16
CLARITY
"Clarity, it's been three days. You have to eat something," Natalie tells me, standing in the doorway of the guest room she doesn't use.
I look at her, lying in bed with the comforter wrapped around me like a burrito. "I have eaten."
Her eyes squint. Her curly hair is tied into a large bun on top of her head. She’s wearing a sweater and leggings. A cup and a plate sit in her hand.
" Chica , ice cubes in the middle of the night don't count." I learned that Natalie is Dominican. Every now and then, she says Spanish words that I don't know, but I'll act like I do.
She walks over to me, and I frown and groan as she peels the cover off of me.
"It's freezing," I whine.
She sits down, the bed dipping below her, and hands me the cup in her hand. "It's a good thing I made you hot chocolate then, huh? Look at me being the best-ist friend in the world."
Sitting up, slouching, I smile, thank her and take the warm cup, sipping it. The sweet liquid travels down my throat, filling my stomach and warming my body from the inside out. I sigh, closing my eyes.
Natalie turns to me and holds the plate between us. On it are about a dozen French toast sticks. "Eat," she orders.
Now that food is in my face, hunger rips at my belly like a chainsaw. I go to pick one up, and Natalie does, too.
"Has Olias texted or called you?" she questions.
I shake my head, chewing. "No."
Three days passed since the beach house party, and not a word from Olias. The back of my eyes burns just thinking about it.
"Well, then fuck him, Clarity. Fuck Olias, and fuck Jonah. And fuck men." She bites aggressively at a toast. "This is why I'm gay. Women are just a hundred times better."
A smile cracks my frown, and I laugh and chew. I would speak, but I don't trust my voice not to crack and crumble.
She continues, "I'm going to be out all day; class and then work right after. You have this house to yourself. It would be best if you didn't leave it. I don't have another key, and you'll be locked out until one in the morning, alright?"
I nod, clearing my throat. "I don't plan on leaving,” I say. There's nowhere I can go any way. "What school do you go to?"
"NYU. I'm a biology major, and I'm on a pre-med track. Before you say anything, I know already that I have no life." She's nineteen, only a year older than me, but living the life I dream of.
My eyes lighten up. "Pre-med? To be a doctor? I want to be a doctor, and so does my little sister."
She nods. "Yeah, a pediatrician."
I gasp and say, "Me too!"
She laughs, grinning at my excitement. "So why aren't you in school?"
I take a bite of my French toast. "I never had the money, and neither did my mom. She… needed my help at the time." I brush it off with a small smile like it's nothing.
She playfully slaps her hand on my knee. "Just apply! You sound so smart, and also, imagine the scholarships. You might not even need to pay a dime."
I bite at my lip, thinking hard. "You think I'd get into a school?"
She scoffs as if that question is offensive to her. "Clarity, I am positive. What are the three top schools you want to get into?"
That's easy. I've known the answer to this question since I was twelve.
"New York University, Columbia University, and Cornell University," It comes out like butter.
Her eyebrows raise. "Tough selection. But I'll print out the NYU application for you, and you can start filling out the other ones online, okay? I'll even pay for your application fee. You'll get in at least one, guaranteed."
I smile, bite my lip, and launch myself at my new friend. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou," the words mush together quickly into her neck.
She squeals, grabbing the plate between us and lifting it so it doesn't fall, " Dios ," she lets out. "You're cutting off my circulation."
I let her go, and she gasped for air dramatically.
Oops, what if I killed her with my strong man hug?
We eat the last pieces of French toast while also going over the material I need to cover for my applications before she says she's off to class. I thank her one last time, not just for giving me confidence for school but also for the room and the clothes and for letting me use her coconut-smelling shampoo.
I don't think she would've let me use it if she knew why I liked it.
It smells just like Olias. And now, so does my hair.
Getting out of the shower and into a house all to myself, I change into the clothes she gave me before she left for class, which are just leggings and a long-sleeve gray shirt. Oh, and fuzzy white socks. I love fuzzy socks.
Walking into the room, I notice the ringing of my phone sitting on the bed.
The first person to come to mind is Olias. The second, maybe Clarissa. She's called a few times and I've talked to her even while I wanted to talk to no one. No one didn't include her, though.
I belly-flop on the bed and grab my phone, staring at the unknown number. My lips twist, contemplating my choices. It could be a scammer trying to get my social security number, or it could be someone I know. It could be Olias, somehow. Pathetically, it makes my heart thump. I swipe to answer on the last ring.
"Hello?" I hesitate to say.
"Clarity." The voice on the other end makes my body run ice cold. "Clarity, it's me, Jonah."
I haven't heard his voice in days. It doesn't feel the same as it used to when he was angry; instead, it’s… soft. "What do you want?" I whisper, wishing my voice sounded stronger.
"I miss you," he says. "Where've you been? I went to your job, and they said you fucking quit. Then I went to your mom's house, and she wasn't there. The house was trashed."
The house is always trashed.
"I'm at a friend's house," I say.
He scoffs, already hearing the anger rising in his tone, the familiarity sending a lonely chill down my neck. "You mean that fucking shit face you were with, house?"
