My Darling Arrow

by A. Kent, Saffron

  He leans closer, the heels of his palms pressing even further into my body. “Did you also have my wallpaper on your computer? Your phone maybe? Isn’t that what schoolgirls do?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask them?”

  “I’m asking you. You’re a schoolgirl too, aren’t you?”

  I glare at him and he chuckles.

  “It’s okay, you can tell me. And maybe I’ll do that thing for you that every groupie wants me to do.”

  “What thing?”

  His thumb tucks into my belly button. “Sign my name on your chest.” He lowers his voice a little. “Right where your heart is.”

  My heart – my witchy, witchy heart – races and my chest tingles and I get up in his face before I do something like whip off my shirt and ask him to write on my body.

  “You know what? Just let me go.”

  I don’t know how it’s possible but his beautiful, wretched eyes smirk at me as well. Before he lowers them. “You do know that you’re wearing soccer cleats.” He looks up. “Don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And are you aware that you’re not supposed to?”

  I exhale sharply and I bet he can feel that. I bet he can feel every little twitch of my body because he hasn’t let me go yet.

  His hands are still holding me, causing my skin to heat up, causing my anger to spike up too. “Why, is that another one of your rules?”

  He shakes his head slowly. “No. It’s common sense. You don’t wear them off the field. Because they make you fall.”

  I know, okay? I know. I know you’re not supposed to wear them off the field. I don’t need him to tell me that.

  I don’t need him to keep holding me like that either.

  So I throw him a sweet mock-smile that again makes his lips tug up on one side. “Thank you for the impromptu lesson, Coach. Now, are you going to let me go or not?”

  He nods his head in acknowledgment. “You’re very welcome. And I will. Once you get down on the ground. Safe.”

  So I do.

  I climb down the ladder and get down on the ground. So I can get away from his hand, and him and all these rioting feelings inside of me.

  Rioting and provoking and restless.

  As soon as my feet are on the floor, his hands leave me, sending a rush of cold to the spots where he was touching me. But I don’t pay attention to that. To how stupidly bereft I feel now that he’s not holding me and saving me.

  Instead, I bend down to retrieve my fallen book and clutch it to my chest, standing far away from him. “Where did you come from?”

  My question is spoken with agitation, which is completely the opposite of how he appears.

  Just like at the bar after he insulted the girl, he leans against the bookcase and folds his arms across his chest, bunching up his pecs.

  “I was in here looking for a book,” he replies, all calm and unruffled. “Lucky for you.”

  “A book on what?” I ask, again slightly agitated that he can look so collected when I’m all flustered.

  “On soccer.”

  I frown. “You mean for coaching?”

  “Yeah. For coaching.”

  He says coaching with clenched teeth and I hold the book to my chest even tighter. “Are you really my soccer coach now?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “How?”

  Like, I understand the breakup – as hard as that still is to believe – and his suspension from the team. But I don’t get how all of that led to him becoming a coach at St. Mary’s.

  He clamps his jaw for a second before he says casually, “Because Mom thought teaching a bunch of schoolgirls would be a nice way for me to spend the time while I’m here. Recovering from injury. And what can I say, I can never refuse my mom anything.”

  “But that still doesn’t…”

  Oh, it makes sense.

  It completely makes sense now.

  Leah is doing to him what she did to me.

  I tried to run away with stolen money and so she called the cops before sending me here.

  She’s doing the same with him. He punched his assistant coach and got suspended from the team, and so he’s here, teaching a bunch of schoolgirls that he doesn’t like.

  “She’s punishing you, isn’t she?” I conclude while he watches me intently. “But that’s so crazy. You just made a mistake. You were upset over the breakup and you punched him but –”

  The muscle on his cheek starts ticking and I stop.

  Oh shit.

  I just spilled the beans, didn’t I? I spilled that I know.

  I know the real story about his fake injury.

  And I did that even though my sister told me not to open my big mouth.

  Damn it.

  “So you know,” he says softly, dangerously, and I swallow.

  “I’m not gonna say anything,” I say, lowering my voice because for the first time I realize how quiet the space is around us. How public.

  We’re in a library.

  Of course, the space is quiet and public.

  There are students sitting up front, studying. Thank God we’re in the back, surrounded by thick, dusty volumes.

  “How?” he asks.

  “M-my sister. I called her and forced her into telling me.”

  “But you’re not supposed to be making any calls.”

  Again, he’s speaking in very soft tones, low tones, but I flinch, nonetheless. “Well, I break rules, don’t I?” His face remains blank at my declaration and his eyes remain watching and for some reason, I keep explaining. “So that’s what I did and called her. But only because you guys broke up and I was –”

  “Worried,” he speaks over me.

  I jerk out a nod. “Yes, and she told me everything.”

  “She did.”

  “Yeah, and now I know your secret.”

  And that’s when it hits me.

  This is his secret.

  The fact that his injury is fake and that he isn’t recovering. He’s here because he got kicked off his team for punching someone.

  I’m his secret keeper.

