Work Text:
I’m not tired yet
We’ve still got a lot to figure out
Like, what was the end of the movie about, anyways?
It’s long past 11, streets illuminated by lamplight, engaging in the typical activity of staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out what’s real and what’s simple-minded delusion as Natalie Scatorccio and Lottie Matthews sit on opposite ends of the couch in the front room of Lottie’s house - plump leather, swallowing them both whole. Not much is being said, but it’s a comfortable silence, faded remnants of a smile on both of their faces, some sort of drug lingering in the air, but any tangible evidence of it lost in the night.
Lottie stretches her arms, rolling onto her stomach and resting her head on the arm of the couch, almost soundlessly, but loud enough for Natalie to crane her neck just a little bit to stare as the brunette waves splay out as she settles into her new position. Lottie seems tired, and it’s probably time for Natalie to pick up her boots and walk home in her socks - the idea seems rather cathartic right now. Though thoughts are slow, swirling, spinning, melting behind her eyes, (that are blinking even slower,) the concept of keeping Lottie awake when she’d most likely rather be tucked safely and comfortably beneath pink covers is humiliating to Nat. She’s seen Lottie’s bedroom, and although the couch cushions beneath her are encapsulating, congenial, she wouldn’t blame her for wanting Natalie to leave. She probably should.
Maybe minutes have passed as she contemplates, maybe hours. She’s not tired, but is, not unusually, thinking in Lottie’s best interest, regardless of any influence that fights to push her eyelids further shut. Natalie is used to fighting this.
“D’you wanna walk?”
It comes out slowly, barely reaching Natalie, so slowly and so distant that she has to take a few seconds, mulling over whether she’s dreaming this too. Lottie’s voice. It’s not unusual.
“Okay.”
Cool air feels refreshing, cleansing, and exactly what Natalie needs on one of these nights with Lottie, the nights when the appropriately-repressed parts of her mind take control, guiding her through the inevitable comfortable silence until they come down naturally and Natalie walks Lottie up the stairs, turns on her bedside lamp and shuts every door behind her, leaving no trace. It’s what they’d agreed on after Lottie’s mother had walked in, unexpected, one afternoon in Lottie’s kitchen as they crafted slightly-overdone pancakes, laughing and playing, until the strangely stern expression on the older woman had transferred to their own complexions, some unspoken power silencing them. Lottie’s mother hadn’t spoken, simply watched, passed by, but Lottie had told Natalie that it would be best if they spent time with one another a little more… secretly. And that she was sorry. And that it wasn’t her fault. But Natalie wouldn’t have blamed her either way.
“Did you enjoy the movie?”
Lottie’s voice is barely above a whisper, which is all they need as they walk directly down the centre of the desolate suburban roads. They both share the love for that exhilarating feeling that rushes over you when you place yourself in intended danger, just to find yourself safe and sound, more free, at the end of the night. They share the love for feeling like you’re the only person in the world at whatever given moment - each other being the only exception.
Natalie had enjoyed the movie, almost as much as she’d enjoyed the simplicity of sitting at the back of the theatre, Lottie resting her head against her shoulder, smiling into the light of the screen, rustling into the jumbo box of popcorn balancing on Natalie’s thigh. With the late screenings, only a few teenagers and a handful of fathers would be scattered across the seats, and from their view, high in the stands and superior, Natalie and Lottie could watch each one of them like mini-figures in their own game, feeling like God; feeling like the only people in the world. Natalie wishes she could be the only person in the world - this wasn’t unusual - but just occasionally, she’d admit that having Lottie Matthews by her side wouldn’t be the worst thing this godforsaken roll-of-the-dice life would decide to throw at her. She’d look at Lottie, wondering if she’d feel the same; she’d wondered in the movie theatre, and she was wondering now as they walked the never-ending streets, neither sure of their destination, but still trusting the other.
“I loved it,” Natalie confesses, voice low because she’s repressing her grin, maybe a little embarrassed, but truly just high on the feeling of being the only person in the world. The Lion King wasn’t exactly conformant to Nat’s taste, but she’d agreed to see it with Lottie on the premise that they could work their way through a joint afterwards - a lot more ‘her style’. “The death, dude,” Natalie continues, and Lottie turns to face her, although they keep strolling, one foot in front of the other. “I’m serious, it almost had me. Real fucking tears.”
