by JM Darhower
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, clutching her tightly.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Please don’t punish me.”
“Why the hell would I punish you?”
Before she could get out another word, the overhead light flicked on. Both of them winced from the sudden brightness as Dr. DeMarco’s harsh voice rang out. “Let her go!”
The boy dropped her wrist so fast it was as if he’d been burned. “Sorry,” he said, the word barely audible as he climbed to his feet.
Haven sat there, struggling to breathe, as Dr. DeMarco poured a glass of water from the faucet and handed it to her. “Drink,” he commanded. She forced the water down and gagged, her stomach more interested in expelling its contents instead. “What happened here?”
They replied at the same time, their voices answering in sync. “It was an accident.”
“It won’t happen again, sir,” Haven continued. “I’m so sorry.”
Dr. Demarco glanced between them, blinking a few times. “It’s not often I have two people accepting blame around here.”
As if on cue, the boy spoke again. “Yeah, well, it wasn't really my fault. She scared me. She's like a fucking ninja or something.”
Dr. DeMarco pinched the bridge of his nose. “Watch your mouth, son. Go get ready for school.”
He started to argue, but Dr. DeMarco’s hand shot up to silence him. The sudden movement startled Haven, and she recoiled from them, bracing to be hit.
The boy eyed her strangely. “What the hell's wrong with—?”
“I said go,” Dr. DeMarco said. “I don't have time for you.”
“Fine, what-the-fuck-ever.”
Dr. DeMarco turned to Haven as the boy stormed out. “He isn't usually so... well, never mind; that's a lie. He is usually like this. He’s finicky and angry, but that's neither here nor there. He's set in his ways, and it doesn't matter what I do. Carmine is who he is.”
Carmine. A strange name for a strange boy.
Dr. DeMarco held his hand out to her, and she took it carefully, stunned by the gesture. He helped her to her feet. “Why are you up so early, anyway? I figured you'd sleep most of the day to recover.”
“I didn't know what time I was supposed to get up.”
“You get up whenever you get up,” he said. “You can go back to bed now.”
“But what about—?”
He didn't let her finish. “I'll handle this. Don't worry about doing anything today. Just rest.”
Chapter 2
“I need a favor.”
Sighing, Carmine stepped past his father, refusing to acknowledge he’d spoken. The scent of freshly brewing coffee was strong in the kitchen as Vincent cleaned the mess from the floor. The knees of his newest Armani suit were soaked with juice, and Carmine felt a tiny bit of satisfaction from that fact.
“Are you ignoring me now, son?”
“Oh, are you talking to me? I thought you didn’t have time for me this morning.”
Vincent stood up. “I certainly don’t have time for your attitude, but I do need a favor.”
“Of course you do.”
Vincent pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to him. “Ask Dia if she’ll grab this stuff after school today. I’d do it myself, but I know nothing about the things teenage girls need.”
Carmine laughed. “I don’t think Dia knows shit about teenage girls, either.”
“She knows enough,” he said. “Just do it, please. It’s important.”
Carmine folded the paper and shoved it into his pocket. “Whatever. Is it for the ninja girl? Who is she, anyway?”
“Do you honestly care?”
“No.” The word came out before he even gave it any thought. The truth was she’d caught him off guard. He wasn’t sure what to think.
“Then I suppose it doesn't matter who she is,” Vincent said. “Regardless, she needs things, so don't forget to ask Dia.”
“I heard you the first time,” he said. “It would've been nice to have some warning you were bringing someone here, though. This morning wouldn't have happened if you'd have told me.”
Vincent quirked an eyebrow as he poured some coffee into his travel mug. “Oh, so we're going to blame me now? And I don't owe you an explanation, son, but the fact of the matter is I didn't know she'd be coming back with me.”
“Well, where'd she even come from?”
“I thought you didn't care.”
“I don't.”
“Then it doesn't matter where she came from,” he said. “All that matters is she's here now so you're going to have to learn to live with it.”
“Whatever.”
“Whatever,” Vincent mimicked him, shaking his head. “It’s nice to see all that money I paid to send you to Benton Academy made you more articulate.”
Carmine shuddered at the mere mention of that place.
He’d landed in serious trouble the year before—trouble that could've ruined his life—but his father had pulled some strings to get him out of it. He hadn't exactly been forgiving, though, and shipped him to an all-male boarding school across the country for a semester. Carmine swore the moment he was back on the plane heading home that nothing like it would ever happen again, but it was a lot easier said than done. He never went looking for it, but trouble seemed to find him every time he turned a corner.
And Carmine turned a lot of motherfucking corners.
“Yeah, well, you should’ve saved your pennies. Your life would be a lot easier right now if you would’ve just let me rot.”
“I bet you truly believe that,” Vincent said, glancing at his watch. “I'm not going to argue with you. I have to get cleaned up for work. Just remember to ask Dia—”
“I already said I heard you. How many times are you going to remind me?”
“Until I know you won't forget.”
“Well, I won't.”
“Good,” he said, “but if you do, we’re going to have a problem.”
