by Varsha Ravi
She tried to imagine it—Aza stepping on his chest and arms with spiked boots, Miya taking a stiletto to his insides—but she couldn’t, not quite. There was nothing soft in him for them to hit. Her lips quirked in a small smile. “He didn’t hurt me. We just…” she swallowed a laugh, glancing up toward the shadowed ceiling. “Had a disagreement. He might leave early.” She tacked on the last part accidentally, the words slipping out as if they had a mind of her own. She heard Miya inhale sharply, but didn’t meet her gaze.
“Does he have a reason?” she demanded, righteous fury sharpening her voice.
Suri couldn’t bear everything inside her. She tipped the contents of the cup into her mouth and let it burn all the way down. “He has a lot of reasons. So many.” She held out her cup, dragging her hand through her hair with the other hand. “I’m going to go get more. I’m sure you two have more important things to do than stick around and babysit me.”
Distantly, she registered Aza’s protests and then Miya’s quiet suggestion that they leave her alone for a bit. Yeah, she thought, tipsy and bitter and too self-pitying to be worth much. Leave me alone.
The arch at the far side of the room led out into a hallway and the kitchen. By the time she reached it, fortunately, Aza had pulled Dai aside, and so the boys had found somewhere else to go.
Thankfully, the kitchen was empty enough that she could navigate it without too much trouble. A granite island stood in the center—definitely an alumnus, she thought vaguely—covered in empty cups, plastic straws, and liquor bottles. She made it to the other side with little issue, refilling her cup with a tall glass bottle with a colorful logo marking the neck. A little bit sloshed out, dousing her wrist and falling to the floor. She cut it with a half-empty bottle of lemon-lime soda.
Suri brought the cup to her mouth and the mixture seared, sweet and heady. After the novelty of the first drink and the second wore off, she pulled out her phone. She hadn’t been lying when she’d spoken to Aza and Miya—they’d come to have fun, and she felt uncomfortable forcing them to keep an eye on her and her pity party.
And honestly, she’d rather plunge her head down a toilet bowl than go find Ellis and Dai. They would’ve stayed with him—gods help everyone if they hadn’t—and she didn’t want to see his expression once he realized how many drinks she’d had.
She got another drink and ducked out of the kitchen, threading through the crowd dispassionately until she made it to the balcony.
The sun had disappeared beneath the horizon, the sky clear and black and empty save for a few stars. The fruits of light pollution, she thought, leaning over the rail and tilting her cup from side to side so the liquid inside caught the faint moonlight.
She knew her friends had good intentions—they always did. They went out looking for Annabel because they had good intentions; they went to every single one of Cherry Headache’s gigs because they had good intentions. Suri liked that about them, and about her grandmother, too—sometimes, she liked to fancy herself a kind person. But kindness didn’t really work the same way languages did, the same way ink spread through water. The altruism could rub off, start to sand down her edges. But she had always had those jagged, barbed points inside, broken glass waiting patiently to turn outward and draw blood.
She nursed her drink and let the night air wash through her. It was cool and sweet on her skin, and though the memories it drew stung—another winter moment, sunlight casting shadows on them both—she welcomed the pain along with the cold.
She tipped her cup back only to be met with a thin drop. Her phone told her in bright, blinking script that it was thirty minutes to midnight. There were a few messages from Aza and Ellis shining up at her, asking where she’d gone.
She tossed the cup into a nearby waste bin and ducked back into the apartment, startled at how quickly the heavy smell of alcohol, perfume, and body odor assaulted her.
Miya and Ellis were speaking in hushed tones beside the edge of the couch. When they noticed her approaching, they flinched, silencing for a moment before beginning to speak again. It wasn’t particularly subtle, but she couldn’t really fault them for it.
“Sorry for disappearing,” she said, slinging an arm over Miya’s shoulder. She didn’t really feel all that apologetic, but the effort was what counted. “Did I miss anything?”