“You should’ve seen me,” Lottie playfully nudges Natalie, though she staggers into the street a few steps. Lottie does own the height advantage just a little bit more than she realises, but God knows that Nat would never admit that to her. That sort of weakness, those sorts of feelings, reside in her mind when they stare at the ceiling on late nights in Lottie’s living room, and only then, of course.
Natalie still thinks back, and she finds it ironic - she did see Lottie’s eyes water, shining unmissable in the artificial reflection of the screen, her eyebrows furrowed a little and her lips parted as the infamous scene of The Lion King rolled. If that wasn’t enough, Natalie definitely felt Lottie’s grip on her arm and heard her whisper some words of disbelief under her breath. It’s cute, though; it’s Lottie. She’d deny all of it, and Natalie would deny noticing.
A few blocks away from the Matthews’ mansion, there’s a five-and-dime, and the bell rings as the girls step into the light, and their bubble, the feeling of being the only people in the world, floats away. Natalie doesn’t mind - she takes what she can get. There She Goes is playing in some corner or another from a stereo hidden from view, and instinctively, Natalie glances at Lottie, watches her face light up, lets their eyes meet, admires as she begins to spin down the aisle, making an inappropriate racket for such a store at such a time.
Natalie’s glance shifts, from Lottie’s elegance to the lanky teenager with the scuffed-up blonde hair and protruding braces that stands behind the counter, his eyes glazed with exhaustion, but he watches Lottie nevertheless. They’d seen him around sometimes; they’ve become regulars to the five-and-dime stores, what with their opening hours so extended and perfect for their secretive schedules.
“Lottie.” Natalie giggles, no more to Lottie than to herself, and, all caught up in her own grace and bliss, Lottie just keeps dancing, spinning, shuffling in her sneakers.
Natalie can’t take her eyes away, as if Lottie is the embodiment of fluency and poise. It’s cute, though; it’s Lottie. Natalie doesn’t blame her. Part of her feels she’d never blame her, not for anything, maybe because Natalie feels no right to criticise someone who has shown her so much happiness, or maybe because Lottie is like nobody else she’s ever met, in a way she’s never known.
“Can I get you something?” The boy behind the counter squeaks, his fingertips drumming on the till as he finally snaps out of the trance that Lottie Matthews seems to cast on people.
Lottie giggles.
“Have you got any, uh, chips?” She asks, giggling even more, as the teenager guarding the register exhales in relief. He still stutters over his words, though.
“Yeah, yeah, we do,” He swallows, nodding his head through a slightly humiliating pause. “Oh, uh, just in the back.” He points through an archway to another room, and Natalie nods her head graciously, stifling her own laughter whilst Lottie blows the poor boy a kiss and they make their way out of view, hearing him curse himself through his exhaustion behind them.
“Chips, Lot? You ask if there’s chips in a variety store? Your local variety store?” Now it’s Natalie’s turn to nudge Lottie, but gentle enough, avoiding sending her toppling into said shelf of chips.
“Lays or Doritos?”
“Doritos.” They speak at the same time, as Natalie is predictable enough to a girl like Lottie, but only because they know each other so well - like they’re the only people in the world. Lottie shoots her a pair of ‘gotcha’ gun fingers, and there’s a quick pause as they stare at each other with nothing but pure delectation in both of their eyes, before Lottie swoops around and grabs a handful of packets of chips, a party-sized amount, a humorous amount, an amount that Natalie’s sure they’ll break down in laughter over as soon as they hit the pavement again. Natalie browses the second-hand CD shelf quickly enough, swipes a few albums for her own pleasure. She pities the boy behind the counter, but maybe it’s Lottie Matthews’ fault for being how she is, being such a beautiful and effective distraction. Then again, it would never be Lottie she truly blames.
