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The first time, Lottie's barefoot in the woods, like she so often is now that there's no snow on the ground. Van follows her to the shrine, which is what they've taken to calling the shabby collection of bone and twine and branches. Mari and Akilah are somewhere else; Van can't bring herself to care where. She cares about Lottie, and her blood.
Lottie slices her own hand and Van's, and it stings—she hisses "Shit" and then whispers, "Sorry, Lottie. Sorry..." The second "sorry" is directed not to Lottie but to the woods, to the shrine itself. It feels like swearing in church, not that Van has much experience on that front.
Van and Lottie face each other, reaching out, hands sliding slippery together. "What do you feel?" whispers Lottie.
"Your hand. Our blood. The ground under my feet."
They let the blood drip onto the shrine, hands clasped.
Suddenly Van feels wrong sharing this space with Lottie, and it's on instinct that she lets go and sinks to her knees.
Lottie doesn't say anything, just watches.
She couldn't have said, later, what possessed her to kiss Lottie's dirt-caked feet. It's just that Lottie is growing and growing and Van has to hold on tight in order to keep from being left behind. As she leans down, eyes open, it feels like the ground is zooming up at her until her lips meet cold skin.
Lottie crouches down and gently takes Van's chin in her blood-sticky hand. She tilts Van's face up, and her own face down, and they kiss open-mouthed like a cave. Lottie's tongue doesn't make an appearance; it's not a kiss that hints of sleepless arched-back nights. It's about wanting, and receiving, and never receiving.
Van lets out a shaky breath as they break apart. The yawning hole in her gut isn't any less desperate. But something has shifted in her, and she lets Lottie kiss her once more, bloody hand splayed on her neck.
—
Van scrubs with her hand against the blood dried on her chin, on her neck, and she enters the cabin looking scrubbed and raw but not like she's just been partaking in lesbionic forest rituals.
Well, except for her hand.
Tai glances at the hand, and then at her face, and swallows, shaking her head. "Van, I thought you were going to stop doing this. What if you got an infection?"
"We always disinfect after," says Van, even though she knows that's not enough, she knows that Jackie's rubbing alcohol is running dangerously low and they have to keep some in case of a real injury, something serious.
What she doesn't say, what is clawing at her chest to get out, is: I'm keeping us safe, we're keeping us safe, nothing bad will happen to us. Not while we have this. Instead she swallows and lets Tai berate her.
"I'm sorry," she says, "I'm sorry. I won't...do it again."
—
She sees Mari kiss Lottie's feet; they're distant through the woods but it's still obvious what's happening. She waits, but Lottie doesn't tilt Mari's head up, doesn't press their lips together.
Something flutters in Van's chest.
—
The second time, they're on the beach. Van stands in the freezing water and lets it sap her, lets it leech warmth from her skin.
It's startling when Lottie appears beside her, but she adjusts and they look out to the water together. "It's awful, isn't it?" says Lottie, and through her eyes Van can see where they lost Laura Lee.
Lottie's cold fingers reach for Van's, and they clutch tightly, tight enough that Van can feel her pulse behind her knuckles.
Lottie draws Van's wrist to her and kisses it, soft and open, her mouth warm where the rest of her is freezing.
Van closes her eyes and it feels like falling.
—
She stops counting eventually.
Lottie peppers kisses down her throat and it should feel like infidelity or something, even though she's not even sure if she and Tai are still fucking together—but it doesn't; it feels like praying. Van murmurs, "The wind, the earth, your mouth," and Lottie's fingers ghost against her back.
—
They're older, and some days Van feels ancient.
And some days she feels eighteen again, a yawning pit.
She feels both when she looks across a constellation of familiar faces and sees: a dark-haired figure at the lake, turning—
Lottie.
She can't catch her breath. She wants to run to her but finds herself planted to the spot, wants to sink to her knees but can't even do that. She just...watches, letting Lottie draw closer.
And Lottie comes to her first.
"Van?"
She tries to speak, but no sound comes out. She just gapes, mouth open like it's waiting to be met with another.