Trapped
Amy had been gone all summer and she'd left behind the person most important to her. The highway lay out before her and she found new memories with new people but nothing could fill the space in her that belonged to Karma and Karma alone.
When she came back home at the end of August she was supposed to be a new person but that just wasn't the case. A new person wouldn't still be feeling flutters at the sound of her best friend's voice in a crowded room or the feel of her best friend's hands when they accidentally brushed her skin while moving to pass her.
Karma was upset. And who could blame her? She was homeless with little hope for a promising future when her best friend decided to leave her for a full summer and go play cinematographer with a bunch of complete strangers on what had appeared to be a whim.
Amy tried to act like nothing had changed. She tried to get back into the swing of things but Karma wasn't feeling quite ready to even speak to her let alone pretend that they were on speaking terms while they were forced to share the same space at Hester High.
The first few weeks of school were torture for the both of them. Amy would follow Karma around and sit near her and talk to no one and wait. Sometimes Amy would try to speak but Karma would get up and leave. Sometimes Amy could tell that Karma would be crying when she left.
But there was something in Karma that Amy could see. Karma wasn't just sad about all that had happened, Karma was angry and Amy couldn't for the life of her figure out why the emotion of anger was winning out over everything else.
It took a few weeks before the two finally met head-to-head.
Amy was sick of the distance, she didn't even like it when she was the cause and now it was just so constant eventhough Karma was so close and that killed her. So she followed her into a supply closet and shut the door behind herself so that Karma had no way to get out, she'd have to knock her out or something first if she wanted to escape and the thought of that to Amy was almost laughable.
"I need you to talk to me," Amy said. The room was lit only by a weak light bulb and Karma was startled, she'd been in a daze before, life without Amy had been pointless and strange.
"Go away," Karma bit, refusing to turn around. She continued to gather up supplies for the project she'd been assigned. She spoke to Amy like she would speak to a pestering ghost she was not about to just acknowledge that she was real.
"Not this time," Amy said. "I'm not leaving until you tell me why we can't be friends."
They were the wrong words.
Karma heard them and felt them rush through her like a fast and violent heavyweight express train. Her whole body shook and she dropped her supplies on the ground in anger, nearly throwing them down.
Amy heard and watched. Her own body jumped at the slam of the paint can on the ground and when Karma slowly turned Amy was in no way ready for the venom Karma was more than ready to expel.
"Let me get one thing straight," Karma near yelled. "You don't get to pretend I am doing this to you," Karma spat. She was looking Amy right in the eye and staring her down because those words? Yeah, they were not okay, not ever okay, not after everything Amy put her through.
"Wh-ah-what?" Amy fumbled, confused. She had nowhere to go. Her back was already on the door. But it was obvious that Karma was more than upset.
"Right," Karma scoffed, looking up at the ceiling as a person sometimes looks to God in frustration. She tongued one of her top side teeth and tried to breathe but it was hard. "Right," she said again, tears biting at her. She knew what to do. But Amy was dumbfounded. "Lets just do this," she shrugged bitterly.
Karma began to take her clothes off. She threw her shirt off and then undid her jeans and pushed them down and stepped out of them.
"Whoa-What are you doing?!" Amy asked, nearly shocked.
"Well, we gotta do this right. This is my fault. So it makes sense that I be the one to initiate reconciliation." She took her bra off and threw it on the ground and stared straight at Amy because she wanted to see what this did to her, she deserved to watch. Amy gulped.
"Karma! Stop!" Amy said, staring but trying not to. "What are you doing?! What is this?"
"You made it abundantly clear to me Amy. We can't be friends unless you get to fuck me, right? That's why you left? I wouldn't fuck you? Okay, fine, you win. Let's just get this done and it can all go back to normal." Karma moved forward and pulled Amy's neck in her hand, licking at Amy's pulse and tugging at her clothes hard with her one loose hand. Kissing her neck, she got a hand all the way down to Amy's pants and unbuttoned them, sliding her hand in over Amy's underwear and rubbing her, touching Amy in a way only Reagan had done before.
"HEY! WHOA!" Amy said, pushing Karma off . She didn't know who this person was. "Karma! Stop it!" Amy yelled.
"I don't want to stop. This is what friends do right? Friends fuck in closets. I thought you wanted to be friends," Karma moved her hand again, rubbing at Amy's sex and causing Amy to feel too many things but mostly unsettled.
Amy felt herself falling into the touch and then wiggling to get away.
"What the hell?!" Amy yelled, pushing Karma hard until she flew back and hovered in the center of that ugly room.
"That's what you want, right?" Karma was crying but she was so so pissed. "That's why we're not friends?"
