Tess Sharpe - Far From You

“What about you?” Trev asks abruptly. “Were you scared?”

“Loving her was never scary. It was never wrong. It was where I fit. But I wasn’t raised the way you two were, and she thought I had a choice. Because I didn’t like only girls. Because I had…” I can’t finish that sentence.

But he does it for me. “Because you had me.”

I nod, the only thing I can manage.

And he’s right—I had. Trev’s been waiting for me all this time. Between boyfriends, breakups, fights, and more than two years of an addiction I managed to hide until it ate me up, he’s been there, waiting. I know exactly what that kind of love requires.

Because I’d been waiting, too.

Just not for him.

I wrap my arms around his shoulders, press my forehead against his temple.

His hands cup the back of my neck; our foreheads slide together, noses brush. I know he won’t kiss me, know he’ll never make a move again. This is up to me and me alone.

I know I can’t kiss him, know I have to draw the line here and now, because I can never love him like I loved her, and he deserves that. Deserves better than me and the empty imitation I can offer.

So I swallow back the tears and the words in my throat, the ones I can’t say, that I wish I could.

If it hadn’t been her, it would have been you.

TEN MONTHS AGO (SIXTEEN YEARS OLD)

I can’t stop crying as I slip through the back door of the Bishop house. “Mina? Mina, are you here?”

When she doesn’t answer, I open her bedroom door without knocking. She’s sitting on her canopied bed, legs crossed.

She doesn’t ask me what’s wrong.

She’s been waiting for me.

We stare at each other, silent, and I suddenly understand why she looks so guilty. Why she has to force herself to meet my gaze.

She knows.

She’s the one who told my parents where to find the drugs. And the prescription triplicates I’d stolen from Dad’s office.

The betrayal swamps me. I want to punch her. Grab a handful of her hair and pull until it rips out in my hand. Punish her the way she’s been punishing me all along. Is this her new solution—get me sent away so I won’t be a temptation?

“I had to tell them, Sophie,” she says.

“No.”

“I had to.” She gets up from the bed when I start to back away from her. “You don’t listen to me. You won’t talk to me. You need help.”

“I can’t believe you did this!” I’m almost out of her bedroom, horror coursing through me.

“I had to!” She chases after me and yanks me back into her room, slamming the door behind me, locking us in.

My balance, always precarious, is thrown off and I stumble, knocking into her.

“You told me you were getting off those pills,” Mina hisses, all hints of apology or guilt erased now. Her fingers bite into my arm, and I squeeze her wrist tight where I’m holding on to her, because this is what we’re good at: hurting each other.

“I lied,” I say. I drawl it out right in her face.

She goes white, letting go of me so fast, I’m reeling. “How could you do this?” she demands. “Stealing from your dad? That’s not you. You could have killed yourself, taking so many pills!”

“Maybe that’s what I wanted.”

Mina makes a sound, inarticulate and feral. Then she pushes me.

She puts her weight into it, pushes me like she would a steady person. No more careful touches, no arm looped through mine. Now is the time to make me fall, twist me up, ruin me for good.

I topple, but I bring her down with me, reaching out at the last second and dragging her to the carpet. My hands are in her hair, and I pull. Her nails dig into my shoulder.

“Don’t you dare say that,” she gasps. “Take it back.”

“No.” I buck beneath her; she’s half sprawled on top of me. I can’t breathe around the feeling. Her hands press down on my shoulders, pinning me to the floor. My back aches, my leg twisted at a bad angle, but her eyes burn into mine. She won’t look away now. I can’t, because I’ve never seen her this way before, like this is the most dangerous thing she’s ever done. She leans down, so close I can feel her breath against my skin. Her hair spills across my shoulder, brushing my neck.

“Take it back,” she says again.

I lick my lips and shake my head. My final dare.

Mina breaks, and the space between us is finally gone.

She kisses me, and even now I’m amazed that it’s her instead of me who concedes.

“Take it back,” she whispers into my mouth, and my breath hitches, my body hitches, rises up to meet hers when her palms slip underneath my shirt, touching the fragile skin around my belly button.

I trail my hands down the sides of her face, kiss her hard, tongue and teeth. This has never been soft or sweet; we’ve always been more than that, sharpened by time and want, our secret war finally won.

