by S. J. Sylvis
Chapter Five
Madeline
Atticus. Atticus. Atticus.
All I had to do was find a guy who looked like his name was Atticus. Funny, because there wasn’t a single guy here who looked like he belonged to that name. What kind of name was that?! What was this? To Kill a fucking Mockingbird?!
I kept searching through the sea of people, annoyed that everyone around me was having the time of their life while I was just trying to find a faceless person so I could maybe, just maybe, get some fucking sleep.
Oh, and let’s not forget that prickling feeling I had at the base of my neck that someone was watching my every move.
Of course Eric would be here.
Because why would the universe be on my side for once?
It was karma. It had to be.
I pushed my hair behind my ear as I slid along the wall that felt sticky against my sweater, making sure not to touch the couple that was dry humping along with the beat of the music, and continued surveying faces of guys that looked like they sold drugs—as if that narrowed it down any.
My eyes scanned the crowd, my nose upturned as warm beer splashed out of a full-to-the-brim cup and landed on my Doc Martens. I hurriedly pushed the drunk girl away, an irritated breath leaving me quickly as I zeroed in on a guy leaning back onto a drab-looking couch with his two arms hitched up behind him as they rested on a pair of girls’ shoulders. He looked dirty. His hair was sticking to the sides of his head underneath a dark-gray beanie. He had those droopy, puppy-dog eyes that I’d recognized before. He was high. Bingo.
The second I stepped forward, I heard a voice. “Hey there, Maddie.”
I felt the widening of my eyes for a brief moment before I recovered, turning around to face Eric, who I’d hoped would just leave me alone. This was too important to get all wrapped up in his hot scowl.
“Leave me alone, Eric,” I said, rolling my eyes so hard into the back of my head that I was impressed.
Eric ran a hand through his messy, dark hair, throwing his head back in the process and letting out a deep chuckle. I watched with a slightly parted mouth as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. I clenched my jaw shut when he stopped laughing abruptly to stare at my lips.
His expression changed quickly. “Gonna tell me what you’re doing here?”
“Why do you care?” My arms found their way across my chest as I bounced on my feet.
Eric leaned against the sticky wall, the one that I was pretty sure had fuzz stuck to it from my sweater, lifting a shoulder slyly. “I’m just wondering why you keep showing up at the same places I’m at.” His eyebrow raised at the same time his jaw twitched. “Stalking me?”
A tight laugh escaped me. “As fucking if. I should be asking you the same.”
Now it was my time to act cool and nonchalant. We did seem to keep showing up at the same places at the same time, but I was certain they were total coincidences. Fate’s way of dangling something I wanted right in front of my face, knowing I would never, ever get it. I could be the last girl on this earth, and Eric wouldn’t dare touch me. I could see it on his face. It was clear the day I had casually told him his father had been fucking my mom for years. He hated me then, and he hated me now.
He grunted, pushing off the wall to stand way too close to me. I kept my face completely relaxed. “I’ve got shit to do, Eric. So, if you’ll excuse me.” I went to move around him, but he quickly dodged right in front of me, causing me to hit my face off his hard chest. I got a whiff of his cologne, and I almost went in for a second sniff. Eric smelled exactly how he looked: dark and mysterious with a little bit of spice.
He took a step back, peering down at me with that cocky grin. “Things to do? Or people to do?” He shrugged again, putting one hand in the pocket of his jeans. “I mean…” His tongue slowly swiped a line over his plump bottom lip, and I was beginning to sweat. “A girl like you? I can only assume it’s the latter.”
His words flipped me completely inside out. He wasn’t wrong. The Madeline he knew would fuck a random guy at a college party that she had no business being at, but that was before. That was before everything turned ugly.
“Get out of my way, Eric,” I managed to croak out, hoping like hell my voice didn’t break like I was breaking on the inside. He went willingly as I pushed against his chest. I swore I heard his laugh the entire time I walked over to who I assumed to be Atticus.