She wouldn’t tell me what it was she saw
But after that, you weren’t allowed to spend the night
Nothing worth enjoying lasts forever, and maybe Natalie should’ve known that. She should’ve known that this was more than her teammate, more than her friend, this was Lottie Matthews, and she was Natalie. She’s the Scatorccio kid, the one that the shop owners in her own local area watch intently and rather reprehensibly in the overhead mirror as she browses the shelves, the one the teachers will take a dislike to a few minutes before meeting.
Lottie, on the other hand, is everything Natalie isn’t.
Pristine face framed with pristine clothing, a life so flawed but a bravado so pure, blinding innocents with lure. Natalie feels so privileged to know her the way she does, but accompanying that lies the apprehension for danger - not the type that thrills them both, the type that they crave, but the type that will inevitably crush and destroy them, and everything in its path until it claims its true victims. Natalie is what needs to be destroyed, she knows that - Lottie was to be the innocent in this situation, being dragged down with her, but a selfish trait of Natalie that should have told her to leave, run, abandon Lottie and consequently save her, drew her in. Not exhilaration, but perhaps longing.
Lights are low in Lottie’s bedroom - they’d spend the night in Natalie’s trailer, which was a rarity, but with Natalie’s mother on a never-ending streak of evenings, nights and mornings unconscious on the couch, and a particularly lonely weekend approaching in the calendar for the both of them, they decided it wouldn’t harm anybody to curl up in Natalie’s single bed, pretending the other was anybody else on the exterior, and relishing in the feeling internally. Out of sight from anybody else, feeling like the only people in the world, the girls sit on the carpet, dealing UNO cards and blasting Lottie’s favourite Stevie Nicks CD on the player she keeps on her desk, decorated with soccer stickers, below her vanity and collection of Polaroids through the years. Most of the team, some of unrecognisable faces, (childhood friends?) and a couple, a safe number, of her and Nat, sat in almost the same spot as they are now.
“I’ll dare you, Nat,” Lottie’s smiling through her challenge, knowing she’s most likely grasped the upper hand before she’s even started to beg. “Please, let me drive us to yours later. The nights are getting colder-”
“I like our walks.” Natalie keeps her eyes on the cards in her hands, which she’s reshuffling, convinced that Lottie is only on a winning streak due to some sort of deception; it’s the only explanation.
“Triple dog dare?”
Natalie shakes her head, laughter slipping through breaths, and both girls know as well as the other that Lottie’s got her good with a triple dog dare.
“Unless, that is, you’re a-”
“Fine, Lot, fine. We can take your fancy car. But I won’t be held responsible for any damages, you know the terms and conditions, all of that.”
Natalie knew Lottie would win her over from the start, and that squabbling would only delay her victory just enough to protect Natalie’s pride.
“Charlotte?”
Their bubble of feeling like the only people in the world is not floating away; it has been pierced viciously, aimed perfectly, directly through the centre. The voice echoes up the staircase and down the hall, and still Lottie barely has time to scramble to her feet and twist Stevie Nicks down before her mother pushes into the room - the familiar sense of urgency sends panic striking down on Nat, but she remains sat cross-legged on the carpet, stark-still and unknowing of how to act. She recognises Lottie’s actions far too well, as if watching a cruel and twisted movie of her own past, from the back of the theatre - alone - but being the observer of the situation is unfamiliar.
“Mom.” Lottie’s voice resembles bewilderment, and maybe if Nat could bear to lift her glance from the floor, she’d be met with something extraordinary - a travelling circus marching down the hall, a one-way ticket across the country, just for her. Maybe for her and Lottie. Would that be okay?
Without turning her head, Natalie can sense Lottie’s mother step forward into the room, past Lottie, eyeing her with the same look that plagued them in the kitchen that unforgettable night that both of them choose not to speak about. Lottie’s mother brings the hateful danger, and somehow she embodies that power to crush and destroy them, the inevitability of it all. It’s beyond Natalie how such a power could bring such beauty, such a force into the world, a force like Lottie Matthews. Something you avoid, something spiteful, birthing something you look up at with irrevocable admiration.
Lottie’s mother has her hands clasped in front of her, as if bearing solemn news, but keeps walking into the room, gently but determined to push past Lottie even further, and sits down politely on the bedspread. Natalie watches Lottie instead, conscious of the power behind her, but pleading with the comfort she knows - Lottie watches past her, with an equal expression of distress, nonetheless. It’s unusual. It’s hateful.
