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Jade says, “I had a dream about you.”
Dave goes, “Oh?” and once again loses their game of tic-tac-toe. Jade draws another grid for a game that she will probably win. She always wins.
“Yeah,” she sighs, sadly. “You were marrying your sister and then you took a sword to the heart. It was all very dramatic.”
He draws an O next to her row of Xs. She thinks of hugs and kisses. He loses.
“I’m not close to my sister,” Dave mumbles. “I don’t even know her all that well.”
“Maybe you will soon.”
“Maybe your dreams are bullshit.”
“Maybe you’re scared.”
“I’m not going to die.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“I’m not going to die.”
“But maybe you’ll marry your sister.”
“Fuck you.”
Jade giggles. “But first buy my flowers.”
Dave smirks and thinks of asking for her number, but the teacher is right by their side before he notice him and they both get detention.
;;
She daydreams beside him in Chemistry and draws clouds on the corners of his notebooks, puts hearts on her “i”s and knows exactly how much radioactivity you need to kill a grown up man.
He sneaks iPod earphones underneath his jacket and taps beats on his knees, copies her homework and then draws her in return, silently places a hand on her thigh when she sobs because they have to slice a frog open.
They don’t talk outside of class.
;;
“I’ve been thinking,” John says, leaning against the door of her locker, tapping his black nails against the metal. “About death.”
Rose turns around and hugs her books to her chest. Raises a perfectly tweezed eyebrow, and he doesn’t know that the piercing is fake. She looks at him, up and down.
John is freakishly tall.
“Oh,” she says, cocking her head to the side a little, like a bird. “Have you, now?”
“Yes.” He says, gravelly. “I might die if you don’t marry me.”
“That one’s new.”
John’s eyes lit up. “Is that a yes?”
She puts a hand to his chest and pushes him out of the way. He watches the way her dress rustles with the movement of her hips.
“Don’t get excited.”
;;
“I don’t get it,” The boy in the skull t-shirt sitting next to Jade says. “I read her poetry. I got into her classic metal dark music tastes. I thought about death and feelings and shit. Why won’t she give me the time of the day?”
“I think,” Jade says, carefully because she doesn’t want to be too harsh on him. “That you’re trying too hard.”
She stares at his shirt and his eyes follow hers. It says something in Latin. “You think so? I thought girls liked it when you tried what they’re into.”
Jade hums and thinks about it for a moment.
“Yeah, but don’t fake it. We’re gonna know and it’s a one-way ticket to loosertown from there on.”
“Oh.”
He looks disappointed.
Jade smiles at the way he runs his hands through his hair and sighs, loudly, puts a hand to his chest and clutches where his heart must be. “I can’t help it if I’m trying too hard,” he says, eyes bright and a little sad. “I’m in love.”
She laughs. “That’s amazing.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah,” she says. “The world needs more people who are not afraid of falling.”
He grins and can’t help but agree. They sit together on the bus from that day on.
;;
“I made a friend yesterday,” says Jade, handing Dave his homework. She printed out hers with a different font and size. The teacher notices, but is always too tired to point it out. “He’s in love.”
Dave draws a dead frog on the back of his paper sheet. “Congratulations.”
“Have you ever been in love?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he swivels in his stool a few times and doesn’t look like he’s having fun. When he stops, his knees brush the side of Jade’s thigh.
Much later, he leans and in his lips brush her ear when he whispers, “You know how the whole universe says it sucks?”
Jade looks at him with wide eyes and nods. She doesn’t need to ask what he means.
“Well there is a damn good reason.”
She doesn’t ask him any more questions that day.
;;
The next day John wears an Adventure Time t-shirt and heavy-rimmed glasses. He looks dashing with a smile on his face, and the neon pink of his shirt makes his eyes stand out. His nails are pale.
Jade waves at him. “Hey, you.”
His grin grows three sizes when he sees her. “Hey there.”
Jade pats the space next to her and he throws himself in the seat dramatically. He discovers he likes making her laugh.
“Looking good.”
“What can I say? Only true men wear pink.”
She snorts, unimpressed. He grins. She points at his shirt. “Favorite character?”
“Beemo.”
She smiles. “Me too.”
John puts his hand on top of hers and pretends not to notice.
;;
She looks and walks and acts like a queen, all elegant angles contrasting with her short leather skirt. Pale as winter, black lip-gloss, soft grunge oozing from her every pore. Jade sees her in the Ladies Room and simply knows she is The Girl.
Jade says, “the boy I sit with at the bus is head over heels in love with you.”
Her violet eyes turn to look at her and Jade feels the need to fidget a little. Her own sundress and denim jacket feel childish in comparison.
She pulls a little tube from the pocket of her skirt and pouts her lips in front of the mirror. “Do you mean John?”
Jade looks at her shoes. “I don’t know his name, but he gave you black roses once.”
“Oh.” Says Rose. “I’m not interested.”
“Why not?”
“He is not my type.”
Jade looks at herself in the mirror, too. “What is your type, then.”
Rose smiles at her own reflection.
;;
“It’s just,” John says, playing with her fingers. “The way she carries herself. Like a little doll, but she could claw your throat off if you stand too close.”
He touches his knuckles to Jade’s and draws hearts on her palm.
“And she’s so smart. You should have listened to her on Literature today, oh my god. She recited Our Heavenly Father in Latin and I almost came in my pants.”
Jade giggles and kisses his cheek.
;;
“Marry me,” says Dave, getting on one knee out in the empty football fields. He offers her a dozen dead roses and a condom. “Or I might die.”
