Chapter Text
Over the course of the rest of the movie, Nat kissed Lottie at will. She’d kiss her hard until her brain shorted and she couldn’t think anymore, then she’d retreat, retake her place in Lottie’s arms and kiss her again once her thoughts came back to her.
Nat felt like she could have spent eternity on that couch, oscillating back and forth between kiss and recovery.
As the credits started to roll, Lottie looked down at Nat and smiled at her with red, swollen lips. Nat imagined how she was feeling since her own lips tingled with the swell of overuse. They hadn’t spoken for the rest of the movie and now she couldn’t think of what to say next.
“Hey”
Nat exhaled, looking up at her. “Hey Lot.”
Lottie’s smile grew wider. “I really liked that movie.”
“Me too.”
Then they just sat and watched the credits roll. Natalie thought about how lucky she was. This perfect, amazing girl was into her. This neat, smart girl wanted to kiss her. How did she deserve this? Nat, the burn out. Nat, the future dead beat… making out with Lottie Matthews?
Nat tried to make sense of it, and started to think about how much Lottie might actually care about her. Lottie had fed her when she was hungry. Lottie had been there to help when she needed her. Lottie had tried to offer advice. Wow. Natalie wanted to kiss her again. So she did.
“Natalie.” Lottie breathed, breaking the kiss.
“Mhmm?” Natalie was half-gone. She leaned back and looked at Lottie through heavy lids.
“We can’t just stay on this couch all afternoon.”
Natalie was confused. “We can’t? Why not?”
“Because we have things to do , Natalie. I have homework and studying to do, and I’m sure there are things you need to take care of.”
Nat laughs. “Ha. Speak for yourself Matthews. I am a free agent.”
Lottie gave her a half smile. “I thought you said you had to go to Kevyn’s house to get your things?”
“Yeah, uh, right. I do.” Her plan to go over to Kevyn’s returned to her. “I thought you didn’t want me going over to his place.”
“Well, I told you I didn’t think it was a good idea, but I thought you said you were going to go over there anyway. Trust me, Nat, if I don’t want you to do something you’ll know. Case and point: I don’t want you to drop out.”
Nat groaned. “Loootttiiieeee”
“Naaatttaaaallliiiiieeeeeee”
“Look Lot, I’m not going back to school. I’m sorry.”
Lottie sighed, feigning defeat. “Ok, Nat. Let’s get you out of here.”
“So no more making out?”
“Seriously?”
“What?”
“You’re such an idiot Nat.” Lottie left her on the couch and went to turn the lights up.
The lights burned Nat’s eyes. She got up off the couch and went over to the loveseat where her tennis shoes were. Lottie left her alone in the room as she sat down to put her shoes back on. When she emerged, she started made her way to the living room, where she found Lottie sitting on the divan.
Natalie approached her, starting to feel nervous. Is she mad? Does she have regrets?
Nat spoke to her from behind “Ok Lot I’ll, uh, show myself out”. She took a few steps towards the door.
“Wait, Natalie.” Nat’s heart raced. “Come here and talk to me for a second” Oh, come on. Not more talking…
Nat walked over to Lottie and stood by the side of the lounge that Lottie was leaning on. Lottie grabbed her wrist. “What is it, Lot?”
“Look at me Nat.”
Nat looked down at her and immediately caught Lottie’s powerful gaze. She took a sharp breath in as her eyes sunk into the dark, overblown pupils. She felt her mind and body go limp as they were overcome with the sensation of deep relaxation.
“Natalie” Lottie began, staring deep into Nat.
“Don’t go to Kevyn’s house”
“Don’t go to Kevyn’s house.”
“Go straight home after you leave here.”
“Go straight home”
“This evening, eat something and go to bed.”
“Eat Something. Go to bed.”
“Tomorrow, go to school.”
“Go to school.”
“Tell each of your teachers you’re back and ask them for make-up work.”
“Ask them for make-up work.”
“After school, find me, and come with me to practice.”
“Find you. Come to practice”
“Good girl. I know you like being good for me.”
“I like being good for you.”
“Say Thank you.”
“Thank you”
Lottie let go of Nat’s hand and looked away. Nat came to and blinked at Lottie.
“What is it, Lot?
“I just wanted to tell you that I’ll miss you, Nat.”
Nat’s heart sang. “I’ll miss you too.” She leaned down to give Lottie a parting kiss.
When Nat got home she found her mother dozing on the couch as the noise of the TV blared through the home. She turned it off and went to her room.
Stopping in the threshold she looked around her room. It was jarring after spending her morning in the spaces of the Matthews home, all keenly decorated and well kept. What a fucking mess.
She shook her head then turned to look at the mirror to note Lottie’s number. She repeated it in her head as she made her way to the kitchen phone. She dialed, waited, entered her number, and hung up. She waited, and waited more. She looked at the microwave. Ten minutes. She felt disappointed, but decided it was fine if she wouldn’t be getting a call back. She was still on a high from their afternoon together.
