"It takes hours to look this good, I have you know."
"I believe it." I braced myself as we rounded the kitchen corner. First I brought Eli with his eye piercing and tongue ring, now Ariel…in all her Goth glory. I wondered what Pastor and Mrs. Ruth were going to think.
But as we walked in and Mrs. Ruth looked up, I should have known better. She smiled and asked who my friend was. After introductions with her she asked if we wanted a snack. We said yes, and I tacked on, "Can you make it something sweet?"
Ariel and I both started laughing hysterically. Mrs. Ruth eyed us with parental tolerance as she started to whip up a batch of brownies. So I introduced the kiddos to Ariel.
"Ah!" Hannah gasped. "Just like the mermaid!"
"Oh, yeah. Just like it," Ariel confirmed with a happy grin.
"Do you know Sebastian the crab? Or Cruella?"
"I think Cruella's from the Dalmatian movie, sweetie pie," I told her.
"Or the eels! Were you scared? Did you have to swim away?" Hannah continued.
"Yeah!" Josiah said and grimaced. "Right before she had to kiss Aladdin."
"I think we're mixing up our Disney movies," I said and laughed as they kept going.
"Brownies will be done in about 20 minutes. I can bring them up to you if you want," Mrs. Ruth told us as she wiped Hannah's nose with a tissue. "Are you staying the night Ariel?"
"If that would be ok. My parents are out of town."
"Of course," she answered and smiled at her.
"Mrs. Ruth is like super sweet," Ariel said as we padded back to my room.
"Yeah," I sighed. "They are the two nicest people on the planet."
"So," she drawled out. A pre-emptive to a discussion, no doubt.
"So," I answered back with emphasis.
She shut my door gently and turned to me with a stern face. It was kind of funny really with her nose ring. "I just want to make sure that you're being safe with Eli. Teen pregnancy isn't cool, Clara."
"Isn't cool?" I mocked. "Are you serious?" I whined.
"Totally serious," she said and sat on my bed. "I was a teenager's baby."
"Really?"
"Yes. And my mom has had it rough ever since then. Just please tell me you're being careful."
"I'm a virgin, Ariel," I whispered conspiratorially. "Sealed up like a Swiss bank account."
"Ok, T.M.I."
"Are you?"
"Am I what?" she said and tried to keep a straight face. I gave her a look that said, 'Answer immediately'. "Ok, fine. Yes."
I laughed. "You sound like you're not happy about that."
"Why would I be?" she said, her face twisted like she smelled something bad.
"Uh, because it's a good thing? Why is sex such a big deal? Why do teenagers think that they have to do it? Why does it have to be some huge political statement just because I chose to stay a virgin?"
"Gee. Someone's over thought the subject," she spouted through a giggle and ran a hand over her shorn skull.
"I'm just saying."
"I get it." She smiled at something private as she looked at the wall. "I've had plenty of chances - not that I'm bragging - but I'm just…waiting for something."
"Or someone," I taunted. "Someone whose name rhymes with Matrick?"
She flushed and looked at her boots crossed at her ankles. "No, why?"
"Oh, come on. Girl to girl." I waited for her to look at me. I leaned forward and tried to meet her eyes.
She huffed and then fought a smile, failing. "Oh my gosh, isn't he like the cutest guy you've ever met? Isn't he the sweetest?"
"Yeah," I agreed. "He kind of is."
"But he thinks he's in love with that skank, Sarah." She blanched. "Sorry. I know she was your friend."
"Your actions are what make you." I smiled sadly. "I used to be a skank, too."
"Nah," she soothed. "Even I could see that you were trapped."
"Trapped or not, I never even tried to leave." I shook my head. "Let's talk about Patrick some more."
"I thought we agreed we'd call him Matrick."
"If you want to stay in denial you can," I said playfully and sniffed. "Whatever."
But she never laughed at my joke. Her eyes stayed unfocused as she said, "I'm invisible to him."
"No, you're not. You're one of his best friends!" I argued.
"Exactly," she pouted. "The friend zone. He doesn't even see me as a real girl."
"I hate to break it to you, Ariel, but you're kind of hard to miss in the girl department." She looked at me like I was nuts. "You're…" I moved my hands to mirror a girl's body top to bottom, "voluptuous. You've got curves in all the right places."
"I think the nose ring scares people away."
"Yeah," I agreed cautiously. "But the perfect guy for you will look passed all of that and see the you that I see."
She smiled at me and it grew wider before it was a full on grin. "You want to know a secret? A horribly embarrassing and shudder inducing secret?"
"Uh, yeah! Especially after that description."
She took a deep breath and stood. She reached for the nose ring and unconnected it…because it was fake. She pulled the chain from her ear as well and showed me the snaps that made it look so real against her skin. I gave her a questioning look and she shrugged at me. "I'm scared of needles and grubby men poking holes in my body with tattoo sleeved arms, ok? It's completely unacceptable." She sat on the bed and bit her lip. "I'm a fraud."
