Hold Me Close

  That could never be good. It was the sex. It had changed things. Maybe she was overthinking it? But no...not from the way he was looking at her. Shit. “Okay.”

  “I haven’t been seeing anyone else but you for the past month or so. I know we didn’t talk about being exclusive, but I wanted to let you know. Would you... Would you like to just see me? I mean, it doesn’t have to be anything super serious,” he added hastily. “But I believe in being up front and honest. I hate all the game playing on that site, to be honest.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” Effie said, though actually she’d never experienced any games because she usually didn’t bother dating a guy more than once and had never had a problem using the block button.

  “And I thought since we...already, well...”

  She tried to answer but managed only to nod and smile. Mitchell frowned a little, as if she ought to have said something more, and dammit, she probably should have, but what was there to say? They’d fucked. It happened. People did it all the time and never spoke to one another again. Why did relationships have to be so much fucking work? Effie turned her mug in her hands. She had not, in fact, been dating anyone else from LuvFinder since she started seeing Mitchell, but that did not make them exclusive. Yet she’d told Heath and her mother and herself it was what she was looking for—and it was, wasn’t it? So why, then, when faced with having to make it official, did everything inside her squeeze like a fist?

  “So...?”

  She bought herself some time by sipping some more coffee, then gave him a small smile she suspected wasn’t going to make her answer any more palatable. She had to tell him the truth, though. She hadn’t been entirely truthful about a lot of other things, so he at least deserved her honesty now.

  “I’m not sure I’m ready to make that promise.”

  “Oh, sure, sure. Right.” Mitchell nodded, his gaze going shuttered.

  She’d hurt his feelings. “But I’ll let you know about Friday as soon as I can figure out who can stay with my daughter, okay? I’d really like to go out with you.”

  “Great.” Mitchell stood, his coffee only half-finished, his croissant barely touched. He wrapped it back in the paper and put the lid on his paper cup. “You have my number. Just give me a call. Or text. It was nice seeing you, Effie.”

  She stood and gave him a one-armed hug. Awkward, but not unpleasant. “You, too. I’ll call you.”

  He gave her a little wave as he went out the front door. Effie watched until he disappeared from her sight, then sat back with a sigh to pull out her sketch pad. She’d made only a few strokes before her phone buzzed with a text. Mitchell, already? She grinned, then frowned when she saw who it was really from.

  Nice looking guy.

  Bill. With a sigh, Effie thumbed a reply. Don’t you have some criminals to harass?

  Would rather harass you.

  She twisted to look out the window, expecting to see him watching from across the street, but all she saw were parked cars and a guy in a long dark coat and a striped scarf coming into the coffee shop. She didn’t answer the text, but she couldn’t manage to concentrate on any drawing ideas, either. Fucking Bill, she thought with the corners of her mouth turned down.

  I’m getting off shift now. Come over.

  NO, she typed and erased. Typed it again. But she didn’t hit Send. Another text came through while she was debating.

  I’ll eat your pussy until you scream, Bill typed, and Effie had to stifle a groan.

  She didn’t answer this text, either, though she saw the three small dots that indicated Bill was still typing. Before he could finish, she got another message, this one from Dee, apologizing that she’d have to cancel because the school had called her to come get Meredith, who had a fever. By the time she finished typing her reply to Dee, Bill’s next text had buzzed through.

  I’ll make you come so hard you forget your name.

  Oh, universe, Effie thought. What lesson are you trying to teach me?

  Promises, promises, Effie typed. I’ll be over in half an hour.

  * * *

  On her knees, Effie took Bill’s cock down her throat. Her hand at the base kept him from going too deep and gagging her, while her other hand cradled his balls. He thrust with a groan. He wasn’t pulling her hair. She wanted him to, she’d asked him to, and he had for a minute or so, barely hard enough, and then let go.

  Effie loosed his cock from her lips with an audible pop and looked up at him. “Fuck my mouth.”

