Skinned. - Skinned. Part 12
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Skinned. Part 12

"Mind if I do?"

"No."

Sometimes it felt like the body took over. That the body wasn't the stranger, I was-just a passenger, carried along wherever the body wanted to go. Because that wasn't me, letting Walker disappear into the network when I just wanted him to be with me-or, more to the point, wanted him to want to be with me. The strange voice that poured out of the strange mouth told him he could do whatever he wanted, I would go wherever he went, I didn't care, I was fine, everything was fine, it was all good. That wasn't Lia Kahn.

The car stopped in the usual place, at the bottom of the curving driveway that sloped up to Cass's guesthouse. Walker grabbed my hand before I could get out. He leaned close, and when he spoke, his stubble scratched against my ear; it didn't hurt. "Upstairs?" he said. "Later?"

"Definitely." I turned to face him, my cheek scraping against his, but he pulled away just before our lips made contact. Even in the dark, his eyes were closed. "Later."

Inside, things were the same as always: bodies sprawled on the couches and across the greenish-gray carpet, writhing in the throes of whatever new b-mod mix Cass had cooked up; walls pulsing in time with the music; couples tangled up in each other; lonelyhearts on the prowl; screens encircling the room, set to flash up Cass's favorite vidlifes and a rotating selection of random zones; the lost dancers, gyrating to music that played only and forever in their heads; and in the glassed-in pool, girls with swanlike bodies skimming through the water, giggling, sputtering, chasing boys, chasing one another, the shifting patterns of their solar bikinis fading as the light disappeared.

The bikinis weren't the only tech. Sonicsilk, LBDs and LCD tees, net-skirts, girls in microminis smartchipped to grow-or shrink-when they bent over, gamers in screenshirts that broadcast their kills...Almost everyone was in something lit up or linked in, everyone, that is, except for me. And Zo, of course, who didn't count.

Bliss met us at the door, wearing a dress I'd seen before-a transparent fabric made opaque by the careful patterning of glowing light, but always, in its shifting translucence, offering the promise that if you watched closely enough, a glimpse of milky skin would slip through. She raised an eyebrow at my dead black shirt. Then leaned forward, voice lowered and fakely kind. "You should know, that retro look is totally wiped."

"Yeah," I said. "I got that." I turned to blast Walker for letting me walk in blind, not that he could be trusted on the subject, being barely able to dress himself, much less me, but I was decked out in freakwear and needed someone to blame. Too bad: He'd already slipped away, probably off to join the gamers or get zoned.

Terra drifted over, her face-like everyone else's-cosmetic clear, her shirt whispering melodies with every move. She stopped dead when she saw what I was wearing.

"Nice, uh...outfit," she said.

"You could have told me." It's not like we made some big announcement about which looks were in and which were out. But things got old fast, and when they did, either you knew-or you didn't.

Terra shrugged. "Since when do you need me to tell you what's wiped?"

Zo found me later, sitting in a corner, head tipped back toward the ceiling as if I were zoned. Anyone who knew anything knew that I wasn't in the business of getting zoned anymore, but it saved me from having to stare blankly at a wall or, worse, to make conversation.

Finally someone I could blame. "I can't believe you let me leave the house looking like this."

"What?" she asked innocently, perching on the side of the couch. "Like me?"

"You knew better."

"You're right," she said. "So why didn't you? Lia Kahn always knows what's cool, right? Lia Kahn decides what's cool. So what's your problem?"

I wanted to slap her.

"What's yours?" I asked instead. "If you knew retro was over, why come here like this?" I jerked my head toward her clothes, which were only slightly less gross than my own. But she was acting as if she didn't care that the look was wiped, and no one else seemed to care either. Like the rules were somehow different for her.

"Because maybe Zoie Kahn decides what's cool too," she said.

"You can decide whatever you want. It doesn't count if no one agrees. There's no such thing as a majority of one."

"Yeah, one's the loneliest number, so I heard," she said. "Two is working out a lot better for me these days."

"Two?" I scanned the room, as if Zo's new guy, if he really existed, would bear the mark on his face. "Who?"

She mouthed a curse, as if she'd broken something. "No one."

This was getting interesting. "Who?" Zo and I had never been the kind of sisters who stayed up all night, giggling in the dark about pounding hearts and stolen kisses. But she'd ruined enough of my dates with her tattling, her teasing, and, as she got older, her eavesdropping and clumsy stabs at blackmail. She was, and always had been, addicted to information about my personal life; the more personal, the better.

Karma's a bitch.

"I told you, no one."

"I'll find out eventually," I said. "You might as well tell me."

"Instead of wasting your time on my love life, maybe you should focus on your own," Zo snapped.

"Meaning?"

Zo tapped her wrist and I noticed that, like Auden, she was wearing a watch. Maybe he was her mystery man. Lame and lamer-they'd make a good match. "It's one a.m.: Do you know where your boyfriend is?"

"He's around." But nowhere I could see. I wondered if he'd gone upstairs without me, if he was waiting for me to find him. Or if he wasn't alone.

"He always is." Zo scowled and stood up.

"Seriously, why do you hate him so much?"

"I don't."

"You're usually a better liar that that."

"Believe whatever you want," she said.

I wanted to ask her something else. I wanted to ask her why she suddenly hated me.

I didn't want the answer.

"Later," she said, giving me a bitter half wave. "Terra's got some new boots she wants to show me. Weird, isn't it?" Zo smirked. "The way all your friends suddenly want my opinion?"

"They're just bored and looking for something different to play with," I shot back. "You're like their little retro mascot. Their token freak."

Zo shrugged. "Why would they need me for that? They've got you."

