Shortcake

Mandy Found Her

That was where Mandy found her.

She came swirling her drink, wearing a smirk Gemma had known since she was a little kid tagging along after Kyle. Mandy had been in his class, and Tony's, all the way from kindergarten to graduation. Five years older than Gemma, and she'd never once let her forget it. "Morton College, huh?" Her voice was syrupy, with an edge underneath you'd miss if you weren't listening for it. "I always figured you'd be the last one to leave Florence."

Gemma tried to sidestep. Mandy moved with her.

"It's kind of funny, isn't it? You, the homebody, running off to Colorado." Mandy pitched it low and private, which meant the three cousins next to them could hear every word. "You always hated people looking at you. Remember Kyle's graduation party? You hid out in the barn the whole night, so nobody would look at you. Thirteen years old and scared of a crowd. I hope nobody looks at you out there."

"Maybe I'll be a hermit," Gemma said flatly.

Mandy's eyes glittered. "Well, Tony's not going to wait around forever. Somebody ought to keep him company while you're off writing poems." She tipped her cup toward Gemma like a toast. "Who knows? Maybe by Christmas I'll have a ring on my finger."

The cousins laughed. It was a small, sharp laugh, and it found its mark. The room narrowed to a pinhole. All Gemma could see was Mandy's face and the bright, satisfied shine in her eyes.

"Say that again," Gemma heard herself say.

Mandy gave her a slow, pitying look. "Tony deserves someone who's actually here. Someone who knows what she wants."

Gemma's fist moved before she decided to move it. It landed with a satisfying crunch, she's felt it. She knew it was broken. Mandy stumbled back, one hand clapped to her face, the other grabbing for the counter. Somebody gasped. Even the music seemed to fall away.

Gemma's knuckles throbbed. She had bitten down hard on the inside of her cheek, and she could taste copper. She barely noticed. Everyone was staring at her, waiting to see what she'd do next.

Kyle got to her first. His grip on her arm was iron. "Enough, Gem," he said through his teeth, and steered her toward the hall before anyone else could decide to get involved.

Behind them, Mandy's friends closed around her, a chorus of oh my God and is it broken. Gemma didn't look back. The noise of the party dimmed behind her with every step.

"What the hell was that?" Kyle hissed. "You promised Mom you'd keep it together tonight."

Gemma wiped her hand on her jeans. The skin over her knuckles was split and already swelling. "It was nothing."

"You probably broke her nose."

"I doubt it," Gemma said, but she couldn't keep the satisfaction out of her voice.

Kyle sighed and let go of her at the end of the hall. "Just try not to start any more fights before midnight. Okay?"

She nodded without really hearing him. She slipped into her bedroom, locked the door and pressed her forehead against the cool drywall.

Breathe. In. Out.

It didn't help. The room tilted. The air was too thick, too close, and through the wall the party kept getting louder, the laughter meaner, the bass heavier. Her hands had started to shake. She knew the signs by now: the heat crawling under her skin, the sweat at her temples, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. The cafeteria all over again.

Not now. Not in front of everyone.

She crossed to the window and shoved it open. The night air poured in, cooler, full of crickets and the electric buzz of the streetlights. Below, the backyard sat empty. The burgers had run out an hour ago, and everyone had crowded inside around the kegs. Only the pool was still awake, glowing blue under the patio lights.

She needed out. She grabbed the blanket off her bed and her vape off the nightstand, swung one leg over the sill, and dropped into the grass. She kept to the side of the house, quick and quiet, until she reached the lawn chairs in the shadow of the garage.

The sky was clear, the stars sharp as broken glass. She wrapped herself in the blanket, sank into a chair and let out a long breath. For the first time all night, she let her face go slack.

If she closed her eyes, the party could be happening to someone else. She let herself picture it: standing up, walking to the highway, following it out of town and never looking back. It was the same thing she'd be doing in the morning. Somehow it felt completely different.

She took a long pull off the vape and held it. The air tasted like chlorine and cut grass and, faintly, the burnt-sugar smell of the Labor Day fireworks, still hanging around a week later.

She heard Tony before she saw him, his boots scuffing the concrete. He stopped at the edge of the pool, a silhouette against the porch light, and looked at her for a long moment. Then he came over and sat on the foot of her chair. He didn't say anything.

Gemma kept her eyes on the sky and tracked a satellite as it slid between the stars. Part of her hoped he'd just get up and leave.