  Bill looked down at her with narrowed eyes, hazy gaze. His mouth was wet. From his tongue or from her cunt, she wasn’t sure, but she liked to think it was because a minute or so ago he’d been face-first in her pussy. Her clit throbbed, and she slid a hand between her legs to stroke herself as she went back to sucking him.

  She was close, so very close, but she hadn’t quite made it when he flooded her mouth. She’d barely swallowed when Bill pulled her to her feet and kissed her. Their teeth clashed. His hand went between her legs, found her slick and open. He fucked into her with his fingers, his thumb on her clit. Still, wasn’t nearly enough. She wanted it to be. Effie wanted to come so much it was all she could think about. Too long without that pleasure, even from her own hand. She wanted to come the way normal people did, easily or with effort, but she hadn’t had an orgasm since the last time with Heath.

  She didn’t want to think about him now, but it was the memory of his taste that washed away Bill’s flavor. Heath’s touch, his kiss, his face in front of hers. She might hate it, she might not want it, but there it was, and oh, fuck yes, then she was coming and coming and coming while Bill murmured words of encouragement to her.

  They were on his bed before she quite knew how they got there. Not cuddling, though the way she was feeling, she might have let him. Bill snored lightly and Effie curled onto her side but facing him, so she could, if she wanted to, reach out and touch his face.

  Quietly, she got out of bed and went into his bathroom to take a shower. She would be cutting it close, getting home in time for Polly to get off the bus, and she didn’t want to greet her daughter stinking of sex. She didn’t luxuriate but scrubbed herself quickly and got out without even wetting her hair. At his sink, she rinsed her mouth and spat, then again. She could still taste him.

  He was still sleeping when she came back into the room, and she sat on the edge of the bed next to him. She put her hand on his bare hip, thinking he might wake up and hoping he wouldn’t. Then they’d have to talk, and she didn’t feel like talking to Bill right now. She let her fingers slide down his flank, feeling the crisp hairs curling against her knuckles.

  She used him. He used her. They’d been doing this a long time, and there was no reason for her to think it had to change. But it would, if she gave Mitchell the answer he’d been hoping for. Everything would change then.

  “Bill.” He didn’t answer, so she poked him a little harder. “Bill, wake up.”

  “Shhh... Wha...” Grumbling, he opened his eyes and frowned. “What?”

  “I was on a date with that guy in the coffee shop. I’ve seen him a few times. He’s asking me to make it exclusive.”

  Bill yawned. “Yeah. So?”

  “So, doesn’t that bother you?” She poked him again, taking a small pleasure in the way he winced and put a hand over hers to stop her from doing it again.

  Bill let out a low, muttered string of curses. He sat up. “No. Should it?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Do you want it to bother me? Christ, Effie, I’m tired. I worked the night shift,” Bill complained.

  Effie got up. “You weren’t too tired to have your dick in my mouth.”

  “And you put it there, so what’s the fucking problem?” Bill yawned again. “You want to go on dates? So, what? Go. Hell, get married if you want to. Isn’t that what all
girls want, eventually?”

  “What’s so wrong with that?” Effie demanded, crossing her arms. “What’s so wrong with wanting to find someone to be with who cares about you? It’s what people do, Bill, unless they’re too fucked up to ever even try.”

  “Well, that’s you and me, isn’t it? Too fucked up to even try?” Bill winked.

  Effie sneered. “I hate you. You know that?”

  “You wish you could hate me,” Bill said and rolled back into the blankets, pulling them up over his shoulders. “Keep trying. Maybe you’ll get there.”

  * * *

  The whispers stop when Effie enters the locker room. It’s been months since she came home. You’d think everyone would have something else to gossip about, but nope, it’s still her. Her father says she could stay home, get private tutoring. Switch schools, even, but Effie said no. This story will follow her anyway, no matter where she goes. At least here she knows these kids. It’s easier to brush off the rumors and looks when she knows that Rachel Franklin wet the bed up until the sixth grade and Courtney Spenser’s dad went to jail for drunk driving.

