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No one had seen inside Lottie Matthews’ house. She walked home with others after practise, and been dropped off in front of, but never invited anyone in. Just the same she had never seen the inside of theirs, couldn’t say where Shauna lived, or ever visited Jackie, who lived a short ride down the street.
It wasn’t interesting anyway. Her house. The first floor was sparse, decor impersonal and bland, pieces still wrapped in plastic. It was as though there were two distinct realities. The one outside. Vibrant, exhilarating, intense. Trees and laughter and scuffed knees. And the one in here. Desolate, quiet, static. Soft footfalls on a clean carpet. Or maybe there was just the one reality, the true world, outside, and this house, these four walls, were a painfully empty extension of her mind. No voices echoed down the halls except her own. Nothing moved unless she willed it to. Even Auntie, who appeared at certain times of day—could Lottie say she was real, when there was no one to back her up?
She cut through the boring beige to her bedroom upstairs, pink and cluttered but spotless. In the mirror she sought her eyes, probed them for proof that she moved and breathed and lived and that people could see her doing it. Did anyone see? At home she was alone, and in groups she morphed into the lineup. She preferred that though. The latter. Better than the wrong kind of attention, the unusual stares. It helped that her teammates had such large personalities.
“Who the fuck invited Flex?” she heard herself say, and everyone turned to look at Travis Martinez, sulking alone in a corner.
Yes, her teammates took centre stage, but there was something she possessed that called them to listen. Listen, but never seek.
“Maybe Mari’s on the rebound.”
“Can’t be any worse than the last one.” Taissa grinned, and Lottie buried a smirk that said she agreed into her cup.
She was rich, athletic, well-groomed and smart-dressed, yet no one vied for her affection. There were boys around, of course. She wasn’t unaware of them. But neither did she feel the desire to seek them out or speak to them. They were repulsive in the way that high school boys were. Besides, it wasn’t like she could let them in, reveal herself. No, she was better off alone. Go to school, eat lunch on the field, under the bleachers with Nat, or in the cafeteria with the rest of the team, if the food was at all edible that day, study, practise, then come home and do it all over again. There was variation, of course, but never for a friend or lover.
Still, there were some who had the gall to approach and ask, “Are you Mexican?” or, “So, what are you?” And when they learned she had a rich, white dad and a mom that was less so and brown, they snickered and muttered amongst themselves.
“Thank you, Mr. Matthews,” the team sang when she used her dad’s card on a post-game meal at the mall. Not that he knew. She never asked. Though, neither did he. Her allowance was unlimited on the condition that she behaved—that she not embarrass him. She resented and missed him all the time.
Bumping shoulders with Nat while she lit up was code for, “Bum me a cigarette,” and Nat, as always, obliged. She took the one out of her mouth and tucked it between Lottie’s teeth.
Lifting her head to take a drag, the world slid beneath her feet, sweeping her back into the angled post on the porch. It shot daggers into her spine and she rubbed it with a hiss.
“Jesus, Lottie, how much did you have?” Nat’s voice was wrecked. It would be worse in the morning. Lottie wished she could be around to hear it.
“Just a little.”
“A little? You can barely fucking stand.”
The party was winding down. Rachel’s parents would be home soon and no one wanted to be caught out past curfew.
Shauna staggered out into the dark, took one murky look at Lottie and asked, “Are you all right?”
“See?” Nat waved. “Even Shauna can tell and she’s more fucked up than all of us.” She shoved another cigarette into her mouth, lipstick all a mess.
Shauna flipped her the bird. “Who’s coming to pick you up?” She wandered over. “You’re not walking, right?”
Lottie hadn’t planned that far. She liked to see where the night would take her. It was fun to let loose, to push her luck. But now everyone was going their separate ways. Shauna, Jackie, Nat. Even Taissa and Van had disappeared over an hour ago to get grub and never returned. Solitude hung heavy over the remains of the night. Tears pricked her eyes, and before she knew it she was overcome with a plummeting dread.
