Jupiter scrubs every inch of her body, roughly, angrily, flinching whenever the bar of soap slips and her fingernails rake across her skin. She still can't wash the smell of smoke from those stupid fucking bonfires out of her hair or the feeling of Neptune's lips off her skin. She's not sure which she'd most like to get rid of. The former is a wholly unpleasant reminder of the summer from hell. The latter is burning sensations across her collarbone, her fingertips, her neck, not painful but evoking a stab of guilt at the recollection of where they came from.
She shuts off the water. Steam rolls off the shower doors. She presses her hands against the foggy glass, letting her head drop between her arms. Her body shakes as she cries.
She used to always feel better after she cried. It isn't so cathartic anymore. It's of all the times, Jupiter. It's control yourself, Jupiter. Shut up shut up shut up. It's the snap of a hair tie, hard, against her wrist.
Her wrist is stinging and red by the time she leaves the bathroom and silently enters her bedroom. Her room is neater than when she left it. Her shelves are neatly lined with books that used to litter the floor. Her desk has been cleared of all the scraps of paper filled with notes, sketches, scribbles. Everything is bare. Lifeless. Her mother has been here, organizing whatever she can get her hands on, clicking her tongue at anything not up to her standards (read: everything).
Jupiter keeps the important things in a box buried in the third drawer of her dresser, anyway.
Nothing feels the same, and it makes her skin crawl with uncertainty. She stands in the doorway for longer than one probably should when returning home before shutting the door behind her and moving to stand in front of her dresser. She pulls open each drawer slowly, like something is going to come springing out at her, and takes out her favorite pair of plaid pajama pants and her softest white shirt.
It's too hot for pants, but her shorts are in the laundry, and the thought of going downstairs and crossing paths with her mother makes her feel ill. Her mother is angry. Or disappointed. Her mother is unreadable. Jupiter is her beautiful little angel and such a fucking brat in the span of two breaths.
Jupiter hates to break it to her, but no number of weeks or months or years spent at some crappy summer camp will give her an acceptable daughter. Jupiter's damaged goods, and it's too late to turn in the receipt. Lonely, fucked up teenage girl. Who wants that for a daughter, anyway? (God, she would give anything to be easy to love. Loving her is a chore. Maybe that's why no one's ever really bothered with it.)
She crosses the room and sits on her bed, crumpling the pristine sheets in one movement. She tucks her knees up to her chest. She remembers sitting in the cabin the first night of camp, feet pressed against the thin mattress of her bunk, wanting so badly to go home and not knowing exactly why because nothing about home is better.
Her phone buzzes. She picks it up and sets it on her thigh.
hey. recovered from our hellish summer?
From Neptune. To her and Venus.
She sort of… well, she sort of misses them. She snaps her hair tie against her wrist. She doesn't really want to reply until Venus does, but Venus won't until she does, so she opens the message and types a reply.
I can still smell the incense. u?
Venus' response isn't long after, although the grey bubble floats on Jupiter's screen for a while before Venus finishes typing. Venus texts like Jupiter's grandmother. Eh. Getting there. How are you two?
Jupiter taps the screen of her phone impatiently. She wonders where Neptune is. Is she sitting in her room like this, too, curled up with her phone?
Neptune and Venus don't live far away, as she learned when they wordlessly exchanged addresses and phone numbers at the end of the summer.
ew bad I think there are still bugs on me I cant believe what a waste of a summer that was
Jupiter smiles slightly. She can practically hear Neptune's voice in her head, complaining. She has the prettiest voice, even when she's whining about bugs or humidity or how gross sunscreen feels. God. She's not supposed to think things like that.
Jupiter leans over the side of her bed, reaching for the lamp on her bedside table. Her fingers close around the little knob, twisting the light off. The room goes dark.
She leans back against the pillow, closes her eyes, and waits. Sleep comes for her eventually.
The first thing Jupiter thinks when she sees her is that she looks as pretty as ever. Maybe even more so. Girls like Neptune probably get prettier every day, like, exponentially.
Venus is sitting across from her at the table, intently focused on a cup of frozen yogurt.
Jupiter stands awkwardly in the doorway. She could turn around and leave. She could pretend the whole summer never happened. She could go home and avoid her mother and ignore the feelings pressing hard against her rib cage, growing, spilling over.
Neptune looks over at her and jerks her head toward the empty seat to her right. She flicks her long hair over her shoulder, effortlessly poised.
Venus turns in her direction, eyes brightening. "Jupiter!"
No running now.
"Hey, guys." She crosses the shop and then she's standing awkwardly in front of the table instead of in front of the door, which is probably better, somehow.