  Nobody takes a shower, even though the gym teacher said they have to. Effie does, though. She’ll shower any freaking place with hot water. What does she care if it means being naked in front of other girls? None of them ever had to spend weeks feeling filthy. Effie will never pass up a chance to scrub herself, especially after sweating on the track the way they did today. And it’s last period. She can take her time, no rush to get to her next class.

  She closes her eyes to let the hot water stream over her face. Dreamily, she scrubs her hair, luxuriating in the way the shampoo leaves it squeaky clean. She lathers beneath her arms, over her belly, her thighs. She looks down to see the suds swirling down the drain around her toes. When she looks up, Cindy Jones is looking at her from the shower room doorway. Cindy wears too much black eyeliner and teases her hair high on one side, leaving the other side shaved. She’s the antithesis of a teen drama cheerleader, but she’s still a popular girl with a covey of followers who bill and coo around her. Now she’s staring in at Effie.

  “What?” Effie says, challenging.

  Cindy’s smirk says it all. When Effie comes out of the shower with her towel wrapped around her breasts and her wet hair still hanging in sopping strands over her back, Cindy is hovering around her locker in the next row over. Her voice rises enough to be sure Effie hears her.

  “Yeah, she took a whole bunch of crazy pills with a bottle of Scotch. They had to send her to the hospital to get her stomach pumped.” Cindy says this with such confidence there’s no way anyone could dispute her.

  Effie slips her panties over her still-damp skin. Then her bra. She wraps her hair in the towel, refusing to give them the satisfaction of knowing she heard them, but Cindy isn’t satisfied. She wants Effie to know they’re talking about her. She wants a reaction.

  “It was a suicide pact,” Cindy says, a little louder. “With her and that guy she was with. Her parents found her in the bathtub with a razor on her wrist.”

  Effie can’t take it. She steps around the row of lockers. “Shut up.”

  Cindy turns with another of those smirks. Why she has such a fucking hard-on for Effie isn’t clear, except that maybe compared to Effie’s story, Cindy is not even close to being the kind of badass she makes herself out to be. What has Cindy ever survived but the wrong pair of jeans under the Christmas tree?

  “Everyone knows you were in the hospital two weeks ago. And you didn’t have the flu.”

  The bleeding and cramping had stopped only a few days ago. Effie missed only three days of school. Now her hands fist with rage she forces herself not to show.

  “So you assume I tried to kill myself?”

  Cindy’s smirk falters for a second. She’s not expecting Effie to stand up to her, because nobody ever does. Effie takes the towel from her hair with a quick, drying scrub, then tosses it to the bench. She puts her hands on her hips. Nobody can look directly at her, whether they’re ashamed or because she’s standing so boldly in only her underwear and that intimidates them, her easy nakedness.

  “If I tried to kill myself, they wouldn’t let me out of the hospital the same day. They’d send me someplace for longer than two days.” It’s Effie’s turn to sneer. She holds out both wrists. “I don’t even have a scratch there. So much for your razor blade theory.”

  Cindy’s chin goes up. “Look, it’s not like it’s a big deal. Lots of people try to kill themselves. I mean, they’re losers, but whatever.”

  Effie looks at each of the girls in the group, one at a time. None of them will meet her gaze. Her mouth tastes sour. She wants to spit.

  She can’t tell them the real reason she had to go to the ER and why she missed school. The truth is worse than Cindy’s lie. Thinking of it all over again breaks her with the slow, spreading crackle of glass shattering. She thinks of her father saying, “Effie, you don’t have to go back to school right away. Nobody would blame you if you wanted to stay home.” Of her mother responding, “She needs to get back into normal life, Phil. Or she never will.”

  If Effie ever wants to get back into normal life, here it is. The bullshit of high school, right in front of her. She’s already older than all of these girls, even if they’re still the same age. It’s not enough that she struggles with the curriculum in classes that are technically two grades behind so that she can catch up in time for graduation. She also has to eat shit or be an outcast.