“No,” was all Lottie could say, before she started sobbing—in between hard draws of nicotine and tar. Natalie’s shitty gas station smokes always burned her throat.
“What? What’s the matter?”
“Oh my God, are you okay?” Shauna held her in those big, brown eyes, warped tears reflected back.
“Please don’t make me go,” she said through shaky breaths. “I don’t want to.”
“I don’t think we have a choice, Lottie.” Nat croaked out an awkward laugh, her hand finding Lottie’s back. “Rachel’s not fucking around in there.”
Shauna let out a soft laugh, just as Jackie and Jeff burst, louder, through the front door. At Nat’s insistence, Lottie grew panicked, indignant, she shook them off, arms flailing, hair falling over her face. She must’ve looked wild, mad. She was letting herself slip, and she couldn’t stop it. Jackie froze, untangled herself from Jeff, and pushed him away.
“What’s going on?” She approached, brow deeply creased.
“I don’t know, she just started freaking out.”
“Isn’t there someone you can call?” Jackie searched. The others shrugged. “Where’s your mom?”
Lottie took a deep breath. The panic had stopped as soon as it started. She brushed her bangs out of her face. “Um. She’s seeing someone.”
“So, what, she’s just never home?”
“Shauna,” Jackie warned. She turned to Nat. “Can’t you take her home with you?”
“Is that a fucking joke?” Natalie didn’t laugh. She never invited anyone over, her address fiercely guarded, though there were unkind rumours.
Lottie sucked her cigarette down to the butt and flicked it into the grass. She sniffed and snorted and wiped her nose.
“Don’t look at me,” Shauna was saying. “My house isn’t… big enough. My bedroom—my bed. I mean, for three people?” Suddenly this was a sleepover?
Calm washed over her, knowing she was in safe hands. Could it be that simple?
“But mine is,” she supplied. And was it? She never had so much company, and the house didn’t feel so big when she was alone.
“Then, we’ll take you home—”
“No!”
“—and we’ll stay with you. Okay?”
“Woah, woah, woah. Shipman, you’re not driving.” Jackie’s crossed arms meant business. Sometimes she blurred the line between captain and dictator. Lottie didn’t like being told what to do, not by someone who sucked at pretending to have her shit together.
“Why not?” Shauna challenged, buzzing with a barely restrained defiance. Lottie liked that about her—that she had a short fuse. It made her feel like anything could and would happen. Shauna was the spark that could set her whole boring day ablaze. It was also why she sought Nat more often than not, though she was a touch more soft of heart. Like a moth turned inside out, Lottie was drawn to their darkness.
Okay. She would take them home. She would welcome their disorder, but she wouldn’t reveal her own.
“Because I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and find you wrapped around a tree,” Jackie scoffed. “Any of you. So, come on.” She clapped. “All of you, follow me. Now.”
The three of them crammed into the back of Jeff’s car, Lottie, too tall to be in the middle, sandwiched between them as Nat’s hand patted her knee and Shauna’s fingers intertwined with hers.
“Drop me off first?” Jackie flashed Jeff a smile, head resting on her hand. The open window ruffled her hair and filled the car with her fragrance. She smelled like someone’s mom.
He did a double-take. “But—?” Then sighed. “Fine.”
Kisses and strained smiles marked her departure. From there it was only a matter of minutes before Lottie was home. The car was thick with quiet. She had never talked to Jeff before, and she wasn’t going to start now. There was something off about him, something she didn’t quite like.
Keys jangled in the door. All the lights were off, but even darkened corners couldn’t make the house feel full.
Nat swirled around, hands shoved into her pockets. “Got any booze?”
Lottie thought. She wasn’t allowed most things. Certain kinds of razors, pills, knives, or alcohol.
“White wine?”
A crumpled grimace flickered across Nat’s face. “It’ll have to do.”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Shauna was swaying. It was dark in the vestibule, and Lottie had no intention of turning on the lights. This was not somewhere she liked to linger.
“Fuck you, Shauna. We don’t all get trashed off two cups of— whatever the fuck you drink.”