I laughed. I laughed so hard that I fell to my knees at her feet, holding myself up by gripping her knee. She sulked further. "It's not that funny."
"Ah, Ariel. You're not a fraud."
"I am," she disagreed. "I portray a hard-ace shell on the outside; strong, unapproachable and a rebel. But on the inside, I'm a gooey, emotional, scaredy cat mess."
"I think the whole point of being a rebel is to do what you want. If there were rules for being a rebel, wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of being a …rebel?" She looked up at me from under her lashes. "If you want to have a faux piercing, then go for it. I hate needles, too. So what?"
"Really?"
"Yeah. I'm right on this one."
"Honestly," she set the chain on my nightstand and rubbed her nostrils, groaning, "I hate the thing."
"Then why wear it?"
"Because…I only started wearing black to piss off my mom. She wanted me to be this happy, bright girl that had rainbows in her eyes, and when I told her that I wasn’t that girl, she pushed and pushed and pushed me. So, I started dressing the exact opposite of the way she wanted. Then everyone at school started calling me a 'Goth', though I never called myself that. It just became expected of me to be this way."
"And the hair?" She looked up again. "It's…pretty short, Ariel."
She cleared her throat. "You want to know another secret?" I nodded. "I have Leukemia. I went into remission last year."
I stilled, my heart slamming to a halt against my ribs. "What?" I whispered.
"I decided to cut my hair off because I knew it was all going to fall out anyway once I started the treatments, right? But it didn't." She scrubbed the short hair with her hand. "I never lost my hair and it was all in vain. I just keep it cut now because like I said, everyone just expects me to be this crazy Goth girl and I don't want it to be said that I caved from peer pressure to be normal."
"Wow," I muttered.
"So I get an "A" for shock and awe?" she jested.
"Ariel," I said softly and sat next to her on the bed. Ok, I could do this. I could be the girlfriend. I could be the shoulder to lean on, right? I'd never been those things before with anybody, because my friends were always shallow and didn't care about anyone's problems.
I turned to her and said in a clear voice. "Screw them. Screw them all. Screw anyone that says whether or not you wear your hair a certain way, or dress a certain way, or connect things to your nose or not, or be the product of a teen pregnancy, or be a virgin. Screw them, Ariel! If you want to grow your hair
back and wear freaking pastels, you do that and anyone that breathes a word about it doesn't deserve your attention enough to even acknowledge them!"
Her eyes were bugged and had been that way for most of my speech. I worried that I'd gone too far, maybe, but she snatched me to her in a hug. "Wow, Clara. You've got the pep talk thing down."
I laughed and hugged her back. I tried to remember what she looked like when her hair was long, but to be honest - and completely shameful - I couldn't remember. I pulled back to look at her. "Was it too much? I'm kind of new to it."
"It was too much, but that's why I freaking loved it!" She smiled. "Thanks. I don't think I'll let the Goth look go, because it's so easy to shop at Hot Topic and just buy one of everything, but thanks. It's nice to maybe have the option one day."
"Brownies, girls!" Mrs. Ruth called down the hall. "I've decided it's too hazardous to my clean house to leave the munchkins unattended."
I rolled my eyes. "I'll get it."
As I crossed the room, I heard her call my name. "Clara."
"Hmm?" I asked as I turned to look at her.
"Thanks. I mean it."
"No problem." I started walking again, but she's stopped me once more. "Yeah?"
"Don't even think about coming back here without some milk."
I grinned. "Got it."
Four
We watched Vamps hunting Vamps, Vamp hunters and Witches torching Vamps, teenage girls kissing Vamps. And we giggled and swooned through it all. Eventually she passed out, the last half of her fourth brownie still in her hand. I put it aside and pulled the comforter over her. Her pajamas she'd thrown on, after the fastest shower I'd ever seen a girl take, were pink and black bull's-eyes. Her black camisole showed how petite she really was. Though she was curvy, she was slim, too.
I lay down beside her and closed my eyes, ready to see Eli…and there he was. My eyes hadn't been closed for three seconds before Eli was before me on the dock at the quarry. I smiled as I went to him easily and wrapped my arms around his middle.
I thought he'd be eager to pick right back up where we left off, but he accepted me in his arms and rubbed my lower back as he swayed us back and forth. I smiled against his chest. I was still safe in every way with my Eli.
"What's that smile for?" he asked against my forehead. He must have felt my lips move against his chest.
"Nothing, except…everything."
"My beautiful, cryptic Clara." He kissed my forehead.
"I just think it's great that I never have to be anyone but myself with you." I leaned back and looked at him. "But although it's nice to feel safe…intimately…with you, it does make me curious why you don't want to."