“Natalie,” Mrs Matthews begins, a firm smile across her face, but not the same type Lottie and Nat exchange at the movies, in the five-and-dime, across the soccer field, across classrooms, during the late nights on her couch, in the darkness, face-to-face on Natalie’s single mattress, the type that lingers, the type that is true. “May I read your palm?”
Her smile is forced, painfully un-contagious, but regardless, she is that power, and Natalie could never, would never dare to argue. She forces herself to see her as a part of Lottie. It softens everything, her mind, her vision - just a little bit. It’s not unusual.
Lottie sits against the pillows, though her rigidness is visible through unhidden body language, and the way she hasn’t dared to speak since her mother sat down, claiming her bed, being that inevitably destructive power. Lottie can feel it too. Maybe she always has.
Natalie and Mrs Matthews make an attempt at mandatory small talk, though it is ridden with discomfort, tension and anticipation on both fronts. Natalie swallows, hard, when Mrs Matthews’ aged thumb runs across the calluses of her own palm, and the older lady hums to herself as if everything is nothing more than a little bit awkward - this is just a task she has to complete, as if it’s an everyday office job, repetitive, nothing out-of-the-ordinary. The humming doesn’t last, and neither does the just-about-tolerable conversation and the air of tension. Somehow, the lack of it all is worse, suffocating, and it makes Natalie want to run, leave all the doors swung carelessly open, leave every single trace of herself behind because she’ll never come back. But the pull remains far too strong for her to move a muscle.
Mrs Matthews takes a deep breath, a breath of acceptance, but not the comforting kind - the kind you’ll face long after a tragedy, the five-stages-of-grief genre. Natalie’s familiar - she can’t tell whether Lottie’s mother is about to break down in tears, or scream, or hit her, but she knows the destruction is lingering. It’s on its way.
“I think it would be best for everybody if Charlotte doesn’t stay at your house anymore, Natalie.”
Nat can hear Lottie’s jaw fall open, can sense the force, her favourite force behind her as she fights for her own words through her own confusion, but not past her brewing anger, the fury she does so well to lock up in the chamber Lottie threw away the key to; Lottie had blocked it almost permanently with the force that she is, but the power is becoming increasingly difficult to withstand.
“Why?” Natalie asks, because it’s all she needs to know. She knows everything else - she knows that she might possibly hate Lottie’s mother, as bad as it sounds to herself, and she knows that Lottie is the only person in the world to make her feel like the only person in the world, and that she’s the only one to give her freedom, to give her happiness, to give her nights to reflect on and days to look forward to. She knows that she’s not ready, or willing, to give all of it, any of it away.
“What did it say?” She asks again, persistent. Maybe she needs to yell, yell at Lottie - ask her whether she knew about this, whether it was an extended plan because Natalie had finally overstayed her welcome, but she knows it’s not her fault. It’s not Lottie she blames. When she turns to the brunette, still speechless, eyes glazed over with tears again, eyebrows furrowed, lips parted, boiling rage settles for a moment, cools into sympathy.
She turns from Lottie to her mother and back again, Lottie’s mother still sitting solemnly but stern, Lottie exhibiting what Natalie can only imagine is similar to her own expression, but mixed with the sadness that Natalie can never dare to show. Lottie’s brave like that.
“I think you should go back home, Natalie.”
It feels so patronising in an already uncomfortably vulnerable situation, so much so that Natalie might just bubble over, or bottle herself up until she explodes. She doesn’t; she picks up her boots from the carpet, almost reaching for the switch on the bedside lamp on even more painfully vulnerable instinct, letting her glance fall on Lottie in non-accusatory disbelief. She doesn’t blame her. She picks up her boots from the carpet, stands in the centre of Lottie’s bedroom, all eyes on her. She’s become the centrepiece of the travelling circus.
“Your spirit thing, your palm-reading know-it-all voodoo act?” Maybe there’s tears in her eyes, too, and on the off-chance that there are, she’s got to make this quick. “It’s bullshit.”
