Faeted: A Dark Prince New Adult Bully Romance

by Deiri Di

  She couldn't jog to school and then remain in the same clothes.

  She'd seen how sweaty the girls on the track team got, and they were fit.

  She had to leave enough time to shower in the gym shower.

  Shoes on her feet, sleeping dragon sleeping snuggled into the extra clothes in her backpack – she was ready to go.

  After four minutes of huffing, she encountered a problem.

  Miss Kitty wiggled her way out of the backpack and glided to the ground.

  Mari was so focused on the ugh of placing one foot after the other that she wouldn't have noticed except for the tug on the backpack when the dragon found the end of the leash. She'd snapped a leash onto the harness and tied it to the backpack.

  She had to do something to contain the predator.

  "Rrrrwwrrrrr," Miss Kitty snarled, twisting on the end of the leash.

  Mari paused to look at her for a second.

  If she waited too long, the dragon would just cut or burn the tie.

  "Heel!" Mari squeaked, her breath barely able to form the word. She plopped forward and started jogging again, physically dragging the dragon along for the ride.

  It only took a few moments for her, not so tractable pet, to figure it out.

  The dragon trotted alongside her.

  "What a good girl," Mari could feel every bounce of her buttocks as she pushed her way down the sidewalk. It was hard, so hard. Her shirt chafed against her armpits. Her heart pounded in her ears with utter desperation. She could barely catch her breath, so she didn't try. Instead, she focused on breathing deeply through her nose and then out again through her mouth.

  She pulled that air deep into her abdomen, then let it let itself out.

  Her busy brain started to get out of the way.

  It was hard to focus on anything but the strain of her body as she forced it to do something it really didn't think it was capable of. She knew she could do it. No matter how much it hurt, she could do it.

  She could do anything.

  She could survive anything.

  Breath in, breath out.

  Miss Kitty raced past her, scrambled up on a pole, and leaped.

  The little dragon spread her wings. They were gossamer and thin, the light of the newly emerging sunrise peeking through the leather. They were bat's wings, red demon wings laced with the glowing red fire that ran through the dragon's veins.

  Miss Kitty wobbled in the air.

  Mari didn't miss a step.

  She ran faster, turning the leash into a kite rope.

  Miss Kitty soared behind her, up above in the air. She glowed, the red of her fire burning through the cracks of her skin, the lace of her wings. She inhaled and floated a little higher, the fire within providing the lift that she needed to soar.

  A truck roared by, and Miss Kitty wobbled. The leash's tension helped her keep her balance against the buffet of the wind, like a balloon held in by its string.

  How dangerous it must be to have to learn to fly with that delicate little body, Mari though. How easy to do the wrong thing, to be caught by a current and be sent tumbling into the pounding of oncoming traffic.

  Mari pumped her arms, focusing her breath on falling in time with her footfalls.

  She had to run now.

  She couldn't give up.

  She couldn't stop.

  Every day she had to run the whole way, no matter how much it burned.

  Now she ran because her little dragon needed flying lessons.

  #

  Mari's hair dripped.

  She sat in English Literature and listened to the plip plip plip of water dripping off her braid and onto the carpet. Miss Kitty was asleep in her backpack. While Mari staggered the last couple steps towards the school campus, the dragon had floated down and collapsed onto her shoulder, huffing and puffing just as hard as her human.

  Mari didn't mean for her hair to drip. She wanted it to be dry and beautiful, fluffy with the shine that those other girls were graced with. She just didn't know how to use a blow dryer and didn't own one to take to school. Cathy said she would damage her hair and wouldn't let Mari borrow hers.

  This was yet another problem to be solved.

  How to jog to school every day, take a shower, and also have dry hair.

  Mari sighed and slouched in her chair.

  Strangely enough, she didn't feel tired. She felt energized. The world was a little bit clearer, a little bit brighter, and more beautiful.

  Except Benjamin was in this class.

  He was flirting with another girl.

  Mari slouched even lower in her chair. He knew she was there, but it didn't stop him from smiling, touching, and passing notes. It didn't stop him from pairing up with that other girl during the fifteen-minute paired project.

  She was paired up with Rex, a geeky fellow who still had his braces and that gangly shape of a boy caught in between the body of his childhood and the strength of his future. Mari tried to focus on him, but it was hard.

  Why had Benjamin flirted with her, then gone on to flirt all over another girl right in front of her? Didn't he know she was watching?

  "He's not really into you," Rex said.

  "What?" Mari focused back on her partner. Had she been staring? Crud. She'd been staring.

  "He kisses anything that moves," Rex tapped the end of his pen against his notebook. "He's a slut."

  "But it's different with me," Mari said. She was special.

  Wait, was she that special? Seeing fairies was cool and all, but she had a long way to go to be half as attractive as that other girl. That other girl was on the competitive dance team – she was fit, beautiful, and talented.

  Mari was... well, Mari had a dragon.

  She didn't want to show him her dragon.

  Not until the whole killing people problem was solved.

  "What, he said some pretty words?" Rex snorted. "Gave you some insight into the depth of his soul? He has lines that he uses on everything with tits. He's a kiss and run kind of guy, and you're not the kinda girl who can catch him."