I gulped back my nerves and put on my mask of pure confidence. “Are you Atticus?” I asked, looking down at the guy on the couch cushions that looked as if they were going to swallow him and his two girlfriends whole.
His cheek lifted as he ran his lazy gaze down my body. Chills coated my arms, and the hair on the back of my neck stood erect. “I am. And…” He began sitting up, using the two girls’ knees as handles. “I’m going to bet you are Madeline.”
I nodded once as he stood peering down at me from his tall stature. He had to be at least six feet, if not more.
“Follow me,” he coaxed, grabbing onto my hand softly.
Alarm bells went off in every single crevice of my body, but I was too desperate to do anything about it.
I told myself not to let my guard down ever again, and here I was, following a strange guy up the stairs of some dirty frat house.
Pushing the fear away, I made sure to have one hand in my bag, holding onto my pepper spray I had put there months prior—just in case—and followed him anyway.
Once we climbed the flight of stairs, dodging a few couples making out, and rounded the line to the bathroom, Atticus stopped in front of a single door and slowly opened it.
He stood half in the hallway and half inside the room and barely flicked his head once for me to go inside.
A steady breath filled my lungs as I walked over the threshold, my hand slippery with sweat as I clutched onto the pepper spray even tighter.
Once the door latched behind me, my stomach dropped. It’s fine, Madeline. Breathe.
“So,” Atticus started, walking over to a small desk that was pushed up against the wall. “Ambien. That’s probably the weirdest request I’ve ever gotten for a drug.”
I ran my gaze around the room, staying quiet. It was a dark room with a deep-tan color all over with random posters of bands taped haphazardly around the space. There was a single bed in the middle of the room with messy covers and mix-matched books on the floor.
“I’m sure it was,” I finally answered, taking my gaze off the Pride and Prejudice novel and landing back on him. Atticus took his beanie off his head, throwing it onto the desk behind him, and ran his fingers through his long hair.
“Can I ask why?”
“Why what?” I stood near the door, my hand still inside my purse. I shuffled on my feet, ignoring the need to pull my skirt down. This is a normal guy, in a normal situation. Kind of...
He eyed my hand in my purse for a second before answering. “Why the need for sleeping pills?”
Oh. Thoughts of my dark room and hands that didn’t feel familiar started to creep in. It almost took my breath away. “No. You can’t ask.”
He chuckled, dropping his head. “Okay, fair enough.” He turned around and grabbed a small plastic baggie and dangled it in front of me. I almost ran over to him and wept at the sight of it, but he pulled it back within a second. “How are we doing this?”
A tight band squeezed my ribs. “Doing what?”
He gave me a skeptical look. “You didn’t think you were getting this for free, did you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course not.”
“Okay…” he dragged the word out. “So, are you paying cash or in another way?”
“Another way?” I asked cautiously.
He chuckled, and it sounded a lot like he was laughing at me. “Some girls pay in cash, and some pay…”—he glanced down at my mouth—“in other ways.”
Fuck. Don’t panic.
I straightened my shoulders and raised my chin. I inhaled through my nose before I let m
y words slice him. “The only way I will ever pay is in cash.”
He grinned. “Shame.”
My feet were urging me to back up. They wanted to drag me to the door and back outside to my car as Atticus crept forward. “It’ll be four hundred.”
I pulled back. “Four hundred?!” I stuttered over my words. “That’s, like, triple the price of what I paid Sky!”
He shrugged, throwing his hand out. “It’s not exactly easy to get my hands on something so unusual. Take it or leave it…or pay me in a different way.” He winked, and I almost threw up.
This fucking guy.
I reached into my purse with force, pulling out all the cash I had—which wasn’t four hundred dollars. Then, I all but snapped, “What’s your app name? I’ll wire the rest.”
He held out his hand, and I thrusted my phone into it. He typed something quickly, and I paid him the rest of the money.
Atticus handed the bag to me, letting his finger swipe the inside of my palm before I snatched it back and stepped into the hall. I quickly shoved the bag into my purse.
