Black Iris (13 page)

“I guess it’s true,” I said, sliding my calf over his leg. His hair prickled against me. “I’m a slut for poetry.”

“You’ve got that backward. You seduced me.”

I slid my leg higher along his. Bared my teeth, licked the top ones. Armin laughed.

“Vixen,” he said.

I shook my head.

“No? What are you, then?”

“A wolf.”

He ran a hand through my hair and pinched my earlobe. “Where did you learn that ear thing?”

No reply.

“The wolf has secrets.”

“All wolves do. Think Hiyam heard us?”

Armin groaned, and I laughed.

“If she didn’t, I’ll make sure she does next time,” I said.

His whole frame flexed, pulling me in close and rolling me atop him. My legs spread to either side of his. He was hard
again, and he’d taken the condom off, and the bareness of his skin against mine made my breath catch. Nothing between us.

“When is the next time?” he said.

“Right now.”

I leaned down to kiss him, but before I reached his mouth he tensed and his muscle kept me from completing the kiss. My hair tumbled around our faces, a cup of dark petals.

“Not tonight,” Armin said.

“Why?”

“I see how this goes. We hook up, and I let you in, but you don’t do the same for me.”

“I’m letting you in, Armin. It just takes time.”

“Then I can wait.”

He’d locked us together but couldn’t stop me from tightening my legs, sliding against that hard dick. “This is how I let you in. I can’t do it without this.”

“Without sex,” he said through his teeth.

“Yes.”

I pressed closer and he moaned helplessly. His hands went to the small of my back, resting there with a lightness so gentle it made something shift inside me, a hardness in my chest turning soft. I was ready to fuck him again. I was ready to take him raw, ride him, make him come inside, but that gentleness stopped me. It filled me with guilt.

“You don’t trust me, Laney. Even now. I see it in your eyes.” His fingers strayed over my face, my neck. Paused there, stroking. “I did hurt you.”

“It’s an old scratch.”

“From where?”

“I don’t remember.”

For a long time he merely looked up at me and I wondered how transparent I was.

“Stay here tonight,” he said. “I’ll keep you warm.”

He wrapped me in his arms and I burrowed into the sheet. Our clothes were strewn across the bed and I pulled Blythe’s shirt to my face, breathed deep, and closed my eyes.

———

When I slipped out of bed, Armin was dead asleep. For a while I stood watching. His torso and one leg lay bare, ivory silk flowing over his body like sculpting clay. In sleep he looked so vulnerable, eyebrows raised, pouting, questioning something in his dreams. The rain had diffused into mist, painting the sheets with slow-moving shadows. I was still naked and grabbed a button-down off the top of his hamper. A scarf of scent twined around me, crushed pinecones, split firewood left out in the rain. The shirt hung nearly to my knees.

I peered into the living room at Hiyam’s heaped blankets. Fetched my phone and cigarettes and stepped onto the balcony, sliding the door closed, soundless. Ten stories up I could taste wet concrete. It didn’t seem to be raining that hard but in half a minute I’d collected a shell of nacre on my skin, a creamy coating of pearl.

I wasn’t expecting an answer, and when she picked up my heart fluttered like paper caught in bike spokes. “Hey,” I said into the silence. She exhaled smoke. Then that long, low
hi
that was almost two syllables in her disarming twang. Both my hands curled around the phone. “Did I wake you?”

“As if I could bloody sleep.”

I slid down the railing, my back to the city. Pulled out a cigarette. In the glass my lighter flared, an orange firefly. “Me either. Where are you?”

“In your room, reading your diary, learning all your secrets.”

I laughed and tucked my legs beneath me. “You already know my secrets. Where are you really?”

“In your room,” she said again, softer, and I shivered. “On your bed. Staring at the ceiling.”

Quiet for a while. In the glass the city lights popped on and off, blinking like stars. The only stars you could see in Chicago were earthbound ones.

“Why’d you ring?” she said.

“To hear your voice.” I lifted my face to the wet sky. “Tell me a bedtime story.”

Even though it was Indian summer, the chill seeped into me with nothing but Armin’s shirt to keep me warm. I closed my eyes and wrapped myself in the voice coming from the phone. She told me stories about being a kid, her dad taking her boating and how they’d see dolphins in the bay, sleek gray, those friendly, intelligent faces. Wind and salt in her hair, the sun bleaching the down on her arms and tinting her skin gold. Shrimp and beer lunches. The faces she’d make when he gave her a sip, his roaring laugh. At night she’d lie on the limestone cliffs and watch the moon floating like a sand dollar over an ocean of violet ink, feeling like she was at the edge of the world. It was silly, she said, but as a kid she half thought of it as a real sand dollar, and when she pictured the bottom of the sea it was covered with them, a carpet of bone-white coins giving off a pale, misty light, every full moon collected there.

“That’s beautiful,” I whispered. “You’re beautiful.”

