The Chain

When Molly was younger and they still lived in Austin, they used to go on family vacations to the deep countryside in Texas. It was so quiet out there that the only thing she heard at night were the crickets dancing in the scrubs, and the stars were a sprinkle of sugar on the deep black sky. It was lonely there, but also safe: she would sleep out in the garden in her sleeping bag, holding hands with Alice and naming the stars.

She tries not to think about Alice. It’s what Mom and Dad do, and that seems to work.

Being at the Malibu beach house kind of reminds her of the countryside. Except instead of the crickets she listens to the sound of the surf below, and to watch the sky she has to walk down the rickety stairs to the beach and lay on the sand. Alice isn’t there to hold her hand, but Vincent is. And it’s nice.

But it’s nothing more than that.

“You okay?” Vincent asks her as they trudge down the steps, the sun low on the horizon. She knows she’s been quiet today. Natalia had sent a car for them to go on a ‘date’ to an ice cream stand a few miles away. She had made exaggerated laughing gestures with Vincent while the paparazzi very obviously photographed them. The whole thing took ten minutes. Then they got back in the car and went back to the house.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she says. “I just feel a bit…like, that was weird today, right?”

“Yeah. But you heard them. It’s just what we have to do. And maybe we’ll be able to grow out of it when we get famous enough.”

“You sound like Henry.”

“I don’t want to admit it, but he might be right.”

Molly chews her bottom lip. The sand is cold on her feet, chilled by the shade of the steps. “So you’re ok with that interview as well?”

Vincent stops behind her. She wraps her arms around herself, her shawl feeling thin in the evening breeze. “Well, I guess. It’s all just part of the act, right?”

Molly thinks back to being in the Teen Now office. The woman with the thin glasses and no smile who had blatantly asked her, So you and Vincent, have you ‘done it’ yet?

“What are you asking me, Mol?” His voice is soft, and she thinks, a bit afraid. It takes her a moment to realise his meaning, and her eyes fly open.

“What? No, I’m not asking if you’ll sleep with me! No way!” His face breaks in a smile, and she would be hurt by how relieved he is if it weren’t for the fact she’s equally repulsed by it. “I mean, it’s embarrassing. I don’t want my parents to read that.”

“Well, you can tell them it’s a lie, can’t you?”

They walk along the sand in the setting sun. The light is on in the beach house, the doors flung open. Henry’s already there. She hears the tentative pluck of guitar strings over the sound of the waves.

“Hey, Henry!” Molly calls out, suddenly wishing to be rid of this conversation. The guitar stops, and Henry pops his head out of the door. He grins when he sees them.

“Hey, lovebirds. How was your ‘date’?”

“All paid for by ACA,” Vincent says, slipping past her and flopping down on one of the bean bags inside. Henry joins him, the two of them lounging comfortably together. There’s no room for her, so she sits on the plush sofa and holds her guitar close instead. Henry pushes Vincent’s hair back from his face and they laugh and start to play-fight each other. She clears her throat gently, and they both turn to look at her. Vincent’s face is all guilt. Henry just stares intently at her.

“Did you write anything today?” she asks.

“Yeah, but I don’t like it. The guy from the label wanted to give us some song about letting go or something. I left the sheet music on the side.”

Molly picks it up, tries a few chords of the chorus.

Me without you, like stars with no sky / Like a heart with no beat, no reason why

“Corny, right?” Henry says. He’s resting his chin on Vincent’s shoulder. She finds she can’t look at him directly.

“I don’t know.” She plays it again, more confidently this time. “I kinda like it.”

I’m learning to breathe, learning to grow / Because sometimes love means letting go / Me without you, I’m letting go

“I changed that last bit, by the way,” Henry says. “It was originally learning to know. I changed it to learning to grow. Because we’re always changing. It seems small, but the guy didn’t argue with me.”

“Nice,” Vincent says, offering him a fist bump. “First writing credit done.”

“And I think actually—” Molly hears rather than sees him get up from the beanbag, crossing the room to her. He sits next to her, moving her hands on the guitar’s neck. “If you change it from this to this, the arrangement feels so much deeper.”