“Hit me up when you want some more. I put my number in your phone.” I didn’t so much as even nod at him before I was rushing down the stairs and weaving through the party.
I got what I had come for, and now it was time to get the fuck out before I had a panic attack at the mere look from another guy.
Chapter Six
Eric
Madeline went upstairs with some dude who looked like he snorted cocaine for fun, and even though I told myself not to care, I did anyway.
I fucking hated her. I hated her so much because I couldn’t hate her. I hated that, years later, after watching her turn into an uppity, imperious girl who bullied her way to the top, I still got a twinge of jealousy knowing she was with someone else.
I’d tricked my mind in the past, ignoring the way her hand would wrap around my best friend’s arm, looking the other way when he’d nip at her ear, but there was absolutely no way I was tricking my heart or my dick. Both had a mind of their own, and they weren’t so easily swayed.
Regardless, I did what I did best, and I pushed back on every single feeling flying through my body, and I went numb. I don’t care. I don’t care about anything.
I swung my arm back and dropped another sinker into the cup across from me.
“My boy is on fucking fire!” Jesse slapped my back, pointing at the duo in front of us. “Did you hear that? I said he’s on fire!”
“Yeah, we fucking heard you. You’re three feet away from us,” one of his frat brothers slurred. Jesse and I were obviously very good at pong, and they weren’t. They’d drank almost all of the cups on their end, and sadly, Jesse and I had both only had one cup each.
One cup of beer didn’t even put a single dent in my mood. I needed much more alcohol if I wanted to feel even the slight tingle of a buzz.
After we’d won the game, I started to rearrange the cups again, waiting for the next team to demolish. I glanced up at the stairs for the fifteenth time in three minutes and gritted my teeth.
There she was.
Fucking finally.
I assessed her hair, seeing if it was messy in that I-just-got-fucked type of way. Her clothes were on straight, her sexy-as-sin fishnet tights still tight on her legs. I found her lips to be normal-looking and not all red and swollen from rough kissing.
She looked okay physically, but the way her shoulders were crowding her ears, and how she was pushing and shoving people all while holding onto her purse like it was her lifeline to flee to the door, had my suspicions rising.
Madeline, the ever-so-poised girl who was consistently on her A game, never backing down from a fight, was running. If I wasn’t mistaken, she even looked a little scared.
I looked to the stairs and back to Madeline a few times before deciding I’d rather go after her than beat the fuck out of some guy who may not have deserved it.
For all I knew, Madeline was the one who did something wrong. Not him. She had a way of skewing things to benefit herself.
“I’ll be back, bro,” I said to Jesse. “Have this pretty little thing”—I grabbed onto a girl’s hand, the one that kept staring at me and batting her sparkling green eyes in my direction, and pulled her in close—“take my spot.” I smiled at her. “You’ll do me proud, right?”
She giggled, her cheeks reddening in the process. “Sure. As long as you’ll reward me in the end.”
I winked. “You betcha.”
Then, I rounded her cute self and caught up to Madeline just as she was descending the front steps of the frat house. There was a bite to the evening air as I stepped right in line with her. “Where ya off to, Maddie?”
She froze, her back going ramrod straight on the sidewalk littered with empty beer cans. “Quit calling me that, Eric.”
Then, she took off again, her round ass in that stupid fucking skirt catching my attention as I stayed put. I tore my eyes away after a few seconds and followed after her, eager to know why she was running off so fast.
“What was that all about?” I asked, tilting my head to the party behind us. “Did you really come here just to fuck someone?” I laughed under my breath, hating the way being around her made me feel like I was constantly trying to win her attention. “I mean, I know you can’t get any dick at English Prep or, fuck, even Wellington Prep... But to come here and pick the scummiest looking guy? You’ve really lowered your standards.”