  I’ve been his secret keeper since I was ten and he asked me not to tell his mom about the juice carton and I breathe out what I wanted to say back then. “I won’t tell anyone. Ever. Your secret, I mean.”

  “And what’d she tell you? What’s my secret?” he asks, his arms still folded, but there’s nothing casual about him now.

  Not a single thing.

  Not the way he’s staring at me with dark eyes and not the way his shoulders have become rigid. Even his biceps are in permanent bunched-up mode.

  “That you guys had a big fight the night before and you were upset. And you went into practice all drunk,” I begin on a whisper, staring back at him, seeing how much tighter he gets with my every word. “And you took it out on the first guy you saw. Y-your assistant coach, Ben. You beat him so badly that they had to suspend you for the rest of the season and send you to anger management therapy. And… and they told a lie to cover it all up.”

  For a moment after I’m done, he only stares at me. He stares and stares and I feel like he’ll never say anything.

  But then, he does.

  He says a clenched-out word. “Impressive.”

  And strangely, his one clipped reply makes me speak up, makes all the words gush out of my mouth. “But you’re not like that. You’re not angry. You’re calm and disciplined and level-headed. You always have been. The reason you got angry was because you were upset. You were upset over the breakup. You were hurting. Because you loved Sarah. You still do. That’s the reason you’re angry. It’s because you’re in pain. And you took it out on the first person you saw.”

  I don’t know what I was expecting after I finished my hurried, impassioned speech. Maybe I was expecting him to dismiss it or to make a joke or a sarcastic comment.

  But I wasn’t expecting him to move.

&
nbsp; I didn’t know that my words had the power to make him lean away from the shelf and unfold his arms. I didn’t know that my words would expose his flayed knuckles when he lowers his strong arms.

  They aren’t as swollen and wounded as they looked last week, but there’s still some redness there, still some bruising.

  But I don’t get the time to study them more because he’s walking toward me, advancing, and his eyes have this intense look in them. So intense that it pushes my body. It pushes me to move back.

  Back and back as he grows closer and closer, his footsteps thudding on the cement floor.

  As soon as my spine hits the bookcase, he reaches me, trapping me effectively.

  Between the wooden bookcase with large, thick books and his body that has a broad, muscular chest and a tapering, sleek waist. Not to mention powerful thighs, encased in a pair of jeans.

  “You’re right,” he says, dipping his face toward me. “I am angry. And upset and fucked in the head. And I did take it out on him and I liked it. I would’ve killed him if they hadn’t pulled me off. So yeah, I’m fucking furious and I’m furious all the time.”

  I swallow, hugging the book tighter, feeling the pain in his guttural words. “I’m so sorry.”

  But he completely ignores it and keeps going. “But I can’t go around punching people, can I? I can’t go around breaking things as much as I want to.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  He leans even closer then.

  In fact, he raises his arm and grabs the shelf just above my head. I swear, I feel the mountain-like bookcase wobble at his grip.

  “So that’s why I was at the bar that night,” he whispers, his chain shifting against his V-neck t-shirt.

  “The bar?”

  He nods. “I was looking for a distraction.”

  It takes me a moment to understand what he’s saying and when I do get it, I hug the book so tight that the binding hurts my chest and my arms.

  “The girl you were kissing,” I whisper. “You were looking for someone to…”

  Have sex with.

  That’s what he means, doesn’t he? He was looking for a one-night stand.

  Someone to dull the pain, and I have to breathe slowly to let it digest.

  To let the fact digest that the guy I’m in love with, my sister’s ex-boyfriend, was looking for a girl to fuck.

  “Yeah.” His dark eyes squint for a second as he agrees with me. “I was looking for someone and I would’ve found her. But then you showed up.”

  I bite my lip. “I…”

  “All messy hair and flushed cheeks.” His gaze roves over my face before dropping to my mouth. “And darkly painted lips, and ruined everything.”

  I wince at his harsh tone.

  But I don’t think he notices because he keeps looking at them, my lips, and I have a feeling that he’s thinking about them painted. He’s thinking about the lipstick I wore and I can’t stop myself from whispering, “I-it’s called Teenage Decay.”

  He raises his eyes and does that lip-lick thingy that he did back at the soccer field. Where his tongue peeks out and takes a slight swipe of his plump lower lip and where I have to go ahead and do the same.

  Because it’s still so unbelievable to me. That sexy move of his.

  “Teenage Decay,” he repeats on a whisper, and I feel the bookcase wobble at my spine again as he grips it harder. “It suits you. Or at least, I think it does. Because that’s the problem, see. I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know what?”

  He tips his chin at me, studying me like I’m a puzzle or something. “You. I don’t know a thing about you. Until now, I didn’t know you played soccer. I didn’t know you had a talent for lame poetry. I didn’t know anything. About you. The girl who knows so much about me. You do, don’t you? To draw all the conclusions about me. About my hurt.”

  Oh, he has no idea.

  He has no idea all the things that I know about him, and I don’t want to give him any idea either. So I try to act casual and shrug even though it comes out awkward.

  “Uh, yeah. We lived in the same house. For years. A-and as I said before, you were busy with soccer and other things.”