I start to say please, but I really want to say her name, pressed against her lips, mouthed along her collarbone, so I do, murmuring it like a mantra, like a thank-you, like a blessing.

Her hand pushes farther up my shirt. She brushes her knuckles against me, underneath my bra, and I let my body arch into her.

We take forever, kissing for minutes at a time, clothing shed piece by piece, until finally her fingers slip into my underwear and I moan against her neck, jerk beneath her hand as the feeling flutters through me, as her fingers circle and seek and I can’t breathe through it, I can’t breathe at all as I tense and shake and pulse around her.

After, when it’s her turn, when she trembles below me, soft, slick skin and warm hands, her breasts pressed against mine, my mouth, trailing down, down, down, salt and silk and her whispering my name, I’m awestruck.

I want to remember everything because it’s the first time.

Later, I’ll remember everything because it’s the only time.

NOW (JUNE)

By the time Trev leaves, I feel wrung out. I walk out to my garden but end up lying down in the grass between the two beds, following the sun’s progress as it fades behind the Trinities.

I’m almost dozing when someone bangs on the back gate. My eyes snap open and I struggle to my elbows as Rachel calls, “Sophie, are you here?”

“Hey, coming.” I get to my feet slowly, my back hurting from lying on the ground for so long.

When I finally get the gate unlocked, I pull it back to find Rachel clutching a plastic baggie to her chest. There are smears of dust across her forehead and arms and a scratch on her leg. She charges forward, waving the bag. “I found them!” she says. “It took forever. Kyle had to ditch me for work around two, but I kept at it. Mina hid them in a big box of Barbies stashed in a mountain of junk. I nearly got buried underneath an avalanche of Christmas crap.”

“She hid them in a box of Barbies?”

“Actually, she hid them in Barbie’s car, folded in the little trunk. Mina was tricky. I almost didn’t check there.”

My hands shake as I take the clear plastic baggie from her. Inside, two pieces of white printer paper are folded, so I can’t make the text out. “Did you read them?” I ask. “Touch them? What about fingerprints?”

“Way ahead of you.” Rachel digs in her bag, coming up with a pair of pink dishwashing gloves with daisies on the cuffs. “I used these. I doubt there’s anyone’s fingerprints but Mina’s, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.”

It takes me a couple of tries to get the gloves on my trembling hands. “Did you show Trev?”

“He still wasn’t back when I found them. I brought them right over.”

“Seriously? He dropped me off, like, an hour ago.”

Rachel shrugs. “He wasn’t there. Maybe he got home right after I left.”

“Probably,” I say as I open the baggie and pull out the first note, folded in quarters. I unfold it square by square, until the black ink, his words of warning, appears:

SNOOP ANY MORE AND YOU’LL GO MISSING TOO.

I read the words over and over, and press my thumb hard into the bottom of the paper—so hard it crumples.

I want to rip it apart.

I want to rip him apart.

I take deep breaths, in and out, in and out, before reaching for the second note. I unfold and smooth it flat next to the first:

FINAL WARNING. IF YOU DON’T WANT ANYONE HURT YOU’LL LEAVE IT ALONE.

I frown when I see four addresses typed below the ­killer’s threat: Trev’s apartment in Chico, the Bishop house on ­Sacramento, Kyle’s house on Girvan Street—and my address, the only one that’s circled over and over in red.

The paper crumples in my hand; I can’t seem to unclench my fist. My fingers are sweating in their pink rubber prison, and my heart beats fast. I turn to look over my shoulder. Dad’s in the kitchen, doing the dishes; I can see the top of his head through the little window above the sink. I can’t help but think about it for a second, about him or Mom having to open the door to the police for the third time.

For the last time.

I don’t want that for them. I’ve put them through as much hell as they’ve heaped on me. Probably more.

But it can’t matter. I can’t let it matter. What matters is finding Mina’s killer.

“Hey, wanna unclench there?” Rachel asks. She shoots a look at the balled-up note in my hand until I relax my fingers. “That’s evidence! Anyway, there’s one more thing.” Rachel gestures at the baggie. I reach inside it and pull out a business card.

MARGARET CHASE

WOMEN’S HEALTH

(531) 555-3421