Maybe I'll never die, I'll just keep growing younger with you (and you'll grow younger too)
Corrie's used to Pendergast by now. She's learned how to roll with his eccentricities, his habit of doing things without explaining them at all, the little anecdotes and fun facts he spouts that make her eyes glaze over half the time, the graceful stiffness that (she suspects) hides nothing more than sheer awkwardness. She even understands him, a little--they're two of a kind, misfits that have settled comfortably into their own strangeness, learned how to wear it and use it and own it.
She doesn't think that she'll ever get used to Constance the amazing hundred-year-old teenager. Whenever she stops over at Riverside Drive, Constance is there, reserved and blank and unreadable in a way Pendergast never was. Corrie wonders if she's dried out over time like the older books she shelves. She can hug Pendergast now and be certain that he'll live, but she's afraid to even touch Constance, half-scared that the girl will crumble like a sheet of old paper.
And that sucks, because as much as she's afraid to touch her, she wants to. She wants to unbutton that old-fashioned black dress Constance always wears and run her hand down her white back--just to see if her skin is dry and brittle with age, or waxy with suspended time, or still smooth and supple and warm. She wants to hug her, to see if she can feel the warmth of Constance's body against her skin, or if all of it has leached out of her, if she's cool like a corpse. She wants to run her hands through Constance's black hair, compare the shades of the inky strands to her own. She wants to see her pale skin flush red, her full lips curve in a smile.
Sometimes she thinks Constance is staring at her, in those moments where Pendergast is out of the room, and it's just them and she can't ever think of anything to say. She doesn't know if she should be scared.
~o~o~
Pendergast is the one who's paying her tuition, her room and board, buying her textbooks and a laptop and new clothes so she'll fit in a little better than she did before, and she doesn't mind that--it's not like he can't afford it--but it gets to feeling a little one-sided. So when he calls her up on a Friday night and asks her for an urgent favor, she figures her trig homework isn't as important as whatever he finally needs from her.
"It's Constance," he explains. "She's quite alone at the house, and I'm rather concerned. She's been acting strangely lately. I thought perhaps some company, someone her own age..."
"I'm on it," Corrie says, simultaneously disappointed and thrilled. She shoves a weekend's worth of clothes and her toothbrush into a backpack, and that silver Rolls-Royce is there in five minutes. The guy drops her off at the house, and she realizes that she's going to be completely, entirely alone with Constance. For at least two days.
Constance is in the library, curled up on the sofa. She looks up blearily as Corrie announces her presence by dropping her backpack on the floor. "So you've come to keep me prisoner, too," she says.
"I can't just come over to hang out?" Corrie asks. She settles onto the sofa next to Constance, still not daring to touch. "Pendergast's gone, I don't have any homework...we have this place to ourselves." Constance angles her head away from Corrie, staring at the embers glowing in the fireplace. "Seriously. Girl's night in. We can do our nails and talk about cute boys and raid the fridge."
She steels herself and touches Constance's hand. Constance looks at her then, her eyes more intense than Corrie's ever seen them, and all of her chatter dries up in her mouth. "You don't want to be here, do you?" Constance asks her, her voice low. "You don't have to be."
"Look," Corrie says, "I'm not here to babysit you." She licks her lips nervously, running the tip of her tongue across her new snakebite piercings. "If you want to be alone, that's fine. I'm not stopping you from doing anything. But I'm here if you want to..." She trails off as she realizes Constance is staring at her, staring at her mouth, at the glint of her piercings in the dying firelight. "You know," she finishes. "Anything."
Constance raises her hand, and for a second, Corrie thinks she's going to slap her. But she threads her slim fingers through Corrie's hair instead, and Corrie closes her eyes. She feels soft, warm lips brushing hers, a wet tongue running over her lips. She feels teeth gently catching her lip ring before letting it go and pulling away, and then it's her who surges forward, who slides her tongue between Constance's lips.
She doesn't know how she expected Constance to taste--like the way old paper smells, or like mothballs or wax. But she tastes sharp with the tang of Corrie's tongue stud in her mouth, and sweet with something that tastes like licorice. She tastes alive, real. Corrie can't wait to taste the rest of her.