Cuddle Application

20 - "Hey, Jude, Don't Make it Bad"

"Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse, and deprivation can not be expected to find voice in a whisper."
~Martin Luther King Jr.

➳♀♁➳

His hand is a lot warmer than mine.

My fingers shake in his steady palm, like five twigs on a rustling branch. The metal bench beneath us mirrors the stiffness in my gut, the anxiety. The cold seeps into my skin and Oliver pulls me even closer to his side.

"It's going to be okay," he echos for the fifth time, his chin resting on my head. He exhales slowly. The florescent lights dangling from the ceiling sink shadows onto his face, carving harsh lines and sharp expressions.

"Why isn't she out yet?" I ask. I glance down the hall, at the door Officer Pike took Cora through nearly thirty minutes ago. It stands as still as it did when he'd closed it, locking her inside. They had to question her, and she'd chosen to go in alone. She'd been offered the choice of calling her parents, since she was still a minor, but she refused. "I need to know if she's okay."

Oliver made a low noise in the back of his throat. "Skylar."

I squeezed his hand. "I know, okay? I know." My eyes lock onto a gray smudge on the opposite wall. "She—she's not okay." I swallow. "She won't ever be."

He unlocks our fingers and tucks an arm under my legs, pulling me into his lap. My arms slide behind his neck and a whispered memory of our kiss surfaces at the familiarity of our closeness. My heart uncoils.

"I should be in there," I squeak out.

"Skylar, you're her friend. All she needs you to do is be there for her."

I sigh. A metallic taste seeps onto my tongue and I realize I've been biting my lip.

You can't cry. Don't cry.

My chest feels tight, like someone's stretched my body, pulling on my arms and legs and tugging until my ribs pop open. Tight like my whole chest is full of cement, but it's setting slowly, the space around my heart getting harder second after second until there's no more room for beating.

"I have to call Park."

I had expected Oliver to stiffen — to react negatively in some way at the mention of Park — but then I remember, he doesn't hate Park.He doesn't have a reason to. Park's his friendly football rival, not someone who accused him of being a liar and a fake.

And not good enough for me.

Oliver doesn't know these things, I realize. Of course he doesn't.

He doesn't know we kissed, either.

Oliver shifts below me. "Okay." He lets me slide my feet to the floor. "Do you need to borrow my phone?" He watches as I shake my head then shiver on my bare feet. "Hey, take my jacket." He slides it off his shoulders and sticks it on mine, studying me for a moment before sitting back down. "I like you in my jacket," he says.

The corners of my mouth twitch with a smile, but I bite my lip instead. It doesn't feel right to smile right now. Instead I walk to the end of the hall, my bare feet cold against the yellowed linoleum. I hadn't been wearing shoes since I woke up from my nap — the nap that felt like ages ago even though it was only a few hours. Then I'd met Oliver at the beach, and that's when we'd heard the scream. I'd been so caught up in the moment of getting Cora in the car, I'd forgotten shoes. They almost hadn't let me enter the station without them.

I stop by a small counter and study the pamphlets on top. My fingers reach for something to hold on to as I pull out my phone and dial Park's number. They flit between the pages of "How to Tell Your Kids About Stranger Danger."