I say nothing in response. In fact, I probably look like a weirdo, standing there quiet and sullen as Luke laughs and April tilts her head to one side.
“Are you okay?” she asks after a moment, breaking the script. I almost sob with relief. If I had to hear another line repeated over again, I might’ve just collapsed to the ground and given up. “Because you don’t look it. There’s some blood on your forehead and your eyes are a bit glassy. I think you should go to the nurse’s office.”
“No,” I say, but the word comes out in a whisper and Luke stops laughing abruptly, turning to look at me with a hint of fear in her gaze. “I don’t need to see the nurse; my moms took me to the hospital, and it turns out that I’m just fine.”
“They took you to the hospital?” Luke asks, exchanging a look with April. “It’s over an hour away. How did you get there and back so quick?”
“I …” I don’t know how to respond to her question, so I don’t. Instead, I glance over at the imposing form of Crescent Preparatory Academy and wonder if this where I have to spend the rest of eternity, in this big stupid Tudor building with a bunch of rich rejects that I hate, but only because they hate me. I never wanted that. When I started here in freshman year, I thought I could change their minds, show them that their wealth and privilege didn’t make them any better than me.
I’ve completely and utterly failed to do anything of the sort. I’m not some kind of folk hero. Instead, I’m just a girl living a nightmare and wishing it would end.
“April is right,” Luke says, squeezing the pack of powdered donuts in her hand enough that they’re probably ruined. “You’re pale. I mean, you’re white as fuck, so you’re always pale, but … this isn’t a normal sort of paleness. You’re ashen, Karma.”
I stare at her and before I realize it, the tears are coming, hot and salty as they run down my cheeks.
“Oh, Karma,” she says, exchanging a quick look with April before she pulls me into her arms and squeezes me so tightly that I can’t breathe. I think about her talking to my moms about Calix, spilling my secrets without telling me about it. But it’s impossible to be mad about something that might never have happened. “What’s wrong?” Luke leans back, looking at me with her dark brown eyes, her anime-blue hair wafting gently in the breeze. “You still love him, don’t you?”
“I never loved him,” I snap back, but it feels like a lie, even though it’s not. I never loved Calix. I … I don’t know why I gave into him last year, but it wasn’t because of that. Maybe I just wanted to try the whole sex thing, so I could stop wondering about it? He was good, too—probably a byproduct of all his whoring around—so at least there’s that. We did it; it felt good. End of story. You’re such a liar, even to yourself. “Look, I’m just having a shitty day, okay? I don’t want to talk about Calix or the Knight Crew or anything else.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course, no worries,” Luke says, pulling the goblin mask from her book bag. It makes me feel sick, watching her put it on. No matter how I deviate from the formula, the universe steers me right back in the same direction.
“God, this town is weird,” April murmurs, and I decide I just can’t take it anymore. I thought I could force myself to follow the original day step by step, but I can’t. I can’t stand how surreal it feels, how wrong it feels. My mouth burns with the taste of copper, and I turn away, storming into the woods and away from the school as April and Luke call out after me.
Then I start to run, and I don’t stop until I’m climbing inside my car and peeling out of the parking lot.
I head back to my parents’ house, parking outside the Diamond Point gates and then sneaking inside on foot. Once I’m sure that both of my moms are in their art studio out back, I let myself into the house with my key and load up as much weed and alcohol as I can find. Neither of my parents is much into substances of any kind, so there’s not a lot, but I do find a small container of pot brownies on the top shelf of their bedroom bookcase, and a case of wine that Mama Cathy bought for her book club meeting. There’s even a full bottle of tequila that some acquaintance of theirs gifted them for Christmas last year and they never drank; it still has a red and green ribbon tied around the neck.
After that, I head for the woods where the party’s being held later, intent on staking my claim in one of the train cars and getting wasted. I’m not sure why that’s the first plan that comes to mind. There are so many other things I could be doing right now, but I feel paralyzed. Helpless. At least the alcohol and the weed, they can take the pain away.