Natalie picks up her boots from the carpet, almost reaching for the switch on the bedside lamp, and quietly shuts every door behind her on her way down the hallway and staircase, leaving no trace.
She’s known it was coming; always. It’s happened with most people, one way or another. Natalie has a bit of a habit of ending up as the brick wall, the obstruction in everybody else’s lives, their relationships and friendships, and as much as she runs she can’t - for the life of her - budge from this position. A part of her believed, ironically, truly, that Lottie Matthews was her exception. That if she was lucky, she’d be able to keep her, keep them, keep late-night conversations and post-practice trips to the playground, keep midnight visits to the variety store and keep after-school company, because it seemed so true, it seemed so pure and undamaged, and maybe with that, she should’ve seen it coming even clearer. She really should have. But Lottie Matthews has that ability to blind everybody else with that lure she has, coax them, obliviate them to danger and destruction that will always lie just behind the door in this godforsaken town.
Cool air does not feel refreshing, nor cleansing, though maybe now Natalie needs it more than ever. She barely makes it past the variety store a few blocks away, unwillingly retracing her and Lottie’s steps from just the other night, before initial shock is overwhelmed with sadness, confusion, a general, gut-wrenching lack of understanding.
Natalie had believed that by reserving herself, enduring weeks, months, of repressed desire that she couldn’t quite make sense of, (she decided figuring it out wasn’t worth her time, and that way, she could convince herself nothing was out of the ordinary at all,) everything would remain constant and safe. As long as Lottie never knew about the daydreams that paint the ceiling in her living room on late and lonely nights, and as long as Lottie was kept in the dark about the yearning, (God, the yearning,) the feeling that haunts Natalie almost every waking moment that she stands in Lottie’s presence. That was the real intended danger, and maybe she didn’t know that before, but standing ahead of it all, all of the good behind her - out of the woods - it dawns even more sickeningly than she has ever dared to accept. Now she’s swallowing it whole, dejected and distressed on a curbside, barely past their five-and-dime.
Natalie stares at her hands; pale, but flushed at the knuckles. Hands can tell such a story, and Natalie feels almost more nauseous at the thought that Lottie’s mother could have possibly been right - there, in front of her, shaking inconsolably, her hands cast a hologram of her entire life, in every cut, bruise, scar and crease. Each pair of lips that has touched them, some she can’t quite recall, and some she will devote at least a few moments to remembering every day. Every smashed bottle, every tree-bark graze, clumsy cigarette butts. Linking her pinky with Lottie’s over words shared between nobody but each other, making one another feel like the only people in the world. Right now, Natalie does feel, truly and bitterly, like the only person in the world - Lottie is nowhere in sight.
How has scuffed-up skin betrayed her, if she never even gave into longing? Everything feels so fruitless now everything has fallen through.
Natalie walks an extended route to and from school every day, winding through the suburban maze of streets with ease, nostalgia painful but necessary for her to feel how she’s supposed to. She waits each morning and afternoon at the foot of the path, behind whichever car is parked in the driveway, hidden from the first-floor windows like a stray cat, limbs limp but neck craned as if Lottie would come to the window, rescue her, lift her or hold her, bless her cursed skin and tell her it would all work out, like she always used to. Natalie wonders if Lottie even would if she could, whether the force would be able to combat the power, whether whilst Natalie has crumbled and lost all sense of direction, Lottie has been thriving, a fierce, bright flame, and whether in all of her glory, she’d choose Natalie to just exist by her side. It would be enough.
Natalie wouldn’t blame her, whatever her decision.
Natalie wouldn’t blame her if she agreed with her mother that Nat was a hazard, a fire that needed to be quenched for everybody else's safety.
Natalie wouldn’t blame her for eyeing her with that tinge of disgust Lottie’s mother has had that can’t seem to be shaken.
If Lottie just couldn’t bear another moment with Natalie Scatorccio, for any and all reasons, Natalie still wouldn’t let Lottie take the blame. It would be a type of dying wish.