She returned to her room and resolved to clean up. She started from where she stood in the doorway and progressed into her room, systematically working from high to low. First neatening surfaces, then picking up junk off the floor and putting her things away.
As she worked, her mind swam with thoughts about Lottie. She thought about how she had kept probing her, asking her about the things she did, the things she thought.
Nosy. She thought it, but didn’t feel it. She couldn’t bring herself to be annoyed at Lottie’s intrusiveness. In fact, as she cleaned more, her train of thought switched tracks. I can’t wait to tell her about this.
Nat felt warm with anticipation, and her mind filled with more warm thoughts of Lottie. Spending time with Lottie. Looking at Lottie. Holding Lottie. Kissing Lottie. She was grinning widely to herself now. Maybe sometime, I could bring her here. She looked at the bed and her imagination ran wild as she envisioned what could happen there.
After a while, she reached the far wall of her room and turned to look around. She nodded with self-satisfaction. Much better. She opened her window and turned on a small fan to clear the unsettled dust.
Next she picked up her backpack and started to empty it, adding the crumpled papers to her now-full trash bin. As she worked she heard knocks at the door.
“Nattie!! Are you in there?” Kevyn called from outside. The sound of his voice came through her open window.
“How many times do I gotta tell ya, kid? She ain’t here!” She heard her mom yell from the couch.
Nat peered out the window and saw Kevyn slump his shoulders as he turned to walk away. She got up quickly and mader way to the door, opened it and called after, “Hey Kev! I’m here, come on in.”
Kevyn beamed and came back towards her to greet her with a tight hug. Woah, easy tiger. Nat wiggled out of it.
She led him towards her room and sat down on the bed. She motioned for him to sit on the folding chair in the corner, now cleared of dirty clothes.
“Where ya been dude? You split the other night and I haven’t seen ya since.”
Nat didn’t want to share what she had been up to. The time she’d spent at Lottie’s place this weekend seemed like a special secret and the thought of telling Kevyn about it put a pit in her stomach.
“Just hangin out I guess. What you been doing, loser?”
Kevyn smiled, taking the insult as a tease. “Not a whole lot, just lookin’ for you. I thought for sure you’d come back after you freaked out.”
Freaked out. What? “I didn’t freak out.”
“Yeah, dude, you kinda did. We were all just, like, chillin and comin down then all of a sudden you were like, I gotta get out of here , and then fucking left in a car.”
The memory was becoming more defined in her head. She called Lottie. Lottie picked her up in her car. Now that she had a recollection, she felt her heart rate increase with anxiety when she placed herself back into the events of that night. Shit.
“Well, uh, I guess I had to get out of there. I dunno.”
“Whatever dude I’m just glad you’re like, ok, and not in jail or something.”
Nat nodded to herself as she tried to recall more of what had happened. She was in her own head, staring past Kevyn.
He just watched her, waiting for her to say something else. But then a few awkward moments passed and he realized he wasn’t going to get any more of an explanation. He started to look around.
“Geeze Nat. Since when did you get to be such a neat freak?”
What? Kevyn’s question broke her from her reverie. “Oh, uh, yeah… I was just cleaning up a bit before you got here.”
Kev looked at her, his face contorted in confusion. He scoffed and mocked her, “ Cleaning up? Who are you and where’s the real Nat?”
“Fuck you man, it looks good in here.”
“Yeah, you look good in here.”
She rolled her eyes at that. “Shut up dude.”
He didn’t. “What’re you doing now? You wanna hang out?”
“Uhh, what did you want to do?”
“I was thinkin we could go back to my place. My cousin is over, and Ant is probably gonna come by later.”
Nat groaned at the thought. She knew she had planned to go over to his place anyway but now that she was in her freshly cleaned room, she only wanted to stay. The thought of going instantly made her feel exhausted. “I don’t really feel like it, Kev.”
“Fuck man, really? I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“Don’t fuck man me, dude. It’s barely been more than a day.” She was getting irritated with him now. “You and Ant and your cus can have a nice circle jerk without me.” She punched his shoulder to punctuate her teasing.
“Fuck you, dude.” He looked around. “You wanna at least hang here for a little bit? We can listen to some music, I can roll up.”
She looked at him and she could tell he really wanted her to say yes. “Yeah, sure.” She got up, went to a shoebox now stored under her dresser, and retrieved a mix tape he’d made for her.
He smiled when he saw it. “Did you listen to it yet?”
“Not yet. I’ll put it in the radio and we can listen while we smoke.” Nat hoped it would suppress conversation.
She went to another drawer and grabbed her grinder and rolling try and handed it to Kev before returning to the tape. She loaded it in the tape deck of her beat up boombox and pressed play.
The static-laden track started a few seconds into the song, evidently recorded from a radio broadcast.
