She's warm. Grace Pattin is warm and naked in my bed. She's a shining goldfish girl, hot in my arms. She's asleep and she looks sweet and she's nothing like I imagined.
She's the kind of blonde that I never thought existed. Only, when I look close I realize that it's strawberry blonde instead and it makes her look like a red goldfish. My fingers are in her hair and I think about how strange it all is. I think about her in the bookstore with her posé, cameras ready, all pink and demanding. But, right now she's a little floating goldfish amid a big, black ocean that sucks people like her inside and never lets go. I don't know how to feel. So, I don't. I close my eyes and try to fall asleep, too.
I wake up sometime during the afternoon without Grace. Her clothes are gone. She's gone. I think about how all of this could have been a figment of my imagination with the taste of her lips vivid on mine. I stand beneath the showerhead, thinking and thinking until it all dissolves into black hair swirling down the drain and I can't see anymore because all my shampoo has gone into my eyes.
I can't look at myself in the mirror too long. I'm not sure if I'll be happy with what I'll find. I brush my teeth, gums raw and bleeding. It makes me upset. I spit blood into the sink, wiping my mouth. I get blood on the towel.
Billie's in my front door before I get to step into my Vans. She unties the laces then ties the laces. But, she's not being helpful. She's in a hurry.
"We have wasted an entire day!" She's yelling and she's angry. "You've wasted an entire day. Where did you go after the party? Don't tell me you were sleeping around with Shay!"
I don't say anything. I don't care if she's got it wrong. I don't care that I betrayed her. I don't care that Shay exists. I feel the warmth of Grace's body against mine, moving warm and definite. We're just floating goldfish in a pond of the correct temperature and no one can touch us.
Billie pulls me through the forest and into the treehouse. She thrusts me into the beanbag and I sink and sink and sink until I can't hear her anymore. I've got beanbag in my ears.
"We only have two weeks left to complete the filming process, Lockland." She's rummaging for her notebook, but it's not there. For the first time, she's lost. She's not demanding. She's not criticizing. She's just another stupid girl looking for a book she's never found.
"Where is it?" She looking at me. I stare at her. She can tell that I don't have it and it makes her lose her mind. At least, the little bit of it that she's got left. It's not about the project anymore.
"I—" She sucks in a breath, but it's toxic and makes her cough. Now she's heaving. She's breaking. I watch.
She pulls a bit at her blue hair that's gone gray and silvery like the moon. Her face is red beneath its usual olive. But, still, I just stare.
"Who have you been in here with?"
I don't say anything because I have nothing to say to her. I don't recognize her and she doesn't recognize me anymore. We're a bit distant. She's deep, deep down in a place where she can't find herself and I'm on the outside, watching. I don't mean to. But, I can't do anything. I'm paralyzed, stuck to every fiber of the beanbag, thoughts racing and racing and racing.
I don't know-how. But, she stares at me, blood in her coffee eyes, and we both know who has the notebook. And I'm a lonely goldfish again.