Free Freeing by E.K. Blair Page B

joke. She tried going for a sense of modesty by throwing one of her t-shirts over it. I swear, I was about to piss my pants when she laid that thing face down on the demonstration table and began giving that doll, with its ass all exposed, a thorough body massage. Everyone was cracking up, but she kept a straight face and proceeded as if she was giving some political speech.”
    “What did your professor say?”
    “Nothing. He just let her do her thing as if what she was doing was completely normal.”
    “Oh my God,” he says as we both lie there in my dark room and laugh together.
    “But that’s Kimber. She doesn’t care what people think about her, and she is totally unpredictable, whereas Candace is reserved, quiet for the most part, and extremely focused. The two of them are an odd combo.”
    “So how do you fit in to that?”
    Laughter aside, I roll over and lay my head on his chest. “I hang out with Kimber a lot, only because Candace rarely goes out, but we don’t have a deep friendship at all; more like buddies. It’s nothing close to what I have with Candace.”
    “I don’t think many people have that. You’re lucky.”
    “Yeah,” I whisper. “It’s a lot like what I had with my sister, well, except the physical stuff,” I joke. “But she gives me what Jace used to when I had her.”
    I pull my head back and look Mark in the eyes when he says, “Tell me something about her.”
    It’s always hard for me to talk about my sister, but I want to share her with him, so I take a hard swallow before I open up. “We were best friends. It was always like that with us. We did everything together. There was this one time, we were young, maybe ten or eleven,” I say and then pause when I feel the sadness well up in me along with the happiness. It’s a strange conflict of emotions that causes my throat to slightly constrict.
    Shifting and tucking my bent arm under the side of my head, I continue, “We had dug up a pail of mud down at the creek that ran through the back of our neighborhood. Jace thought it would be funny to make mud pies and blow them up with firecrackers on one of our neighbor’s front porch. The lady that lived there was always crabby, so needless to say, we didn’t like her that much. Jace found one of the leftover boxes of Black Cats from the Fourth of July, and we set those suckers off.” I start laughing at the memory. “That shit was so loud, and there was mud flying everywhere. That crotchety, old woman opened her front door and Jace and I ran as fast as we could, laughing our asses off.”
    “You guys sound like trouble,” Mark softly chuckles.
    “We really were.”
    “Did you guys get caught?”
    “Yeah. Our mom made us go over and clean up the mess. We had to use toothpicks to poke out the mud that slung into the window screen. It was a bitch of mess, but so worth it.” My smile fades when the sadness takes over. I hate that memories are all that I am left with. “I miss her,” I breathe out.
    Mark doesn’t speak, he just holds me tighter in his arms. I lie quiet for a while until I finally say, “But when I’m with Candace . . . she just makes it easier.”
    “I wish I could have met your sister.”
    Mark doesn’t say anything else and neither do I as we lie there holding each other. Sharing this part of myself with him is hard. It’s hard when I share it with Candace too. But it’s also nice, being able to talk about her. I don’t do it often, but she’s a big part of me, so giving that to Mark makes me feel closer to him. And I want that—the closeness.
     

     
    We spent the night wrapped up in each other’s arms, and it was the most intimate thing I have ever done with someone. I know I’m completely falling for this guy.
    Looking at him now, sleeping next to me, I lean over to kiss his bare shoulder. When I do, he begins to stir and wake up. I tangle my legs with his and pull him in tight.
    “Morning,” he grumbles with his eyes closed.
    I laugh