Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance

by C. M. Stunich

  “Maybe,” I tease, wondering how this is going to go, what their final, lasting memory of me will be like.

  “If so,” Barron adds, pulling a red jewelry box out of his pocket and passing it over to me. “You may as well be wearing this when it happens.”

  I open the lid to find the Diana fritillary necklace, speckled with his blood, trapped in resin but forever beautiful. I hope this is how he remembers me, as perfect and eternal as this butterfly. Taking it out of the box, I hand it to him and allow him to clasp it around my neck.

  “Here.” Luke slips a black tourmaline bracelet from her pocket and passes it my way with a smile. She snaps the matching one on her wrist for emphasis. “We know each other too well, my friend. Oh, and also, April sent you a cupcake but then she got hungry and ate it. She says you can remind her that she owes you one.”

  A laugh slips past my lips, verging on the edge of a sob. Calix glances sharply my way, like he notices, but then Raz carries the conversation on and the sound of my melancholy drifts away like a forgotten nightmare. Laughter replaces the sadness, and I encourage it. I’m not going out of this with a frown on my face. That’s not how I want to leave my friends, with memories of me sobbing and hurting and wanting.

  For the next few hours, we stay together in the train car. People come and go, but it’s always the boys and me, Luke and Sonja. April is there for a while, dragging Pearl along with her. Even Erina stops by, but as much empathy as I feel for her, I will never forget what she did to April and Calix. Fortunately, she doesn’t stay long.

  Eventually, the fire gets low and couples—or groups—secret themselves away in the shadows for a taste of the forbidden, kissing lips they never thought they’d kiss, fucking strangers or villains or true loves. When Luke and Sonja excuse themselves, leaving the boys and me alone in the train car, we weave lascivious spells with our bodies, a near perfect replica to our time on the school bus.

  It’s just as dark, as sensual, as fervid and lush.

  It’s also the perfect goodbye.

  Because as soon as we’re done, and I’m sure they’re all asleep, I untangle my limbs from theirs and make my way to the mouth of the Devils’ Den.

  Somebody has to die tonight, I think as I stand at the edge of the spring and stare down at the cool, black surface of the water, smooth as glass. No matter what I do, how I play my cards, somebody dies.

  Sometimes, it's Luke. Sometimes, it's Calix. Oftentimes, it's Pearl.

  But the universe demands balance for all of her gifts, and as I stand there, staring down at the dark water and my pale reflection, I know that she has to be paid. Somebody has to sacrifice their life to get things going again, put the timeline right again. The longer I put this off, the more everyone suffers; they're all very clearly living this day over and over with me. The thing is, I'm the only one that remembers it. I'm the only one who can make this conscious choice.

  Sitting down on the edge of the water, I put my feet in, letting the long train of my skirt float around my ankles like the fins of an exotic fish as I stare down at the glittery reflection of my mask, with its strange antlers.

  The water is freezing cold, but I figure that's for the best. Maybe hypothermia will speed the process?

  I don't want to do this, I think as a few stray tears slide down my face, slipping out from under the mask and plopping into the smooth surface of the water like raindrops, creating ripples that shimmer and dance in the light from the lantern.

  The Knight Crew set these up to bring light into the darkness, and now I'm using one to call it quits. It's beyond depressing. For so long, I've just been trying to make it from one day to the next, without realizing that there's no end goal worth sacrificing the present for. I should've been living from day one, just … living.

  With a small sob, I take the rocks I dragged in from outside, and I tie one to each ankle with the rope I brought, like macabre little Christmas presents. Then another two to my waist. I thought about other ways to do this, but they were all equally ghoulish, equally horrible. The thought of falling into the cool, dark embrace of the earth seemed like the least traumatizing way to go.

  I can't believe that I'm doing this, I think, but then, I tried every other possible way. I've had so many perfect days, but somebody always pays the price for my happiness. There is no other way. Lifting my gaze up to the ceiling, I can see the stalactites above me, the reflection of the water dancing on the rock.

