My Darling Arrow

by A. Kent, Saffron

  He takes me in, my slightly swaying form, before settling his gaze on my hair. It’s fluttering in the breeze and it’s so long that if I stretch myself back even more and go parallel to the ground, it’ll touch the dirt. I’ve tried it before; it’s fun.

  Finally, he looks up from his perusal of me. “Do I like it?”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Yes.”

  “What’s there to like?”

  Straightening up, I gasp. “Are you serious?”

  His lips twitch. “As a heart attack.”

  I shake my head at him and his amused lips. “God, you’re so… unimaginative. This is my favorite place in the world. I used to come here all the time when I rode my pretty yellow bicycle, which I totally miss doing, but anyway. Look at the water.” I stick my hand in the air and point to the water. I actually turn around myself to look at it. “It’s shimmering under the moonlight. It’s sparkling. And it’s so vast. It’s the only thing your eyes can see. And look at the moon.” I point with my hand again. “It’s so red. Like a fireball or something. I bet it’s hot. Like the sun. And the woods.” I turn to point to the woods as well. “So dense and mysterious and wild. Everything is so pretty here. Raw and natural and stunning.”

  It is.

  The glinting dark water, the fat red moon and the thick bramble of woods.

  Biting my lip, I turn to look at him again. Or at least try to, because somewhere in my twisting and turning, my feet slip and I stumble. My arms sort of flail and I manage to grab hold of the railing to stop my fall, but turns out I shouldn’t have bothered.

  Because he is here.

  My Arrow. My friend.

  He comes to my rescue, grabbing my bicep and pulling me up. He even sets me against the railing, all within three seconds.

  “You have –”

  I raise my finger and shake my head, cutting him off. “Uh-uh. You can’t say anything mean to me now.”

  “Why?”

  He looks really bothered about that and I want to laugh at his disgruntled expression. “Because you’re my friend now. You have to be nice to me.”

  His eyes flick back and forth between mine. “Is that right?”

  Nodding, I smile. “Yes. In fact, that’s the first rule of friendship. Be nice.” I go up on my tiptoes to get closer to his face. “And for a rule-follower such as yourself, it shouldn’t be too hard, should it?”

  He stares down at me, his hand still wrapped around my bicep. “If you think it’s not hard then you’re underestimating yourself.” I narrow my eyes at him but he continues, “And for a girl who plays soccer so gloriously, it shouldn’t be too hard to stay upright, should it?”

  Gloriously.

  I play soccer gloriously, he said. He said the same thing last night in the library but he was being such an asshole to me that it didn’t make the impact that it should have.

  But it does now.

  That word drips down from my chest and settles somewhere low in my belly, like a warm dose of honey or sunshine.

  My favorite soccer player in the whole world thinks I play gloriously.

  Biting my lip, I say, “Well, I’ve got you now. To save me. Don’t I? My friend.”

  Something dangerous and delicious flashes through his eyes. “What did you do before?”

  “Before?”

  He squeezes my bicep as if he’s making sure that I don’t fall again. “Before I came around to catch you.”

  I swallow at his question. At the inadvertent meaning of it.

  What did I do before he came around to catch me?

  What did I do when I didn’t have his arms to break my fall and when I didn’t have his gorgeous eyes looking at me like he wants to know all my secrets?

  “I fell,” I whisper.

  His features become sharp for a second, snap taut, and I think I’ve said too much. I think he knows everything now. He hears everything now too, the loud drumming of my heart and the slight change in my breathing.

  But I’m wrong.

  He doesn’t know and I’m never going to tell him.

  This isn’t even about that, about my witchy heart and my secret longing. This is about him, being his friend.

  “You fell,” he whispers back, his tone even lower than mine.

  “Yeah.”

  “And hit your head?” he asks, his eyes grave.

  “What?”

  “Because that’s the only explanation as to why you like this place.”

  It takes me a second to absorb his words and when I do, I push at his chest. As expected, he doesn’t go anywhere; his chest is a solid, unmovable mass. My useless movements only make him chuckle and it’s so adorable that I can’t hold onto my anger.

  “Just FYI, that is bordering on mean, friend.”

  His chuckle dies out. “It’s harder than I thought, actually.”

  “Being nice to me?”

  He shakes his head once. “Being nice to anyone.”

  I don’t know where my boldness is coming from tonight – first taking off the t-shirt in a crowded bar, then asking him to be my friend.

  But it’s here, my boldness, and it’s here to stay, at least for tonight.

  So I stretch my neck to get even closer to him, where I can clearly see the pulse on his neck, thick and thrumming. Where I can map out his silvery features, the hills and dips of his cheekbones.

  And then, I touch him.

  I raise my hand and put it on his cheek and he stiffens.

  Last night, everything happened so fast that I didn’t get to feel it, feel the bones and the structure of his darling face. The face I see in my dreams.

  But tonight, I feel everything.

  His cheek is as hot and alive as his hand was, back when we shook hands at the parking lot. Slightly rougher though from the five o’clock shadow.

  When I feel his jaw ripple, I whisper, “I’m sorry I hit you.”