  No, he couldn't be that superficial.

  The conversations she’d had with Ben were beyond anything she’d ever experienced. Yet maybe he had those sorts of things conversations with everyone.

  The bell rang.

  Mari gathered up her books. "You can't learn how to love yourself if all you do is hate on other people," she said, her words cutting through the barrier that kept her sharper thoughts away from the outside world.

  Mari left Rex behind and hurried over to catch Benjamin.

  "Benjamin! Do you have a second?"

  "I'll catch you later, gorgeous," he winked at the other girl, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb. "That's a promise."

  She giggled and walked away.

  "Why would you do that?" Time to be direct. "Why would you go flirt with her in front of me? You just kissed me. I don't understand that at all."

  "Listen, you do what you want, and I'll do what I want," He stroked his thumb along her jawline and gave her a cheeky little smile. "No expectations."

  "No," Mari said. "There isn't anything wrong with expectations. There isn't anything wrong with wanting to be special to someone."

  "Mari, I adore you, but I don't want to rush into anything."

  He walked away before she could respond.

  Had she been asking him to rush into anything?

  Those words were a barrier to his mind.

  Instead of just talking about what was going on in his head, instead of opening up to her like she was a person who could listen and understand his concerns, instead of listening to her own perspective and allowing it to expand the way he viewed the world, – he put her off.

  She had no idea what really was going on inside his head.

  She only knew that she had a whole lot of balancing to do on her own. She couldn't help him see the path that led before him, a path strewn with dinosaur battles and fairy frenzies. She had to walk her own path. She ha
d to be the strongest, the bravest, and the most talented woman she could possibly be.

  She had to become who she was meant to be.

  Otherwise, Miss Kitty would kill her, too.

  #

  Mari sat down next to Stephanie at lunch.

  It was time. Things weren't going to get fixed if she ignored them. She couldn't just sit there waiting for her not best friend to come to her. Her not friend had a crush on Chase. Stephanie wouldn't give up the chance to be near him, not for one moment. So Mari had to take the opportunity while Stephanie was alone, the first one at the table.

  If she wanted to save the friendship, she would have to take the first step.

  Hopefully, Chase would go sit elsewhere.

  "There are lots of things I don't understand," Mari said. She couldn't keep keeping things from her friend. She had to tell her what was going on.

  Stephanie had known her since they were born.

  She had to have her back.

  "Tell me," Stephanie said. "Better to just spit it out than sulk off by yourself."

  She wasn't sulki- there was no point in arguing. Arguing would not get them anywhere. Talking, listening, and not letting anger rile up and lash out was the only way to progress.

  "Chase freaks me out. Bad stuff happened between us, and being around him makes me feel like there is this knot in my stomach trying to eat me from the inside." Mari let the words tumble out on top of each other. "But right now, that isn't even everything. Then there is Benjamin. I thought, I mean, he kissed me when I wasn't ready for it, but then he flirts with everyone else, which means he doesn’t really like me. Doesn't that mean anything to him? Do boys always kiss you when they don't mean it?"

  "Um," Stephanie blinked. "Well, you know Benjamin has a reputation for being a slut. He's the star of the football team, for the wrath of Godzilla. He doesn't have to keep himself to one girl. Why did you think you were any different?"

  "You know how he ran out of the assembly?"

  "Yeah, that was awesome.," Stephanie laughed. "Someone bet him that he wouldn't do that. He's so cool to take a bet like that. What happened when you followed him?"

  So that was how he patched things up.

  Ben, the brave joker, causing havoc because of a bet.

  Ze appeared and perched on the table in between them.

  "Well, we had a moment. It was scary and fun, and I thought we really connected. But then again, stuff like that happened with Chase all the time. Maybe it is just the adrenaline." Maybe it was the danger. Maybe she just found herself liking these guys, these guys who in the end didn't treat her the way she wanted to be treated, because they were there in the exciting situations.

  In the end, they tried to help her.

  Except when they deliberately hurt her.

  Like drugging her. Like going after other girls.

  "You're not making sense," Stephanie crossed her arms. "I'm not you. I don't know anything that has happened or any of the details about what you're talking about. What was scary and fun? What was the moment?"

  Mari looked at her best friend.

  How do you trust enough to tell the truth when the ones you love don't believe you? How do you trust when it feels like they don't love you back?

  "You know how my parents had me committed a few times?"

  "They told me you were hurting yourself." Stephanie hesitated. "They asked me to look out for you."

  "Have you ever seen me hurt myself?"

  "No. Never."

  "Have I ever talked about it or talked about wanting to?"

  Stephanie shook her head. "No, but your parents wouldn't lie about that sort of stuff. That'd be pretty messed up."

  Mari thought about that for a minute.

  It always felt like lying to her because it wasn't true to her. She knew she never hurt herself. She knew it was the fairies. But her parents couldn't know that. They couldn't see or experience the little monsters for themselves, so to them, from their perspective, the answer was the most obvious one. -

  That she cut herself and lied about it.

  Mari even apologized to them once.