His eyebrows lifted, jumping into his hairline almost. "You think I don't want to ravage you right this second?"
I gulped as I felt the crimson rush into my cheeks with lightning speed. "You do?"
"Oh, absolutely," he said low. His eyebrows returned and he watched me as he tortured me with silence and a penetrating stare. "I want to. I just know that you want to wait." He lifted my hand, and in a move that I would have thought was cheesy if I'd seen it from anyone else, he kissed my promise ring. I smiled and watched as his expression changed from one of calm to one of concern…and then to one of happiness.
He wiped under my eye and I balked at the wetness there. He chuckled silently. "You didn't think I was a celibate for any reason other than waiting for you, did you?"
"I don't know. I just thought…I don't know."
"I try to keep myself somewhat…tame around you."
I smoothed my hand over his chest, my fingers catching on the buttons. "Well, you fooled me."
"Mission accomplished." He smiled before taking my hand again. "Come on."
He took me to the end of the dock to an oversized lounge chair with a blanket over the back, and two cans of soda. He helped me into the lounger before climbing in himself and throwing the blanket over us. Then he popped the can open for me and handed it to me. It was still cold.
"Am I really drinking this Dr. Pepper?" I asked as I felt the cold, smooth drink go down my throat. "I mean this is a reverie."
"Reveries are as real as I make them. It's kind of like your real body pauses and waits for you to return, but anything that happens to you in the reverie is real. If you get hurt in one, you'll be hurt in the real world."
"So if I sleep here?"
He looked surprised. "You know, I've never thought about that before." He smiled. "If you sleep in the reverie, your body should be reenergized by it."
"So this whole time you've taken me home in a hurry and we could have just fallen asleep and it would have been the same thing?"
"I guess so. It never crossed my mind before."
"Hmm. The possibilities…" I crooned and set my drink down before snuggling into him. "So this is the plan for tonight?"
His warm fingers played with the strap of my camisole and caressed my shoulder. "Yep. I thought we'd just sit here together," he said softly.
The dock swayed a bit with the gentle waves of the lake under us. There were no waves on a lake at night with no boaters to make them. He must have generated them. Like he generated the moon that was so close and so bright and beautiful, casting a spell over the night all its own.
"This is really beautiful," I whispered.
He pulled my chin up and looked at my face for a few seconds. "Yeah," he breathed, "it is."
He leaned down to kiss me and then pressed my face into his neck. I wiggled my leg in between his and sighed at the comfort I felt. And I fell asleep.
~ ~ ~
"CB, you've got to get up, love," I heard in my ear.
"Mmm, no," I groaned in annoyance.
"Mmm, yes," I heard, followed by a chuckle. "Ariel will be up soon and you need to get back."
Back?
I peeked and saw that it was now daylight in our reverie. And we'd slept - well, I'd slept - on the dock in the chair. Eli had held me all night. I felt the same. I didn't feel tired, but I guessed we'd have to test the sleeping theory when I was in the real world again.
Math was seriously going to suck if I had to go with my body running on no sleep.
"Come on, CB," he coaxed again.
I realized I closed my eyes again and opened them. Eli looked content and I wondered what he did all night. I just lay there like a lump and my leg was still wedged between his, so I know he didn't get up.
"What did you do all night?"
He smiled and ran is hand through my hair. "Watched you," he admitted in a low voice.
"Boring much?" I scoffed.
"Not for me." He had made another sweep through my locks and I fought not to shiver. "It was a new experience. I've never slept with anyone."
"But you don't sleep."
"And I didn't last night either, but I stayed right here while you did. You make all these little noises and sighs…" He smiled again. "You dream, your eyelids move and jump. You…"
"What?" I said, suddenly enraptured with what he was going to say about me when he stopped.
"You said my name," he said with a growly, joyful voice. "A lot."
He covered the blush on my cheeks with his hand and smiled. "I'm sorry," I muttered. "My subconscious is apparently obsessed with you."
He laughed. "I'm totally fine with it, love." He kissed my forehead. "I'm not sure I could be anymore blissful than I am right now."
"Is that something you foreigners say? Love?"
"You foreigners?" he scoffed and laughed. "I've been reduced to a foreigner now?"
"You know what I mean."
"Yes, people overseas say 'love' when they talk to people sometimes. It's a nickname or endearment. But for me, it means something else entirely when I say it to you." He looked at me pointedly. He was asking me silently if I was ready to have the 'I love you' conversation.
I wasn't sure if I was ready to have that conversation or not, but I remembered Ariel waiting for me. "Ariel," I said.
He
frowned. "Um…oh, yeah." He cleared his throat. "That girl is causing me problems lately."
"I'm, uh… Thank you for last night. It was a really sweet gesture."
He leaned in and whispered against my mouth, "You're welcome, love."