  He stiffens even more, if possible. “Don’t be.”

  I rub my thumb over the arch of his cheek. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “So… uninhibited. So rough around the edges and sharp as broken glass.” His jaw thrums again. “So cut open.”

  That’s what he is, I realize.

  He’s cut open.

  Like all these years, his emotions were under wraps, they were shoved somewhere deep inside of him. He was calm and collected and unruffled by anything and everything, always focused on his game. But now they’re coming to the surface.

  Now they’re rushing through his veins and pooling under his skin, making him intense and hot and edgy.

  Somehow, making him all the more irresistible to me.

  He was right.

  I do have a thing for everything crazy and dangerous.

  “Cut open, yeah.” His eyes glow as he stares down at me. “I’m that.”

  I’m compelled to say, “It won’t help, you know. Hurting other people. Revenge.”

  His skin heats up just under my touch, becomes hotter than before, and my fingers skitter over his cheek, hitting all the sharp, stunning bumps of his face.

  My sun.

  “It feels fucking fantastic though,” he says with a cold lopsided smile before moving away.

  He settles himself at the railing and all I can do is stare at him and rub my heated fingers together. All I can do is think that I’m Icarus. The fool with wings made of wax.

  They say it’s arrogance that led Icarus to fly too close to the sun. They’re crazy. It wasn’t arrogance.

  It was love.

  He loved the sun too much. And that’s why he couldn’t stay away.

  That’s why I can’t stay away either so I bridge the gap between us and stand where he’s standing. He gives me a distracted glance before looking away and reaching back into his pocket, fishing something out.

  A pack of cigarettes.

  He gets one out with practiced ease, pops it
in his mouth, almost clenching it between his teeth. Then he reaches back again and takes out a box of matchsticks. He lights one up with a deft flick of his wrist, and cupping his palm around the cigarette, he gets the tip burning.

  He does it all with such smoothness, like he’s been doing it for years, and I know he has.

  I know.

  I know about his smoking habit. His secret smoking habit.

  But still, as he hollows out his cheeks and sends a gray puff of cloud skyward, I blurt out, “You’re smoking.”

  He looks at the cigarette like he’s seeing it for the first time and sort of sighs. “Yeah. Just don’t tell my mom.”

  I know that he isn’t serious but like the crazy girl I am, I can’t help but say, “That’s what you said to me. The first time we met.”

  He was about to pop it in his mouth again, but he stops midway and turns his head to look at me. “The first time we met.”

  “Yeah.”

  Then he turns his whole body toward me, forgoing the sight of the river. Not only that, he does it in a way that makes me think that I’ve arrested all his attention. “What’d I say?”

  I never thought we’d have this conversation.

  I never thought we’d have any conversation really, let alone a conversation about the first time we saw each other, while hanging out on a desolate bridge, in the middle of the night.

  So I don’t hesitate when I tell him, “It was early morning. You came in through the kitchen door after your run and you didn’t see me there. You got the juice out from the fridge and you drank straight from the carton. And then you realized someone was watching. It was me. So you turned and said don’t tell my mom.”

  He also said something else.

  He asked me if I was cold but I don’t think he’d remember that. That’s okay though. It’s okay if only I remember the details of our first meeting.

  It’s not his burden anyway.

  It’s mine.

  “And you were hidden between the wall and that old china cabinet. You had a blanket wrapped around you, didn’t you?”

  His words cut through the air between us and steal my breath away.

  He remembers.

  Gosh, he remembers.

  But that’s not the only thing he remembers because then, he goes ahead and says, “Because you were cold.”

  A stupid lump of emotion forms in my throat and I clear it away to nod and say, “Yeah. Because I was cold.”

  “Because you’re always cold.”

  “I am,” I whisper, grabbing the lapels of his vintage jacket.

  I rub my nose in the collar and eat up his scent. And he watches me do that as he brings the cigarette up to his lips and takes a drag.

  “I didn’t, you know?” I whisper.

  He tips up his face before exhaling and gray smoke fills the space between us. “You didn’t what?”

  “I didn’t tell her about the juice thing. Ever,” I tell him when the smoke clears and I can see his bright eyes again, on me. And then I tell him something else. “And neither did I tell her or anyone for that matter, that sometimes when everyone’s asleep, you sneak out of the house. You go to the backyard and you stand under my window. And you smoke. Even though Leah told you not to.”

  In my knowledge, that was the only time Leah was ever mad at Arrow.

  She’d caught him smoking one day and she really laid into him. Even Sarah was unhappy and by the end of it, they both made him promise that he wouldn’t do it again.

  But then weeks later, I saw smoke emerging from down below, thin gray tendrils of it, and when I went to investigate, I found him smoking.

  And I found him again and again.

  He doesn’t smoke a lot, maybe once every couple of months or something, but he would always do it under my window in the middle of the night and I’d never tell anyone.

  “Well, clearly not everyone. Was asleep, I mean,” he tells me, puffing out another cloud of smoke.

  “No. But I kept your secret. I’m the best secret keeper you’ll ever have,” I say proudly.

  Oh, he has no idea.

  Secrets are my jam.

