Thicker Than Water (12 page)

“My foundation will be way too dark for you, but I could show you how to do your eyes and lips.”

Aarti smiles, tugging her dark hair behind one ear. When she reaches out to tilt my chin up, I force myself not to flinch.

“I've never had anyone do my makeup before,” I admit as she starts sorting through her compacts and brushes. She squints up at me as she selects a palette of purple eye shadows.

“Your mom never taught you?”

I shake my head. “She was . . . she died before I really started getting interested.”

I wait for the pity smile, but Aarti doesn't give it to me. Instead, she just says, “Close your eyes.”

So I do.

“You have court tomorrow?” Aarti asks. I feel her brush shadow over my lid and up to my brow bone.

“Yeah.”

“Nervous?”

I exhale. “Yeah—really nervous.”

“Think you'll end up back here?” She moves on to the other eyelid and I give a little shrug.

“I don't know—I mean, there aren't a lot of alternatives in my case.”

“Hmm.”

We both fall silent then. I exhale slowly as the brushes coast along my skin and try to remember a time I felt something so lovely, so perfectly comforting and completely pleasurable. Then I remember Tucker's kisses and realize it was only an hour ago that I had the same kind of simple, sweet escape.

“Okay, look at me.” Aarti is peering at me when I open my eyes. “You need some liner—and mascara will do wonders for your lashes.”

She grabs a black eyeliner pencil in one hand and a tube of mascara. I close my eyes automatically as she gets to work.

“You must really miss your sister,” I say as Aarti begins to draw a line along my lashes.

“Yes—she's the best thing I have left in this country. The only thing, really. I'm hoping that when I turn eighteen, I can move to be closer to her.”

“How did you manage to get married so young—if you don't mind me asking?”

My lashes flutter open and I see her shrug before I shut my eyes tighter.

“My husband was on a sabbatical trip in Calcutta. I was
looking for a way out and I thought he was the proverbial—what do you call it? Knight in shining armor?”

“Yeah.” I swallow.

Even across the world, the sense of needing someone to save you is pervasive. Still, it's kind of inspiring to see her trying to save herself.

“So was it worth it?” I ask her.

There's a long pause and I feel the heel of her hand rest softly against my cheekbone as she sweeps a larger brush over my forehead.

“Yes,” Aarti finally says. “It was worth it—because my life in Calcutta . . . it was predetermined. Despite everything, I'm here now. I'll be able to make my own decisions eventually, even if they're being dictated to me for now.”

I swallow. The bright glare of her hope for the future shines directly through my closed eyes, and I'd wince if it weren't so beautiful.

“All right—take a look,” Aarti says.

Blinking, I turn toward the full-length mirror, a little afraid of what I'm going to see there—that is, until I open my eyes fully and see exactly what my roommate has done.

“Wow.”

She's taken the black liner and created a frame around my eyes that competes with the shadowy circles below, that makes them less noticeable, especially with the contrasting lavender shades above.

My eyes look less sad, less broken, than they did only hours ago. I don't know if it's Tucker's kisses or Aarti's makeup or
even Trina's therapy that's done the most good. I don't really think it matters.

“Thank you.”

Without thinking, I reach across the space between us and hug my roommate, this almost-stranger who has heard my nightmares and watched me eat and has averted her eyes when I needed privacy. It's taken until now, until I'm almost-maybe gone for good for us to finally connect. I'd feel bad about wasting so much time if I wasn't so grateful for the last ten minutes. For the last few hours. For the last week.

If nothing else, there is this: a makeup lesson with my roommate, a counseling session that didn't make me want to pull my hair out, and a kiss from a boy who asked for nothing in return but my kisses. A boy who took Oxys and betrayed his parents. A boy like my brother, but not my brother. A boy who is still alive.

