Page 61 of Tap Left
“I never hated you, Lola. Even when I wished I could.”
“But you always—”
“Do you have any idea how it makes me feel?” he cuts me off. “That while Ryan floated lifeless beside me and my leg bled out, my biggest regret was that I never got a chance to kiss you.”
I cling to his biceps. “Is that true?”
His answer is to kiss me now, right here in the dirt. We cave in to our wants the way addicts usually do, overdosing on each other. Guilt forgotten, we wash away our sins with rain and cleanse our filthy bodies. We are a jumble of hands and mouths and legs and messy clothing and hard words.
Daire opts for ease of access, barely undoing his trousers and hoisting up my dress. His flesh pulses into me, stabbing at me with violent and jarring thrusts. The sounds coming from his chest are guttural, and he is more animal than man right now. I wrap my legs around him and kiss his throat, quietly clinging to him while he works out his aggression. It’s hot and fierce and dirty and the most intense thing I’ve ever experienced.
He fucks me until he comes inside of me, and even then, he doesn’t stop. He pumps until his dick is soft and his arms give out on him. He collapses and rolls to the side, limp and spent. It’s cold enough now that I can see our heavy breaths on the air, and my teeth are chattering. Daire tilts his head to look over at me, and I half-laugh, half-cry.
He laughs too before his fingers find mine, and he holds my hand like a man who really cares about me.
It’s a dangerous thought to have, but for right now, it’s mine.
23
Daire
Lolaand I watch the sun come up at the lake near Montrose Beach. I don’t know if she remembers the significance of this spot, but this was the first place I ever had the guts to speak to little Lola B. I’d seen her before at school, but that was different.
Shy, awkward, nerdy. They were the first thoughts I had about her when she handed out papers for Mr. Eckels in English. She was a good girl. The kind who actually signed up for extracurricular activities at school. And I was the kid who sat in the back of the class with his hood up, hoping nobody would talk to him.
Incidentally, I also happened to be the one that she tripped and fell head first into that day. Everyone turned to stare, and the familiar burn of anxiety crept up my spine. I didn’t like to be the center of attention, and I hated her already. But when I got a look at her face, her cheeks blooming with pink, there was something about her that held my attention. She wasn’t much more than a string bean at the time. Skinny and clumsy. She had a beautiful face, but she was clueless about it.
I tried to forget she existed after that day, but it didn’t work. Fate threw her in my face at every opportunity. Our classes always seemed to let out near each other, and our lockers were a mere ten feet apart. Lola blanched every time she saw me, still humiliated by our first encounter. I always looked away. Or at least, I tried to.
But I wasn’t looking away the day that I waited outside on the curb for Ryan to pick me up. We’d known about each other for a few years by then, and he thought it was fun to come slum it on my side of the city for a change. He’d roll up in his Lexus and see which fruit was ripe for the picking. It wasn’t difficult for Ryan because he had the personality, the looks, the charm, and the car too. Girls from public school almost always went for it.
That day he was late. Or at least I thought he was. And I had my eye on Lola, watching her fumble with her books in a spectacularly awkward fashion as she tried to assemble herself for the bus ride home.
“Who’s that peach?”
The question had come from behind me, where Ryan stood. I had been caught staring, and immediately felt defensive as I tried to steer him away. But Ryan wasn’t having it. The moment he saw the challenge in my eyes, the game had begun for him. Everything was a competition to Ryan, and he never lost.
I thought that maybe he’d forgotten about it when we walked to the car and drove off, but I should have known better. He showed up at the beach that weekend with Lola in tow. And he made a point to rub it in my face all night long.
There was always an undercurrent of jealousy between us, but I never understood why. Ryan had everything. The money, the name, and a father who acknowledged him. It still wasn’t enough for him. He could have had any girl he wanted, but he picked her. He chose her to ride shotgun on his quest of self-destruction.
It didn’t happen all at once. It was a slow train wreck that I had a front row seat for. My loyalties were to my brother. He helped me out more than anyone could ever know. He gave me a retreat away from the crazy that was my mother and my life. But his ego was a cancer inside of him, and Lola was just another trophy.
Something changed between us that night he brought Lola here. The other stuff never bothered me. I didn’t want his trust fund or his dad or the big fancy house. But when he had Lola on his arm, he finally had something I wanted, and he knew it.
When he caught me looking at her, he kissed her.
I found a million reasons to hate her. She was weird. Too soft. Her laugh was ridiculous, and I couldn’t stand the way she would second guess everything she said to him. I thought she should have been more confident, more sure of herself. At the very least she could have faked it.
I thought my act was pretty convincing, but it turned out the only person I had fooled was myself. Ryan confronted me one night in a drunken stupor, trying to pick a fight with me. At first, it was petty comments. The way things usually unraveled between us. Talking to Ryan when he was drinking was the equivalent of banging your head into a brick wall. Our relationship was by nature the very definition of insanity. I can’t even recall how many times we went down the same road hoping to arrive at a different destination.
He’d self-destruct, and I would try to clean up the mess he made.
The events leading up to his death were a test of my already strained patience. I was tired of dealing with his shit. He was upstairs banging some chick in his room when Lola stopped by. I didn’t know she’d already seen him, and there were plenty of times I asked myself why I even bothered to hide it from her. In the end, I just didn’t want to be the one to hurt her.
That night, she came to me. She sought comfort from me, and it was something I was incapable of providing. But even so, I tried. I rubbed the soft sweater that covered her shoulders, and she rested her head against my chest. I wanted to keep her, but I wanted to punish her too.
She didn’t choose me. But I was the one who took care of her. I was the one holding her now. When she looked up at me with eyes so soft and sad, I had no words to give her. I didn’t need words when my emotions were plastered all over my face. She saw how I felt, and Lola finally cracked and confessed the thing I simultaneously dreaded and hoped for.