You’re trying not to cry
When you tell me you’re afraid that we may die
I said, “So what? Everybody’s scared of that”
Natalie should be eternally grateful for the way that Lottie isn’t exactly ignoring her; but the way they both pretend to not recall the late nights, the pining stares, the pancakes, is an even more brutal fate. Pretending nothing had ever happened is making Natalie feel like maybe she’s losing it, and Lottie herself was just an extended, blissful, messed-up daydream. They’re acquaintances. They pass each other in the corridors, offer a slight smile or nod of the head that the other will reciprocate whilst they bustle in opposite directions with books wrapped in their arms, and they celebrate victorious games together in the locker room over music - karaoke - with the rest of the team.
The conspicuous difference in their dynamic, the aspect that has truly thrown Natalie off-track, is that they’re no longer the only people in the world - they’re far from it. Both are mini-figures in somebody else’s game, not bound together anymore, but left to face everything and everybody else, alone.
Something has been brewing in Natalie ever since the swinging of Lottie’s bedroom door penetrated their illusion of safety, and this something feels just as inevitable, just as dangerous, but scattered with exhilaration, the exhilaration they both used to crave. After time apart, Natalie craves it more than ever. The way Lottie stares, out of sight - but not out of mind - shows that she is not the only one who needs something, anything, any meaningless exchanged word, out of the other.
A thunderstorm engulfs New Jersey, building and exploding on the same day that Natalie just can’t take it anymore. It washes over Wiskayok just as the cork pops in her mind.
She’s ready to act, however carelessly it may be, regardless of the consequences.
She’s ready to pounce, to become the force, channel everything she’s ever learnt from the girl she admires so dearly.
She’s finally ready, prepared, when a neatly folded piece of paper torn out of a notepad reaches her desk, looking so perfect, fragile and loved that the unknown desperation settles for long enough for her to reach out and unfold it.
meet me at the overpass on the outskirts
4pm if you can
lottie
It really was all Natalie needed; not for Lottie to tell her she missed her, or that she was sorry, or that it wasn’t her fault, because that was irrelevant and unnecessary as long as, just for a moment longer, they could be the only two people in the world. She would kill for it, fight for it, become the fire and the flame, crush the power.
Waves of blonde are drenched, falling into her face and clouding her vision even more than the torrent pouring down - even cars are scarce on the overpass, and therefore it doesn’t take long for Natalie to squint her eyes on the other side of the pavement, for her to see Lottie, brunette curls equally drenched but tucked behind her ears, because it’s cute; and it’s Lottie, and she’s standing even more nervously that Natalie, fiddling with her hands and rocking backwards and forwards on her heels, something giving Natalie the hint that it’s not only the vicious weather knocking her off-balance.
Briefly, they share a familiar moment of eye contact, faces morphed and distorted through the rainfall and distance between them, but it’s not unusual. That’s a pleasant feeling. All Natalie can possibly do is to let her body guide her where her mind has never been brave enough to, closing the gap between the two amicable beings, across the middle of the road to where Lottie is motionless under the downpour, eyes still squinted but never averted from a face she has missed so much - she will savour every moment of it having learned all too well not to blink past the good in the world, even if it means placing herself plainly in the crosshair of that impending, intended danger, either the middle of the overpass, or face-to-face with Lottie Matthews.
“Lottie,” Natalie gulps, out of breath and desperate, so, so desperate, and suddenly lost for words. Tears are forming in Lottie’s eyes, Natalie’s sure of it, because beyond precipitation, her lips are parted and slightly quivering, and her eyebrows are furrowed, and it’s all far too familiar.
“I think we’re cursed, Nat,” Lottie has to raise her voice over a crack of thunder rolling over the clouds, which is only a reminder of the danger that comes when these two souls meet, inescapable and bound to both of them. “I can feel it.”
The chance was there that Lottie was right - and if she had spent a few seconds longer dwelling on it, there was an even higher chance that Natalie would’ve agreed, sending them spiralling deeper into detachment, a place further than where you can be saved from.
“We can’t keep doing this,” Lottie continues. “It’s not right, my…my mom’s right. We can’t even exist outside of this fucked-up world we’ve made for ourselves.”
