Ruthless Love

by Bloom, Penelope

  After what felt like half an hour, Tristan and one of the girls walked into view. The girl, who was wearing a short dress and clutching a bottle of liquor, stopped when she saw me. “You locked her in there?”

  “Don’t worry about her.”

  With his back to the wall so his eyes could lock on mine, he pulled the girl’s head down to his neck, where she started kissing him.

  I looked away, feeling disgusted. When I stole a glance back his direction, I saw she was still kissing him like her life depended on it, except all he was doing was watching me with a strange, calculating expression. It was like he didn’t feel any of it or care.

  I turned myself to face one of the graffiti covered walls, refusing to watch. Thankfully, the blaring music meant I couldn’t hear much. It was around ten minutes before I heard the rattle of a key in the door.

  He gestured for me to leave the cell as if nothing had happened. I could’ve yelled at him or tried to hit him. I could’ve done a hundred things.

  But all I wanted to do was make this night end. I wanted to do everything in my power to make sure I never had to look at Tristan Blackwood again or any of his friends.

  I made my way past him and to the main room, where Logan stood and came to me when he saw the look on my face.

  “Hey!” Logan flicked his hand in the air. “Kill the music.”

  Tristan ignored him, but I was outside and away from the loudest of the noise in a few seconds, anyway.

  Logan followed me out. “What happened? Are you okay?”

  I shook my head, eyes focused on the dark trees ahead of me. “Can you please take me home?”

  Logan glanced back toward the building, then nodded. “Yeah. I can come back and get them later. C’mon.”

  I looked over my shoulder once before we were out of sight from the jailhouse and saw Tristan standing in the doorway, watching us go. I hoped it would be the last I ever saw of him, but deep down, I had a feeling this was only the beginning.

  8

  Tristan

  I hadn’t seen Wheels since the jailhouse last night. Part of me wondered if I’d gone too far, but the other part of me thought I hadn’t even gone far enough. The simple truth was she might have heard enough to ruin my fucking life. I just couldn’t be sure. I didn’t know what she’d seen, either.

  If she knew everything… Goddammit.

  “You look worried,” Abbie said. She had taken her top off at some point, I realized. She was leaning close now, biting her lower lip while she trailed a finger down my arm.

  We were sitting in my room while music from the party downstairs came up with muffled thumps through the floor. Outside, I could hear shouting from the little lake island as people played king of the hill. Any other night, I would be down there, enjoying it. But worrying about what Wheels might have seen or heard the other morning was consuming me.

  “Tristan?” Her voice was obnoxiously pouty.

  I groaned, pushing her away.

  “What the fuck?” She sat up and covered her chest.

  “Just go,” I growled. “I’m not in the mood. Don’t worry, I won’t tell your friends nothing happened. Make up whatever story you want.”

  Abbie’s anger suddenly faded. She flashed a half-smile. “Anything?”

  “I don’t give a shit, just get out of here.”

  She pulled her shirt back on and left, leaving her bright pink bra on my bed.

  I flopped backwards, laying and staring at the ceiling. Then the sound of shattering glass made me sit bolt upright.

  Shards of glass caught the moonlight where they’d exploded inward from the window. There was a rock with a piece of paper stuck to by a few thick rubber bands in the middle of the carnage.

  I walked over and picked it up, careful not to step on any glass in the process. Had some drunken idiot done this? I knew it wouldn’t be hard to figure out who it was, and decided they were going to find themselves permanently barred from my parties.

  But when I opened the note, my eyes skipped the message and went straight to name signed at the bottom.

  “If you ever try anything like that again. I will tell.

  Fuck you very much,

  Kennedy Stills.”

  I ran my thumb across my lower lip, setting the note beside my bed. I wondered if Wheels knew she had just promoted herself from an annoyance to a challenge. And I figured she had no idea how much I loved a good challenge.

  9

  Kennedy

  A couple days after the school year started, my mom was forced to admit I had been right. She was falling asleep while trying to homeschool me and making herself miserable. As much as I didn’t enjoy seeing my mom suffer, I was secretly thrilled. She enrolled me at Parker S. Huntington High two days after the start of the school year.

  The whole process was surprisingly quick. We’d had a meeting with the school nurse, but instead of leaving her with all my medications like I had expected, my mom just let the nurse know when to call her. It was against school rules, but she spent that evening sewing a special pouch in my book bag where I could keep my pills—that way I wouldn’t need to wait for permission to get to the nurse’s office if I needed them.

  After that, I got my classes scheduled. Most of the classes were mandatory, like the math and English courses, but I did get to pick two electives. I chose videography and a botany class, which I hoped would help me raise my little green friends back home.

  My first day was a Thursday. They had to send a special bus to get me because of my wheelchair, which meant all the kids who rode in my area were already getting a head start on seeing me as the weird one. But I didn’t let it phase me.