So, while Nat disappeared into the dark, Lottie led Shauna by the hand to her white, four poster bed. She flopped back onto satin sheets, and Shauna stood, eyebrows raised, by her bent knees.
“Here I thought Jackie lived like a princess.”
Princess? The one that got locked in her tower, maybe.
Lottie waved her boots. “Help?”
The pink and white frills of home somewhat cushioned a rising spike of regret. It shamed her now, the outburst. People were going to talk, that was sure. But for now she was safe. And tired, and limp.
Shauna left their shoes by the ottoman with the stuffed white dog on top. Lottie wasn’t allowed a real one. That didn’t stop her from playing with strays.
When she opened her eyes the room was black as pitch, a little distant streetlight seeping in through sheer curtains. Everything was still, besides Shauna, who was carefully detangling herself from Lottie’s limbs. She caught her by the wrist.
“Where—?”
“I have to go the bathroom,” Shauna said.
“You can use mine.”
“Why, thank you.”
“I just mean—”
“I know.” A hand dropped into hers, then squeezed. “Thanks.”
The warmth she left behind beckoned Lottie to burrow in. Her pillows smelled of someone else. She watched as Shauna padded into the adjoining room, door shutting with a quiet click. Then a beam of light appeared beneath, glowing pink on the carpet. A part of her wished Shauna had left it open, let that warm light bathe her on the bed. It unsettled her for a door to be closed and her not know what was happening behind it. She wished there were no secrets between them.
Secrets. The bathroom. Shit. She rolled onto her back, arm slung across her face. It was too late now. Piles of orange bottles, stacked into pyramids and towers, dating back near a decade. Prescriptions and dosages changed, but the name stayed the same. Charlotte Matthews, Charlotte Matthews, Charlotte Matthews.
Her therapist could tell her why she did it. To weigh the price of sanity. Proof that she was well. As if being able to see them somehow prolonged their effect. All of the above? Lottie just knew that she liked to. Throwing them away felt like losing a piece of her mind. Of course, by now, she had been medicated about longer than not.
Shauna returned silent, bottomless and fragrant with soap. Lottie peeled back the covers to let her in, and for a while said nothing. It was Shauna who spoke first.
“I fucked Jeff.”
“What?” Lottie blinked, searching back. “Tonight?”
“No! A few weeks ago. They were broken up then, so it’s not like we cheated on her.”
“We?”
Shauna paused, her expression soft and lost in the low light. “Sometimes it feels like she owns me. I just wanted to take something from her. To hurt her. But if she finds out…”
Living up to impossible standards was a trap in which Lottie often got caught. It was what compelled her to act out sometimes. Sales assistants saw a polite girl dressed in designer clothes and expected her to behave a certain way. Or never expected her to misbehave. And nothing thrilled her quite like stuffing some bullshit into her bag and not only getting away with it, but returning with the evidence outstretched and convincing the cashier to take it back. Doing so tested the limits of her reality. Each instance added a crack to the drywall of her life, and if she was brave enough she could take a sledgehammer to that reality and smash into an entire new one. Except she had the clarity to fear what waited on the other side. Knew deep in her bones to never go past the point of no return. And felt too guilty to spend the store credit anyway. Not that she needed it.
Lottie lifted a hand to lie between them. “I won’t tell.”
It was a bargaining chip. One secret traded for another. Shauna sealed the pact with her own hand, and didn’t let go. The bundle of digits rested beneath the pillows like an exposed organ.
“Won’t she find out eventually? When you go to Rutgers—”
“I applied to Brown.”
Lottie always thought Shauna a terrible liar. If not her attitude, her face would give her away. Now it seemed she had never known her at all. Maybe they were the same.
“What about soccer?” What about us, she meant. What about the team?
“I only joined because of her.” Confessions were pulsing out of Shauna tonight like they had festered into an abscess that had begun to burst. Lottie liked the flood. “I know I’m good. I mean, I’m the fastest on the team. But I think I can make it further on my own. I don’t… really feel like I belong.” She added, on top of Lottie’s silence, “What about you?”
