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"I want to know," Callie says before she can think.
Lottie looks up at her, and the expression on her face is something startled, fearful, but Callie thinks— knows that there's pride in it, in the way her lips subtly curve up at the edges and her eyes open wide.
"You want to... connect with It?" Lottie asks, something curious in her tone.
Callie smiles.
"Sure," she says, and thinks— knows that this will teach Mom a lesson.
Her mom thought she could keep them separated, after everything that happened that night. Sure, Mom, Callie thinks to herself. Sure, Mom, she thinks once more, as Lottie stands up, finds her bag abandoned by the entry way, digs into it for something unknown.
It thrills Callie, this unknown; it's everything she doesn't know that thrills her. From that night when she held the gun in front of her and shot the woman who shuffles in her bag now, who speaks of It, whatever they saw in the woods back then... it excites her, for once, to not know what's about to happen, to go into it face-first and ready.
Lottie comes back with a sandwich bag between her fingertips. Callie tilts her head.
"Weed? Really?" She says, a tinge of disappointment in her voice.
Lottie chuckles, smiling softly.
"No," she says. "Not at all."
"Then what is it?" Callie says, and she tilts her head, she teases, and it's not unlike those nights with that cop, the way she smiles coyly and angles her eyes up at Lottie with her head tilted.
Lottie walks to her, carefully, hips swaying with her step.
Callie thinks about Misty, poor Misty, abandoned on the couch, head back and asleep from the way-too-much amount of sleep medicine Callie put in her drink. She'd feel bad, if it were anyone else.
That's a lie, she realizes, the second she thinks about the way those pig guts splattered on the cafeteria table.
There's a lot she may not feel bad about anymore, she thinks to herself, as she watches Lottie in the periphery of her vision, as the woman quietly walks into the kitchen and makes tea.
Lottie comes back to her with a mug in her hand and something odd wafting from it to her and she thinks she'd like to find out how much she can find out about Mom— about herself.
Callie does a full-body stretch from the floor. The living room carpet burns against her back, but she's warm all over. Her vision is swimming, blurring. The ceiling fan doubles in her sight.
She's giggling, and before she's conscious of it, she's laughing, high-pitched and breathless.
"Oh my god," Callie says slowly. "What did you put in this?"
She cranes her head sideways, looks up at Lottie, who sits on the couch across from her, looking down. There's something in her expression that Callie's too high to decipher right now. Instead, she does another cat-like stretch on the floor, her bones aching and knees cracking, and rolls onto her side to face Lottie.
"Something I used with my community," Lottie says, shifting to lean her elbows on her knees, back forward. She looks at Callie and there's that pride again, Callie pieces together, as Lottie says, "something we used to use, back then."
"Really," Callie says. It comes out dry, but it's just her voice that's rasping, half-raw from thirst.
"Really," Lottie replies, and Callie focuses her vision, focuses on Lottie again, sees the way she smiles knowingly, the way her cheeks are flushed from the wine glass on the coffee table.
Callie starts to giggle again, and then she's laughing same as before. She closes her eyes and laughs, thinking of the woman before her, the woman who so eagerly offered her what swims in her system now, who so eagerly opened her eyes to what Mom had been hiding from her all along.
Callie laughs, and laughs, and laughs, almost too loud, enough for Lottie to shush her, to tell her she doesn't want to wake up Misty, and that only serves to make Callie laugh more, remembering hazily just how much of that medicine she poured into Misty's drink.
"I put sleep medicine in Misty's drink!" Callie exclaims with delight. "She's not waking up to shit!"
She focuses again on Lottie, sees how she beams at that, the way her smile widens.
"Good," Lottie says quietly. "You're learning."
It feels like hours have passed but Lottie keeps telling her how little time it's been since she drank the tea. Twenty minutes, the woman says. Fuck that. It's got to have been at least an hour.
Callie's calmed down, by now. Her chest rises and falls with a tremor to it from all her laughter. It's like an afterglow, the way she feels now.
Her peripheral vision is too blurred for her to notice Lottie until she's crouched beside her, one hand pressed to the floor for balance. Callie turns her head to the side, looks up at her.
Lottie's smiling again.
"You want answers," Lottie says. Callie would nod her head, but the way she's on the floor makes that hard. She mumbles an affirmative instead.
Lottie brings a hand to her head, brushes her hair lightly. Callie instinctively leans into the touch, brings her knees closer to her chest, wrists by her head.
Callie mumbles something that neither she nor Lottie hear right. Lottie looks at her, expecting.
"Did you do this to Mom?" Callie asks innocently. At that, Lottie chuckles, looks to the side and back at Callie.
"Oh, no," she says, "Shauna could never see It," and at that, Lottie leans in closer, continues to comb her fingers through Callie's hair. Her breath is hot on Callie's face, she realizes distantly.
Callie looks up at her, and despite the haze, she knows what's waiting to happen.
She smiles.
Sure, Mom, Callie thinks, as Lottie slides her hand down and cups Callie's cheek, as Callie leans up just enough, just close enough to press her lips to Lottie's.
Sure, Mom, Callie thinks again, just as Lottie separates from them, and swells with pride. Sure, Mom, as Callie forces herself back and kisses her again, and feels how Lottie digs her thumb into her cheek and pulls her forward and kisses, and it's real, and she's closer to Lottie right now than she could ever be to Mom, and Callie pushes up and rocks into the kiss and Lottie grabs her by the shoulder and holds her still and there's something hungry in the way she kisses but Callie's far too high to know what kind of hungry she is.
Mom can try to keep her away from this as much as she wants, Callie thinks, as Lottie pushes her down by the shoulder and straddles her hips.
Mom can try all she wants, but Callie knows now; knows only through Lottie, the clarity in her kisses, hard enough to bruise, hard enough to jolt Callie awake and out of her haze enough to remind her to kiss back. Callie knows now what Lottie tried to tell her mother that night in the woods, what she really meant.
Sure, Mom, Callie thinks, as she rocks her hips into Lottie's. She can try all she wants, but eventually, It will get to her the way It's gotten to Callie.