Everything I Need

Part 9

She’s so close—so close—closer so much quicker than she’s been in a long time, than she thought possible. Broken little whimpers and moans flutter up her throat, and her neck and back are arched so tight that it hurts. The sensory overload is so overwhelming that she vibrates all over and she’s not even sure if she’s really feeling anything. She’s so ready to come, so ready to drop off the edge. She’s so close—so close—so close—

The light turns on and the mere shock of it is enough that she slips into her o****m too quickly, too fiercely. It almost hurts and she groans in disappointment and alarm as her eyes fly open to find Charlotte staring back at her. Those same brown eyes are wide with shock and Shela whimpers as she pulls her hand out of her underwear and rolls onto her side.

“Oh s**t,” she hears Charlotte hiss and Shela’s pretty sure she knocks over about four different items of furniture, but she’s too busy being mortified to care.

She grabs her pillow and pulls it over her face, yanks the blanket over the front of her body and fails to cover the back as Charlotte fumbles around behind her.

“You said you had an exam,” she groans and there’s another crash behind her.

“f**k,” Charlotte whispers and Shela’s not sure she’s ever heard Charlotte swear before. “f**k, um. No. Well. My professor wrote the date on the schedule wrong and it’s actually tomorrow.” She drops something again and then Shela hears her drop whatever it is in defeat as the door opens. “You know what? f**k it. Carry on. I’ll go to the library. I’ll go to the library.”

The door slams closed.

Shela doesn’t uncover her face until much later. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get over the embarrassment.

She doesn’t think she’ll ever get over the way Charlotte whispered f**k.

//

Charlotte spends the last three days of the semester pretty much holed up in the library.

She spends her last three days barely eating as she’s avoiding the dining hall, only sleeping when she can’t keep her eyes open any longer. She heads back to her room when she knows that Shela will one hundred percent either not be there or be asleep. She sneaks in late and heads out much earlier than necessary.

She knows that Shela is probably mad at her. She hasn’t said anything but Charlotte knows. She knows that she accidentally overstepped a boundary that she never should have. She knows that she saw something she wasn’t supposed to, that she never wanted to, as much as she’s accidentally replayed it over her in memory in the hours since. She knows that what she saw has changed things. She knows they’ll never be able to come back from this.

It’s made things weird and Charlotte doesn’t know what to do.

She’s overwhelmed with that same feeling she felt the first day she met Shela. It’s nothing other than a desperate need to self-protect and avoid all the things that she knows Shela will mean. Shela is the thing that she’s deliberately avoided for almost all of her life.

Shela is different. Special.

She’s not like everyone else and that’s a bad thing.

Charlotte can’t disassemble special—she can’t figure it out—and it makes her feel unsafe and vulnerable. It makes her feel scared.

She’s sure all she needs is the time to get her head straight, to realize that Shela is her roommate and seeing her how she did is just another fact of the predicament they find themselves in. She needs time to wipe what she saw from her memory, replace it with reminders of Shela vomiting in the middle of the night and keeping her awake when all she wants to do is sleep.

She’s unable to avoid her on the last day of semester and she’s been preparing herself for it for the past twenty-four hours. They have to be gone from the dorms by five and Charlotte’s taking the three o’clock train into Incheon from Busan. She sleeps in because she can. She stirs awake and buries into her covers when she realizes that Shela is moving around behind her.

“I expected to wake up to find out that you’d left in the night,” she says and Charlotte doesn’t understand how Shela knows she’s awake because she hasn’t even opened her eyes. She doesn’t say anything and Charlotte listens as she sits down on the end of her bed before throwing a pillow over at her. Charlotte flinches and hates herself. “You can’t avoid me forever. You can pretend that you never saw what you saw. I’d probably appreciate that a lot. But you can also be a grown up and talk about it instead of hiding like a child.”

That makes Charlotte mad. “I’m not hiding,” she says, still staring at the wall. “I just needed some quiet.”

“You’re full of s**t,” Shela says around a mirthless chuckle. “You’re also a big a*s baby. You saw me m**********g, Charlotte. I promise you it was one hundred times more embarrassing for me than it was for you, so get over it. I’m sure it’s something that you’ve done before yourself, so stop acting like you saw me murdering a puppy.”

The anger rises steadily within her. It hasn’t happened like this in such a long time. It’s the kind of rush of feeling that once used to get her in trouble. It used to leave her red with rage and with b****y knuckles. Now it just leaves her sore and breathless as she continues to hold it all back.

“You know what, Shela?” she spits, sitting up in bed and shooting her a look of disdain. “f**k you. Maybe if you stopped thinking about yourself and looked around you for one second, you’d see that maybe I don’t give a rat’s a*s about the fact that you rubbed one out and I walked in on you. Maybe—just f*****g maybe—you’d notice that the reason I can’t bear to be around you is because I’m so done with dealing with all of your s**t that I needed a f*****g break.”

