Stasi
Chapter 31
Stasi
95 Days Dead
Since that night, we’ve been inseparable. Becca and I have made a little nest for just the two of us. It’s been easier to get distance from the baggage of our past selves with her staying with me instead of us spending time in the house. It’s a honeymoon period where we can pretend that we’re new people and that we’ve been set free from the burdens of our lives.
And it’s kind of easy to do when you’re dead. There are none of the usual things that make time fly by—no job to clock in at, no weekends to look forward to, and no deadlines to dread. We’ve lost time playing old games, finishing those huge puzzles that should take the average person months, and getting into her mom’s crafts.
But that ease is absent tonight. The energy has shifted in the confines of the guest house. The weight of guilt is oppressive. My ghosts are catching up with me. As if now that I’ve forgiven her for hiding my body and she’s given me hers, the scales are out of balance.
The paper snaps with her facial movements as Becca opens and closes the paper fortune teller until she gets to eight. “Truth.” Becca’s voice pulls me from the maze of indecision that my mind has wandered into. Despite the strides she’s made, that we’ve made, I feel like we can never fully move forward if she doesn’t know the truth. She needs to know who I am—who I r eally am. This is the perfect opportunity to tell her, yet my tongue is tied in knots like a cherry stem. Unfortunately, the lie of omission that I remain committed to is anything but sweet.
“What do you want to know?” My stomach tenses as I wait to be cornered into another deception. I don’t let on, though, I just keep folding the paper in my hands.
Her rainy-day eyes are almost apologetic, but she asks her question anyway. “How did you know you were . . . not straight?” She refocuses on the notebook in front of her as she doodles.
Buying myself time to reshape the story without her in it, I walk around to the couch, sitting at the far end. It’ll hopefully put enough space between us that she can’t see the guilt in my eyes or taste the dishonesty on my breath. I lay the book my work in progress is taped to against my knees and continue. “It’s like I’ve always known. Not necessarily that I had the language or awareness to actually define it, but I always knew that boys weren’t what held my attention.”
It wasn’t boys, but it wasn’t just anyone else either.
It was her, always her, only her.
Summoned from the past are the innocent brushing of hands, late-night whispers from beneath the covers, and bursting laughter that grabbed my attention like popped bubblegum. Part of me—the realest version of me, will always be stuck there—in the times before everything became so complicated. Before the world tried to force us and all of our too-big feelings into some narrow lane they’d designated for our friendship.
“It took me until I was in middle school to fully recognize that I liked girls— a girl . It was simultaneously one of the best and worst things that ever happened to me. Best because my world started to make more sense, like why I was never excited about the new boy in class, why I didn’t swoon over everyone with a heartthrob haircut, and why I never accepted their flirtation that was simply manhandling. It dawned on me that I ‘wasn’t like other girls’. Not in the sense that I was better, but in the way that I was distracted by lush lips coated in candy-flavored lip gloss. Luckily, I also wasn’t like other girls my age in that I became very comfortable very quickly with my sexual orientation. Liking girls and other women, was never embarrassing to me. Even when kids made fun of me. Once I knew it, I gladly accepted the clear answer that the label of lesbian gave me.” I spread out the paper on the table, opening the folded triangles so I can write beneath them.
“It sounds like a hard thing, to be queer at such a young age, in a time like that.”