When I finally get to the train car, however, I find that someone’s already beaten me there.
It’s Pearl, sitting on one of the seats with her knee propped up, a small razor blade in her hand. One by one, she makes these perfect, tiny cuts on the inside of her right arm and watches ruby red droplets of blood well from each wound before moving onto the next.
As soon as I see her, I’m torn between wanting to rush in and tear the blade from her hand … and fleeing before she can see me. Unfortunately, my foot bumps an old beer can and her honey-brown eyes lift up to find me standing in the doorway.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she asks, but I don’t know how to respond to that, so I lift up the case of wine in response and she scowls. “Wow. Red wine for a rager. You’re a real rebel, aren’t you, Trailer Trash?”
“What’s your problem with me anyway?” I snap back, even though I know that a girl who spends her afternoons cutting class and cutting herself probably should be handled with a bit of respect and understanding. But I’m tired, and I’m confused, and I feel like I’m floating through a nightmare, so I don’t act with the compassion that I should. “You’re such a bitch, like everyone else at Crescent Prep. You, the Knight Crew, the Devils’ Day Committee,” I add, thinking of the raven-haired girl who smashed the butterfly necklace. “Everyone. No wonder your parents all shipped you off to butt-fuck nowhere, Arkansas.”
Pearl rises to her feet and comes over to stand in front of me, silver-blond hair shiny in the sunlight, the red of her cuts a brilliant ruby against her pale skin.
“I don’t like you because you’re desperate,” she sneers, getting in my face, the razor blade still clutched in her hand. For a moment, I wonder if she’ll strike me with it. She doesn’t, tucking it away in her pocket as she moves around me toward the open door. “You act like you’re better than the Knight Crew, but you look at them like you’d give your left tit to be one of them. That’s why. You’re even worse than they are.” She elbows me out of the way, and I let her go, shaking, my hand clenched around the cardboard case with the wine in it. Slowly, I set it down on the leaf-covered ground and draw out a bottle. Using the bottle opener I stuffed into my pocket, I pull the cork out and toss it aside, putting the wine to my lips and drinking deeply. I barely stop for breath, downing as much as I can stomach before I haul back and just throw the bottle as hard as I can into the wall, like Calix did that first night with the vodka.
It shatters to pieces, stinking up the room with the cloying scent of grapes and cherries. But holy shit, it feels good, freeing.
“You’re even worse than they are.”
Fuck Pearl.
Fuck the Knight Crew.
I pull out another bottle, but I don’t bother to uncork it this time. Instead, I throw it at the last intact window there is. It’s beyond satisfying when they both shatter, and a strange, strangled laugh tears from my throat as I sink to the floor, twisting the top off the tequila and swigging several mouthfuls of that. It burns as it goes down, but I don’t care. Anything to make this day go away. Anything at all.
The alcohol burns in my veins as I take my mask from my book bag, slipping it on and then stumbling out of the train car to the pit where the partygoers start the fire every year. It’s just a hole, dug deep and filled with rocks, but it works. Somebody’s already stacked firewood nearby, making it easy for me to set up. I brought my own lighter fluid and a box of matches, so by the time the other
students start showing up, I’ve already teased the flames into a roaring frenzy.
“Showed up early to get warm for us, huh, Trailer Park?” Raz asks, circling around me like a shark. I just stay where I am, situated on a log near the fire, the half-empty bottle of tequila clutched in my hand. When Raz reaches out to snatch it from me, I let him have it. He swigs a bunch and passes it over to Sonja, his partner in crime. Pretty sure that amongst the Knight Crew, they’re best friends. It’s rare to see them apart, like I did this morning, and I’m pretty sure that they spend a lot of time scamming on girls together. A perfect pair of monsters.
Barron sits down on my right side, his sketchbook tucked under his arm, another lollipop in his mouth.
“I heard a rumor once,” I slur as the Knight Crew gathers around the fire, one of their lackeys setting up a net near the parking area to collect phones. No phone, no entry. If you don’t have a phone, well, you’re clearly not a student at Crescent Prep because every goddamn kid there has the latest technology in their hands at all times. It’s considered taboo to share anything that happens at the Devils’ Day Party anywhere outside of it.