AFTER THE DETONATION OF MY BEDROOM, CYRUS DIDN'T COME
home. My dad was full of conspiracy theories, but for the first few days, we just assumed he'd been staying with a friend. Dad tried calling a handful of Cyrus's former soccer teammates, sure that they were the ones Cy still turned to. I didn't say what I was thinking—that Cy's only friends were drug connections more than buddies. That he hadn't talked to his teammates in almost a year.

He'd been gone for a few days when I invited Lucas over to my house for the first time. Dad was gone—off to some farmers' market that he was scoping out—and Jane was at work. Without Cyrus, the house was more than just quiet—it was peaceful in the most foreign kind of way.

“Do you want to watch TV?” I asked Lucas. He was peering at a framed picture of me when I was in elementary school. He looked up and shrugged.

“Sure. You were adorable, by the way.” He gestured to the picture, then sidled closer and wrapped one arm around my waist. “In fact, you're still pretty adorable.”

“You think so?”

“Mm-hm.”

I turned the TV on—some kind of morning news/talk/entertainment monstrosity filled the screen and the silence—but I don't think Lucas or I even noticed that there was anything happening in the room outside the press of our bodies against each other. He'd backed me toward the couch and had me lying down before I could even imagine saying no. Not that I'd wanted to. The pressure of his weight against my skin and bones and muscle was the very best kind of pressure—the kind you aren't afraid of and the kind your body lives for.

“Lucas,” I gasped out as his hand brushed over my stomach, then beneath the hem of my T-shirt.

“Do you want me to stop?” he murmured against my skin, kissing along my collarbone.

Want? No.

Need? Kind of.

“Yes—I . . . I'm sorry. I'm just not . . .”

He lifted off me and shook his head. “Don't worry about it, CeCe. That's not what I'm here for.”

He cupped my cheek with one hand, then settled back against the couch cushions before grabbing the remote. I snuggled down against his shoulder and he started surfing channels. The simple mundaneness of this moment—of
having a boy at my house, of watching TV with him in my living room—made me forget just about everything that wasn't simple in my life. At least for the moment.

And once another week had passed, it was hard to keep turning a blind eye to what was happening around me. I'd become as bad as Dad—my room was still lying in many pieces of its former self, since I hadn't even bothered to clean it. The morning I finally decided to straighten up, I sat on my mattress and listened to my dad on the phone with Jane. He was getting frantic about Cy's disappearance, his voice high-pitched and tinny.

“He could have been jumped or something!” Dad yelled. “Maybe they left him somewhere to die!”

I imagined my brother's funeral and I felt sick with relief. Then I imagined having to pay for it. The unfamiliar silence in the house was so welcome, so fresh, and yet at the same time it hung in the air like a stench. Like the smoke Cy took with him when he vanished.

All week, Jane came and went without a word; the only time she and Dad talked was on the phone. She said she was assisting with a big case at the firm. I heard her tell Dad something about it being “her chance to advance” and I thought,
Advance like move forward? Or like move away?
I saw her for a few minutes every morning and evening; each time, she was holding a mug of coffee and wearing a look that was far from home. There was a blush on her face that was the opposite of camouflage. I could smell her wistfulness from a mile away.

Outside our family, I didn't tell anyone that Cy was missing. Instead, I went to school, although most days I left with Lucas before the eight a.m. bell even rang. Seeing him had become my daily necessity, like personal hygiene. Swoon was evolving to smitten. I was a goner.

“Hungry?” Lucas had asked on a Thursday as he maneuvered his car through the faculty lot and back out onto the main road.

I shook my head and watched him tap two Camel Filters out of his pack. Looking at him in the morning, I could tell his rumpledness was authentic—no shower or shaving before school. All I could think was:
This is what it would be like to wake up next to him
.

This is how I decided that midterms were irrelevant and that I didn't need a diploma.

“Third day in a row of blowing off classes.” Lucas grinned, handing me a cigarette. He watched in amusement as I inexpertly lit it. “Guess you were serious about not going to college, huh?”