I snort. “Yeah, the early two-thousands were not the best years of my life. I mean it was technically a crime to be gay in a lot of places up until 2003. Shit, same-sex marriage isn’t even legal in all fifty states yet.” I abandon my project and pull my knees to my chest trying to stifle the ache that still blossoms there when I think about the years I spent trying to stop the hemorrhaging of my heart. The summer after everything happened was the worst of my life. The transfer to a new school was hard at that age, leaving everything I knew—looking back, it was a rare mercy from my mom that I should have been more grateful for. Starting over wasn’t the problem; the thing that had devastated me was losing her. My only friend. The girl I loved—as much as anyone can really understand the concept at the time. But maybe that’s what makes first loves hurt so soul-crushing. The fact that you don’t fully understand the magnitude of such an emotion. What people get wrong is that they don’t think a child can feel love, that they can’t understand it, and maybe that second part is accurate, but when you’re so young those feelings eclipse everything else, they swallow your world whole. Unfortunately for me, the eclipse never passed. The sun never shone quite the same again. My obsessive love for Becca cast a shadow over me for the rest of my short life. “You know you were always one of us. Queer, I mean.” I know I shouldn’t go down this road, shouldn’t push us closer to the hidden path that leads to my secret, but I can’t help myself. I want to hear in her own words what she thinks happened. “Did anyone ever suspect it?”
“Umm . . .” Becca’s eyes dart away, guarding her past. At least she has some shame around the whole situation. At least she remembers. Sometimes—with the way she acted around her friends, her refusal to accept this part of her—I feared that I’d somehow imagined it, made it up, created some traumatic past that didn’t exist between us. But the memories eat at her now, and she turns that uncomfortable hunger on her nail beds. “Yeah, they did.” She takes a seat at the other end of the couch, her notebook forgotten, and mirrors my posture. “There were some girls who accused me of liking—” she coughs, like the rest of her sentence itches on the way up, “a friend in seventh grade.” Her brow furrows, features tightening as she searches for the right words. “But I denied it then and I denied it every time anyone insinuated it from that point on. It didn’t happen often. I did my best to dispel the rumors.”
Even though I already know this from her diaries, the snake of jealousy winds its way around my stomach and throat as a swell of nausea takes hold of me. I don’t want to hear this, but I have to. I need answers, I need clarity, I need something to act as a balm over the burns left behind by the implosion of our friendship.
“I did a lot of things, actually.” She laughs, but there’s no humor present, only bitterness. I wonder, do all the lies she’s told herself leave a foul taste in her mouth, too? “One of my biggest regrets is having sex before all my friends. I was so desperate to prove that I was like them, that I liked boys—and I did sometimes—that I was willing to offer up my body as the ultimate evidence.” Her teeth briefly sink into the knuckle she’s got against her lips. “I thought that if I did it, it would stop the accusations completely. It did for a while, but they always cropped back up. The rumors always waited for me behind thinly veiled smiles of new friends and sneers of those who were eager to put me in my place. You know, I—” She shakes her head at the foolishness of her younger self. “I even told other guys that they could say that they’d slept with me.” She heaves a long sigh. “Just so it would look like I was actively pursuing them. It was a good distraction for a bit, but it fell apart quickly when my many short-term boyfriends would get frustrated with my inexperience or unwillingness to sleep with them. Then I became a tease. A challenge. A target. ” Her arms wrap impossibly tighter around her slender frame, and she lays her head against her knees turning it away from me. “Sometimes when I lay awake at night, I wonder if those choices were the catalyst for everything that led to my death. Was that why Nate sought me out? Were those deceptions and games I played in a desperate attempt to hide the truth, to hide from it , what inevitably made me the perfect victim?” The words are a shaky mess, much like Becca’s shivering limbs. “Was it my fault that Nate found me to be easy prey?”
I crawl across the couch without a second thought, knowing nothing but the need to hold her against me. “Nothing you could have done would justify what he did to you.” I grip her chin firmly, ensuring she hears me when I say these next five words. “It. Was. Not. Your. Fault.”
For several moments, she just shakes her head back and forth over and over. Her lips tucked tight against her teeth, refuting me in a silent damnation of herself. But then it all becomes too much, everything she’s been holding in comes pouring out.
“Yes it is. It’s all my fault.” Her face is sopping wet, her eyes shut against the world as if she can’t possibly take in anything more. Her mouth falls open, downturned and devastated on a wail that sends a chill to my bone. And for the first time, it truly pains me to see her crying. I’m finally seeing the depth of the well of sorrow she’s been trying to get out of. She’s been begging me to see it and I’d snuffed at the deceptively shallow surface.
