt physical, like a stone that could be cut out of my chest. I couldn’t speak. I just shook my head, trying to say no, not at all, not one bit, even though I felt ridiculous, like there was no way this moment could be mine.
She kissed me again, with finality. Just a warm press of her lips before she was rocking back to sit on her heels. I propped myself up to face her as Finch lit the joint again and inhaled before passing it to me. I put my lips where hers had just been and tried to calm my heart from ripping its way out of my body.
My head was fuzzy with the aftermath of her. The gentle buzz of our shared crossfaded high made the fuzziness warmer. I pulled my jacket closer around me again, cold without her pressed against me. I wanted to ask her if she was real.
“Should we talk about it?” I asked, shivering. The fire escape was so cold that I was afraid it would stick to me through my clothes. I hoped she believed my shaking was because of the cold and not because she made me unbearably nervous.
“What, do you regret it?” She fixed me with an anxious look, eyes dragging down to my mouth.
“No! No, of course not. It was great. Really good. Amazing.”
“Amazing, huh?”
She stubbed the joint out as I raised my eyebrows at her. “What, you don’t think so?”
“I’ve had better kisses,” Finch teased, the corners of her mouth turning up as she exhaled smoke.
My mind went right to Thea, a poisonous, self-sabotaging image. “Oh, come on.”
“What?” Finch asked, leaning closer, smiling the kind of smile that tried to contain itself the whole time. “Did I offend you?”
Our knees touched. I pushed mine against hers until I felt pressure down to bone, scoffing. “I’ll kill you, I mean that.”
She was grinning now. “Liar. You want to make up for it. I can see it in your face, you want to prove me wrong.”
The face in question was hot with apprehension and the awareness that she was right. She took my jaw in her hand, thumb and forefinger pressing divots. I exhaled hard through my nose, lashes fluttering as she stared at my mouth.
“It’s really fucking cold out here,” she whispered, a breath away from my lips. “We could go inside if you want.”
The implications of inside moved all the way through me, goose bumps prickling beneath my clothes. Her clothes, on me. The possession already determined.
I nodded in her grasp. Her smile became a beam.
I tried to leave myself out there, on that fire escape. In her room we shed our layers and pulled her blankets over us, still shivering and laughing, the kissing tentative at first until we found our footing and she pressed me down into the sheets. I tried not to think about the others. I tried not to think of myself as anyone but Finch’s.
I laid my forehead against her shoulder as I touched her, our skin hot and cloying, and listened to her exhale against my ear as if it were words. Emotion prickled in my throat. If I never touched another person in all my life, that moment would have been enough. All I needed was her voice, cut out of the air in the shape of the moon. Just the unblemished surface of it glowing bright. Just the steady hum of us together in that bed. Taking each other apart. Dissecting what we found, pinning it in place like the sectioned halves of a butterfly, shadowboxing it until it was a memory preserved.
We stayed like that through the night, my cheek against her bare chest and my eyes half-shut in hopes of holding on to a dream. I brought her knuckles to my mouth—kissed that stained skin with color caught in the cracks. I felt her smile against my hair and she held my head to her as I took her heartbeat and made it mine.