  “Well, again lucky for you. I’m not busy now, am I?”

  I look to the side. “I don’t understand.”

  And as if in response to me averting my eyes, he raises his other arm as well, grabbing the same shelf by the side of my head, making a prison out of his limbs and chest. So I never look away from him again.

  “Who taught you to play soccer like that?”

  “Like what?”

  From the corner of my eyes, I see his biceps bunch. “So magnificently.”

  “What?”

  His jaw clamps as he keeps staring at me. “Yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a talent like that.”

  I press my back into the bookcase and crane my neck up. “B-but you said all those things and –”

  The bookcase shifts again and if he keeps putting pressure on it like this, all the books will fall out.

  And dig a hole on the floor and I’ll fall.

  I’ll fall and keep falling.

  Falling and falling. For him.

  He frowns. “I said them because they were true. Talent alone doesn’t mean anything. You have to hone it, make it better, channel it. I could teach you.”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I could.”

  I don’t even have the time to bask in his compliment, bask in the fact that he used the word magnificently.

  My favorite player said that I play magnificently.

  Because then he says, “On one condition.”

  “What condition?”

  He shifts closer then, bending his body even more.

  With his arms raised and placed by my sides, it looks like he’s doing a pull-up and his silver chain is swinging in a mesmerizing way.

  He tips his razor-sharp jaw at me. “Just tell me if it’s your thing.”

  “What’s my thing?”

  “Stealing.” Before I can respond to that, he goes on. “Because that’s mine, isn’t it? That t-shirt you’re wearing.”

  I freeze.

  I practically freeze and combust all at the same time as I become aware – very uncomfortably aware – of what I’m wearing right now.

  His old t-shirt.

  The one that I stole after he left for California.

  And he can see it, the whole world can see it because I don’t have my chunky sweater on like I usually do.

  Because ever since he humiliated me on the soccer field a day ago, I’ve been feeling so warm and heated that I haven’t been wearing it. I even put up my hair and tied it into a top knot so as to let my neck breathe.

  “I… I don’t…”

  “It is mine, isn’t it?” He nails me with his eyes, pins me down like he did back at the bar, as if I’m a bird. “I remember throwing it away or something a long time ago. But maybe I didn’t throw it far enough. Far enough away from your sticky fingers. So, is that your thing? Stealing? T-shirts. Money. I wonder, what else have you stolen? Not that I mind. I mean, it’s an old t-shirt and some chump change. But I’m just trying to get to know you. We lived in the same house for years and I was busy with other things. Which is a shame, really, because I should’ve been paying attention to you. The little sister. You grew up kinda nice.”

  He said so many things just now.

  So many, many things that I don’t know which one to focus on. I don’t know which deserves my attention the most: the fact that he basically called me a thief or the fact that he said I grew up nice, and now he’s looking me up and down.

  Because he is.

  His gorgeous lips are turned up in a cold smirk and he’s taking me in like… like I’m a doll or something. An object. That he’s eyeing and I so want to get away from him.

  But I’m frozen.

  My feet are glued because de
spite the cold, calculating way that he’s looking at me, my witchy heart is still beating like a drum.

  My stupid belly is still fluttering and when he finally looks up to my face and licks his lips in that new way of his, I clench my thighs.

  I curl my toes.

  “So I have a proposition for you,” he whispers with hooded eyes.

  “What proposition?”

  “I’ll help you with your soccer, if you help me with mine.”

  “Help you how?”

  “Be my distraction.”

  “Distraction.”

  He nods and somehow his scent has become thicker and the space around me has grown darker.

  It’s like he’s blocking all the light with his big chest and dousing me in his musky, delicious scent.

  He’s dousing me in himself like he’s gasoline and I have no choice but to drip, drip, drip with his scent.

  “Yeah, distraction. My rebound girl. You know everything about me. You know I’m angry and I’m hurt and I’m upset. You know I can’t play when I’m like this. So why not? Besides, you ruined it for me, the other night. It’s only fair that you make it up to me now. What d’you say? Want to be my rebound girl, Salem?”

  My belly clenches when he says my name on a whisper.

  On a thick, rough whisper that rolls down my spine like the beads of sweat his heat is causing.

  “I need to…”

  Think. Leave. Get away. Throw myself at you.

  My brain is short-circuiting right now.

  All the wires, all the nerves in my body are coming loose and getting tangled up with each other, firing off like crazy.

  And his next words do not help at all. “Come on, you looked pretty jealous back on the soccer field. You didn’t think I’d notice? I saw the way you were all outraged. It was pretty funny actually. I’m not into schoolgirls but they’re fun to play with. You are fun to play with. Plus as I said, girls have always found me irresistible and I know you’re not immune. So if you have a little crush on me, no one would blame you. Especially not now. I’m not with your sister anymore. This could be your turn. Your golden fucking chance.”

  My turn.

  This could be my turn.

  He’s right.

  I was jealous. And now I know that he was flirting with those girls to provoke me.

  I do have a crush on him, only my crush feels like love, big and doomed. All consuming.