“No, Becca,” I insist forcefully.
“It’s my fault that I allowed him to force himself on me. If I hadn’t been drinking. If I hadn’t isolated myself in that room. I let them do it to me over and over and over again. I was easily kept under their thumb. I helped him bury you in my yard for fuck’s sake. I dug that hole for hours. I helped him fill it with dirt. I kept my mouth shut.” Becca’s voice pitches higher and higher with each condemnation of herself. “It’s my fault. It’s my fault. It’s my fault.” Her nails dig into the back of her scalp, chestnut hair gathered between her knuckles.
“Stop, Becca.”
She sinks them in further.
“Becca,” I warn.
Her fingers shake with the pressure she’s applying. “It’s my fault.” The words are a sickening chant.
“Stop it,” I grit through my clenched teeth as my hands snap out, latch around her wrists, and halt the abuse. “Don’t you fucking dare say that shit again.” With the exhale of the command, I inhale fear that I may push her too far, touching her like this. But I can’t sit here and do nothing. Everything halts. Her sobbing, her devastation, her words. Something about the contact brings our world to a standstill. Our eye contact is soul-deep, like we’re seeing each other for the first time.
With each wrist caged within my fingers, her frailty that I’d overlooked becomes undeniable. While holding these fragile bones that are actually the only parts left of us anywhere but here, I realize how gone both of us really are. The missing beat of our pulses that should be hammering against one another, reminds me that we’re all we have now. There’s no one else to feel our despair, our anger, or our love. There’s no one else to make us scream, or cry, or laugh, or moan. There’s no one left but her and I.
And I will not let her drown in her grief.
“Listen. To. Me.” I bring her balled-up fists against my lips, placing a kiss on each. “You are a survivor.”
She shakes her head vehemently, silent tears falling.
“You didn’t deserve what happened to you. No one does.” I pry her fingers open and kiss her palm, stroking it with my thumb gently as I continue. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened to you. I won’t let you.”
The first rays of defiance break through the cloud of melancholy.
“You are a survivor, Becca. I won’t allow him to take what’s left of you.”
“He’s already taken everything,” she sobs. “I let him take everything. I didn’t die on December 10th. I began dying the moment I started seeing his face in the place my hopes used to be. When I closed my eyes all I could see were hungry eyes feasting on my skin. When I covered my ears, all I could hear was the ragged breathing of a man chasing a pleasure that didn’t belong to him to the haunting beat of flesh on flesh. There was nothing but him, nothing but what they did. I ceased to exist.” Becca’s hands press against her forehead. “I didn’t have a choice but to find a way out. There was nothing else to do. Nowhere else to go. I just needed out of my body.” Ragged breathing tears up her words that have become more of the growl of a cornered animal. “I needed out. I needed a new place to call home.”
A sob wracks her chest, and I watch as the shell of everything that she’s ever been to me caves in. Inside she’s hollowed out, her insides scraped clean by those that would devour her.
As if summoned, another leech, our eager entity, looms over us. Its dark form welling, eating up her sorrow. The sight turns my stomach, but I don’t have the heart to alarm her. I force it out of my mind, focusing on the only thing that matters right now.
All this time I’d preserved her in my heart as one thing, not seeing the wear and tear that a lifetime took on her. Becca’s life was set on fire, and she stayed in that burning house in silent resignation, curtains drawn, detectors disarmed, just her and the toxic fumes and scorching flames. Nobody noticed until the remnants of her too-short life stood in a heap of ash.
And yet, here she is, so very alive in this place of death. My little ember, still glowing amongst all this darkness. If I have to give her every last breath to rekindle her fire, I’ll gladly spend the rest of my eternity doing just that. I can’t let her suffer like this anymore, not when I’m right here. Not when I love her in a way that defies space and time. Not when I have forever to heal all the invisible wounds we carry between us.
