American Goth by J. D. Glass

we’d been younger, closer, before things…changed. And finally, we got to the subject, the source, of that change.
    “I don’t think it’s true, you know?” Fran said as she again played with my hair, twirling a long strand around her finger. Her eyes alternately gleamed and glowed in the uneven light released by the curtain as it moved in the light breeze.
    “What do you mean? Her father—”
    Her fingertips were soft on my cheek and she brushed her thumb across my lips. “There was nothing, absolutely nothing in the newspaper—you know they always print those things, it’s like a Staten Island requirement or something.” She gave me a small, sad, smile. “My father said either there’s something really mistaken about what we heard or…it’s worse—because it’s something ‘ugly,’ as he put it.”
    I shivered involuntarily against her at those words. That had been a fear of mine that I’d shared with no one.
    “Shh.” She pulled me closer and I snuggled into her gratefully. “I doubt that’s it. And when I get time, I’ll find out what really happened.”
    She sighed, a soft sound under my ear and I kissed her neck as she drew delicate patterns on my shoulder and arm while I returned the same feathering touch. “They probably shipped her off to school somewhere or something like that and her parents don’t want her to see any of her friends.”
    I raised myself on an elbow and shook my head. “Her gay friends, you mean.” The words were harsh and bitter, even to my ears.
    “Well, it is a possibility. My parents had discussed doing just that when they found out about me,” she said quietly, her fingers still stroking along my temples.
    “You’re kidding!”
    “Nope. But since our high school was so prestigious and I was already a senior, my father thought it would create awkward public relations for him and his campaign, the family being such big contributors to the school and all that.” Her voice was very matter-of-fact as she spoke.
    I gazed down at Fran, who hadn’t let me go, who anchored me past and through the pain and the rage that threatened to rip through me, for her, for our friend, at the unfairness of everything.
    “That’s—that’s horrible,” I spluttered, not knowing what else to say. I pulled her closer and she nestled her cheek between my shoulder and neck.
    “It was, then,” she admitted, “because it wasn’t as if I didn’t know why my father had sent Gianni to art school in Milan, then funded the studio.” She tightened her arms around me and I kissed her head. “My mother cried, Gemma refused to be parted from him and now, well, I’m here, right? It’s not as if they beat me or anything like that.”
    I gulped for air as a razor-sharp line of fire lanced across my chest, over my sternum, and I fought down the memory, so fresh, so real , and so remembered, now that we had spoken about her, about Nina, so far away, so out of reach and…
    Fran’s breath was warm across my shoulder, skated over the pulse that beat next to her lips, chilled the tears I didn’t know which of us had spilled when she pressed her face to my skin.
    “We’ll have a great time, it’ll be a beautiful Christmas, Fran. Really,” I promised, not knowing what else to say as we held one another, aware of each other’s hurt and loss, the cloud, the scent of it in our faces as we breathed it in, the green apple tart and sweet of it on our lips, and the undeniable reality of the beat of living hearts held close, so very close because we were together, alive and torn in the same ways.
    “I know,” she whispered reassuringly, and I could feel her lips smile against my neck before she pressed them against the pulse that beat raggedly beneath them. “I just think…that’s what happened, they sent her away, and they don’t want anyone to know.”
    The effort not to reach through the Aethyr, to find the blankness where Nina should have been, made my throat close and my eyes sting