I grind my teeth together, picking at the side of my thumb. " No , I mean a friend's house. Again, is there a reason you're calling me?"
He huffs. "I want to see my girlfriend."
I blink, sit up, fighting the urge to cry. I don't want to cry anymore.
"Jonah," the name comes out in a quiver, "I'm not your girlfriend anymore."
Silence follows.
"What the fuck do you mean?"
Did he not hear me? "I mean, we aren't together, okay? I'm not your girlfriend and you’re not my boyfriend." I don’t know how to explain it any simpler for him.
"Bullshit, you can't just fucking leave someone you've been with for five years. Especially not over the God-damn phone."
I bite my cheek, the taste of blood on my tongue. "I think it's for the best, Jo—"
"Clarity, come to me, please. Let's talk this through."
He never says please. ? But he also never talks anything through. Only yells.
"There's nothing to talk through. I don't like how I feel when I'm with you," I admit. If I were in his face, I don't think I'd be able to say that, but I’m not in his face. "You scare me."
"I scare you?" he repeats as if it's the stupidest thing he's ever heard. "Clarity, what the fuck are you talking about?"
I sit up to stand. "You hit on me, Jonah!" I shout into the phone. "You hit me, and it hurts, and I don't like it."
"You know why I hit you. If you listen and stop being a Goddamn brat, you wouldn't get punished!"
I shake my head, the tears making an appearance. "Why don't you care that you hurt me?" My voice is pathetic. “Do you even care? I don’t want to be your punching bag anymore.”
"I do care, I care a lot. But when you get like this, it fucking pisses me off . You blame me and make me out to be the villain when I barely do anything to you! Are you dead? No. Are you hurt permanently? No. Have I given you everything you've asked for when you had nothing? Fucking yeah . So don't make me out to be the bad guy,” he huffs, “And you aren’t my goddamn punching bag; the hell are you talking about?”
My nose runs like a strong current river, and so do my eyes. I sniffle, wiping my tears with the sleeve of my shirt. Maybe he’s right.
"I'm sorry," I croak.
"Just come back, you're overreacting, blocking my number and shit. I'll pick you up."
Am I overreacting? Maybe I am, and Olias was lying about how terrible Jonah is. Maybe he only wanted me to break up with Jonah so he could have me to himself, just like all those girls at the party three days ago. He clearly doesn't care about me. Not even a call to show he was sorry for what happened. At least Jonah cares enough to go out of his way to call me.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I say, "Okay."
OLIAS
"Thanks for the fix, man," I say to Kane Garcia behind the counter as he hands me my phone with the brand-new screen.
Kane has been my tattoo guy over the years. The several ones I have on my chest and abs are from him. He also does piercings and fixes phones every now and then.
He's covered in tattoos, dozens around every inch of his skin. Gauges stretch his earlobes to grape-size holes, and his hair is pink.
Clarity would love his hair.
"No problem. What happened to it anyway, kiddo?" he asks. He starts working on another broken phone someone must have left for him to fix.
I'm twenty-three, and he still calls me kiddo. I guess being around fifty has something to do with it, too.
I sit in the tattoo chair across from the glass counter that reveals jewelry for every piercing known to man.
"There's this girl," I twist my fixed phone in my hand. Staring at it with my head leaning on my free fingers.
Kane hums his raspy smoker voice. His attention focused on his work while listening. "There's always some chick."
I sit up, leaning my elbows on my knees. Irritated by his words. "She's not just some chick ."
He glances up at me. "Okay. What makes her not just some chick? Must be something special to you, considering you launched your phone, hm?"
I lean back in the chair again, looking up at the light above, my chest hurting just thinking about what happened.
"She's..." I start, not knowing how to put my damn feelings into words. "You know when you're in a room full of people, and the only thing you can think about is going home to your bed?"
Kane hums in confirmation.
"It’s like that. When I'm away from her, she's all I fucking think about," my voice shakes. It's been three days, and I can't get her out of my head, not that I want her gone from it to begin with.
Kane chuckles, scratching the forest of graying hair on his chin. "Sounds like you're in some serious love, kiddo."
I stare at him hard. "I've only known her for a month. I shouldn’t love her.” Saying it to her at that party was a mistake. It only made her think I was feeding lies to her, making everything worse.
He shrugs. "Who said love had a time requirement? Ever heard of love at first sight?"
I shake my head. "That's a bunch of bull shit, though," I dismiss. "You can't love someone you don't know right off the bat."
Kane smirks at me.
I squint my eyes. "What?"
He gathers screws in a pile on his counter. "Nothin’."
Straightening his back, he goes to change his tools. "So, what's something you love about her? Since you don't love her entirely ." I never said I didn't love her entirely.
"Frosted Flakes," I say.
He eyes me weirdly for a second. "The cereal? The fuck that has to do with this?"
I laugh through my nose, picturing her devouring the bowls I made her. "She's obsessed with it. I've watched her eat four bowls once. Four big bowls. When she sees me come home with more, it’s like I injected her with steroids or some shit; she gets all excited and affectionate. Her face…” I fall back on a memory of her smiles because that’s all I have. Memories. “Guess it's her face she wears while enjoying something so simple that I love—the way it lights up. I get an urge to buy every fucking box of Frosted Flakes in the store just to see it again."