"Need an invitation?" Neptune rolls her eyes, licking frozen yogurt off her spoon, and pats the chair next to her.
Jupiter sits. Then she smiles at the right times and laughs at the right times- and not too loudly- and carries her fair share of the conversation, although she's not really sure what to say. (Summer Scouts didn't fix anything fucked up about me, just made me realize how fucked up I am, exactly. What about you two? Do you have nightmares about that stupid fucking cabin?)
But she sees Neptune looking at her, waiting for her to say something real, and her heart is beating out of her chest, slamming against the pastel walls of the frozen yogurt shop. And she's saying things like, I missed you, and why can't she just shut up.
Shut. Up.
don't smile at her like that don't look at her like that you fucking-
"God, Jupiter. Would you stop with the freaking hair tie?" Neptune says, and then her hand is on Jupiter's wrist, and it occurs to her that perhaps this- this- is how she's supposed to be touched.
This- not rough hands, pushing, pulling, bruising.
Jupiter pulls her hand back. "Sorry."
"Oh, no, is Venus rubbing off on you? What is with you two and apologizing?"
Venus winces. "Sorry."
"Oh my god," Neptune sighs, and she laughs. The prettiest sound.
Jupiter snaps her hair tie under the table.
Jupiter sort of never wants to see them again. She's also bored and lonely as hell and wants to spend the rest of her life with both of them next to her, holding one hand on each side. Everything she thinks lately goes around in circles like that.
(She's a living paradox. Touch-starved but scared to let anyone get close enough to touch her. Praying for the pain to stop but hurting herself more than anyone else ever could.)
She has both of their numbers, Neptune's written on a napkin with a smudge of her lipstick on it, Venus' on a torn piece of paper with a half-finished drawing of someone's face on the back. She can call them whenever she wants, except that she can't. Especially not Neptune.
Neptune makes it so hard to be good. To be how her mother wants her to be. To be how she wants herself to be.
Neptune makes her almost want to take back every, please, God, fix me, and every, please, God, let me let go. (He's not listening, anyway.)
Neptune makes her forget the rules.
Nonetheless, when she calls, Jupiter answers. Every. Damn. Time. When she wants to meet at that stupid frozen yogurt place that's just the perfect distance from each of their houses, Jupiter shows up. She'll never be able to eat frozen yogurt again, but she shows up.
She hates it, or maybe she really, really loves it and doesn't like that she does.
"It's… well, it's sort of hard to explain, I guess. I mean-" Venus stumbles on the words, and Jupiter catches her hand to help her regain her balance. Venus looks surprised for a moment. Everyone always looks surprised when she touches them.
"You're a girl," Neptune says. She shrugs. "No explaining necessary." Her voice is firm.
Jupiter can see Venus leaning into it. "So, this is the part where we say that we love you no matter what and all that stuff, right?" she says lightly. Their hands are still linked together.
Neptune takes both of their hands. Closes the circle.
Venus laughs, and Jupiter wonders who decides who the bad kids are and who
the good kids are. Because this- Venus' hesitant laugh, Neptune's tight grip on her hand- is pure good. A piece of heaven itself.
"We do," Jupiter says suddenly. "Love you no matter what… and all that stuff." She can't remember the last time she told someone she loved them.
we're going to a party
There's literally no way Jupiter can go to a party, but there's also literally no way she can say no to Neptune. Always stuck.
Jupiter digs around in her room for something moderately nice to wear. Her room is slightly less bare now. In the few weeks since she's been home, she's acquired, among other things, countless blurry Polaroid pictures that Neptune likes to take of her and Venus and a little solar-powered dancing flower that sits on her windowsill and tries to force her to be happy. (It was a gift from Venus. Obviously. She probably chose it just for its sickening cheeriness.)
Jupiter sighs. Sometimes she wonders how Venus does it. The happy thing. The pretending summer didn't happen thing. The not pretending to be someone else anymore thing.
Pretending is so easy she sometimes forgets she's doing it. Well, forgets until she remembers she's falling apart.
She breathes and pieces of her lungs float away.
What kind of party? Venus replies after several long minutes have passed.
Jupiter has absolutely nothing to wear to this party, no matter what kind of party it is, so she sticks to her usual jeans and t-shirt, tying her jacket around her waist.
a sex, drugs, and rock n roll kind of party. im coming to pick you up in 15 min… both of you! wear something pretty xo
Are you kidding or?
Neptune and Venus are outside her door in twenty minutes.
Jupiter's breath catches in her throat.
Neptune is practically glowing, her eyelids sparkling with glitter, her lips a slash of dark purple.
