Juliette can never tell if Nina likes her. She’s friendly, physical, quick to loop an arm through Juliette’s or sling a leg over hers on the couch. But she teases Juliette, too, calls her Logan’s pet, calls her prissy, taunts her for being a lightweight and having a curfew.
But here, now, the music is pounding and Nina is holding both of her hands and they’re spinning around, and both of them are laughing, Nina’s hands are around her neck, her hands are on Nina’s waist, Nina is throwing her head back with a wild grin. She doesn’t know if it is the alcohol or the pills or the simple intoxication of Nina’s beauty, but it is like she isn’t touching the ground at all. The whole rest of the world is gone, but that’s fine, because the whole world is contained in the places where her skin touches Nina’s, and this is the only thing that matters, the only thing that has ever mattered.
Nothing here counts. That’s why she keeps coming back. It isn’t real. None of these people are real, none of the things they write on the walls mean anything at all, nothing Juliette does is real or matters at all, and so it doesn’t matter that she wants, more than anything, to kiss Nina. It isn’t real, so she can have it. Just here. Just for a little while.
But then someone says “Kiss her!” and someone else whoops, and Nina, laughing, leans forward, and Juliette doesn’t pull away, and they are kissing, to hoots and cheers, and Nina’s hands are in her hair and her tongue is in Juliette’s mouth. It is a few seconds, no more, and then Nina pulls away and she looks at Juliette with a grin, and Juliette stares back at her, feeling cracked in two, feeling real again, and broken, and Nina’s mouth suddenly rounds in an O.
“Shit, I didn’t—” she says softly, and then Juliette turns and runs.
21
EMMA
Now
Emma jolted awake that night to the sound of gunshots, impacts against the house. Nathan had his phone in his hand and called 911 before the fifth and final shot faded, and they sat huddled in bed until the police knocked on the door. Not Hadley or Ellis this time; a younger, female officer, blond. She was sympathetic as she showed them the bursts of soot against the siding and windows, the discarded scraps of cardboard and plastic. Fireworks, not bullets.
The next morning, Nathan installed the cameras.
Emma knelt in the garden bed midmorning, pulling up weeds and tossing them into the bucket at her side. Sweat trickled down her neck, slipping beneath the collar of her shirt. Above the front door, the blank black eye of the camera stared down at her. She kept glancing at it. Ever since Nathan had pulled his little trick with the phone tracker, she’d felt like she was being watched at all times. It should have been easy to feel swallowed up in that big house, but she imagined him monitoring the sound of her footsteps and felt his attention on her, inescapable.
The sound of a car turning into the drive brought her twisting around. It was a blue hybrid, nearly new. JJ was behind the wheel. She parked ten feet from Emma and got out, shading her eyes. Emma stayed where she was, kneeling in the dirt.
“I come in peace,” she said. She pulled something from her pocket and held it up pinched between her thumb and forefinger. A key. “Nathan asked if I had keys to the carriage house. Asked me to bring them by.”
“He’s not here,” Emma said. It seemed like he never was anymore. She stood, brushing dirt from her knees. As she rose, spots appeared in her vision. She wobbled.
“Whoa,” JJ said, striding quickly over to her and reaching to take her arm. Emma yanked it away, which only made her almost topple over again, dizziness sweeping over her. JJ reached for her arm again and this time snagged it, keeping her steady. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Emma snapped, except that her vision wasn’t clearing.
“Come here. Put your head between your legs,” JJ said, guiding her firmly over to the steps. Emma sank down in the shade, not out of obedience but because if she didn’t, she was going to fall over anyway. JJ left her there, reappearing moments later with a glass of water. JJ hovered awkwardly as Emma took a sip, then handed it back.
“Thanks.”
“You should be careful. Sunstroke’s no joke,” JJ said with the fleeting edge of a smile. Emma grunted. She levered herself up to her feet, but it was a mistake—her knees went rubbery immediately.
“Help me inside, will you?” she asked.
JJ looped an arm around Emma’s waist, silently helping her up the steps and through the door. With the window AC they’d bought on credit, the house was slightly more tolerable than the outside, and JJ helped her into the living room and onto the couch.