She tests it. He’s right. She smiles, and he’s close enough that she can feel his warmth. “You know your stuff.”

“You know,” Vincent says, the word slow and drawn out, “we had to do this funny interview today too. The interviewer asked if me and MollDoll ever shagged.”

Henry laughs. “No way.”

“Yeah, it was creepy. She was like, thirty-five.”

“So what did you tell her?”

Vincent makes an exaggerated hip thrust movement. A cold feeling creeps down Molly’s spine, just as Henry’s hand gently lands on her lower back. She swallows hard, feeling like both of them are at once staring at her and staring through her.

“Did you give her all the gory details?” Henry asks. His voice is low, lower than she’s ever heard it. His fingers gently tap her back through the thin fabric of her sundress, sidling close enough that their thighs are flush. She doesn’t know exactly what’s happening but it’s like she’s standing in the swell of the tide, waiting for a wave to crash over her.

“I don’t have that much of an imagination,” Vincent says. “Besides, can’t think of Mol that way. She’s like a sister.”

“You could’ve made something up, though. Based on someone else.”

The question is leading. Weighted. And directed squarely at her. Molly’s mouth is so dry she makes a loud, tacky noise when she swallows. “I, uh. Well I’ve never. Uh.”

“Really.”

“Yeah, really. What, you mean you…Both of you?” She looks between them, catches the strange, meaningful look they share.

“You’re so pretty, though.” Henry says. His voice is very soft now, his face very close. He seems so much older than all of them now. It’s like he’s aged ten years since The Calling finale. “How come you’re never done it?”

“I’m, uh. Waiting,” she breathes. It sounds so stupid and childlike now and she immediately regrets it, but something about the way Henry’s looking at her tugs the words out of her like fishing line down her throat. “I want it to feel special. To mean something.”

Vincent watches them like a hawk. And despite the weird, cold feeling down her spine, there is a deep, hot throbbing between her legs that she can’t ignore. Henry’s eyes don’t leave hers as he says, “There you have it, Vinny. Your orders are to make it special.”

None of them say anything for a long time. Molly licks her lips, eyes darting between the two of them, waiting for whatever is going to happen: watching Henry sitting across from her, so close she can smell his clean deodorant and see the little spot on his chin. Suddenly Henry stands up, stretching his arms across his head and yawning deeply, like this is the most normal thing in the world, like Molly isn’t so scared and turned on that her lungs feel like they’ll shatter like glass with each breath, like Vincent doesn’t look like he wants to murder them both in the corner.

“Well, I need some air,” Henry says languidly. “I’m going for a swim. You coming? You guys owe me for leaving me on my larry all day.”

Vincent scrambles off the bean bag. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

“It’s pretty dark out there,” she says. “Don’t forget the torch.”

“Aren’t you coming?” Henry fixes his dark eyes on her. She knows she has to regain some semblance of control from this moment, to cool her cheeks, slow down her heartbeat.

“Okay. But only to make sure you don’t drown.”

A smile breaks across Henry’s face. He grabs Vincent by the belt loop, halting him as he starts towards the door, then reaches a hand out for her, extended in the emptiness. She gets up and gently takes it, the three of them linked in a chain, Henry at their centre. She tries to remember her life before The Calling exploded in a supernova, before this weird half-dream life they are living here started. Before Vincent would knock on her hotel room door at eight a.m. with a sweet iced drink so they can take a walk on the beach together. Before Henry and his knack for creating complex and highly-regulated games that only the three of them understood, before he showed them his uncanny knack for impersonating almost anyone and left them howling with laughter until they cried. Before she’d stopped replying to texts and FB messages from her friends, before these boys became her whole life.

“I don’t like it when you guys go off without me,” he says softly. “Promise me we’ll always be in this together?”

Molly nods, squeezing his hand. She tries not to look at the way Vincent carefully, almost-out-of-view, brushes his fingers over Henry’s hip.

“I promise,” she and Vincent say in unison.