“Yeah, I… Yeah. Probably.” She looked away, at the melded limbs between them. In the dark, she couldn’t tell which fingers were hers. “It’s the only place I do belong.”
Shauna lifted a photo of herself from the nightstand, one of many of the team placed neatly around Lottie’s room, in frames of mismatched style but always the same shade of gentle, lovesick pink.
She had tucked Lottie into bed by the time Nat found her way in and slumped onto the loveseat.
“Your liquor cabinet’s locked,” was all she said, and Lottie issued an apology from behind barely-open eyes.
“Shauna,” she said, after a while. “Can we do this again?”
“What, like a sleepover?”
“Can we?” Lottie stared up at the canopy of her bed, fingers tented over her tummy. “I’ve never had one before.”
If her dad found out— No, he never would. And he probably wouldn’t care, either. It had always been her own decision to keep everyone at arm’s length.
“Really?” The bed made no noise as Shauna shuffled to watch her. Warm puffs of air licked Lottie’s cheek. “What about Laura Lee? I thought you guys were close.”
Laura Lee was a good friend and a great teammate, but a part of her always feared what she would think if she knew who Lottie really was.
“We’re not best friends. Not like…” She moved her head to meet Shauna’s gaze.
“Well, she only sleeps over when she’s mad at Jeff.”
“So, like, all the time?” Shauna shared her laugh. “What do you do?” Lottie asked. “Is it just like this?”
“Yeah,” Shauna breathed, and it tickled Lottie’s lips. “Um…”
“What?”
“Sometimes we… practise. On each other.”
“Practise what?”
What came next was a pitiful whine: “Lottie…”
“Oh!” Laughter began to bubble through her chest. Lottie clamped a hand over her mouth to keep quiet. “You mean like making out?” She said, “You make out with Jackie?”
Similarly, Shauna’s hands flew up to hide her face. “It’s not like that.” She peered over at the black tangle screwed up on Lottie’s loveseat. “Please be quiet. It’s… a good way to get experience,” she parroted Jackie with lacklustre effect.
Experience? Didn’t she just admit to fucking Jeff?
“Haven’t you ever kissed a friend?” Shauna asked, sounding unsure now.
“Sure. Spin the bottle.”
“Right.” She chewed her lip, eyelids fluttering in thought. “You were good at that.”
“You liked to watch.”
“I don’t— I mean— How did you—?”
“I didn’t.” Lottie laughed.
Shauna shoved her. “You little shit!” And Lottie rolled right back towards her.
“But you did?”
“It’s just… you could kiss whoever you wanted and you weren’t even fazed about it.”
Lottie studied her, inky pupils swirling in the dark. Her own forehead creased. “You’re jealous?”
“No,” Shauna scoffed, two fingers rubbing between her eyes. “I just…”
“Wish it had been you?” Lottie couldn’t help herself.
Shauna, to her credit, ignored that. “Sometimes I do things and I just know it pisses her off. Like, she would never admit it, but I can just tell with how she… ices me out. Anyway,” she sighed, “I’m not a…”
“You don’t have to be. You kiss Jackie and it doesn’t make you one, right?” The reason for Lottie’s prodding was unknown to her. No, she didn’t care about making Jackie jealous. But… maybe she wanted to be a part of the fallout. To be on the receiving end of all Shauna’s pent up frustrations. To soothe her pain and contribute to the chaos.
“Right…” Pale dawn light had washed in, threatening to sober the moment. “I don’t even know why I told you all this.” Shauna was staring at the canopy now, too.
“Maybe because we’ve never been alone before,” Lottie whispered. It was her turn to watch Shauna’s side.
“We’re not alone now.”
She glanced over at Nat, who hadn’t moved. “Does it count if she’s passed out?”
“Something every frat boy has asked himself once.”
“You’re sick.” Lottie grinned. “So, will you? Stay again?”
“Yeah.” Shauna nodded. Then, more sure: “Yeah, if you’ll have me.”