  She got it into her head that if she just apologized, if she let them believe that she agreed with their perspective, that she was the instigator of all of that mess, then they would look at her the way they did when she was younger when the fairies were charming instead of cruel.

  She thought if she didn't fight their beliefs, it would all work out.

  But giving in doesn't solve anything.

  "If you genuinely believe in something that isn't true, then it isn't really lying. You just don't know any better."

  "Like Atheists," Stephanie said. "Mom says that they don't believe in the right God, so they're going to hell and stuff. They aren't liars, they're just dumb, or their parents didn't teach them right or something. It's up to us to teach them about Jesus."

  The purple maned fairy watched Stephanie. The second she looked away from her sandwich and stared at Mari, Ze leaned over and took a tiny little bite of her sandwich, right on Stephanie's bite mark.

  "But how do you know what they believe in?" Mari said.

  Stephanie crossed her arms. "My mom wouldn't lie."

  "I never, in my entire life, ever cut myself," Mari said. "My parents wouldn't lie either. But I didn't. I never did."

  "Then what did?" Stephanie said. "Something kept messing you up! I saw the marks a bunch of times. You're gonna tell me that someone's been cutting you, and instead of telling people and getting help, you just told your parents it was fairies? Come on."

  "I told you about them already?" Mari didn't remember doing that.

  "When we were little, you talked about them all the time!"

  "Hey, fairy." Mari looked at the sandwich thief. "What's your name?"

  The fairy looked up at her. "Bringer of destruction and creation."

  What.

  Smart arse.

  "What is the point of this, Mari?" Stephanie asked. "Are you having a psychotic episode or something?"

  "Ze, will you help me?"

  "Ze wants a cookie."

  "Ze – if you roll Stephanie's apple across the table and knock it to the ground, I'll give you a cookie."

  "This is stupid, Mari. You're embarrassing yourself."

  "Deal," Ze said.

  The little fairy strutted over, dug her claws into the apple, squatted down like a professional weight lifter, and heaved, her wings a flurry of movement.

  "Hhhhhhuuuuaaaaaaagh!" Ze shouted.

  The apple rolled across the table.

  Mari handed a cookie to the fairy.

  Lines of confusion wove across Stephanie's face.

  It is easy to see what a person is feeling. All that is required is to - just look at their face and really listen to them think. Mari wondered why she didn't realize this before – all she had to do was look her friend in the eye and watch the confusion rage.

  Suddenly the storm on Stephanie's face cleared.

  "What were we talking about?" Stephanie smiled and ducked her head a little, sheepish. "I wasn't paying attention."

  What.

  "You were paying attention. You saw the apple roll."

  Stephanie picked up the apple. "It rolled? Did I knock it or something?" She wiped it off on her shirt.

  "Brains brains, the magical fruit," Ze sang. "Magic turns thoughts into loot. You try to show them how to see, but brains doesn't know how to fly like a bee."

  Mari pulled her sandwich out of her bag. "You don't remember anything about what we were talking about? My parents? Magic?"

  "Your parents play that card game?"

  Mari shook her head and didn't answer. So it wasn't that people just wouldn't believe her if she showed them proof. If she showed them something that didn't fit into their small understanding of the world, their minds just wouldn't adapt. Was that it?

  Was it their minds, or was it magic itself?

  The monsters, sprites, or fairies never seemed to bother with r
egular folk that much. Every so often, she would see sprites trip someone, or she would spot something shady latched onto a human who sat there, writhing in the darkness of what they thought was depression – but on the whole, as far as she had seen, the fae didn't bother that much with humans.

  So why could she see them?

  Why could her friend not even remember seeing the apple roll?

  Was it because she was too stuck to believe in something different?

  Chase stuck a leg in between her and Stephanie. The table was round, with four attached benches curving around the sides of it. Instead of sitting on an extra bench, Chase wedged himself in and sat down, squeezing into the space between them, his back to Stephanie. He was so close to her, the inside of his outside thigh pressed up against the back of her butt.

  "Hi, Chase!" Stephanie brightened.

  "Stephanie, did you put milk in my locker?" If she couldn't lean on her friend, then she might as well get that other thing out of the way.

  "What?" Stephanie said.

  "Someone poured sour milk all over my books."

  Chase set his plate of food down on the table. Either he'd come up with some human money and purchased it from the cafeteria, or he'd just gone up and asked for some. The cafeteria would feed anyone, regardless of finances.

  It was one of the stipulations from the alumni donor who donated the money to build the gardens and refurbish the school into a more sustainable system: solar panels, tomatoes, and a healthy meal for everyone.

  Stephanie flushed bright red. "I didn't do that."

  "You're the only one who had the combination to my locker."

  "I let... I opened it for someone else."

  "Who?"

  Stephanie stared down at her hands.

  The table began to fill up with chattering students.

  "Stephanie, tell me the truth. Who?"

  "What will you do if you know the answer?" Chase asked. "Will you go get revenge? What will you do to punish them?"

  She had been trying to ignore him.

  The inside of his legs were pressed against her. The benches fit two comfortably – three was a tight squeeze. She didn't want to be there, but she also didn't want to move away. She didn't want to tell him to go away.

  She didn't know what she wanted from him.