Tugging her wrists from my grasp, Becca wraps her arms around my neck, crawls into my lap, and presses herself against my chest like she means to crawl inside my skin and hide there. If I could tear myself open and give her a safe place there, I would. If she asked it, I would. Being needed by her, it feels like home. I’ve resented her throughout the journey, but being with her again, it feels so right, that nothing before matters.
The lingering restlessness that’s been clawing at my insides is finally sated, the beast settling into a slumber in a blanket of carnage. But I wouldn’t change a thing if it meant we got here.
I cradle one hand behind her head, waiting to wrap my arm around her waist until the brief flare of tension leaves her muscles. “Is this okay?”
Becca nods and tightens her hold on me. I’m prepared to sit here for hours, days, a century if she asks it. This is peace. This is heaven. She’s made a believer of me.
“Thank you,” she mumbles, avoiding eye contact.
“For what?”
“Listening.”
I duck my head, catching her gaze. “All I want is to know everything about you.”
“I can’t even remember the last time someone asked me how I was. If I was okay.” She laughs shallowly. “Everyone assumes you’re fine if you have good grades, keep up your routines, and slap a smile on your face when they’re looking. I haven’t been okay in a very long time.” A few tears escape, despite her attempt to blink them away. When she goes to wipe them, I interlace our fingers and bring them down to her sides, catching them with my tongue instead. A groan releases from deep within me at the nourishment of her vulnerability and trust. For the first time in my life, I feel satisfied.
97 Days Dead
Contentment fits awkwardly on me, but I think I could get used to it. Especially if Becca continues to look at me like that. Leaning on her elbow, she stares down at me like I’m some renowned painting that she only has one chance to study. With squinted eyes, she surveys the canvas of my body, while her body presses into my side.
“What does the moth represent?” Lithe fingers trace the intricate design that sits high on my stomach just under my breasts.
A heavy sigh, something like relief, leaves me because, for the first time, I’m going to tell someone what it actually represents instead of saying some shit like, “it just looks cool” or “moths are pretty”. I’ll tell her that one truth, it’s the least I can do. Maybe chipping away at the lies that have built a shell around my heart will help me get to a point where I can be honest with her about everything.
I clear my throat. “It’s the antithesis of a butterfly. Butterflies are pretty and likable.” My eyes flick to the butterflies tattooed on her arm.
“You are pr—”
I cut her off. I know I’m beautiful, I’m not fishing for compliments. There’s a point to all this I want her to hear. “They’re accepted as universally beautiful, I mean. They’re associated with sunny days, bright flowers, and lightness. But the moth, the moth is often overlooked. I wanted to be a butterfly so badly when I was younger, like all the other girls, but I realized eventually that I was more like a moth—their proclivity for the ethereal solitude of night and the way people often seem repulsed by them. Everything changed for me once I accepted that I’d never be a butterfly, but I could be beautiful in my own way. By accepting my body the way it was, and by finding my own way in the solace of my own little world. So, I got the tattoo for my eighteenth birthday.”
Becca hovers over me, the ends of her hair tickling my bare skin. “I’ve never seen you as anything but gorgeous. Kind of intimidating, but never anything less than beautiful.” She smiles and it’s the light I’ve been searching for.
I gravitate toward her, winding her hair around my fingers to pull her even closer.
“Ever since the first time I saw you, I compared you to one of those old paintings—lush, sensual, confident. Stasi, your beauty is one that transcends trends and narrow-minded bullshit.” She caresses the side of my face with the back of her fingers.
The tightness in my throat is uncomfortable. I’m used to people telling me how sexy, voluptuous, and desirable I am, but people rarely use gentle, refined words to describe me. It catches me off guard and sits awkwardly on my tattoo-covered skin. The skin I claimed for myself, made my own so nobody else could define it for me. But as Becca trails kiss after kiss across my collarbones, my chest, and my stomach, I love that she leaves her mark burning hot at every point of contact.