"No," Amy huffed, looking her friend in the eye. "We're not friends because you kissed me."
"I was drunk!" Karma yelled.
"That doesn't change anything!" Amy yelled back, feeling awkward. She looked down at herself and noticed how her clothes were skewed and she was barely presentable. Karma's touch had entirely unglued her. Feeling sick with herself for wanting more was definitely the worst part of it all. And she wished she could tell Karma that but that was wrong.
"You left me Amy," Karma bit. How Amy could be concerned with appearances right now was beyond her. "I was drunk. I kissed you. And you fucking left."
Karma was waiting for some kind of apology.
"I had to go," Amy said, her face pitiful. "The things I felt for you, the things I feel," she turned inward, emotions tearing at her as she shut her eyes to try and quell them. "It wasn't fair to either of us for me to stay."
"So you punished me?!" Karma bit. "You let me think-"
She cut herself off in frustration. She felt sick.
It hadn't occurred to her before but that's exactly what Amy had done. Amy had exiled her for that kiss. She'd thrown her out on a raft. One small slip of affection got her completely cut from solid land and set out to sea all alone.
Karma's entire body shook and she needed to be somewhere else, anywhere else. She leaned to the left and picked her bra off the ground. Then she found her shirt and threw it on over her body. She folded her bra up and tucked it in her bag.
"Let me out," she said shakily, once she was close enough to the door to slip out.
"I can't," Amy said, looking down at her, seeing her. She needed this part of their lives to be over. She needed for things to be okay again.
Karma dropped her stuff on the ground. She knew that Amy would always win. She'd do anything for her. Even forgive. No matter what, Amy would always beat her in any argument, any fight. She'd die for Amy. She'd lose herself.
Everything about that suddenly felt painful.
In a fit of frustration and anger, Karma jumped at Amy with her entire body, throwing herself up and onto her. Amy winced and felt fists pound at the door on either side of her head, she had thought for sure that the fists were going to find her face but they never did.
As if choreographed, while Karma was throwing fists, Amy's arms came up without question to catch and hold Karma's body and guide it safely down.
For Karma, there was anger but then instant comfort and helplessness. She felt her body sliding down Amy's front and being held to her in a natural and long-overdue hug, painfully intimate, painfully close.
"Let me go," Karma cried, all her defenses suddenly breaking as she let her tears out and her body began to convulse with her sadness.
For Amy it was relief, to be holding her again. All she'd been wanting to do for a long time is hold her friend while she cried. She had known that Karma had been crying alone, she'd known for a while now and she felt intimately responsible because she was responsible and it was her fault.
"I can't," Amy cried quietly, refusing to let her go. She held her lovingly and touched her tenderly in ways she'd more than missed for several weeks and months at a time. Feeling her skin was heaven. Feeling her warmth was everything.
Those limbs had always been hers. This person had always been hers.
"I hate you," Karma wept, feeling safely trapped in Amy's arms. It was so frustrating to be happy with her touch and her voice and her care after all she'd been through at her hands.
"No you don't," Amy said, breathing her in and feeling the heavenliness of what it felt to be hers again after all the time away. And she was right. Karma didn't hate her at all, if anything she loved her farm more than she knew what to do with. She loved her so much she could never explain her love in words. Only moments like this would do so she lived for them.
Amy held her and Karma's hands gripped at Amy's shirt on both of Amy's sides.
"I needed to see waht distance would do," Amy said.
The truth of the matter was, distance really didn't work at all. Amy was already back and this was still the best feeling in her world.
"Did it help?" Karma croaked, still bitter.
"Nope," Amy sighed slowly, only a small amount of air could escape her at a time. "I still want you," she said. "It still hurts."
"So we're done?" Karma said. "Just like that, no more karmy?"
"No," Amy sighed, all her air leaving her. The thought of living without her was hard.
"Okay…" Karma cried, her tears slowing. "So, what do we do?" She needed answers but there weren't any concrete answers to be had.
"I dunno," Amy said, her tears falling.
"I don't want to be without you anymore," Karma suddenly said. Amy felt as Karma moved one hand to her abs and then another to her neck as she let her forehead drop more sweetly into the crook of Amy's neck on the other side and let out a unique heavy sigh. The way she touched her was torture. Karma touched her in ways girls only touched their girlfriends and that had always been part of the problem, they had always felt intimate like this, always alive and just over the line.
Amy gulped and felt the arousal. After everything she knew it'd be wrong to try right now to kiss her so she held back.
"I guess we just have to keep fighting for us, like you said," Amy tried. She let her head rest back on the door as she tried to calm. But her heart was beating out her chest and Karma was moving her hands, touching her everywhere again just like she used to before.