Ellis exchanged a glance with Miya, and she felt a faint stab of annoyance. Maybe she deserved it, but she was tired of them coddling her. She wondered if he had it any better. Probably. She couldn’t fathom him allowing someone to baby him without taking a few limbs off in the process.
Finally, he said, “Nothing much. Dai’s been complaining since we got here. At least we can leave soon. It’s nearly twelve, right?”
“Yep,” she said, popping the p. The television was already on, playing a livestream of one of those New Year’s Eve programs where people waited for the clocks to chime midnight with breathless, euphoric glee, even as the snow blanketed the ground and choked the warmth from their skin. She shot the screen a cursory glance, watched a few seconds of some flamboyant performance before turning back. “They don’t have any champagne here.”
“It’s a travesty,” Miya agreed, but she was uncharacteristically jumpy. Her mouth was quirked downward in an odd facsimile of her usual smile. Still a little self-conscious about the slip earlier, if Suri had to guess. “Are you having a good time?”
Define good time, she thought. She was having the time she’d expected to have—liquor, winter air, peaceful brooding space. Surprisingly, nothing had extraordinarily fucked up yet, which probably meant she was having an amazing time, even though her heart still felt like someone had run it through a paper shredder. “It’s not bad.” She hesitated, then figured she owed them an attempt at normal human emotion. “It’s nice, getting out of the apartment. I’m having fun.”
Miya and Ellis exchanged another glance, tinged with relief and excitement. And then, right on time, everything fell apart.
“What the fuck?” someone shouted. They traced the sound back to a boy, doubled over in pain. His face was shunted to the side, one hand pressed to it with excruciating force. A few feet away, hands still curled into careful fists, stood Kiran. Dai lingered by his shoulder, but he was leaning back a little, subconsciously. Suri didn’t blame him—she’d never seen Kiran this angry, and it startled her a little. If she wasn’t so sure of his control, she might’ve feared him burning the entire building down.
A crowd had built around them as the clumps of people littering the nook scattered outward, unwilling to be caught in the crossfire. Now, they stood on the edges, close enough that they could keep updated but far enough away that they were safe. Joke’s on them, she thought bitterly. If he really cared enough, it didn’t matter how far out of his line of vision they stood. But, judging from the hard, empty expression on his face, he didn’t care enough.
“What the fuck?” the boy repeated, words muffled by his own fingers. In her mind’s eye, Suri saw it all play out—a slap across the face or a punch to his left cheek, quick as venom. She’d seen him mimic the motions enough times she could’ve drawn it in her sleep. “What is wrong with you?”
Kiran didn’t speak—his mouth twitched a little to the side, in something that could’ve been a smile, if it calmed enough for the iron muzzle to be removed.
Ellis and Miya were at her shoulders, looking out over the mess. The party hadn’t even slowed—this was one pocket of hatred in a world of chaos that wouldn’t, couldn’t stop for them. On the television screen, the countdown to midnight continued.
“Why did he do it?” Ellis murmured to Miya. She whispered something back, but the buzzing in Suri’s ears drowned it out, emptying the world of everything else. Why did he do it?
Aza weaved through the throng of people beginning to build up, breaking through the crowd to stand beside her brother. She pulled him down by the shoulder, whispering furiously in his ear. He shrugged helplessly, muttering back. Distantly, she registered th
e host beginning to notice, registered some of the guests helping the bruised boy up from where he laid, sprawled across the sticky linoleum, throwing a nasty glare back at Kiran. It was a useless gesture—the glare hit stone and bounced right off.
Until that moment, his gaze had been on the boy, a simple, empty wrath that had no need for other distractions. His knuckles were bruised and flushed beside him. He glanced up and caught her gaze.
The line of his mouth twisted sharply, but he said nothing. Suri heaved a breath and steadied herself, even though she didn’t need to—whatever faint inebriation she’d felt earlier was entirely gone.
She stepped forward, ignoring the way it wrenched her away from Miya and Ellis’s soft grasp of her shoulders, ignoring the smears of blood and alcohol and soda on the floor. She walked up to Kiran, twisted her fingers into the collar of his jacket, and dragged him down the dark hallway without another word.