“And what about this?” Her fingers trail over the script that says “All The Things She Said” across my throat. The scar isn’t there, but I can still sense where Nate cut it. The violent memory sends a shiver through me.
“A reminder,” I say simply.
“Of?”
“That being queer is okay. That just because other people feel the need to hide and be ashamed doesn’t mean I have to. I’m a lesbian; I wanted everyone to know that.” I stroke my fingers through her dark hair. “When I heard the song as a kid and then saw the music video, it utterly captivated me. It transcended me beyond the reality of school bullies and what my parents would think. I just had a visceral reaction to it, like I saw myself there on the screen, and heard myself through my headphones. It was a big part of me accepting who I was. So I enshrined it on my skin. I want that same, in-your-face queerness that that video projected, even if it was all a lie, even if it was a gimmick, it meant something to me.”
“I wish I was as brave as you.” She sighs.
“We all have our own journey,” I assure her, pulling her lips against mine.
Becca’s fingers undo the clasps of my top with ease; she’s getting good at taking what she wants. I brim with pride.
“I’m so glad you’re part of mine,” she says against my lips and I deepen our kiss. “These . . .” Her voice dips lower as she circles one nipple with her fingertip and the other with her tongue. “I think these might be my favorites.”
The nipple piercings were mostly aesthetic, but they were also another way to claim this body of mine. I felt like boys and men always focused so much on my large breasts—they’d sexualized me against my will. Adorning my breasts in a way that made me feel like a work of art was a way to de-center the male gaze while further individualizing myself. “I do too. But I love when they’re covered with your mouth even better.”
Instead of ecstasy, I feel panic as her hand skates down my thighs, heading for those bows I don’t want to explain right now. Not in this moment when everything feels so right and like our stars have finally aligned. I use my considerably heavier weight to my advantage and flip us so I’m on top. Raising one arm above her head, I lean down for a kiss, capturing her sweet lips in mine and teasing her with my tongue. I love how she seeks out the piercing—one of the lasting reminders of my devotion to Aphrodite. I can’t help but wonder if she’d be proud.
But I don’t let myself get lost in the moment. Pulling back, I disentangle our fingers and allow mine to caress her leg, following the winding vine, and eventually stopping at the top of her thigh. “Your turn. What does this tattoo mean?”
Becca laughs nervously. “Nothing. It’s just pretty.”
“Fair.” I kiss her skin, attempting to chase away the embarrassment that has her pulling back into herself. I stroke my thumb over the four butterflies she has tattooed just above her inner elbow. “What about these?”
“We got them for my last birthday—my friends and me. The butterflies represent the four of us. We used to call ourselves the ‘core four’. I know it’s silly,” she laughs, embarrassed. “It was supposed to be symbolic of our enduring friendship. Butterflies have always been my favorite, and since it was my birthday, we thought it was fitting.” She sighs and looks away. “That was before our relationships became more complicated.”
Stroking the tattoo again, I resist the urge to refute her. Friendship isn’t something I really understand. It’s something I never got the chance to further explore after she was done with me. I couldn’t allow it. That kind of hurt is something you only need to experience once. I’ve heard from others that friendship breakups are some of the most life-changing, but what about when you’re in love with that friend? I’d never been willing to risk finding out whether it would be a pattern I would fall into. Although, I’d never felt anything remotely similar to the draw I have to Becca. Nothing has ever compared, not even close. She’s been my one and only. Maybe I’m not even capable of loving anyone else; I certainly never gave myself or another person the chance to find out. Doesn’t matter now.
I’ve only ever had eyes for Becca.
I’ve only ever had space in my heart for her.
There was always only one outcome—Becca was always going to be mine. But I can’t deny that there’s a spark of jealousy about Meg being permanently inked into her skin, while I’m not.
“Did you love her? Meg?” The resentful words escape me before I have the chance to bite them back or reshape them into something less sharp.