  Thoughts of my mothers dance in my head, the way they always stay up late on Friday nights with wineglasses in their hands and an old movie on the TV. Even though I'm a senior now, they don't mind if I sneak out to join them, curling up like a child between the two of them and nodding off to the soft murmur of their voices.

  My sisters will cry, I'm sure, but they're so young … they'll be okay, right? Because I can't even seem to sacrifice Pearl to save myself. If she dies, then her kid is left with the Knight family, and she'll never get a chance to fight for something better. I know what it's like to be bullied and pushed and targeted.

  Except … I've had a chance to learn, to fix my mistakes, to realize what I've been missing all along.

  If Pearl dies, she will never get the opportunities that I got.

  “Happy Devils' Day,” I whisper as I think about Luke and April, dancing in the shadows of the bonfire and laughing together. They'll move to New Orleans after they graduate, I bet. And I bet Thad will join them, just as April says he will. Their friendship will mature and grow as they evolve to handle life's challenges. I want to be there with them, I think as I push myself off the edge of the shore and into the water.

  It's hard not to struggle as I sink below the surface, my hair floating around my face in a purple tangle, the pins in the rose crown keeping it in place. It's likely the boys will be the ones to find me here, and even though it's too wet to be sure, I'm almost positive that I'm crying.

  The rocks tied to my ankles hit the bottom of the spring as bubbles escape my gently parted lips. I try to take a breath, but my body won't let me pull in water, not of my own accord. I have to wait.

  Calix's dark eyes, his smile so warm when he finally gives it, his hands skimming across my bare skin. And Raz … so angry and broken, but so smart, so desperate for someone to look his way and see him beneath all his bullshit. Barron, the quiet enigma, and the butterfly necklace that even now floats in the dark water with me, escorting me to the grave.

  I close my eyes against the darkness as my chest spasms, and I suck in two lungfuls of water against my body's better judgment. Automatically, my hands go to the ropes around my waist, struggling to untie the heavy knots, to save me even though I know I can't be saved.

  I will forever live in this loop if I don't do this, dooming the ones I love to live in repeat. If you stay up long enough to see the sunrise, paint it. In my mind, I mix colors and pick up one final paintbrush, splashing yellow across an empty canvas. It gets brighter as my body struggles, my legs kicking, the stones dragging me down as my lacy dress tangles around me like a net.

  Brighter and brighter and brighter, like the sun kissing the sky for the first time after a long night.

  My body gets heavy and my lids drift closed in the darkness, the scene from my imaginary painting exploding behind my eyes like a true sunrise.

  This all started because I drove my moms' car off the edge of the road, because I died, because I didn't appreciate what I had when I had it.

  Goodnight, little devil, I tell myself as I start to drift further from consciousness. And good luck in the next life.

  Wherever that may be, however it may turn out, at least I know what I'm going to do when I get there.

  I'm going to live.

  “Wake the fuck up, Karma.”

  That's Raz's voice; I'd recognize it anywhere. But it's coming from so far away, and I'm so damn cold. I try to turn away from the sound, to drift off into that peaceful blackness where I belong, but my chest hurts, and my body is yanking me back into realit
y whether I like it or not.

  Blinking awake, I see the roof of the cavern, the reflection of the spring's water dancing on the ceiling as the lantern casts its glow across the still surface.

  My chest spasms and I roll to my side, coughing and choking on water as someone rubs my back. Sitting in front of me, his black leather mask pushed up into his hair, his ebon eyes dark with fear, is Calix Knight.

  Tears of black makeup streak down his face, like he might've been crying. If he was, he isn't now, but his face is stripped of both his Devils' Day mask and the emotional prison he trapped himself in for so long.

  I cough and vomit onto the stone floor, surrounded by stalagmites while Raz crowds in close, putting my head in his lap and stroking my hair back as he murmurs to me, his sweet nothings peppered with curse words in true Raz fashion. You're gonna be o-fucking-kay, Karma. I'm fucking here Karma. Fuck, Karma, just fuck.