I just shrugged, attempting to take a cough-less drag of my cigarette. I rolled down the window and exhaled, watching as we pulled into McLaughlin Park. The municipal park was now our go-to spot. There was nothing to interrupt us, save the staccato punctuation of tennis balls hitting the nearby courts. That kind of white noise, that proof of life just beyond our periphery, was sort of arousing. There's nothing like being almost alone to make you take advantage of privacy.

Kissing was more natural since I'd been practicing on
Lucas every day, too. Sometimes when my eyes were closed and all I could feel was Lucas, I thought about soccer—about how Cyrus used to get up at all hours, how it took every bit of his strength and interest and hand-eye coordination. That when he was done, it was still morning and he was already spent. That's how Lucas made me feel. I gave him all I had and there was nothing left for anyone else. It was particularly convenient at a time when I should have been feeling so many other things, like guilt or fear or regret.

“So, tell me something,” Lucas said, his lips pressed against my neck. We were parked at the far end of the park's upper lot. Fewer people came up here this early and, at that moment, it felt like we were the only two people on earth.

“Mmm?”

“At school. In school, I mean. Is it, like, easy for you?”

I shifted to look at him and winced; the parking brake was lodged between us like an extra limb.

“What do you mean, ‘easy'?”

Lucas shrugged. “I mean, you got good grades and shit. I know we were joking about it before, but we both know you're going to college.”

I snorted. “Not the good kind.” Then I bit my lip, knowing how that sounded. “I mean, not like a university.”

“I know what you meant.”

There was silence for a second and I thought I'd offended him. Then he reached out to stroke the soft, fleshy side of my pinky. I gave him a half smile, then let my fingers intertwine with his.

“You could get good grades, too,” I said softly. It was Lucas's turn to snort.

“Please. Ever heard of a lost cause?”

Yeah. I live with one.
Lived
with one.

“There's no such thing as a lost cause,” I lied.

He ran a hand over his hair, then let it rest over his eyes. “I'm not cut out for school.”

Moments like this confounded me. I'd read enough books and watched enough movies to know I was supposed to be trying to make Lucas a better man, the best possible version of himself. That I was supposed to get him to turn his life around or something. Instead, I linked a free finger into a belt loop of his jeans.

“Maybe tomorrow you can stay for first period.”

He barked a laugh, as though I'd suggested something impossible and I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. I was missing Dr. Schafer's lecture on acidity and alkalinity. I felt bad about skipping her class—really, I did. I just couldn't help it—I felt a gravitational pull toward Lucas. It was inexplicable, but I had a few hypotheses, and mornings like this were my opportunity to collect data.

Lucas was showing me different sides of himself. Like this morning, when I'd seen how he'd tucked an Oxy under his tongue as I climbed into the passenger's seat of his car. He'd never asked me for them, so I could only assume he was getting them from Jason. Something about that concept made me feel dirty. And there were other things. Sometimes he chain-smoked. Sometimes he laughed too loud.

Sometimes he reminded me of Cyrus in ways that made me sick and scared.

Still, Lucas was soft around the edges and his hands already felt like home. It sounds weird, but they almost felt like my mom's hands when he smoothed back my hair or touched my cheek. Soon enough, though, they learned to slide down the front of my jeans. And then I didn't think about my mom anymore.

I didn't think about anything but how his touch was the center of my universe, my gravity, my reason for being. In all ways, Lucas had become my drug. In all ways, I'd become an addict—just like my brother. And I would have hated myself for it if it hadn't felt so damn good.

That Friday, I told Lucas that I had to go to school, that I needed to at least attempt to pass my classes. That, and I wanted to talk to Natalie, who had pretty much disappeared off the face of the earth in the last week or two. It was like when Cyrus split, Natalie went with him.

“I've called you a couple times, Nat,” I said quietly. We were standing by her locker in the morning before Chem class. She shrugged.