  “I didn’t try very hard.” The words are ash on Effie’s tongue. She sees the way their faces light up. The way Cindy looks around with smug satisfaction, even though she has to know her own story was a lie.

  “My cousin tried to kill himself once,” pipes up Rachel.

  Courtney nods. “Yeah, I went to summer camp with a girl who tried.”

  One by one, the small group chimes in with their own stories. They all know someone who tried, but nobody seems to know anyone who succeeded. There’s acceptance in their eyes and voices, in the way they reach out to her without actually reaching, and Effie lets them take her into their circle because she doesn’t want to be outside it.

  She can’t stop thinking about it, though. Later, after dinner when she’s supposed to be doing her homework, all she can do is stare at the pages of her history book and think about how she will never need to know who wrote the Magna Carta. Her stomach is empty, growling, because her mom made some kind of chili and there were simply too many...things...in it for Effie to eat.

  She calls Heath, but his father answers, drunk. He doesn’t know where his son is. Effie’s sure he doesn’t care.

  She needs to get out of this house.

  The only way to do it is by sneaking. Mom will flip her shit if she knows Effie wants to go running out in the night, along dark streets, alone. If nothing had ever happened to her, Effie knows her mother would still cling too hard, but now there is no way for her mom to let her go and do normal things, no matter how much she claims she wants Effie to be normal. Everything is fucked up. It will never get better.

  So she sneaks out, careful on the creaking stairs, inching past the door to the family room, where her parents sit in silence on separate sides of the couch and stare at the television. Through the kitchen and out the garage door, then out into the cool and misty autumn air. She breathes it in, shivering, and runs.

  It starts to rain. She keeps running. Feet slapping the pavement. Fists pumping. She will never be caught again, never.

  She can run fast, or she can run far, but she can’t do both. Not with a stomach that’s been near to empty for days. She’s weak, and Effie lets out a curse as she bends over, mouth open, waiting to see if she’s going to heave. The rain is turning to speckles of ice. She’s not wearing gloves.

  The car that pulls up beside her does not have flashing red and blue lights, but
it’s still a cop car. Effie straightens. She’s out past curfew. She has a story, or she’ll think of one, but when the window rolls down and she sees that familiar face, she doesn’t have to say a word.

  “Get in,” Officer Schmidt says.

  “Did my mother call you?”

  “No. Get in.”

  She gets in the front seat next to him, warming her hands on the air blowing from the vents. She’s not soaked through, but she would’ve been in a few minutes. She should be grateful for him. For saving her again.

  They drive, but he doesn’t take her home. Officer Schmidt pulls into the hardware store parking lot, but around the back where the deliveries are made. He parks in a patch of darkness. He sits with his hands on the wheel, facing forward, not looking at her.

  “You shouldn’t be out past curfew,” he says. “Running alone in the dark is a good way to get yourself in trouble.”

  “I had to get out of the house. I was going to go crazy.” Effie’s voice cracks. She leans into the warmth, bathing her face. Closing her eyes. When she opens them, he’s looking at her.

  Oh, there’s a look she understands.

  She is kissing him before she can think to stop herself. This, kissing him, is saving of a different sort. She thinks he will push her off him—he has to, doesn’t he? He’s an adult, she’s only seventeen, he’s a police officer, she’s a fucked-up mess, but all she can think of right then is the sight of that blue uniform when he came through that doorway into the basement with his gun drawn. How he lowered the weapon at the sight of them, she and Heath, both of them still so stunned by Sheila’s drunken intrusion and her screaming that neither of them had moved.

  All she can hear is his voice, saying over and over, “It’s going to be okay. It’s all going to be okay.”

  So she kisses him, and he does not push her away. His mouth opens. Their tongues stroke. His hand goes up to the back of her neck, holding her off him but not pushing her away. She can feel the battle in him, and it’s one Effie intends to win.