  “Should we call an ambulance?” It's Barron behind me. I manage to glance back just long enough to see that he's soaking wet, glitter bleeding down his chest, his mask missing as wet rainbow-colored hair drips into his face. He dove in to save me, and he did a much better job at saving me than I did him.

  A wracking sob takes over me as I sit up, curling my arms around my legs and putting my forehead to my knees.

  “Call it,” Calix demands, but I shake my head, lifting my face up to smile at him. He might not be crying now, but I am. Ebon eyes meet mine as Raz scoots in close and pulls me against his chest, wrapping me up in warm arms.

  “Please don't,” I whisper, not wanting to spend my last few hours of the day in the back of an ambulance. I failed them, I think, knowing that I'm going to have to try again at some point, not realizing how much I didn't just want to live, but how much I wanted to live this life, right here and now.

  I don’t think I’ll be able to do it, even though I know I should.

  I’m both heartbroken and elated at the same time.

  “Karma, what happened?” Barron asks, leaning in to look at me, his hand reaching up to smooth some wet hair back from my forehead. “I’d ask if this was an accident, but I figured the ropes didn’t magically tie themselves around your waist and ankles.”

  I snort a bit of laughter, but end up coughing instead as Raz rubs my back in a soothing way that I would not have thought him capable of.

  “Did you try to …” Calix starts, taking a deep breath and then exhaling. “Did you try to kill yourself because of us? Because of how we’ve treated you?”

  I shake my head, not wanting him to imprint that level of trauma into his psyche.

  “No, that’s not it at all,” I whisper, my voice hoarse and scratchy. I guess almost dying will do that to a person. Or should I say, almost committing suicide. “I’d explain it to you, but I don’t think you’d understand.”

  “Did you really want to die?” Raz asks, holding me close, like he’ll never let me go again.

  The shitty thing is … he will. He’ll let me go, and I’ll wake up, and then I’ll see my steering wheel, covered in blood. I’ll see Calix, sneering at me. Raz hating me. Barron indifferent as fuck.

  “Of course not,” I tell them, my words echoing around the stone walls of the cave. “More than anything, I want to live.” I lift my head up as Calix scoots closer, taking one of my hands in his. “With you. With the three of you.” I swallow a lump and end up coughing. It’s weird, but even though I just nearly drowned, I feel like I’m desperate for water. “I love you guys. I don’t want to go. I want to stay here.” Hot tears pour down my face as Raz climbs to his feet, lifting me up in his arms and holding me close.

  He carries me outside with Calix and Barron stuck to his sides like glue, refusing to put any sort of distance between us. Raz sets me down on one of the logs near the smaller fire and gets a water bottle from one of the coolers, bringing it to me without my even having to ask.

  All around us, students lay in piles, sleeping on blankets or mattresses dragged here for this specific purpose. Liquor bottles litter the forest floor, along with discarded clothing, and forgotten masks. It’s mostly quiet, a few people chatting here and there, one lone boy dancing naked near the bonfire.

  I almost smile, putting the water bottle to my lips, but there’s a bittersweet energy in the air that I can’t shake. I didn’t die, but I also can’t move on. Sure, everyone remembers bits of the other timelines in a hazy, dreamlike sort of way, but we’ll never be able to progress any further than this. Live in New Orleans. Travel the world. Have children.

  This is it, all I have, just the Devils’ Day party.

  Barron crouches down beside me as Calix and Raz take a seat on either side of me, pressing their bodies up against mine. Calix throws his coat over my shoulders and buttons the top button, looping an arm around my waist to keep me warm.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened?” Barron asks, but I shake my head. There’s no point. As soon as I close my eyes and fall asleep, he’ll forget it ever happened. Calix and Raz, too. I’m just glad Luke didn’t have to see me like that. “Is this something that’s likely to happen again?”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever do anything like that, in this life or any other,” I whisper, closing my eyes as more tears begin to fall.

  “Fuck,” Raz growls, wrapping his arms around me and not giving a shit that Calix is already doing the same. “You scared the crap out of us, Karma. How could you do that, after you just told us you’re in fucking love with us?”