It should be enough to send Natalie over the edge, either of tears, or screaming, yelling at Lottie, kissing her, running in the opposite direction until her legs give out, jumping into oblivion from the metal fence of the overpass, anything. Predictably, it would be the exact key to unlock all of her rage, her fury; but Lottie had thrown that away, held it out of Natalie’s arms’ length, to a place further than where it can be saved from. Instead, she feels disbelief, guttering betrayal, and somehow, it’s still not Lottie she blames. She’s found that that’s not unusual.
“It’s not fucked up!” She finds herself yelling back, eyes almost shutting instinctively from the raindrops pelting in her direction, and yet her gaze is fixed, strained, but still on Lottie. She lowers her tone; raises her voice enough for it to be heard. “It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Lot, I’m serious. Why are you giving up on us?”
If this is the last time, if this is the beginning of the end, maybe the end of the end, Natalie needs, deserves, every question answered, something to satiate her, offer her a flickering guide of a light for whatever will follow.
“Because,” And now Lottie’s expression has softened as if this is a secret, a sad, tragic, apprehensive secret; like the reveal of a family member’s death, speaking slowly and gently from the caring lips. It isn’t tossed out into the storm like every other warcry, swirled away in the hurricane. “We’re going to fucking die out here, Nat. Everything around us has us cursed, why can’t you see? Why can’t you see that this place just isn’t right for us? It’s a death wish.”
Everything seems to hit Natalie faster and stronger than the cyclone above, washing over her, but not cleansing - drowning her, spinning her around, sending her into spirals and revelations and realisations and pushing her to the brink of brutal acceptance. She’s trying to find the words, trying so hard with every nerve ending, every lingering thought of Lottie, every memory of her in Nat’s oversized t-shirt, head cocked, looking up at her from where she used to lie on Nat’s single when she’d change the mixtape in her player. Every single unfinished prayer from the dark days, blurring, falling apart and coming back together in the form of the tragic scene in which they stand, face to face at the overpass, yelling over the roar of the cars on the freeway and the beat-down of the weather.
If this is the last time, if this is the beginning of the end, maybe the end of the end, Natalie should be giving Lottie everything she deserves to know. Each detail of every night’s dreams, memories of arms around each other after the hour where you can claim to be sleep’s victim, the wish to fix Lottie’s slightly parted lips into smiles, eradicating distress, the want to kiss that smile, after victorious games, (soccer, UNO, anything,) at the back of the movie theatre, in Lottie’s bedroom and Nat’s trailer, even right here, dismal yet dramatic, nobody but the clouds as their audience. If lightning was to strike them now, they would deserve it, and every second of sacrifice would be worth its while. Natalie would forgive Lottie for every missed call, missed apology, missed plan, because maybe they deserve to be hurt, maybe she wants to be hurt by Lottie, and in a life so cruel, it wouldn’t be the worst concept. The idea seems rather cathartic, right now.
Natalie breaks their shared gaze, and looks out to the horizon, cars, trucks, vans, all screeching into the distance, spitting water up from their rear wheels, discarded, yet no consequences. She’s sure she hears Lottie almost choke as she looks away, but she persists with her focus, admiring every vehicle on its own journey out of Wiskayok and far away, like she’s watching mini-figures in her and Lottie’s own simple game from a superior spot at the top of the overpass, although she’s feeling smaller than ever. Not like God.
“We can get out of here.”
Speaking to Lottie no more than the cars, her voice doesn’t reach through the glassy window of the downpour. Lottie knows her better, though, and moves tentatively to stand at Nat’s side, staring at dishevelled blonde locks with insistence, inquiry, whilst blonde locks are fixed on the passing traffic.
“They can, see?” Natalie turns, looking up to meet Lottie’s eyes, realising they’re much closer than mere seconds ago, signalling out to the freeway with her stupid, cursed, scuffed-up pale fingers with flushed knuckles. “I don’t care how, Lottie, but we can get out too,” Yet still Lottie is unconvinced, or rather, her eyes are brimming with tears again, threatening to overflow in a way Nat isn’t sure how to predict. “Your dad, he has a boat, right?”