She regrets the words as soon as she says them and she doesn’t understand why. It’s been four months and she’s surprised she didn’t burst ages ago. With anyone else, she would have probably smothered them in their sleep. She doesn’t take the words back, though. She jumps out of bed and gathers up the clothes she’d laid out last night before storming over to the bathroom and slamming the door.

She doesn’t expect the rush of panic and anxiety the minute the door is closed. She turns on the shower and lets the loud sound of the rushing water drown out the heavy panting of her breath and the ache in her chest. She leans against the counter and reminds herself that this is safer, this is safer and surer and better than anything else her body is desperate to do. This will keep her safe. This will keep her alive.

She showers for a long time and dresses slowly, dreading going back out and seeing Shela again. She does it anyway, too familiar with confrontation not to, and is surprised when the room is empty.

There’s a piece of paper on her bed and she grabs it tentatively before reading what it says.

  I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I’ll try to be better. Have a good break. Shela x

She’s still holding it in her hand hours later when Jackie meets her at the station. There’s a smile on her face and she instantly notices that Charlotte’s responding one isn’t as wide as it usually is.

“You okay?” she says before she says anything else.

Charlotte lets her arms fall around Jackie’s slim shoulders and hold her tight in response. Her face buries in her shoulder and Jackie pauses in confusion before wrapping her arms steadily around Charlotte’s body and squeezing her tight.

“You’re okay,” Jackie says when Charlotte’s shoulders shudder just once before stopping. “You’re okay. You’re always okay.”

Charlotte’s not so sure.

//

Her Winter Break is weirdly okay.

She realizes how much she misses constant sunshine, the beach and well-made Japanese food. She spends most of the daytime lazing around, watching their maid, Jiwoo, cook all the dishes that her presence allowed Shela to grow up with. She spends her evenings watching TV with her mom and Ren, talking about everything but the pink elephant that’s slowly shrinking into non-existence. She spends her nights watching incredibly bad television and debating whether to call or text the last person she ever expected wanting to.

“You know,” her mom says on Christmas Eve, uncharacteristically falling to lie across the foot of Shela’s bed. It feels new and old at the same time and Shela tries to stop hope from growing in her chest. “I thought you’d be going to more parties than this. I thought you’d want to meet up with all your old friends. How’s Jackson?”

Shela shakes her head and throws her mom a pillow to rest her head against. “I haven’t really spoken to Jackson in a long time.”

“He must be really busy,” her mom comments.

Shela snorts. “Yeah, busy,” she says. “But also mad because I told him I didn’t want to have s*x with him anymore.”

Shela watches the TV and quirks an eyebrow in her mother’s direction when she looks up in surprise. Her mom’s shock transforms into amusement and she laughs before reaching to hold Shela’s ankle.

“You never cease to amaze me, Shela,” her mom chuckles. “You always did know what you wanted.”

That makes Shela’s smile fall. “Maybe I used to,” she says. “I’m not so sure anymore. This year has been weird.”

Her mom stiffens and falters. “I—I just want to be your mom again, Shela.”

Shela waits before nodding and reaches down for her mom’s hand. “I know,” she whispers as their fingers tangle together. “I know that. And I see that you’re trying. I see how good Ren has been for you. I see how hard you’ve worked to get better.” She frowns. “I’m really proud of you for that, but… I wasn’t really talking about you.”

Her mom rolls onto her side and shuffles closer. She holds Shela’s hand and Shela feels so strangely upset by it that she doesn’t know what to do.

“I did a lot of stupid stuff,” she whispers, giving into a need that she’s held for such a long time to just be her mother’s daughter. “I think I hurt a lot of people without meaning to. I keep doing all this stuff with no regard for the people around me and I just… I think I’ve ruined something I didn’t realize I needed to not ruin.”

“Shela…” her mother starts and Shela just smiles, looking down at her lap as she picks at the edge of her t-shirt. “Are you okay?”

Shela doesn’t know. She doesn’t know anything anymore. She doesn’t look at her mother as she answers.

“There’s this girl…” she starts before scaring herself and stopping. If she says it out loud, that means it’s real. If it’s real, then it’s something else she doesn’t know how to fix. She shakes her head and laughs it off. Her mom moves closer and urges her chin up so she can see her. Shela shakes her head and then lets her face fall in worried disappointment. “I think I broke it.”

Her mother reaches up to rub the worry from her brow like she used to so many moons ago. “What, honey? What did you break?”

Shela swallows and shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she admits. “And that’s the problem.”