  I ignored the looks and kept myself as upbeat as I could. Distantly, I knew I was probably going to pass Tristan or his friends in the hallways at some point, but the school was a big place. It was entirely possible we wouldn’t even share any of the same classes or see each other. Honestly, I wasn’t sure he cared about me anymore. Maybe the stunt at the jailhouse had been enough for him and he had already moved on to torment someone else. All I knew was it had been two weeks since I threw a rock in his window, and I just hoped that meant it was over.

  My first two teachers informed me that I hadn’t really missed much when I met them before the bell. They handed me a syllabus and in one case, a reading list to get started on. In third period, I was partnered up with a girl who was wearing a full outfit of camouflage.

  “I like your clothes.” I gestured to her jacket after we’d gotten ourselves a decent start on the assignment.

  “It’s tactical camo,” she explained. “They come out with new patterns all the time, but this one is easily superior to the others. I’ve field tested it and confirmed.”

  I bit back a grin. “It sounds like you know your stuff.”

  She looked at me like I was stupid. “Yeah. You kind of need to if you’re going to be alone in the woods with bears, wolves, and giant bucks who will happily maul your ass to next Christmas.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “I’m Kennedy.”

  “Yeah,” she said dryly. “I gathered that when you wrote ‘Kennedy’ at the top of the paper.” She jabbed her pen where she had written her name.

  “Right. Hi, Marne.”

  Marne rolled her eyes and went back to the assignment.

  My next class was an elective: videography. As soon as our teacher, Mr. Frankie, handed me the camera I got to use for the entire semester, I decided this would be my favorite class. My mom never really believed in hobbies or spending money on things like cameras, so I was immediately fascinated. Compared to my dinosaur of a phone—a flip phone my mom had got for herself at the beginning of the cell phone era and then passed on to me—the camera in my hands was state of the art.

  I held it up, snapping a few pictures around the room as I messed with settings. Once the bell rang, Mr. Frankie went over an assignment that was going to be fifty percent of our grade.

  “You’ve each been assigned to a player on th
e football team,” Mr. Frankie explained.

  Two girls sitting next to me silently screeched at each other and fanned their faces. I wanted to projectile vomit on them. I knew what the football players were like at this school, if the fucktastic four were any indication. Note to self: I still needed a much catchier name for them.

  “Your job,” Mr. Frankie continued. “Is to help them make an effective recruitment video for colleges. This is a big deal, okay? Do a good enough job, and you might seriously help some of these guys get noticed. So, I don’t want you filming one random practice, slapping a soundtrack behind it, and calling it a day. This should be a comprehensive experience. In other words, you’re going to get to know the player you’re assigned to pretty well over the next couple weeks.”

  I swallowed hard. How many guys were on the football team? My mind was racing, trying to calculate the odds of a worst-case scenario unfolding. Fifty, maybe? I wasn’t sure.

  “I want you all to come check the list at my desk, find out your assignment, and make time after school today to introduce yourselves. If you already know the player, great. If you don’t, be friendly. Some of them may not be thrilled to get dragged along for the project, but we’ve got the coaching staff’s full cooperation. Basically, they either work with you, or they don’t play. So if you get any pushback, just let me know.”

  I waited until the line had calmed down around Mr. Frankie’s desk before maneuvering my chair up there. I’d watched girls do silent celebrations or slump their shoulders and walk back to their desk. Most of the guys hadn’t seemed to care, except one who went completely white and went back to his desk with wide eyes.

  I swallowed hard, then scanned the list for my name.

  Kennedy Stills: Tristan Blackwood - QB

  It felt like a hollow spot opened up in my chest, threatening to suck all the air out of my lungs.

  I went back to the table they set up for me in the back corner of the room and wanted to lay my head down and cry. Except I didn’t. I did a little mental rearranging and decided to look at it another way. Tristan had done his best to make me miserable this summer. But now I had the keys. Either he worked with me, or he didn’t get to play his precious game, right?

  I didn’t doubt he’d still find ways to make me hate my life, but I could at least look forward to seeing his face when he found out he was partnered with me.

  People like me had to take the small victories where we could find them.

  10

  Tristan

  Today’s practice felt good. We were done with most of the slow shit and the conditioning of the offseason. Now, it was time to get our pads on, get hit, and play the game. I dropped back, scanned the field, and fired off a pass to Logan, who played running back and tight end for us. When Cassian was in, Logan went out as a receiver, and when Cassian was on the bench, Logan was our back.

  Logan caught the ball, spun away from a defender, and easily walked it into the endzone.

  Someone shoved me hard from behind, bumping me with their shoulder pad. Reflexively, I turned around, shoving back. I realized it was Cassian. He was leaning in, his facemask just inches from mine.

  “Hand the fucking ball off next time,” he emphasized his point with another push to my chest

  “Part of my job is changing the play based on the reads, dumbass.” I gripped his shoulder pads, squaring up with him. “If I hand you the ball into stacked boxes and watch you lose yardage all game, then it’s my ass. So, take it when it’s given, and be happy about it. Clear?”

  Cassian made no move to put his hands on me again, but his eyes were burning with hatred. He nodded slowly, then walked off the field once I let his pads go. One of the coaches went after him, trying to get him to stay and finish out the practice, but Cassian blew him off.