We were at her car now, my Rover parked just a few spaces up from hers. She swung around quickly, a raging fire in her eyes that set me off inside. “What do you want, Eric? Go back inside and get fucked up. Do whatever it is you like to do. Just leave me the fuck alone. I am so sick of you following me around like a lost puppy and getting into my shit! Why won’t you just leave me be?”
My teeth ground back and forth as I watched her pretty little mouth spout off to me before I leveled her with a glare. “I told you months ago. Don’t you remember?”
She rolled her eyes before looking through her purse for her keys. “Oh, right,” she gritted out, glancing up at me once with those light eyes. “It’s on now, Princess.” She went back to ignoring me as her hand started to move faster inside her purse. She mumbled under her breath a few times before dropping her shoulders. She quickly spun around and peered inside her car window. “Fucking shit. Of course.” She looked up at the sky and groaned before slapping the window.
“Lock your keys in your car?”
She shot me a steely glare, which only made me laugh. “Why do you care?”
“Oh,” I mused, putting my hands in my jeans pockets casually. “I don’t care, even in the slightest. Have fun getting home. Maybe you can ask that guy you went upstairs with to give you a ride.”
I fought to keep the lazy smile on my face.
As soon as I mentioned the other guy, Madeline’s face changed. She went from angry to blank in three seconds fast. I narrowed my eyes, wondering what had gone on upstairs.
Who cares, Eric? Go back inside.
I dropped my eyes to her purse, bouncing my attention to her eyes that were showing absolutely nothing, and noticed how her small hand clutched it closer to her body. She teetered back and forth on her feet, adjusting her skirt a few times, darting her eyes away before my lazy smile turned into a wicked grin.
The loose pebbles underneath my shoe creaked as I took a step closer to her. Madeline wouldn’t meet my gaze. Instead, she looked to the left, pressing her purse even tighter to her stomach. I almost laughed, wondering if she was going to go as far as shoving it up underneath her cream sweater to hide it. “So, what exactly were you doing upstairs...Madeline?”
My shoe touched hers, and she pushed back onto the side of her car, her back resting flat against the window. I invaded her space, my breath falling down in between us. Her head tipped upward, her pretty eyes locked onto mine, and for once, they appeared soft. She appeared soft. Delicate. Breakable, even.
It was a shame that I was a
bout to break her.
And girls like Madeline? They deserved to be broken.
One of my fingers swept a stray hair away from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. A minty, faint breath gracefully fell from her lips as I tipped her chin up. “Did you fuck him, Madeline?”
Her mouth slammed shut, and I laughed, snatching her purse out of her arms so fast she didn’t even have time to react.
“Hey!” she shouted, reaching out.
I quickly turned around and jolted to the front of her car, tipping her purse out onto the hood, letting the contents fall swiftly.
“Eric, no! Stop!” she yelled, attempting to push me away, which, of course, didn’t work.
Madeline tried to scramble and put things back to where they belonged, but her gasp had my smile fading. “No, no, no,” she mumbled, falling to pick something up.
I glanced down and saw small pink pills scattered all over the road, some even falling into the storm drain that was just a foot away from where I was standing. I moved back, accidentally stepping on a few in the process.
Drugs? That was what she went upstairs for? It all made sense now. The exhaustion I saw on her face every day at school. The hanging around at the street races last month with the homely looking chick. Shit.
Madeline was doing drugs.
“So that’s why you went upstairs?” I asked, crossing my arms over my t-shirt. “To buy drugs?”
Madeline ignored me completely. She was on the ground, picking up half-dissolved pills that had fallen onto the still-wet road from the quick rain shower that came through. She glanced up at me, a mixture of emotions on her face. “Do you fucking know how much I just spent on these?” Her head fell quickly when her eyes grew watery.
My breathing had picked up as I watched her on the ground in her stupid tights, getting all torn and dirty, holding back tears. She flipped around, sitting on the wet asphalt, and brought her knees up to her chin, resting her back along the front of her car. Her hands came up and covered her face as her shoulders shook.
Oh my fuck.