People scattered, flattening themselves to the walls and clearing an aisle for them to walk. She suspected this was because of Kiran, but she refused to turn around and meet his gaze, so she couldn’t be sure. Suri kicked open the doors—mostly occupied bedrooms—until she found an empty bathroom and shoved him in, locking the door behind her.
Leaning back against the carved wood, she could still feel the music in her bones, the distant drone of the television. But her blood sang with a melody entirely different, jagged and brighter than moonlight, than sunlight. It nearly felt like anger.
Her phone buzzed—Dai. Andrew’s pretty pissed. Where are you guys?
Bathroom, she texted. Buy us some time while I fix him up.
K, he replied, with two frowny faces and a fist emoji. It was a nice gesture, but the warmth of it passed straight through her and came out colder on the other side. She slipped her phone back into her pocket and glanced up.
He had heaved himself up so that he sat on the edge of the fake marble sink, legs brushing the floor. His gaze wasn’t on her—he was tilting his outstretched hands from side to side, examining the drying, deep red blood on his knuckles with a dispassionate, inured clarity. It was difficult to reconcile this version of him with the boy she’d seen staring back at her a few moments ago, true, real hatred in his bones, bright enough to burn.
She folded her arms, discomfited and annoyed by it. Artifice on artifice, but she couldn’t yet tell what was lie and what was truth. Finally, she said, “Are you hurt?”
He lifted his gaze to meet hers, eyes dark as amber. In the orange light, they looked bloodred. “That’s not the question you want to ask. Not really.”
Suri gritted her teeth. The boy hadn’t had time to get a hit on him, and she doubted he would’ve even if he’d tried. Are you hurt? Only if they counted injuries that went deeper than blood and bone. “Fine, I’ll bite. Why did you hit him?
His lips spread in a cold, cruel smile, but even that was practiced, fake. Paint slathered onto the mouth of a mannequin, glistening and smooth to the touch. “Because I wanted to.”
Anger flared up in her chest, all that broken glass pressing against the boundaries of her ribs. “Do not fuck with me right now. You didn’t knock his teeth out for fun.”
“I didn’t,” he said softly, sliding off the edge of the counter and leaning back against the marbled stone. He didn’t look like a god, but he looked like he could’ve been one, all vengeance and warmth, obsidian wrapped in veins of gold. The smile sharpened, and he tilted his head. “I didn’t knock his teeth out. I might’ve broken his nose. What if it was for fun? What would you do then?”
She knew he was goading her into disgust and fury, trying to cut off the conversation before it became anything worth worrying about. She knew he was trying to escape.
“I would drag you out there again so you could apologize to him—” she began, keeping her voice as indifferent as she could.
“Like a nanny,” he cut in, tipping forward in a fluid sort of movement. He smelled like sugar and smoke, but not the perfumed incense smoke she was so used to. Like exhaust, cigarette smoke.
“If you need to be babied, then I’ll fucking baby you,” she snapped, glaring at him. There goes the attempt at neutrality. “But I don’t need to. Because you didn’t do it for fun, and I know it. I know you.”
Do I? It was a gamble, a hasty, imperfect dance, but that was all they had ever had.
He was silent a moment, and then he said, wry, “So you do. You know me. And why do you think I did it?”
Suri pushed off from the door. It really was an incredibly cramped room—one step forward would place them dangerously close to each other.
Then again, just standing here was already dangerously close. I want to wash myself clean of this love. She wanted to burn it away, blow away the ashes so that the silver flakes rested at the corners of the world, one for every single star.
“I think,” she said slowly, “I think he did something that pissed you off, so you acted without thinking. But you don’t regret it.” Amber eyes, black heart. She would see the flame of him in her sleep. “You never regret anything.”
Slender red rivulets traced the skin to his fingertips. When he brought a hand up, to press the laughter from his lips, blood flaked off, falling through the air like petals.