  We finished up practice a little while later. Gage and Logan found me. They were both dripping sweat. Logan was shirtless under his shoulder pads, but Gage and I both wore the team-issued black shirts, which were completely drenched.

  Gage raked a hand through his damp hair, slicking it back. “What was Cassian’s problem?”

  “He wants the ball,” I said. “Nothing new.”

  Gage shook his head. “He’s a monster with it in his hands, but he’s going to wind up getting kicked off the team if he keeps losing his temper.”

  “Doubt it. Coach only cares about winning.”

  Logan flicked his eyebrows up, nodding. “At some point, being an insufferable bag of dicks becomes a detriment to the team.”

  Gage smirked. “A bag of dicks? I’m willing to bet there has never been such a thing in the history of this planet.”

  Logan blew a raspberry. “Dude. Think about it. There’s…”

  I left them to their debate when I noticed a group of scrawny guys and some girls walking out to the football field. They were all wearing cameras around their necks and looking like they wanted to die of embarrassment. But that wasn’t what commanded my attention. Wheels was with them. She noticed me looking, then started studying her knees as she pushed her chair out to the center of the field. Coach called over some of the guys, me included, and gathered us in front of the dozen or so students.

  “You guys are helping the videography class with a little project. It’s a win, win, okay? They make you a recruitment video and all you’ve gotta do is the same shit you do every day. Just let them film you. Ok? Anyone gives them trouble, they don’t play. Not my rules, that’s direct from the athletic director. So don’t fuck with me on this.”

  The videography kids looked like they had never heard a faculty member curse before. Hell, I wasn’t sure if some of them had heard anyone curse judging by how fresh they looked.

  “Now. Rules are you each get paired up with one of these—ah—people,” coach said carefully. He started reading a list, setting up players with kids from the class one by one.

  Gage and Logan happened to get matched with the two prettiest girls in the class. But there were only two kids left and my name still hadn’t been called. Either I was going to be paired with a guy who looked like he was allergic to sunlight, or Wheels.

  I didn’t take my eyes from her. She had been staring at her lap the entire time, cheeks a permanent shade of red.

  Coach checked his list, then read off the name of the guy and matched him with Trevor, one of our offensive linemen.

  I looked at Kennedy, who was the only one left from the class. I’d nearly convinced myself to leave her alone after the jailhouse. But the challenge she presented hadn’t stopped tempting me since she’d thrown the rock through my window. Fuck you very much, Kennedy Stills. I grinned at the memory.

  I had a sneaking suspicion that she’d be thinking about fucking me very much more when this little project of hers was over.

  11

  Kennedy

  I took my morning medications, plus the new gray horse pills my mom added to the rotation yesterday. She said some exciting new studies came out about one of my conditions, and this pill was supposedly some kind of miracle worker. As much as I trusted my mom on that sort of thing, I was skeptical it would help much, even though I tried not to let her see that.

  The truth was, almost every time she had me take more pills, it just seemed like I felt even worse. But that could have just been that my conditions were getting worse and the pills couldn’t keep up anymore.

  At breakfast, my mom tried to get me to eat some toast.

  “I’ll grab something at school.” I knew if I tried to eat anything right then, I’d barf. My head was spinning, my stomach was turning, and I felt so weak I wondered if I could even manage to push my chair to the bus stop in a few minutes.

  “You look beat, sweetie. You sure this whole school thing is still a good idea?”

  I sat up straighter. “I’m okay. I just didn’t get great sleep last night.”

  My mom pursed her lips, looking down at me in that motherly way of hers—like I didn’t know what I was talking about, but she’d let me go on
believing I did. “Just promise you’ll tell me if it feels like you can’t handle it anymore, okay?”

  I smiled. “I will, mom. I promise.”

  I had no intentions of giving in—not to my symptoms or Tristan.

  After lunch, I found a shaded spot beneath a tree in the center of the school’s courtyard to sit. I pulled the camera out of my book bag and tried messing with some of the settings we’d learned about today. I trained the camera on a trash can, frequently pulling it away from my eye to tap through menus on the digital screen, then checking the results.

  I tried aiming it in a darker spot. I picked a random corridor off the courtyard and squinted down the lens. I almost jerked the camera in another direction when I realized I was aiming it straight at a student. But then I recognized him. It was Cassian Stone, and he was pouring something from a small flask into a clear plastic water bottle.

  I pulled the camera down and stared as hard as I could at a tree, then lifted the camera to make a show of the fact that I was just photographing random things—not him.

  But a moment later, he was towering over me. He reached down and snatched the camera from my hands so hard that the strap holding it to my neck snapped. I reeled forward, having to grab the wheels of my chair to stop myself from rolling straight into him with the force of it.

  I knew what he was going to say. He’d tell me to delete the pictures I took of him, and I’d happily show him that I hadn’t taken any. It was going to be okay. I just—

  With a casual toss of his arm, he slammed the camera into the ground, where it crunched expensively into a hundred little pieces.

  My stomach lurched up to my throat.

  “I signed a paper,” I said weakly. “I’m financially responsible for that.”