A smile in her voice. “Sleepy yet?”

“No. But I guess I should go pretend.”

“I’ll pretend, too. And lie here thinking about how you should be in this bed with me.”

My chest went tight. I felt like I’d swallowed a shoe. “Don’t start.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll make me crazy.”

“I’m crazy. Who are you? Are you crazy, too?”

Always the poetry nerd, riffing on Dickinson. “ ‘Then there’s a pair of us. Don’t tell. They’d banish us, you know.’ ”

“Clever girl.” The box spring creaked. She really was on my bed. “I keep holding my breath so I can catch your scent. It’s in your sheets. Some kind of flower, I think. One that blooms at night, sips up the moonlight. I spent an hour in the bathroom sniffing your bottles like a bloody pervert. I lie on your pillow and catch the ghost of you. You’re here but you’re not here. It drives me mad. God, I miss you.”

The balcony had dropped and I was just hanging there from my balloon heart.

“I miss you, too,” I said. “ ‘Missing someone is the whetstone that sharpens want.’ ”

She laughed. “And I make
you
crazy?”

That laugh felt like ribbons coming loose in my chest, a prettiness unraveling and somehow growing more beautiful. “It’s mutual craziness. Look, I should go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is so far away. Come see me now.” Words rose slowly, thickly from her throat, drugging me like opium smoke. “Come see what I’m doing while I listen to your voice. Right on your fucking bed.”

Holy shit. “I’ll call a cab.”

“You won’t. You’re teasing.”

“I’ll do that, too.”

Another laugh, darker. “Do everything to me.”

“I will,” I breathed.

“It’s past your bedtime. Good night, my little wolf.”

Good night good night God why wasn’t I there.

I sat on the balcony and smoked another cigarette, trying to stitch myself back together.

When I got up, my hair damp and netted with a thousand stars, I realized the sliding door was ajar. I hadn’t left it open.

Inside, a faint blue glow.

Hiyam sat on the floor, knees propped up. She swept that richly knowing gaze over me and went back to her phone.

I sat beside her, pretending to be calm. “Enjoy eavesdropping?”

“Oh, you’re staying the night.”

As if I’d get fucked and kicked to the curb. Ice cold. My mind raced as I studied her, night-sky hair curling around that regal, expressionless face, the saffron in her skin, a tinge of desert sun.

“If this is weird, I can go home. I don’t want to make things difficult for you and Armin.”

“If you actually care about my brother, why are you cheating on him?”

I went very still and very blank.

“So naive,” Hiyam said. “You think he won’t figure it out?”

“Don’t start drama over nothing. He told me your history.” I didn’t have to spell it out.
No one will believe you.

“I know drama when I hear it, Keating.” She scrolled the screen, disinterested. “The question is, who? I’m betting your door swings both ways. My money’s on Miss Melbourne.”

I’d never spoken a name out loud. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You think you’re different. It’s sad. I’ve known Blythe longer than you have.”

Something in me flared, coldly. “You were never friends with Blythe. She just got high with you.”

Hiyam didn’t flinch, but she scrolled faster, the screen blurring.

“It’s been real.” I stood. “I’m going to bed. With your brother.”

“Don’t get nasty. I’m just playing with you, Keating. We both love a good mindfuck.” She stuck a hand out. “Help me up. And give me a cigarette.”

I could’ve decked her, but my instincts said patience would be rewarded.

Back on the balcony the air had thickened into cottony fog, skyscraper lights burning pinholes in it like sparks eating through paper. I never took my eyes off Hiyam. She leaned on the railing, arms dangling over the hundred-foot drop, her phone held carelessly in one hand.

“Who’s that girl?” I said. “You’re always looking at her Facebook.”

“How observant we are.” She swirled her cigarette in the air, drawing smoke curlicues. “Just someone from high school.”

“The one who got you thrown into rehab?”

“Been doing your research.”

“So you miss her?”

“Could you not be so gay?” Hiyam ashed into the white sky. “I couldn’t stand her. She’s trailer trash, but she thought she was so much better than me.”

“Then why are you stalking her?”

“Because she was better than me.”

In the back of my mind I heard Zoeller saying,
Don’t do it, Laney. You’re better than this.

“She’s a scar to you,” I said. “Don’t pick at it. Let it fade.”

Hiyam’s face was empty, her eyes somewhere else. “I just wanted—I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I wanted to be friends, you know? I mean, once I got to know her. I’m sick of all this fakeness. All these people who only liked me when I had blow or cash or whatever. It actually felt good, being hated. It felt real.”

“You wanted to be friends, so you blackmailed her.”

“I was coked out of my mind. Nothing made sense.”

“Then why’d you do it?”

“Jealousy,” she said without hesitation. “It always comes
down to something crude. Don’t kid yourself, Keating. It’s human nature.”

I blew smoke into the fog, a ghost thread merging into the larger haunting.

And then came my reward.