Nat recognized the drum beat, and then the guitar. She knew the song and didn’t particularly like it but she kept on listening to humor her friend. Love’s like suicide. “Good one, Kev.”
“Thanks. I was freaking out when it came on. You don’t usually hear it on the radio because they don’t want kids like, killing themselves and shit.” He sounded satisfied with himself.
Nat took her place back on the bed and laid back to listen to the music while Kevin worked. When he finished he looked around. “You got a lighter dude?”
She pointed to her dresser. “Top right.”
Kevyn shook his head and laughed at her before he stood up to get the lighter from the drawer. He saw the ashtray in there too and grabbed it before approaching the bed. He gestured for her to sit up to make room and she complied, sitting up and crossing her legs in front of her. Kevyn took his place next to Nat, set the ashtray onto the bed, and lit the joint.
They smoked and listened to music without interruption. Nat felt herself fade away. She embraced the high as thoughts formed and instantly disintegrated. Her mind floated unmoored from thought to thought, without any reasonable link from one to the next. She thought about how she wished she were listening to the piano again. Then about the feeling of the morning air on her face as she ran. Then about vampires and death and kissing in the glow of the TV. So many things feel so good.
Then the phone rang.
It took her a moment to react, her thoughts still sluggish.
The phone rang again.
And she remembered. Lottie. She went to the kitchen and grabbed the phone from the receiver as it rang a third time.
“Hello?”
“Natalie?”
“ Lottie.” She practically hummed her name.
“Did you call me?”
Natalie was slow to answer, still awash in the pleasure of hearing her voice over the line. “Yeah, I did. I wanted to tell you I had gotten home.”
“Aw, thank you Natalie. That’s very good of you.” Every word felt like velvet to Nat.
“ Mmmmhmmm.”
“What are you doing now?”
“Kev is here. We’re listening to his music.”
“Oh. Ok well I’ll let you go then. Thanks for calling.”
“Wait! Lottie!”
“Yes Natalie?”
“I cleaned my room.”
“Oh? Well look who’s being a good girl.”
“ Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’m going to go now. See you tomorrow.”
“Bye Lot.”
Nat hung up the phone and let her hand linger on it a moment before turning and heading back to her room.
Nat found Kevyn splayed on her bed, arm outstretched on a pillow. Here we go.
She didn’t want to, but she was too stoned and too blissed out from her call with Lottie that she just laid herself down next to Kev, head resting on his arm.
“Who was that?” He asked lazily.
“Just Lottie .” She loved saying her name.
“Lottie? Who’s Lottie?”
“She’s on the soccer team with me. Charlotte Matthews.”
“Oh. I didn’t know you guys were friends.”
Natalie didn’t answer him. She just laid and let her stoney brain float in a sea of thoughts about her. She drifted into a half-sleep that Kevyn soon disturbed.
“So you really don’t want to come over Nat? It’s probably going to get wild.”
Nat didn’t care. She was barely conscious and had zero desire to start in on a long night. “Nah Kev, I’m good right here.”
It was the wrong phrasing to use, because Kevyn took it personally. “I’m good here, too”. And then he turned his head to look at Nat with stoic affection.
Nat was oblivious. She was smiling, but only because her mind was still on Lottie. On the promise of seeing Lottie tomorrow. On the memory of being in Lottie’s arms.
Then Kevyn, with all his nerve, leaned over to kiss her. Nat’s mind was still slow, so it took her a minute to register what was happening.
“Kevyn… no…” He stopped.
“Sorry Nat, I just thought…”
Her cheeks got warm as indignation rolled over her. “Don’t try thinking Kev. You’re not very good at it.” Then she got up and stood over the bed. “I think it’s time for you to go anyway.”
Kevyn sat for a moment, dejected. “Ok Nat. I’m sorry. Don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad Kev, I just want to be alone now.”
So he got up and hugged her rigid body goodbye. “I guess I’ll see you around.”
And he was gone.
Nat took the tape out and placed it back in its case, then the case into the shoebox, then the shoebox under the dresser. The procedure of it made her feel a little better.
She went into the kitchen and looked for food to eat. There wasn’t much in her house, but she found some white bread and cheese slices in the refrigerator. She made herself a grilled cheese and ate with great satisfaction. Its cheesy buttery flavor satisfied her munchies well.
When she finished, she dutifully cleaned the pan and her plate and returned to her room.
She looked at her bed and groaned. The visions of her and Lottie there were now tainted by the memory of the awkward kiss with Kevyn. She wondered how long it would take the memory to fade… she wished she could will it out of her mind and forget about it in an instant.
She collected the lighter and ashtray from the bed and put them back in the drawer before laying back down. She rubbed her face in exhaustion. It was dusk now, and her room was dark enough to sleep. She closed her eyes and felt the tingle of sand against her lids as she quickly drifted to sleep.