Kane huffs a laugh. "She sounds adorable."
I twist my jaw. God, I fucked up.
My voice goes raspy as I talk, staring at the floor. "She also has this thing with pinky promises. She takes them really fucking seriously, but I never even heard of them before she told me.”
With knitted, bushy eyebrows raised, Kane lifts his head to stare at me. "You never heard of Pinky promises ?"
I shake my head. "No. Not before her. And if I could just promise her right now that I'm not the guy she thinks I am, I'd do it in a fucking heartbeat."
Kane 'uh-ohs'. "I'm guessing you fucked shit up?"
"So fucking bad, man." I run my hands over my face, exhaling into my palms. So fucking bad.
"Is it fixable?" he questions.
Is it fixable?
"I don't know. I haven't been able to talk to her in three days. I told you, I threw my phone against the wall the first night I was alone without her. Wasn't thinking and was mad at myself, so I threw the closest thing to me."
"Stupid moves, kiddo," Kane snickers, finishing his last repair of the day. Why the hell am I still here talking with him? He probably doesn't give a shit. As the thought of leaving surfaces, another thought pops into my head.
"You got time for a tat?"
He grabs a towel and dries his hands. "I'm closing up."
"It's a quick one, thirty minutes tops," I say. He stares at me as if considering it. "I'll pay you double the fucking price."
He shrugs. "Fine, what is it?" Money-hungry bastard.
I sit straight in the tattoo chair and stick out my pinky, "A finger tat on my pinky finger."
***
The pain is numb to me; it's nothing compared to the skull tattoo I got on my chest or the snake on my abdomen, though.
"All done," Kade says, wiping my finger with a solution and a rag.
I look at it and bite down on my jaw. It's perfect. But is it enough?
Kane chuckles. "She'll love it, kid. Don't sweat it."
He finishes wrapping my pinky with a thin piece of plastic, and I turn on my phone. What if she thinks I ghosted her? Where is she staying? Jonah? I fucking hope not.
With my phone turning on, my notifications flood in, but ones that don't say her name.
I scroll through them just as another notification pops up from ten minutes ago:
My Clarity has shared their location with you.
Staring at the words, my body stiffens, my heart racing.
She shared her location. With me ?
My mouth parts, and I stand up. Kane’s speaking about something, but I can’t care less.
She needs help, right? That's the only reason she'd do that. She needs me.
I race out of the shop, and rain immediately hits my face. Kane shouts about paying him, but I could give two shits about that right now.I’ll pay him later.
Panting, my head running hundreds of miles per hour, I open my car door and quickly get in, starting the car.
She shared her location.
I put the address in the GPS and began driving. It's not too far from here, around twenty minutes away. The windshield wipers wipe the front glass every second, clearing it off the pouring rain. Of course, it has to be fucking raining right now.
She needs my help.
My hands shake on the steering wheel as I make a turn, an asshole on the street honking his horn at me for cutting him off.
"Fuck off," I curse to myself, searching the streets for a brown-haired girl. Something tells me that’ll be harder than I think.
It's only eight at night, and the sun is down, making it hard to see shit, let alone the road ahead, but I sit straight up and concentrate. What if I'm overreacting? What if she did it by accident, and now I'm going where she doesn't want to see me?
But as I approach the location, I start to recognize this place.
I recognize it well enough to know it's the same tall, abandoned building Clarity and I met on.
The building we both went to, wanting to end everything.
It then clicks.
Wasting no time, I break. I unbuckle my seat belt, leave my car, and run to the door of the abandoned building. There's a board of wood that used to block the entrance, but it's on the floor.
I push past the door, find the dim staircase, and run up it. Rats pass by my feet as my heavy footsteps echo through the staircase, two steps at a time. I pant hard and fast, reaching the top.
I push through the roof door, "Clarity!" I shout, scanning the roof and spotting her immediately.
Seeing her crouched small figure sitting on the cold floor, my heart breaks. Holding her knees to her mouth. No coat and soaked.
What have I done?
I let out a breath that I've been holding the entire way up here, then I run to her.
Her head lifts from her knees, and her beautiful face is shown to me. She's crying hard, tears mixing with rain running down her face.
I drop down beside the concrete roof wall and take her face in my hands. I wipe her cheeks with the flat of my thumbs as loud sobs leave her. She grips onto my shirt.
" Baby ," I say, my voice quivering like her entire body.
Bringing her to my chest, I take off my jacket, wrapping it around her. I stroke her wet hair as she cries.
“I didn’t know who else to go to,” her weeps make my chest ache.
I tilt my head down. "Did something happen? Are you hurt? Do you need to go to the hospital? Clarity, what happened ?" I drag my hands along her body, searching for a wound or something to make her sitting in the rain with no coat make sense.
She lifts her head, tears pooling from her red eyes. "It’s Jonah. He tried... he tried to rape me, Olias."