Venom released, she wandered off; I stayed where I was. I knew I should be circulating, but all I wanted to do was hide. Staying in place seemed like an acceptable compromise. And when I felt a pair of hands squeeze my shoulders, and a chin rest on the top of my head, I knew I'd made the right choice. I lifted my arms, let him grab my hands and pull me to my feet. "About time." I turned around. "What took you so-"

I yanked my hands away.

Cass's mouth breather leered. "Feels just like real hands," he slurred. "Dipper thought they'd be, like, stiff or some shit like that, but..." He slithered his fingers across my waist. I knocked them away. "Feels real enough to me."

Cass had always liked them dumb and pretty.

"You wanna know what's stiff?" He lunged toward me, resting his forearms on my shoulders, linking his fingers together behind my neck when I tried to squirm away.

"Fuck off."

He laughed. "I'd rather fuck something else," he said. "And I do mean thing. Come on." He plucked at my neckline. "I hear you've got all your parts under there, just like a real girl."

"I am a real girl, asshole."

"You want to prove it?"

I tried to knock his arms away, but they were too thick and sturdy, and the more I strained against them, the tighter his grip.

"Just because Walker's too chickenshit to take a test drive-"

This wasn't a dark and empty path winding through the woods, and he wasn't some Faither lunatic convinced that God had told him to screw my brains out-I had no reason to be afraid. But I wasn't thinking through reasons. I was thinking about this loser's grimy hands crawling all over the body-my body-and his breath misting across my face and his puny dick twitching at some fantasy of dragging me off and shoving himself inside me. All of which added up to not thinking at all. I punched him in the stomach.

"Bitch!" he wheezed, doubled over.

That's when Cass finally decided to show up. "What the hell, Lia?"

"She's psycho," the drooling pervert hissed, looping an arm around Cass. "Total nut job. Got pissed I wouldn't do her."

If the mouth had come equipped with saliva, I would have spit at him. "You sleazy piece of crap! Cass, come on." She was clinging to him, her arm tucked around his waist. "The perv was hitting on me."

The loser snorted. "Right. Liked I'd want it when I have you." He nuzzled his face into Cass's neck. She let him.

Terra popped up beside them, her boy in tow. The two guys smacked hands while Terra glared at me. "Trouble?"

"Trouble for Cass," I said. "She's dating an asshole."

"You were right about her," Terra's guy whispered loudly.

I turned on her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means wake up, Lia," Terra snapped. "This isn't like before. You don't get to have every boy in the world drooling after you. Not anymore."

Cass rolled her eyes. "And contrary to popular belief-excuse me, your belief-they weren't all after you then, either."

"I never thought that-"

"Right." Cass choked out a laugh. "And you weren't hitting on my boyfriend just now."

"Why would I want this assface when I've got-"

"Walker?" Terra said with me. "You just keep telling yourself that."

"Walker and I are fine."

"Then take him with you when you go," Cass snarled. She tugged the mouth breather away, without looking back.

Terra shook her head. "She stood up for you. When you came back, and you were all-you know. She defended you. She said you were still the same person under there. That we should give you a chance, even if..."

"Even if what?"

She looked at me like it was pitiful, the way I couldn't figure it out for myself. "Even if it's embarrassing," she said, overenunciating. Slow words for my slow brain. "Being seen with you. Like this. And then you try to steal Jax?"

I hadn't even known that was his name. "I told you, he came on to me."

Terra shook her head. "I actually feel sorry for you. I mean, Lia was always self-absorbed, but whoever you are-whatever you are-could you be any more oblivious?"

"You know who I am," I pleaded. "Come on, Terra, you know me."

"Yeah, but there's an easy way to fix that." She walked away with mouth breather number two, leaving me alone again.

Walker found me by the pool.

"So it's okay? To get wet?" he asked, sitting down beside me.

I shrugged. I'd taken off my shoes and plunged my bare feet into the water. It was cold, or at least, I thought it was. Temperatures were still a challenge. "Everything's okay."

He dipped his feet into the water, then shivered. Cold-I'd guessed right.

"I heard what happened."

I shrugged again. That was an easy one for me, one of the first things I'd mastered. Maybe because it was so close to an involuntary twitch.

"You should have texted me," he said. "I was looking for you."

I'd been sitting out by the pool for almost an hour. He couldn't have looked very hard. "It's fine."

"So, were you, uh...you and that guy, you weren't-"

"You're seriously going to ask me that? You think I was lying too?"

"I don't know." He looked down, tapping his foot against the surface of the water, gently enough that it didn't splash. "I guess not."

Our shoulders were touching.

"You know what?" I said. "Just go."

He shook his head. Rested his hand on my lower back. Leaned in. "What if I don't want to?"

It felt like my first kiss.

In a way, I guess, it was. And just like back then, I wasted it, worrying about where to put my hands and what to do with my tongue and whether I should be moving my lips more or less-and then it was over. At least he didn't look too repulsed. His eyes were rimmed with red. But they were open.

Most people had vacated the pool area once I showed up. The ones who'd stayed behind were staring at us. We got out.

The grounds of Cass's estate were huge-and, once you got away from the guesthouse, mostly empty. We had a favorite spot, a clustering of trees at the top of a sloping hill-the same hill that, when we were kids, Cass and I had rolled down, shrieking as we bumped and slid, the grass and sky spinning around us. Walker and I stayed at the top. He was shivering.

"Nervous?" I asked. We sat facing each other, his legs crossed, mine tucked beneath me so that I could rise up on my knees and reach for him.

He shook his head. "No reason to be."

He didn't ask if I was nervous.