Natalie recalls that the Matthews’ don’t favour family holidays in the recent years, but she’s sure that tucked away in her garage is that pristine speedboat they bought after one of her father’s particularly successful business endeavours, so unattainable it sits as a display item rather than anything worth any use. She’s not proud of it, but maybe the reason that the idea strikes Natalie faster than a worryingly close bolt of lightning strikes an old oak tree in the nearby park is because that boat is so damn out of reach for the Scatorccio kid. It would send Lottie’s father on an inconsolable rampage. It would send her mother to her knees, her head in her hands. It would send Natalie and Lottie out of this godforsaken town, let the entire world be their entire world.
Lottie stutters even more, the speed at which she’s fiddling with her fingers becoming hard to bear.
“A triple dog dare, Lot.”
Thunder follows, nature’s ironic drum-roll to accompany their scene as they stand, the only two people in the world.
“A triple dog dare. How about that?”
Lottie looks up from her hands, eyebrows still furrowed, lips still parted, breathing shallow and hasty. Natalie grits her teeth, increasingly minimising the distance between their faces - Lottie can win every card game, every petty argument, can be factually correct over every debate, but Natalie won’t shift for this one. She will downright refuse. She won’t take the blame.
“Remember summer camp, middle school? You know I was a beast with the bait, at hunting.”
Somehow the memory softens the scene for Natalie as much as it does for Lottie, and Natalie feels it deep in her bones, in the tremble of her disloyal hands, that their scene is coming to a close; she’s unsure of the ending.
“We can get out - we’ve gotta get out, Lottie, now!”
It was a final push, every drop of every month’s worth of passion, desire and repressed thoughts spilling up and out of her throat, pressed down on Lottie, inescapable, a final attempt, the last line, the end of the end, and it lingered painfully long around and between them, enough to crush the two and probably the metal hoods of the cars below, enough to shatter the single street light illuminating the two of them, spotlight-style. All eyes on them.
And momentarily, Lottie took a deep breath, and momentarily, Natalie was certain that it was over - she’d given it her all, but Lottie would turn away, walk home, and Natalie would take off her boots and walk in the opposite direction to the trailer park with socks soaked through, just for old time’s sake. It would be Lottie’s fault. Instead, Natalie felt Lottie’s fingers slide down her cheeks, wiping either a tear or a raindrop with her thumb, such a contrast from her mother’s in a way that made her want to melt to the concrete, join the worthless puddles. And Lottie was wordless, but she leaned down to Natalie, closing the minimal distance between their faces that Nat couldn’t dare to, shattering the tension, dissolving every repressed thought that Natalie had thrown at her just moments previously.
Lottie Matthews kisses Natalie Scatorccio beneath an isolated tainted street light on an empty overpass, scrunching curls of wet bottle blonde in her fists, and letting Natalie’s fateful, cursed fingertips tug on her sweatshirt, letting her pull her impossibly close, letting her know that she can plague her with whatever spirits possess her to act so unthinkably - based on how Lottie silently pleads to taste the cheap Coca-Cola on Natalie’s tongue that she was drinking in seventh period, the damage was already done to both of them, inescapable and inevitable, and neither of them would trade it for the world.
Resting her forehead against Lottie’s, Natalie feels like the only person in the world.
Catching her breath, overwhelmed with bliss she has missed even more than she realised, Natalie is certain that Lottie being her exception to isolation is definitely not the worst thing this godforsaken roll-of-the-dice life will decide to throw at her.
Looking up to finally meet her eyes and break into a true smile for the first time since leaving Lottie’s mansion, Natalie feels hope.
Suddenly feeling Lottie tighten her grip around her, rest her chin in the crook of her shoulder and run her thumbs lightly over her shoulder blades, Natalie feels comfort and contentment, and settles into a heavenly embrace, wrecked by their internal demons or not.
Natalie knows that none of these mindless worries will matter once they reach the coast, and with the capability of Lottie’s lips, Lottie’s eyes and Lottie’s hands, she doesn’t doubt for a moment that they will, because she feels the force, feels that redundant ‘power’ dissipating with the storm, as the clouds begin to pass over to the next town.
They put our faces on the milk jugs
Missing children, ‘til they gave up
Your mama was right, and through the grief
Can’t fight the feeling of relief
Nothing worse could happen now
Nothing worse could happen now
Nothing worse could happen now