Free Lovely by Beth Michele

to her chest, her head resting on them. The light is gone from her face.
     
    “Who knows what’s hidden inside?
    What’s trapped beneath the surface of a smile
    Scratching and clawing to escape
    I scream but no one hears
    There is desperation
    Yet there is no escape
    There is only suffocation”
     
    My eyes are glued to the sudden hardness in the gold flecks of her eyes, the severity in her jaw, and the stiffness in her limbs as the tortured words tumble from her mouth. I’m left speechless, trying to decipher the meaning of words I can only interpret as an overwhelming amount of pain and sadness. My insides suddenly twist and it feels like my organs are being stretched … there’s something about her words that connect with me on some deeper level. I want to reach out for her, to take her in my arms and tell her that I understand.
    “Ash?”
    I hear her voice call to me, pulling me from my thoughts, shaking off the waywardness of my mind. “Jesus, Cara. I don’t know what to say. When did you write that?”
    She comes back from wherever she was, her eyes staring down at the blue shag rug. “A long time ago.”
    I want to ask more but suddenly feel it’s not my place. “Well, it’s poetic to say the least. Puts mine to shame.”
    She eyes me through those circles of glass and gives me a weak smile. “No, I really liked your poem, and besides, that’s what makes it so great, right? Everyone has something different inside of them to share with the world, you just have to dig deep and find it.”
    Somehow with those last words, I want to tell her to heed her own advice. The more time I spend with Cara, the more I realize she has a lot to share with the world. She can’t see it, though, and that makes me sad.
    “I’m kind of hungry.” She pushes herself from the carpet with one hand and lifts her long, smooth legs up off the floor. “I made homemade brownies and they’re still warm; do you want one?”
    “Homemade? Uh, yeah, I’m all over them.”
    She laughs as she searches the drawer for a knife. “I love to bake. I didn’t grow up in one of those homes where you’d walk in and immediately be hit with an explosion of delicious smells. My mom barely ever cooked or baked, so Nadine and I had to fend for ourselves a lot and baking and I sort of developed a mutual love of one another.”
    I glance around the kitchen as I pull out one of the two chairs at the table. It strikes me as odd to have such a small table and my heart suddenly aches for her and Nadine. “I can work some magic in the kitchen, too. I do some baking as well, and I actually make a pretty mean pancake.”
    She drops her lashes in a wink. “Make me a pancake sometime; I’ll be the judge of that.”
    Our eyes meet briefly. “You’re on. So … how long have you and your sister lived here?”
    “We were living in Colorado,” she pauses mid-sentence, “but my sister got a really good nursing job here. I like it much better. This place has a lot more space than our last one and it’s close to the college.”
    Cara breaks off a piece of the fudge brownie, melted chocolate dripping onto her finger. My eyes widen as she surrounds it with her lips, sliding her finger in and out of her mouth, licking the chocolate clean off. I suddenly can’t breathe.
    She regards me curiously from underneath a pile of thick, long lashes. “Ash? You alright?”
    Holy hell . My mouth is hanging open while I stare longingly at her finger. I hope I’m not drooling.
    “Ash?” she says again.
    Yeah. I’m fine. Shit, except I’m hard. I shift in my chair. A distraction is definitely a necessity at this point. “So … what kind of nurse is she?”
    “She works on the Oncology floor at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.”
    My face falls instantly. Being with Cara made me forget all about Colt until I heard “Oncology.” I should be home with Colt, not chasing a girl. Guilt suddenly consumes me.
    Cara eyes soften as she places the brownies on a plate and