“Believe it or not,” says Rose. “I’ve heard that one before.”
;;
He kisses her with his eyes open and watches the way her eyelids flutter, up against the wall behind the bleachers, her skirt riding up, her hands in his hair, his lips falling open and his lungs so full.
She walks with her head held high and her hips swaying, skinny little blonde princess, curses when she speaks in class and writes poetry that she doesn’t show to anyone ever, black jacket heavy against her shoulders and hands boney and small, all of her classes are AP.
He watches her from afar and never wears the sweater she made him for Christmas, calls her a bitch behind her back and thinks about her legs when he touches himself, their parents divorced when they were seven.
He tells her, “don’t you fucking dare psychoanalyze the fuck out of this.”
;;
“Are you afraid of death, Dave?”
“No,” he shakes his head, and she cradles him in her arms, like he’s small. “Only of falling.”
;;
“Let’s go somewhere,” says Dave. “I don’t feel like slicing anything open today.”
“It must be grave,” Jade realizes.
They sneak into the roof and break open an old vending machine. They count the clouds until Dave falls asleep.
;;
When he wakes up, Jade is kissing his sister.
Okay.
;;
She runs her fingers through her brother’s hair, Dave’s head in Jade’s lap, Jade’s lips on her lips.
Rose touches his face and presses two fingers into his mouth, caresses his lips. Jade pulls away and kisses down her neck. Dave presses his face to the skin of Jade’s thighs and thinks that he likes the way she smells.
They go home together.
;;
“No, wait, wait,” says Jade, and Dave would be worried if her voice wasn’t made of giggles. Rose is lying on the bed by their side, playing with Jade’s hair, a book spread over her chest, forgotten. “Let me call John first.”
Rose sits up. Asks, “John?”
“Yeah, John,” Jade breaths, and pushes away from Dave’s lap, brushing his saliva off her neck. “He might want to join the fun!”
“No.” Dave snaps, alarmed. “No more dudes joining the fun.”
“You’ll like John,” says Rose, pressing herself to his side. Bites his jaw. “And I think he’ll like you too.”
“If you think I’m going to fulfill your sick guy on guy fantasies I swear to fucking god–”
But he can’t finish because Rose is kissing him on the mouth and her lipstick tastes like blueberries.
;;
The bell to Dave’s RV rings and he opens the door without a shirt on.
“Uh,” says John. “I think-”
“No,” mumbles Dave. “You got the right address.”
Behind him, Jade giggles. She’s wearing his shirt and pantyhose and little else.
“Don’t be rude, Dave.” She pushes him off of the way, her body curvy and small in contrast with his muscles. John’s eyes are wide behind his glasses. “Come in,” she says, and takes him by the hand.
Dave glares at him the whole way to his bedroom.
;;
John is surprisingly good at strip poker.
By the time he takes his jeans off, Jade’s already in her underwear, Rose still keeps her skirt, and Dave is completely naked.
“If you could go anywhere in the world,” Rose asks, her head thrown back, a bottle of wine leaving her lips with a lewd smack. “Where would you go?”
“Paris,” says John, absentmindedly. Eying his cards with a frown on his face. “I’ve always wanted to see Montmartre.”
Rose laughs and crawls into his lap, pulls him in for a kiss.
;;
“I’ve got nothing left to lose,” says Dave with his voice dry, sprawled out on the bed like a cat, lazily. His cards fall from the mattress and Jade retrieves it, and his hand is so bad Jade snorts and licks his knuckles. Dave presses his fingers into her mouth and she bites him.
“Why don’t you kiss John,” Rose offers, her back to his chest, his legs scratchy against hers.
“Sure,” he says. “Why the hell not.”
John goes, “Eh?” but Dave’s already pulling him by the hair until his head rest on the edge of the mattress, and shoves his tongue down John’s throat, all sore lips and saliva, upside down, like a spiderman kiss. John makes a noise at the back of his throat but Rose is already there on his lap, pressing kisses to their cheeks and licking the place where their mouths meet.
“That’s hot,” says Jade, and finishes shedding her clothes off.
;;
“This is so not fair,” Dave breaths, fisting his hands in the covers and trying not to hump his bed. John, half on top of him, bites his shoulder.
“Dude, I so know.”
Rose and Jade are making out like it’s the end of the world.
Jade slips her hands underneath Rose’s skirt and squeezes her ass. Rose sucks on her tongue and slips off her lacy black bra, presses her breasts against Jade’s, their arms around each other.
They break away and their eyes are like vixens. John shudders and Dave feels it against his skin.
;;
Dave kisses John’s stomach by accident, and Jade elbows him more than once, and Rose looks at him with that little knowing smile and it’s confusing and arousing and amazing and hot and he is pretty sure everyone is more than drunk but for once he lets himself go and finds out he isn’t afraid.
;;
“I’m Jade,” she breaths, breaking the silence. She stands up, putting on Dave’s boxers, and Rose follows her movements with her eyes.
“Enchanted to meet you, Jade,” She purrs, her head resting on Dave’s shoulder and her legs across John’s chest. “I’m Dave’s twin sister.”
John says, “Holy shit,” and sits up. “How the hell didn’t I notice before.”
“Dude.”
Dave pulls at his head and crashes John's lips to his. John finds out he doesn’t really minds. He breaths against his lips, “John still thinks that is pretty weird.”
“Jade thinks you should all shut up and cuddle her.”
They do.
;;
And that is how they begin.