What happens here, stays here.
Or it’s supposed to.
If that first day was somehow real—although as I’m sitting here, drunk off my ass, I can’t for the life of me figure out how it could be—then someone has a video of me and Calix. More than likely, one of the people in this circle of firelight does.
“A rumor about what?” Barron asks absently, still sucking on the candy and staring at me with that penetrating gaze of his. On the right, his brown eye seems contemplative, almost warm while the icy blue of his left comes across as cold and distant. A dichotomy. Heterochromia of the soul as well as the eyes. I laugh and reach for one of the bottles of wine, fumbling as I try to get the cork out.
“That you eat all that candy because you’re trying not to drink,” I slur as Barron finally takes the wine bottle from my shaking hands. He doesn’t give it back though. Instead, he hands it over to Sonja and I scowl, swaying in my seat. Stupid Barron and his white sweatshirt smeared with charcoal, the smell of watermelons, and that weird way he always defends me and destroys me at the same time. Once, after I fell off a horse during a riding lesson—yeah, our school is so posh we have riding lessons for PE sometimes—Barron picked me up and carried me to the nurse’s office while everyone else in the Knight Crew laughed.
Of course, as soon as I finished up there and headed into the locker room to change, I found my uniform shredded into pieces. Barron wore my bow tie around his neck for the rest of the week, while my moms struggled to come up with the money to afford a new uniform. They ended up selling several original paintings at a steep discount.
“Is that what the rumors say?” he asks, but I notice he doesn’t take any of the bottles making their way around the campfire. I blink at him, but my alcohol-addled brain can’t decide if he just answered my question, or presented me with a whole new one. Instead, I lean forward and squint, trying to make out the ink on his chest. He’s wearing the same outfit as before, the white jacket with the curled coattails, black leather pants, and boots. When I reach out to run a finger down his bare chest, he snatches my hand in a crushing grip and then pulls me into his lap.
My head spins, but at least I can finally see what his tattoo is.
It’s a butterfly, but not just any butterfly, it’s a Diana fritillary, that same orange and black insect that I received as an anonymous gift. How did I miss that the other day? I wonder, bringing up the memory of our kiss. It was too dark, the night filled with too many shadows.
My eyes lift to Barron’s, but he isn’t looking at me. Instead, he’s watching as Calix saunters into the clearing with an entourage of his own, wearing that stupid crown with the berries that drip red onto his pale skin like blood. The raven-haired girl with the ice-blue eyes, from the Devils’ Day Committee, is clinging to his arm. He shakes her off with a bit of a scowl before turning his attention to me.
“It seems we have a willing guest,” Barron says, his voice rumbling beneath me as I struggle to put together my thoughts. Did he send me that necklace? And if he did, why? If it was Barron, I can only assume it was both a gift and a punishment, the beginning of some cruel trick. That’s how he works, in dichotomies. I just can’t figure the angle on this one. Or maybe I just don’t care?
“Oh?” Calix asks, like he’s bored, his black velvet doublet unbuttoned to the navel, his crown askew on his head. “You actually showed up. More’s the pity.”
“Really? Because I’m pretty damn excited about getting my dick sucked,” Raz quips, his dirty blonde hair streaked with silver glitter, his bloodred leather pants slung low enough on his hips that I can follow a trail of hair from his belly button down to his waistband. His cock is probably a scant few millimeters from popping out the top. The thought makes me giggle, and Raz shoots me a dirty look, like I’m not supposed to find any of this funny. I’m supposed to be the victim, right? This is not my role, sitting on a bully’s lap and reaching for a bottle of vodka.
I stare at it for a long moment, vision blurring in and out of focus as I try to remember if I brought it here. But nope, it must’ve been somebody else. There are leaves and bits of dried flowers swirling around in the bottom, like this is some debauch offering for the demons and devils that live in the earth beneath our feet.