The attempt at keeping himself silent was unsuccessful, the sound hard and sharp and a little sweet, a little lilting. It was everything she loved about him dipped in iron and set to cool.
“Half marks,” he managed, carding one hand through his hair and leaving those thin, red flakes behind. “I regret many things. I don’t regret this, though, so I suppose I must give you credit for that.”
She curled her hands into fists so they wouldn’t dart out to catch the flakes. “Why did you hit him?”
“I punched him in the face because I couldn’t remove his accessory organs without getting you five in trouble,” he said calmly.
“You had a reason,” she bit out, attempting to school her features into a semblance of tranquility. It failed miserably—she could feel the sharp tilt of her eyes, the twist of her mouth. “Tell me what he did that made you hit him.”
He held her gaze, stone against stone, and didn’t look away. “No.”
“And you don’t care if everyone blames you for no reason?” Her anger was aimless and malicious and it echoed and burned through her. “You don’t give a shit if they all think you hit him for fun?”
“No,” he said again, shuttering his eyes and leaning back against the counter. “I really don’t. I don’t give a shit. Does that surprise you?”
“Tell me why you did it.”
“I have anger management issues, and he was the closest thing with a heartbeat I could find,” he replied, leaning in so close his nose brushed hers. “I hit him because I wanted to see him fall. I—”
“Kiran.”
The sound of his name unsteadied them both a little; he was so close that she could see the tremor run through him, too quick to track. She drew back a little, just enough to hold his gaze. But his eyes were empty.
“I won’t repeat those words,” he whispered. “You can’t make me.”
Suri blinked, bemused. “What did he say?”
His eyes flicked up, hard but resigned. “Did you recognize him?”
“Vaguely,” she admitted. They’d had a few classes together senior year. She remembered him being one of those class-clown types, the kind who irritated others far more frequently than they amused them. “Why?” His mouth was set in a thin line, and she exhaled, not bothering to hide her exasperation. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll ask Dai. Hell, I’ll go find Andrew.”
“I’d advise against it,” he said, in a weak facsimile of his flippant, mild mien. He sighed, rubbing at his eyes. “He said something very—crude. About… you. He—” he cut off, nostrils flaring. She was reminded, vaguely, of when he’d tried to control all those candles. Restraint on the edge of chaos. When he opened his eyes, they were clear and gold. “I can’t do it. I can’t say it. I don’t t
hink Dai will say it either, he has a low tolerance for those kinds of comments. You’ll just have to take our word for it.”
She glared at him. “I don’t want you fighting my battles for me.”
“I would’ve stood aside if you wanted a chance,” he said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “If you want, we can go find him now. I’m sure I can buy you a few minutes of peace and quiet with him. I’ll throw in the clean-up for free.”
Suri wanted to smile back at him. She wanted to make this into a joke, wanted to play this off as something insignificant, and wash off Kiran’s hands and walk out and join the party again. She wanted to let go of whatever was between them, distorted with passion and rotted with desire, wanted to cure them both of this disease. She wanted it so badly, but she knew that even now, what she wanted most was to believe the lie of it.
“Why did you do it?” she asked, even though she already knew. Even though she’d always known.
“Because,” he said, the end of the word lilting up as if in a question. His features were faintly strained with the weight of the words he couldn’t say—she saw them, gentle dips carved into his expression. His lips twisted uselessly. “Because.”
I won’t stay. Suri took his hands in hers, and ran the edges of her nails against his knuckles and watched the blood flake away. The skin underneath was bruised gold, paler than his bark-brown complexion. She rubbed the pads of her thumbs against the backs of his hands, and he shivered. “Because what?”
His gaze was heavy. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like—” he broke off, worrying his bottom lip. “Like you care about me.”
Suri dropped his hands, dried blood under her fingernails. In the low light, the red yarn on her wrist looked dark as dawn. “I look at you like I care about you because I do.”
“Yes,” he said, quiet and hard, resting his hands lightly on her shoulders. It felt like an act of tenderness they weren’t allowed, and despite everything, she leaned into the touch. “I know. But you shouldn’t.”