“Look, you do you, CeCe—you wanna slum it with Lucas Andrews and his buddies, that's up to you.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What happened to the girl who thought he was hot? Who left me alone with him on a college tour?”

Natalie sighed. “Look, Jeremy told me that Lucas and
his cousin are into a bunch of shady shit.”

“What kind of ‘shady shit'?”

“The dealing drugs kind. Jeremy said that Jason kid offered him OxyContin in the locker room. That's pretty hard-core, CeCe. It's not, like, pot or whatever. I don't think that's something you want to get yourself wrapped up in.”

I sniffed, forcing my voice to stay even. “Look—maybe Jeremy just misunderstood.”

“Misunderstood being offered drugs?”

“I don't know—maybe.” I sort of tossed up my hands. “I've never given you a hard time about the guys you date. Can't you just be happy for me?”

Natalie looked like she'd eaten something sour; her expression was decidedly pinched.

“Honestly—no. I don't think I can. Not this time.”

Then her eyes widened a bit. She pulled a book from her locker and slammed it shut.

“I gotta go,” she mumbled, hurrying off. I frowned at her retreating back.

“Good morning, beautiful.”

I spun around and grinned at Lucas, who was standing with his hands shoved in his pockets and wearing a hundred-watt smile.

“You're here! Are you actually going to first period?”

But he put a finger against my lips as though he needed me to hold in a secret.

“Listen, I need a favor.”

I frowned. “Of course. What's up?”

He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Jason's dope sick like shit. He's out of pills and falling apart—he's gonna have a seizure or something. We need to get him something to keep him from ending up in the hospital.”

“He needs more?” I couldn't help the incredulity in my voice—I'd sold him a shitload of pills hardly two weeks before.

“You know I wouldn't ask if it weren't an emergency,” Lucas said, lowering his voice a little. “You think Cyrus can spare a few more?”

He reached forward then and toyed with a lock of my hair. For a second, I imagined he was weaving it into something splendid. Something we could cloak ourselves with, something we could fly away on. Then he dropped his hand to his side.

“I'll see what I can come up with,” I said finally. Past Lucas, I could see Dr. Schafer at the end of the hallway, talking to another teacher. I'd skipped her class three times this week. When our eyes met, she just looked at me like I was a new student, like she didn't know me at all.

“I need to go to Chem today,” I said, turning back to Lucas. He nodded, but looked distracted. A few feet away, some of Jason's friends—Lucas's friends, too, I guess—were standing in a semicircle.

“I'll text you.” His lips brushed against my cheek and I fought the urge to grab his face, to pull him closer and not let go.

During class, I thought about competitions—how there seemed to be some sort of game involved in being with someone, but I was a novice and I didn't know the rules. If this had been a year ago, I'd have talked to Natalie about it. I might have even gone to Cy for advice—he always had a good outlook when it came to love. For me, it was just an elusive commodity, something to be coveted. Cy wasn't as unhinged by the opposite sex as I was.

Maybe I should've been honest.

“Lucas, I can't get the pills.”

“Cyrus took off. We haven't seen him all week.”

“Maybe Jason should go to the hospital. I mean, someone who takes that many pills has got to have a problem . . .”

The thing about honesty, though, is that it's a deluge, not a drip. Once you stop, the release turns to relief so quickly, you hardly remember what you've said. As soon as I started confessing things, I wouldn't be able to stop. Who could guess what would come out?

“I've been stealing Cy's pills. That's why he left.”

“I haven't wanted anyone to touch me since my mom died.”

“I'm just a shattered person and you almost make me whole again.”

I probably shouldn't have been surprised when Dr. Schafer asked me to stay after class. I guess I wasn't surprised, per se. Uncomfortable, yes. Definitely uncomfortable.

“You want to tell me what's going on with you, CeCe?”

She asked it so matter-of-factly, so straightforwardly, that I was almost unable to respond. I looked down at my shoes,
then back up at my teacher.