"You okay?" he asked.

She laughed, a dry rasp. "Not really."

"I saw what happened."

"Everybody saw."

"She had it coming." His voice was even. "You might want to ice that hand, though."

Gemma flexed her fingers. The knuckles had puffed up red, but the ache felt far away, an echo of something bigger. "Maybe later."

They sat in the quiet, watching the light move across the water. Inside, somebody started chanting her name, and it bounced off the walls and spilled out into the yard. Gemma winced.

"Was she serious?" she asked. "About you and her?"

Tony didn't answer right away. He picked at a loose thread on the blanket, winding it around his finger until the tip went white.

"You have to go," he said finally. "To Colorado. You know that, right?"

It wasn't an answer. She noticed that he hadn't given her one.

She bit the inside of her cheek, right where it was already raw. "I know."

"If you stay, you'll never get out." He said it to the pool, not to her. "I'd know."

Gemma looked down at the vape, rolling it between her palms. "I tried, Tony. I really did." Her voice came out small. "She got in my head anyway. What if I go out there and everything changes? What if I come home and you're gone?"

He didn't answer that either.

She took a long, slow pull, strawberry vapor curling in her lungs. Without thinking, she turned and blew the cloud right in his face. It was an old trick, one she'd pulled a hundred times just to get a rise out of him.

Usually he'd wave it off and grumble that she was going to rot her lungs, or worse, that brain of hers, with all that THC. Tonight he only smiled, eyes locked on hers. Instead of pulling back, he leaned in and caught the cloud in one slow, deliberate breath, like a dare, until there was almost no space left between them.

The lounger creaked as he shifted. His thigh pressed against hers; his boot knocked her sneaker. Gemma couldn't look away.

"You know," he murmured, close enough that she felt the words more than heard them, "every time you do that, you make me a little crazier."

She laughed, breathless, and the sound died when his hand closed over hers. He took the vape from her fingers (she'd forgotten she was holding it) and set it on the concrete. His palm slid up her forearm, raising goosebumps, and stopped at her shoulder. She could see him arguing with himself. She leaned in, barely, and the argument was over.

His hand slid to the back of her neck, fingers in her hair, and he kissed her.

It wasn't careful. It was certain, like gravity, and she gasped against his mouth, her hands finding his shoulders under the leather jacket. He tasted like strawberry and something he'd held back so long it had gone sharp. His other hand found her hip and pulled her closer, and when the blanket tangled between them he shoved it aside with a rough sound.

When he finally pulled away, his forehead dropped to hers. His breath came hard and hot across her lips. Her fingers were still knotted in his shirt.

"Shortcake," he whispered. His voice was wrecked. "I've spent years trying to be good. Kyle's best friend. That's all I was supposed to be." His fingers traced her jaw, and it was trembling. "You make that damn hard, Gemma Havley."

She kissed him this time, fierce and clumsy, her teeth catching his lip. He groaned low in his chest, and for a moment there was nothing but hands and mouths and crickets screaming in the dark.

Then he drew back, and she saw it reach him: the house thirty yards away, the windows full of people, Kyle. What this would cost.

He tugged her hair gently, his eyes moving over her face like he was memorizing it. "Gemma." His voice shook. "Go take the world by the horns. Don't let anybody hold you back. Especially me."

She was shaking now, from adrenaline and the night air and the loss already creeping in. Tony's jaw tightened. He shrugged out of his jacket, pulled off the navy sweatshirt underneath and tugged it over her head in one motion. It swallowed her, warm and enormous, smelling like him and the bar and the life she was leaving. He smoothed the collar, hands lingering on her shoulders, and she wanted to cry.

He kissed her once more, slower, cradling her face like something he was afraid of breaking. Then he rested his forehead against hers one last time.

"I have to go," he said, low and gutted. "If I stay, I might never let you leave."

He stood fast, grabbed his jacket and turned away with his jaw set. The cold rushed into the space where he'd been.

Everything hit her at once: the panic, the ache, the wrongness of it. Her breath hitched. Her eyes blurred. She couldn't go back into that house. She couldn't sit here staring at the empty blue pool, either.

She threw the blanket over the chair and stood. Her feet moved before her brain could stop them. At the end of the driveway she hesitated. Tony's apartment was down Elm Street, and she couldn't risk running into him. She turned the other way and kept walking.