Venus stands beside her, gnawing on a nail painted lavender.
"You look, uh, you both look pretty." Jupiter's throat feels dry. It's such a normal thing to say, such a girl thing, like the casual brushes of hands in hallways, fingers combing each other's hair, slumber parties she was never invited to. It just feels off-limits, somehow.
"Thanks," Venus says, brightening instantly, although she still fidgets uncomfortably as Neptune leads them to the car.
"Yeah, thanks," Neptune echoes, eying her up and down.
"We're all going to get arrested," Venus whispers.
"No, it'll be fine." Jupiter waves her hand. "Neptune just likes to freak us out."
Venus climbs into the backseat, leaving Jupiter to sit in the front with Neptune.
Her heart is fluttering around in her chest.
Neptune puts the key in the ignition and starts the car that she technically isn't allowed to be driving them around in. She presses her lips together. Every once in a while she'll look over at Jupiter. She turns the music up too loud. There's something wild glinting in the corner of her eyes, reckless and frightening and destructive in some odd way.
Jupiter wants to ask her what's wrong, but the words always get stuck in her throat.
They arrive before she has a chance to cough them up.
The lights are too bright, and it's too loud, and she wants to go home.
She wants to get lost in it.
Neptune whirls around, giving the two girls a smirk. "You both look like you've never been to a party in your whole lives." Her voice is biting in that gentle way, like a cat batting at something with its claws still sheathed.
Venus says something that Jupiter can't hear over the roar of the music, and then Neptune has both of them by the wrists, dragging them through the maze of people. Then she lets go, and Jupiter is floating, drifting, in a sea of moving bodies. She can't come up for air.
Just when she thinks that she can't handle it anymore, Neptune appears out of nowhere and pulls her into a corner and down the hall. There's a closet along the hallway, and Neptune opens the door and drags her in. Down, down, down.
Déjà vu.
Neptune's hair hangs across her face, a strand sticking to her lipstick. She exhales, and it flutters against Jupiter's cheek.
She could kiss her. She could kiss her right now; all she has to do is just-
Snap. Her wrist stings.
Then Neptune's fingernails are digging into her skin, roughly sliding the hair tie off her wrist. "Why are you so obsessed with being good?" She smashes their lips together, and the breath leaves Jupiter's lungs in a short exhale. She's drowning in her.
Everything inside her is screaming at her to let go, to let the water fill her lungs and drag her into its depths, but she let go once before, and it let something in she's not entirely sure she'll ever really get out.
She pulls away.
Neptune's fingers drag against her collarbone.
They've done this before, so what's the harm in doing it again? Once you're damned, you're damned, right?
"I can't," she whispers.
Neptune's hands cling to Jupiter's arm desperately, although nothing in her eyes betrays the same desperation. Her eyes are mirrors, reflecting the flashing lights filtering into the closet from the hallway. "Why not?" she says, defiantly, flicking her hair over her shoulders.
"I'm not… supposed to. I'm not supposed to feel like this about you." There's a lump in her throat. Her eyes burn.
"It doesn't have to mean anything. It's not real unless we say so, right?"
She'd live in an imaginary world for her.
What an unfair thing to ask of someone.
Neptune touches her again. Fingers tracing the shape of her lips. "Doesn't it make you angry?" she asks softly. There's something drunk and hazy about her voice, but she doesn't taste like alcohol.
"No. I mean, what? Does what make me angry?"
"That you have to feel bad about feeling something for… someone."
"No. I just want… I want-" Her voice catches in her throat, tears spilling over her eyes. She can't breathe properly.
Neptune wipes the tears away. "Jupiter. Jupiter, look me in the eye, and listen because this might be the most meaningful shit I ever say. We all feel like that sometimes. Okay? You're not a bad person for this. Any of it. Anyone who says otherwise is the bad person. It's okay."
Then Jupiter's crying on her shoulder, and it's kind of sort of okay. When she looks up, there are tears streaking down Neptune's face, too.
"Don't you fucking dare. Do not look at me like that." She sniffs, rubbing roughly at her eyes. "Well, I guess we should find Venus, and end this absolute train wreck of a-"
"Wait." Jupiter takes both of her hands. She inhales. Water floods into her lungs, and she lets it pull her forward in its current until her lips meet Neptune's.
Good girls don't do things like this. Jupiter is the worst girl.
"Was that real or not?" Neptune whispers when she comes up for air.
"Real." Jupiter's voice is quiet. There's something sinking, sinking inside her, losing oxygen.
Neptune's face lights up, a smile creeping into the corners of her mouth.
Jupiter lets it drown.