Barron steals the bottle from me before I get a chance to drink any and hands it back to Sonja. Her lids are covered in bright red glitter and her dress is so tight and short that I can see her panties underneath. I have no idea why Luke likes her, but maybe it has something to do with the forbidden? We all like to test our boundaries every now and again, don’t we? That must’ve been what drew me to Calix, wanting something I knew I couldn’t have.
Lies.
“No more alcohol for you,” Barron chastises, clicking his tongue and sucking on that damn lollipop of his. It’s turned his tongue a brilliant neon pink. He leans in and pushes some hair back from my ear, nuzzling the spot between my neck and shoulder and making me groan. Raz stares at the pair of us like he’s witnessing aliens setting foot on planet earth for the first time. I know I’m making a spectacle out of myself, but I can’t stop.
Just like it felt good to throw that bottle, to watch it shatter, this feels the same way.
Wild. Out of control. Broken.
Free.
“If you drink too much, you might not have the energy to suck me off,” Barron continues, and I laugh. There it is, that softness mixed with the deep, dark shadows of hate. We have a lot of practice in this game, me and the Knight Crew.
“Really?” Calix asks, taking a seat between the two demon-faced girls with the diaphanous dresses. One of them is named Tamika and the other is Ariel, like the mermaid. I think. The only members of the Knight Crew I ever bothered to memorize were the ringleaders: Calix, Raz, Barron, Sonja. “You’re eighteen. Do you really want to fuck a drunk minor? Count me out.”
“Are you stupid or something?” Raz growls out, looking at Calix like he’d rather choke him than party with him. At least there’s that, seeing him turn his hateful self on his friend. That was worth coming all the way out here for. The band begins to set up their instruments, and I wonder if tonight, I might actually get to see them play. “You have Karma Sartain right here, ready to open that pretty little mouth of hers and wrap those plump lips around your cock, and you’d say no to that?”
“Drunk girls are sloppy fucks,” Calix says as Sonja hands the bottle of vodka with the dried flowers back to him, and he takes a drink. He doesn’t spill a single drop, and I find myself mesmerized as his throat works while he swallows. Tamika—or Ariel, I forget who’s who—presses her lips to the side of his neck and starts kissing him.
I turn away with a scowl and spot Luke, staring at me through the trees with a wide-eyed, terrified sort of expression. As soon as she starts heading our way, I curse and stumble off of Barron’s lap. He catches one
of my small hands in his big ones before I can take two stumbling steps.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks as Raz observes our interaction with a smirk. “We have special plans for you tonight.”
“I know,” I slur back, leaning down and putting my hands on either one of his shoulders. It’s interesting, to be so close to those brown and blue eyes of his. The only time I’ve ever been this close was that first night, when I coerced him into making out with me, so I could steal the key. “You want to lock me in the treehouse where Calix took my virginity. Whatever. I’ll be back. I just want to talk to Luke.” Barron’s eyes widen slightly, and he flicks a glance in Calix’s direction.
“Who the hell told you that?” Raz asks, but Barron is releasing me, and I’m stumbling away and falling into Luke’s arms with a laugh.
“Karma, what the actual fuck?” Luke growls out, dragging me into the shadows and doing her best to steady me. Doesn’t work. I end up sitting on my ass in the leaves, still dressed in my stuffy Crescent Prep uniform. I tear off the purple blazer, loosen my tie, and unbutton my shirt to the navel, just like Calix. “Shit, I knew I shouldn’t have come here tonight.”
“Why did you?” I slur, trying to squint up at her.
“Because I was worried about you,” she says, frowning and then sighing. “Rightfully so it seems, since it looked like you were ready to stick your tongue down the Knight Crew’s throats.”
“Where’s April?” I demand, wishing I had another drink. I feel like I’m losing my drunk, and I really don’t want that. As soon as that happens, I’ll have to face reality, a reality that feels more like a nightmare than anything else. Something surreal is happening to me, something wrong. But how can I tell Luke that? I told my moms and they rushed me to the ER and still, nothing happened.
Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance Page 9