“As a friend, yes. As something more? No.” Becca rubs a hand over the cluster of tattoos. “She’s an amazing person. I just never thought of her that way. Never even crossed my mind until... until she confessed everything to me. I hated that I had to disappoint her.” Running a hand through her hair, she attempts to dispel the uncertainty that clings to her around the situation. “Does it even matter, now?”
Yes. “No.” I press my thumb between her lips, rolling it around her seeking tongue that winds around it, then bring it to my clit. “From now on, you’re mine.” The words trail off in a moan as she slides her hands up my thighs and pushes up my skirt, giving herself a better view. I want her to claim me as hers, too. But seeing her become more comfortable with touching me is a big step. “I don’t care if there was ever anyone else.” I suck the last syllables between my teeth with a hiss. “From here on out, you’re mine.” A groan escapes me with her responding squeeze. The craving for her to mimic the words turns my stomach, but my appetite for commitment is too big for where she’s at right now. Knowing that she wants me. That she’s willing to admit she wants me has to be enough.
And yet, instinctively, my tattooed hand collars her slender throat, the thorns and roses perfectly encapsulating our dynamic. The look of surprise on her face is almost as satisfying as the way her hips press up into mine. Her body and mind always seem to be at war. I wonder if she has a preference. Would she accept my rougher tendencies? My grip firms, the metal of her necklaces digging into my skin. Her brows furrow over questioning eyes and she wraps her fingers around my wrist, stroking the side of it.
“Am I hurting you?”
“No,” she says slowly, like she’s surprised by it.
“Good; I can’t give you soft. I don’t know soft.”
“Why not?” The question is light with curiosity as she continues to brush her thumb over my wrist.
“Nobody treats fat girls with softness.” My words become shallow. My chest scraped out hollow with unexpected vulnerability. “Softness meant digs and cuts and bruises.” She returns her hands to my legs, gliding them upward and moving in slow circles. The tender touch makes the words flow from my lips without thought. “Instead of getting ripped apart, I became hard, untouchable. Perfect hair, pretty makeup, the right clothing—my armor. Sharp tongue, intimidating persona, casual sex—my weapon. I was unfuckingbreakable.” I suck in a breath when she grips my love handles, her hands fitting just so. “But I was fake. At least until I found Aphrodite. She helped me find the real me.”
The truth of those words doesn’t register until sympathy rises in her eyes. Her gaze moves over me like a cold sweat and regret swells in my throat. I search for a way to retract that statement. To make myself seem just a bit less pathetic. But when Becca’s hands begin to rove over me, it’s a touch of feathers and silk that lulls me into stillness as I feel, soothing, worshipping, smooth palms and appreciative fingers exploring me. She works her way over every inch within reach—my shoulders, my arms, my sides, my ass—everywhere except the parts of me that most people would fixate on. I feel like a luxury being sipped slowly as she takes her sweet time kissing, sucking, licking, and tasting her way over my skin that’s becoming increasingly sensitive. Even without any purposely sexual stimulation, I’m dripping.
It’s impossible to know how much time has passed, but it’s been a while judging by the way my thighs burn as I hover over her lap. Everything she does drives my need higher and higher. The moment she touches my pussy, I’m going to come.
Her tongue is like velvet as it flicks lightly against my nipple, coaxing it to harden. Cashmere lips kiss the arching tip causing my back to strain and brush it across her mouth. When she refuses to take the bait, I slip a hand in her hair and thrust them forward. “Suck,” I demand as I cradle her head, but she’s rigid beneath my touch. My stomach is in my throat and chills skate down my spine as she remains silent and presses her fingers to the birthmark on my side, the one that’s usually tucked beneath my rolls in most positions.
“What is that?” The flat tone of Becca’s voice scares me. I didn’t know I could be afraid anymore; what’s worse than death?
“Becca—”
She jumps up, forcing me from her lap, and staggers back. Anger brackets her willowy body but she’s silent, her mouth covered with her fist.
Oh fuck. She knows. I was going to tell her just not like this.