Page 71 of Warmer, Colder

“Earth to Becca.” Stasi shakes her head at me. “Lay down, with your head that way.” She points to the edge of the roof, and I give her a wide-eyed look. “Just do it. Trust me.” She ignores the shake of my head and presses her palm to my chest, guiding me onto my back. What’s the worst that could happen? You’re already dead.”

Letting the argument go, I position myself like she says, my head hanging just slightly off the roof. A slow buzz begins to build at the same time she starts touching me.

Stasi trails her fingers along my inner thighs, brushes over my clit, and traces my center. My cunt tightens, seeking her touch, but she just keeps her finger moving in those teasing circles around my opening. “Please,” I whisper against her skin.

“What’s that, Sweetheart? You’re going to have to speak up if you want something from me.”

“Please try to make me come.” I attempt to find my voice.

“If you keep being so quiet I’m going to tease you to the brink of losing your mind and you’re ready to scream from this rooftop again. But this time, it’ll be my name.”

Never in my life would I have thought threats of humiliation would be erotic, but there’s nothing expected about her. I crave the way she pushes my expectations, and how she draws me past my limits with the promise of pleasure. “I want you to make me come,” I say with more confidence, earning a victorious smile from her.

“There we go, Angel. That’s a good start.” Stasi kisses me hard. As if she’s trying to summon the exact words she yearns to hear. “One of these days, I’m going to pull the filthiest words from your lips. I’m going to mold you into such a nasty girl who can give it as good as she takes it.” Her unrelenting strokes push me further into the fantasy she’s built up for us. Instead of a flood of dark thoughts, my head is light and empty of anything but the jolts of electric heat she sends through me with every swirl of her thumb and pump of her fingers. The faster she goes, the more my legs shake. The deeper she reaches, the louder my cries become.

“That’s it. Give yourself over to it. Let all that shit go, Becca.” She doesn’t let up on me. “You’re dead; who you were doesn’t matter anymore. Whoever you felt like you had to be doesn’tmatter anymore. It’s just you and I at the end of the world. You’re mine and I won’t stop till you say my name. Until you tell everyone in this cookie-cutter little neighborhood who you belong to.”

Whether it’s the conviction in her voice or the reassurance that she won’t give up on me, a switch flips in my mind and nearly a year’s worth of tension and repression floods forward. I jump off the proverbial ledge without any hesitation. “Oh god, Stasi, ah—” Instead of fear, there’s only excitement and relief. An out-of-body experience is the only way to describe the way it feels falling apart on her fingers. There’s some kind of safety in her firm grip, in the selfless determination of her fingers and lips, in the need in her eyes. Her need for me, not want,need, is why my body, my mind, and my soul are drawn to her. The electric magnetism between us transcends the transactional nature of so many relationships—even the most important ones—that I had in my life. There isnothingbut me and her, and when her hands, her lips, her teeth are on me, I know that it iseverything.

“You’re so fucking beautiful when you come,” Stasi says as places a kiss on my head and lays back.

On this high of what she’s given back to me, I want to give something to her—a truth.

Forcing the words out is like jumping out of a plane from thousands of miles above ground, but I’m betting on Stasi being my parachute. I have to believe she’ll be there to catch me. Cleaning my throat, I get it out before I lose my courage. “I’m . . . I’m queer.”

When Stasi turns to me with a smile and doesn’t say anything, I continue “That much I can accept, that much feels good to own. But, whether I’m bi, pan, lesbian, or anything else that’s something I can’t figure out. What if I don’t know what I am?”

She links her hand with mine and pulls me into a sitting position so we’re face to face and knee to knee as we sit cross-legged. “Well, the good thing is you don’t have to. You never did. Labels and shit like that are only as important as you make them. They have their purpose and can make us feel seen or safe, but you don’t have to have one if you don’t want to. As long as you’re living authentically to yourself, that’s all that matters.”

“Is it bad that I’m sad I didn’t get the chance to figure out that answer when I was alive?”

“It’s okay to feel sad that you didn’t get to live your truth and explore your identity more while you were alive. But that life is behind you. Don’t let regret take this step in your self-discovery from you. Here and now, it’s just me and you. And if you can accept that you’re queer, that you’re attracted to me, that you want me, then that’s all that matters.”

Stasi holds my gaze until I nod my agreement then we fall into a comfortable silence. I let myself observe her with fewer judgments and less fear. She’s breathtakingly beautiful. The stars behind her are dull compared to the vibrancy of all that she is.

She’s always commanded my attention, but before I saw her lure as a threatening presence. Now I see that she’s glitter, making me shine in all the ways I never imagined possible. The more time I spend with her, the more I learn about myself. The more I becomemyself.

How is it that the woman I helped condemn to a muddy grave has helped me claw my way out of my own hole? It seems impossible to know so little about someone but need them so badly. She stomped into my life at quite literally, the worst possible time, and we’ve been thrown together under the worst possible circumstances, but I can’t help but feel like she was always meant to be in my life. Maybe she was my fate all along.

Chapter 31

Stasi

95 Days Dead

Since that night, we’ve been inseparable. Becca and I have made a little nest for just the two of us. It’s been easier to get distance from the baggage of our past selves with her staying with me instead of us spending time in the house. It’s a honeymoon period where we can pretend that we’re new people and that we’ve been set free from the burdens of our lives.

And it’s kind of easy to do when you’re dead. There are none of the usual things that make time fly by—no job to clock in at, no weekends to look forward to, and no deadlines to dread. We’ve lost time playing old games, finishing those huge puzzles that should take the average person months, and getting into her mom’s crafts.

But that ease is absent tonight. The energy has shifted in the confines of the guest house. The weight of guilt is oppressive. My ghosts are catching up with me. As if now that I’ve forgiven her for hiding my body and she’s given me hers, the scales are out of balance.

The paper snaps with her facial movements as Becca opens and closes the paper fortune teller until she gets to eight. “Truth.” Becca’s voice pulls me from the maze of indecision that my mind has wandered into. Despite the strides she’s made, thatwe’vemade, I feel like we can never fully move forward ifshe doesn’t know the truth. She needs to know who I am—who I reallyam. This is the perfect opportunity to tell her, yet my tongue is tied in knots like a cherry stem. Unfortunately, the lie of omission that I remain committed to is anything but sweet.

“What do you want to know?” My stomach tenses as I wait to be cornered into another deception. I don’t let on, though, I just keep folding the paper in my hands.

Her rainy-day eyes are almost apologetic, but she asks her question anyway. “How did you know you were . . . not straight?” She refocuses on the notebook in front of her as she doodles.

Buying myself time to reshape the story without her in it, I walk around to the couch, sitting at the far end. It’ll hopefully put enough space between us that she can’t see the guilt in my eyes or taste the dishonesty on my breath. I lay the book my work in progress is taped to against my knees and continue. “It’s like I’ve always known. Not necessarily that I had the language or awareness to actually define it, but I always knew that boys weren’t what held my attention.”

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