* * * *
Dia Harper drove an old Toyota, slate gray and missing two hubcaps. She’d bought it a year ago with money she earned freelancing, which meant she’d do anything for a few bucks. Shopping, cleaning, passing messages… she’d even written a term paper for Carmine for $50 last year. A leak in the exhaust system made the car emit strong gas fumes that she tried to cover with a dozen tree-shaped air fresheners. Carmine wouldn’t be caught riding in it if she paid him, but to Dia, it was the Holy Grail.
She was perched on the hood of it that morning, sipping on a cherry slushie in the parking lot when Carmine arrived at school. “I still don’t get it,” she said, shaking her head. “Explain it again.”
Carmine leaned against his black Mazda in the spot beside her. “There's nothing to get. It is what it is.”
“Yeah, well, what is it?”
“Sex,” he said, laughing at the bewildered expression on Dia’s face. Her blue eyes were hidden beneath layers of dark make-up, and she'd added some pink and purple streaks to her short blonde hair overnight. She defined eccentric in her mismatched clothes, her new bulky camera hanging by a strap around her neck. Nothing about Dia conformed, which was what had drawn Carmine to her in the first place. Although he was popular, he didn't have many people that he considered friends. He always felt there were two types of people in the small town of Durante, North Carolina, where they lived—those who wanted him, and those who wished they could be him. Dia was different, though. She was honest, and living in a world surrounded by nothing but lies, Carmine appreciated that.
“But why Lisa?” Dia asked, refusing to drop the subject.
Carmine looked across the parking lot at where a group of girls had gathered and shrugged when he spotted Lisa Donovan. She had long blonde hair, her body slim and skin darkly tanned. She looked like nearly every other girl in school— nothing to write home about.
Not that he thought there was anyone at his home who even gave a shit about his life...
“She's the q
uickest to get naked. Less work for me.”
Dia wrinkled her nose. “Gross. You need a decent girl, one that can straighten you out.”
“I don't need to be straightened out,” Carmine said. “Why drown in love when you can have so much fun swimming in lust?”
“But her? Out of everyone in this school, you pick Moanin’ Lisa.”
Carmine chuckled, tugging on a chunk of Dia's colorful hair. “Looks like you're the painting today, Warhol.”
“Hey, I'll take it,” she said. “Andy Warhol was one of the best.”
“He was crazy.”
“Maybe so, but he was still a genius.” She nodded toward the group of girls. “Which Moanin’ Lisa, clearly, is not. I don't think she can even string together a sentence. Have you tried to have an intelligent conversation with her? It's like talking to a brick wall.”
“No, we don't do a lot of talking,” he said. “She's not so bad from behind with her face shoved into a mattress, though.”
Dia shook her head as Carmine laughed again. He had no real interest in Lisa, or any other girl, for that matter. But while a relationship was the furthest thing from his mind, he'd realized that there were benefits to keeping female company. They might not have been intellectually stimulating, but they did stimulate another part of him... often.
A silver Audi whipped into the parking lot then, coming to a stop in the spot beside them. Dominic hopped out from behind the wheel and Tess, his girlfriend, climbed from the passenger seat. Tess was Dia’s twin sister, but the two couldn’t have been more opposite. They’d all known each other since they moved to the area in elementary school, but the relationship between Dominic and Tess was new. It was strange—the life Carmine had left wasn't the same one he returned to, and he was having a hard time adjusting to the change.
“What are y'all up to?” Dominic asked.
“Just trying to get Carmine to see the error of his ways when it comes to Lisa,” Dia said. “It’s not working out so well.”
“Can't say I'm surprised,” Tess said. “No girl with even an ounce of self-respect would want him.”
“I'm not that bad,” he said. “I'm rich, popular. I have a sense of humor. I'm good looking, and not to mention I have a really big—”
They all groaned loudly before he could finish. He just shrugged, thinking he'd summed himself up nicely. “Besides, it's not like I seriously plan to date her. That'll never happen. The only time you'll ever catch me asking a girl out is after I'm done with her, and I'm asking her to get out.”
“See, that's why you'll always be alone,” Tess said. “You think about no one but yourself.”
“So says the vainest bitch alive,” he said. “You better be careful throwing stones in your glass house, Tess. You're liable to get cut someday.”
“Enough, you two,” Dominic said, stepping between them. “Carmine's free to do whatever—or whoever—he wants, so get off his back. But bro, you better watch yourself threatening my girl.”
“I didn't threaten her. I was warning her. She ought to thank me.”
Rolling her eyes, Tess stalked off, and Dominic followed behind, calling her name. The routine happened nearly every day: Tess gets mad, she stomps away, and Dominic chases her like a dog. Carmine didn’t see the appeal. “He’s pathetic.”
Dia hopped down from her car. “He can’t help it. He’s in love.”
“Well, if that’s what love does to you, you can definitely count me out.” He couldn’t imagine spending every waking moment of every day with the same person, doing the exact same shit they did the day before. “That has to be boring.”
“And what you do isn’t?”
He looked at her incredulously. “You think my life is boring? I get what I want, when I want it. I enjoy my freedom way too much to just give it away for some bitch.”
Dia cringed. “Do you have to use that word?”
“What word?”