Karma looked up at her and noticed. She wondered how it had happened like this. She wondered how the one person she really loved could really fall for her this way and be this affected by her, this needy, this demanding. Out of nowhere, she let out a new sigh and felt herself smile. Her eyes searched Amy's form and she knew what she wanted to do. She wasn't drunk. She was completely awake.
She stood up on her toes and pulled Amy at the neck, pulled her down and kissed her, sliding her other hand at Amy's side because this time she really wanted to feel how it felt. Even before she'd done it she knew it would feel right.
Amy let her head fall, that hand at her side lit her up and made her gasp. But Karma took all her choices and fears away, she kissed her sweet at first but then that sweetness changed to hunger and thirst. With her eyes closed, the kiss was everything a kiss should be, it was dizzying and it made her swell like the waves out at sea when they build and then crash.
Karma lost herself in the kiss, she was so lost that she didn't know what her hands had been doing. Amy felt thought as Karma's hands clasped hard at her shirt and tugged, giving message of her emotions.
Amy let her own hands slip around Karma's back and under her shirt. As Karma drank from her she kneaded at Karma's back and pushed Karma's body strongly into her own.
It wasn't the kind of kiss that was just for practice or just for show.
It was a kiss that spoke poetry, a kiss that built sonnets so complete before it could ever really be through.
When Amy lost herself too and let her hands fall to Karma's ass and pull her up, Karma's eyes shot open and she realized what she had done.
"Oh God," she said, stunned.
"Mmmm," Amy hummed, laying her head back on the door with closed eyes. It didn't matter to her right now that Karma had kissed her. It wasn't confusing anymore because she didn't care what it meant, her only care was at how it felt and it felt like: yes please, more please, forever please, just you…
"Shit," Karma huffed, Amy was still holding her close, she still had her hands on Karma's ass. "I'm-I'm so sorry," she said, mortified.
"Don't be," Amy said, still flying from the feeling.
"Shit," Karma exhaled again, this time a little okay with it. She let her head rest into Amy again as she relaxed into her and allowed herself to be trapped for just a while.
"You okay?" Amy asked, once Karma had been quiet a little too long.
"Mmmhmm," Karma let out, a little dazed. She felt good in Amy's arms. Happy. Though that word had never fit her before.
"You can leave if you want. I won't stop you."
"Shut up," Karma laughed lightly, hugging her tighter and feeling Amy's body alive beneath her own.
Neither of them really knew what it all meant but they didn't care right now because it didn't really matter. All that mattered was that they were together again. Anything beyond that was a cruel mystery undeserved of thought.
"I think you liked that, just so you know," Amy smiled.
"Yeah well, you are obsessed with yourself, so," Karma teased, nuzzling into her closer and leaving a kiss at her neck. "Maybe you're not allowed to be the judge."
"Maybe," Amy joked, holding her tight. She was too happy though to be bothered or upset.
There was a silence that fell over the room. A sort of blanket that surrounded them.
"I didn't want to hurt you," Amy said suddenly. It was the closest to an apology Amy could possibly get given all that had gone on.
Karma felt her heart tug for her. "I know," she said, instantly quelling Amy's fears. She hadn't known. It was a lie. But right now she knew Amy needed to be forgiven. She knew it just like she knew that kiss was far from normal given all that had gone on.
"I just- I didn't-"
Karma cut Amy off by kissing her again. "No more words," she said. They didn't need them now. Karma kissed her again, she tried to take Amy's fear out of her, take her regret and swallow it down. When she felt she'd succeeded she stopped. It wasn't beyond her though that she felt a stir in herself that she wasn't used to, a new feeling that she had yet to search out, a hollow burning that ran a fragmented line from her chest all the way down to her sex and begged for to burn. There was something stirring in her and it wasn't something she'd ever really felt before. Kissing Amy had caused it and kissing Amy would cause it again. Being sober during this was definitely new.
"Maybe we should go home," Amy sighed.
"Maybe," Karma said, thinking about Amy's room and Amy's bed and being like this with Amy just there.
The burning grew.
She was feeling things. New things.
"Okay," Amy said, deciding. She let her arms fall away from Karma as she led her gently to stand just away.
Whatever they were to each other before they entered that room they were completely changed now.
Karma held Amy's hand and followed her home in silence. When they got to her room they collapsed on the bed and fell asleep holding each other without making words.
In the night when she woke, Karma stared at Amy for a long time, curious and strange. She stroked her face with her hand and thought about how much it sucked to be without her.
Amy woke to Karma kissing her again. Amy woke to her body fully alive and taken by someone else, someone perfect.
They weren't stuck anymore. They weren't different.
For the first time, maybe ever, they both wanted the same thing.