  “I’m sorry,” I sob, putting my face in my hands as Barron kneels down in front of me, adding his arms around me, so that all three boys are holding me. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, Karma,” Calix says, his voice hoarse and dark. “Everything will be different tomorrow, I promise.” He holds me close, and I sob harder, hearing the tears in his own words, and wondering why I can’t just have this, why I can’t live to see tomorrow.

  “Come on,” Barron says after we’ve all cried ourselves out and a dawn blush is pressing its lips to the velvety darkness of the night sky.

  He gathers up some spare blankets and creates a nest for us in front of the log bench while Calix fetches some dry clothes from his car.

  “Do you want us to look away?” Raz asks, but I’m already stripping my wet dress and tossing it aside, not caring who sees. I just want to pull the fresh hoodie and sweats on and go to sleep. Seeing the boys be so tender with me, so caring … it’s going to fucking break me.

  “Don’t look away,” I tell Raz, meeting his red eyes with my own tired, aching ones. “And don’t leave.”

  “I wouldn’t fucking dream of it,” he says, pulling me down to the makeshift bed.

  The boys and I crowd around the dancing flames of the fire, their bodies close as they cocoon me under a black blanket, studded with silver stars. I'm shivering, but that's okay. It'll be over soon, and I'll wake up at the gas station, doomed to die, desperate to live.

  “Close your eyes and we'll greet the sunrise together,” Barron whispers, his voice as warm as the flames near my now bare toes. I'm wearing the Burberry Prep hoodie and sweatpants that Calix had in his car, cuddled up between Barron and Raz. Calix is so close, our fingers curl together as he lays with an arm over Raz.

  If I'd known it'd only take me trying to commit suicide to get them to stop fighting, I'd … But I can't even pretend I'd have ever tried anything like this before. And even though my eyes are getting heavy and I know I'm just seconds away from a reset and a morning spent at the Gas and Go, I don't care.

  I know I'll never be able to try anything that drastic again.

  Hot afternoon sun cascades across my closed lids, as bright and blazing as the pretend sunrise I saw when I was half-drowned and floating. Blinking my eyes, I squint against a scene I never thought I'd live to see: the aftermath of the Devils' Day party.

  Crescent Prep students stumble through the woods in fantastical costumes, their magic stolen by the reaching rays of the hungry sun. Masks ar
e pushed up or tossed aside, makeup is smeared, and a very familiar girl with blue hair searches the leaves for her pants, cursing as she snags the glittering slacks from a pile of dry leaves.

  I sit up, the black and silver star blanket falling forward as a small choking noise catches in my throat. The fire in front of me is nothing like the beast of orange and yellow flames from the bonfire last night. Instead, it's just a little crackle, with Raz sitting on a stone beside it, a marshmallow on the end of a long stick. As soon as he sees me sitting up, he turns to look at me with blue eyes surrounded by black-framed glasses, his red contacts taken out some time ago.

  “She's awake,” he says as I look over and find Calix with one of last night's beer bottles halfway to his lips, his crown of thorns askew, his dark eyes stripped bare.

  “Good morning,” Barron says, sitting up beside me, the butterfly on his bare chest catching the light, his sketchbook lying open beside him. The image he's drawn is one of me, floating beneath the water, my hair tangled, my dress a cloud of lace. My eyes lift to find his dual-colored ones.

  “Morning …” I start as Luke stumbles over, once again wearing her slacks. She sits down heavily on the log next to Raz, giving him a sideways look as he stares at me. When she notices that Barron and Calix are staring, too, she raises a brow in confusion.

  “Something happen last night that I should know about?” she asks as April makes her way over to us, clutching a blanket and a pillow against her side.

  “No,” Calix says, still watching me. “Nothing you should know about.”

  A small sob tears from me, but on the end of that sound … there's a bit of laughter. It’s the exact opposite of the sound I made last night, from melancholy to joyous instead of the other way around.

  And it’s fucking fantastic.

  It escapes me like a swarm of butterflies, twirling up through the smoke from the campfire, and disappearing into the too-blue sky above the trees.