She glared at him but didn’t bother to respond. Carmine knew what word she meant, but he didn’t see the big deal, considering it was just that—a word. Whatever happened to ‘sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me’?
The bell rang in the distance, signaling the start of school. “Here comes Moanin’ Lisa,” Dia said as she started to walk away, but she stopped a few steps out. “A girl would be lucky to have you, but not like this, Carmine. Not the way you treat people now. You're wasting your time, and it's not worth it. You need to find something that is. So, maybe your life isn’t boring, but it has to be unfulfilling.”
She scurried away before he had a chance to respond.
“Hey, handsome,” Lisa said as she approached. She leaned against his car, smiling, but he pulled her away from it. He hated having people touching his things. She didn't seem to notice, though, and ran her hand down his chest, fiddling with the buttons on his shirt. “You look good today.”
“Thanks, but you know what would look really good today?”
“What?”
“Bocchino,” he said, brushing his pointer finger across her glossy lips. “That mouth on me.”
“Hmmm, well, maybe we can make that happen after school.”
He smirked. “I knew I could count on you.”
* * * *
The moment the sharp pain ricocheted through Carmine’s head and the warmth streamed down the side of his face, every ounce of rationality left his body in a whoosh. He was bleeding. Again. Completely unacceptable.
“I’m sorry!” Ryan Thompson’s frantic voice rung out, but the words seemed distant as Carmine’s temper flared. Ryan stared at him, clutching the metal locker door that he’d accidentally hit Carmine with. They’d just left gym class, where Ryan had knocked into him twice, but the gash on his forehead was the final straw. He’d had his three strikes, which meant he was about to be out.
And by out, Carmine meant on the ground, knocked out cold.
Carmine slammed the locker door and Ryan flinched, holding up his hands defensively, but it was useless. Carmine grabbed a hold of his shirt and threw him back into another row of lockers, his fist landing straight in his gut. Ryan gasped as the air left him, doubling over in an attempt to catch his breath as a second blow struck him in the jaw.
Someone stepped between them, and Carmine nearly swung again until their eyes connected. Coach Woods towered over him, nostrils flaring. “Principal’s office, now!”
“What? This is bullshit!”
Coach Woods glared at him. “Don’t speak to me that way in my locker room! I’ll bench you!”
As starting quarterback for the varsity football team, Carmine was usually afforded a bit of leniency, but he could tell from his coach’s expression that this was an exception. He shoved away from his classmates and grabbed a towel, holding it to his forehead to soak up the blood as he stormed out.
The secretary in the front office barely glanced at Carmine when he busted in, throwing himself down in a chair to wait without a word. She casually radioed to the principal, notifying him someone was waiting. Principal Rutledge came out a moment later, merely casting Carmine a look that told him to join him. Carmine took his usual seat in the cracked brown leather chair in the small office, still clutching the towel to his head as he sprawled his legs out in front of him.
“Who this time?” It was a question Principal Rutledge seemed to have asked Carmine every week since his freshman year.
“Ryan Thompson hit me with a locker door.”
“Intentionally?”
Carmine shrugged. “Might as well have been.”
The principal picked up his phone, dialing a number he'd long ago memorized, and Carmine glanced around the office while he waited. He noticed a new picture frame on top of a filing cabinet with a photo of the man’s daughter, a fellow junior named Meghan. She was a curvy girl with brown hair and hazel eyes. She dated one of his teammates, Graham Martin, but she’d never been shy about her crush on Carmine.
“Meghan’s looking good these days.”
“Leave my daughter alone, Carmine.”
He chuckled but didn’t have time to respond before the principal focused on the call. “Dr. DeMarco, Jack Rutledge here… Yes…. I’m doing well, how about you? Yes, well, there was an incident in the locker room… He is injured… No, I don’t think the other boy is… He’s still in my office... No, he hasn’t been seen by the nurse.”
Principal Rutledge looked at him, suddenly concerned. “Do you think you’ll need stitches?”
Carmine shrugged, but the man didn’t wait for him to respond. “Yes, we do have a procedure in place for injured students… I understand that… With all due respect, I don’t think it’s that serious… No, you’re right; I’m not a doctor.” He paused, his eyes bulging. “Yes, the school’s insured, but I don’t think this is a case of negligence.”
Carmine smirked. Most people in town didn’t know what type of man his father really was, but he managed to terrify them, anyway.
“Yes, I’ll send him right over.” The principal hung up, eyeing him cautiously. “You need to go to the hospital and be checked out. I should’ve sent you right away. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Carmine stood up. “Yeah, I don’t know, either.”
“Do you need an ambulance?”
Carmine waved him off, although a part of him wanted to say yes. As many times as he'd been to the emergency room, he'd never ridden in an ambulance before. “I think I’m fine to drive.”
“Good,” he said. “And please, send my gratitude to your father for his understanding.”
* * * *
Carmine went through the emergency room entrance at the hospital, bypassing the nurse’s station for his father’s office on the third floor. Vincent sat at his desk, wearing his reading glasses with his arms crossed over his chest. He motioned for Carmine to come closer and checked his wound. “You should get a few stitches.”
“Nice.”