“Did she actually say that?” Hiyam stared into the tabula rasa sky, her phone hanging precariously. Mist on the screen. So easy to slip and shatter. “About only getting high with me.”

“Blythe?”

“Yeah.”

I flicked my cigarette into white space. “If you really knew her, you’d know.”

I left Hiyam on the balcony, snaring herself in the web I’d strung there.

MARCH, THIS YEAR

I
t’s one of us.
The words hung in the air like gun smoke. They were violent, blasting holes in what we thought we knew about each other. One of us turned. One of us was going to destroy everything. In Armin’s apartment there was a heaviness to the shadows, all that empty dark pressing down on us. We left the lights off.

He stopped pacing and looked at me sharply, as if I’d made a noise. “You already knew. That it was one of us.”

“I had time to think. I’ve had all day to obsess.” I grabbed my phone and flipped it end over end, like Blythe with her cigarettes.

“Does Blythe know?” he said.

“I showed her.”

“Leaving a digital trail isn’t smart.”

“I showed her in person.”

“
What?
Laney, we agreed no contact until graduation. You could ruin everything.”

“Better than a digital trail, right? I was discreet.” Not exactly true.

Armin frowned at me, some thought turning in his eyes. Then he snatched my phone before I could react. “This photo was sent yesterday afternoon.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So you went to her first. You didn’t come straight to me.”

“I panicked, okay? I didn’t know where you were.”

“You could’ve called. Checked Umbra. Asked Hiyam. I’m a lot easier to find than Blythe.”

“I wasn’t thinking. I just acted.” His eyes burned into me. “What?”

“Could Blythe have sent it?”

“Are you fucking serious?”

“We have to be thorough.”

“But not irrational.” I grabbed the phone back. “You always blame her first.”

“With good reason.”

“It’s clouding your vision, Armin.”

“She’s clouding yours, too.”

We stared at each other in silence. Then I said, “See? They’re getting to us already.”

He sighed. He’d stopped in a pool of red neon that drenched him like blood. “Fine. Let’s analyze this rationally. We should consider everyone, starting with the most obvious.”

“It’s not Blythe.”

“I agree. Too cunning. She’s incapable of planning something five minutes ahead of doing it.”

“She lives in the moment. But nice personality assessment when she’s not here to defend herself.” The tension in my hands spread through me like venom, hardening my limbs. “There’s an elephant in the room you don’t want to acknowledge.”

“What?”

“No. Who.”

He started shaking his head, more and more rapidly. “No.”

“Only one of us has a history of blackmail.”

“No, Laney.”

“You said you wanted to ‘analyze this rationally.’ That we should ‘consider everyone, starting with the most obvious.’ ”

His hands half curled into fists. He stood in that red blot, stained. “My sister is not a suspect. Do you fucking understand me?”

His words hit me like ice water. Awful, thrilling cold.

There it was. Where his real loyalties lay. A useful thing to know, to squirrel away in the back of my head, with all my other secrets.

Armin dropped onto a stool. “I’m sorry. You know the story. She lost everything. College, friends, my parents’ trust. She’d never do it again.”

“And she has nothing left to lose.”

“What’s her motivation? She’s not jealous of us.”

“No. Not us.” I touched his shoulder. “Hiyam was jealous of me and Blythe.”

He met my gaze and I didn’t look away. Unspoken words echoed in the silence.

“I can’t think clearly right now,” he said.

“Okay.”

“I need to—” He stood. “I’m going for a run.”

“On the beach?”

No answer.

“I’ll go with you.”

“I need to be alone. To think.”

“Armin,” I murmured, pushing him gently back to the seat. “Please.”

“Laney—”

“Don’t you see what they’re doing?” I ran a hand over the taut curve of his biceps, across his chest. Wedged myself between his knees and made him feel my smallness, my vulnerability. His eyes were closed yet somehow sad. His chest moved steadily against me but I felt the betrayal of his heart, pumping hard and wild. “They want us to doubt each other. They want
to get between us. Remember what I said? Even the smallest crack will shatter us.”

I’d said it in the kitchen the night the photo was taken. Blood on our hands. Hands on my skin.

“We’re hard,” I said, trailing down to his belt. “We’re hard and unbreakable, as long as we’re together.”

He didn’t stop me. He let me unbuckle it, let me shrug off my hoodie. Let my hands slide under his shirt, past chilled silk to the fiery skin beneath, the muscle that rippled against my fingers and made me giddy with power. My eyelids drooped, intoxication coming over me.

Armin put his mouth to my ear. “When you touch me,” he breathed, “it feels so cold. As if you’re touching a chess piece, thinking about your next move.”

“I am,” I said, pulling his belt from the loops. “You’re the white knight.”

His hand closed over mine, crushing. Bone grated against bone.

“Do you want me to stop?” I said through my teeth.

“No.” He brought my hand between his legs. His voice was husky and raw. “Use me.”