  Well, as long as I don’t open my big mouth again like I did back at the library.

  “Secret keeper, huh,” he murmurs with a flicker at his lips.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then I’m glad.”

  “About what?”

  “That you were the one who wasn’t sleeping. And you’re the one who found out about my injury. And you’re the one I’m smoking in front of.”

  To emphasize, he pops the cigarette back in his mouth and takes a drag, letting it out slowly, all the while looking at me with an arched look.

  I narrow my eyes at him. “And why is that?”

  “Why is what?”

  “Why would you smoke all those times when you promised you wouldn’t?”

  “Because I like it.”

  “But you don’t break promises.”

  “I broke this one.”

  “Why?”

  He throws me a flat look like I’m annoying him with my questions but I don’t care. I need to know. And when it looks like he won’t answer, I tell him in a curt voice, “Smoking is bad for your health, you know that, don’t you? Especially when you’re an athlete. It affects your lungs, which affects the way you breathe. Which in turn affects the game. And nothing should ever affect the game. Isn’t that your motto? That’s like the first rule you live by. So I don’t know why –”

  “You can stop talking now,” he cuts me off and I bite the inside of my cheek to stop my smile.

  Which of course he can tell, because his eyes narrow and a muscle jumps in his cheek. I blink up at him all innocently though. “I will if you tell me.”

  He sighs before turning away and looking at the river. “I smoke because it helps me relax. It’s called de-stressing.”

  “De-stressing from what?” I ask, looking at his profile.

  His shoulders tighten. “From a big game. A big test. Whatever.”

  “What?”

  “The other option is that I get high or drunk. So this is no big deal, all right? It’s a simple cigarette. Takes the edge off a little.”

  Is that really why he smokes?

  I try to think of all the times I found him under my window, smoking. Was it always before a test or a game? Because he was stressed about it?

  “And why are you smoking now?” I ask.

  A breeze comes in and ruffles his hair further and I don’t know if it’s the fact that his hair is messy or if it’s my question, but Arrow seems even more tense, the set of his jaw more strained.

  “Because it helps me forget,” he replies after a few moments.

  I tighten my hands around the metal railing. “Forget what?”

  “The fact that I’m here. Instead of where I should be, winning the fucking cup for my team.”

  “But you’ll go back, right? You’ll win the next cup.”

  His jaw pulses once. Twice.

  “But not this one.” A third pulse ripples through his jaw. “And it’s on me. It’s on my fucking stupidity. All because I broke the first rule of soccer.”

  “But you just made a mistake,” I insist like I did back at the library. “One mistake should be allowed, right? You can’t be perfect all the time.”

  I mean, I knew he worked hard. He still does.

  I also knew that Leah expected him to be the best. She still does. Sometimes I thought that she was being a little too hard on him. But then again, his father was a great soccer player himself and with that, comes a tremendous responsibility.

  I never knew this about him though. I never knew that he is so crazy intense about all of this.

  “Yeah?” Arrow asks, studying my distressed face.

  “Yes,” I say vehemently. “You can’t be. No one can be. You just slipped up a little, okay? And that’s fine. You can’t beat yourself up like this,
Arrow. You can’t kill yourself by smoking just because you have to sit out a season. It’s crazy. Besides, you’re already the best player they’ve got. You…”

  My thoughts break when I notice his body move.

  Like last night at the library, he advances on me. We were already so close though that it’s hardly an advance. It’s more like shifting, inching closer, but since he’s so big and tall and he’s got muscles for days, it feels like it.

  It feels like he’s advancing on me and arranging my tiny body as he likes with the metal railing digging into my ass.

  And again like last night, when he puts his hands on either side of me to cage me in, it looks like he’s doing a push-up, his chest dipped, his body curled, that silver chain swinging.

  “The best,” he drawls.

  I raise my chin. “Yes. You are. Everything I learned about soccer, I learned from watching your tapes and YouTube clips. And Beckham’s.”

  “Beckham.”

  “Yes.”

  He hums. “He’s all right.”

  “He’s amazing.”

  “He’s okay.”

  “Are you kidding? He’s a legend. They made a movie about him. But that’s not even the point. The point is –”

  “I thought you were my groupie.”

  There’s a frown sitting between his brows. A few of his messy strands are dancing over that deep line and I’m so confused right now. “What?”

  He flexes his grip on the railing, his frown growing deeper. “I don’t like sharing.”

  “I… What?”

  “I don’t want you watching his clips.”

  I open my mouth to respond. Although honestly, I don’t know what to say because this conversation is bizarre. But then suddenly, it makes sense.

  Maybe he’s jealous.

  Which is so freaking ridiculous that I could laugh again. But his thick frown and that clamped jaw and dark eyes with which he’s staring down at me, all irritated, makes me stop.

  It makes me put my hands on the railing too, his fists touching mine. “Are you jealous?”

  His brows snap even closer. “Are you going to stop watching his clips?”

  “But he’s an excellent player.”

  “Yeah, but he’s got nothing on me.”

  Why is he so arrogant? Why do I like it?

  And how did we go from talking about his smoking to this?