Beautiful Beast

by Cindy C. Bennett

  “You’re not joining me?” she asked when they came out to the hot tub and he made no move to join her.

  “I wasn’t the one who didn’t stretch properly,” he said.

  “And you don’t do anything for pleasure, right?” she teased.

  He looked off into the distance. “Not often,” he admitted.

  Calli was stunned. She hadn’t been serious.

  “Well, that’s just sad,” she said. He looked at her and she grinned. “C’mon, put your feet in at least.”

  He didn’t answer, and she could see the battle raging in his eyes. Suddenly it occurred to her that the deformity of his face probably didn’t end there. He walked with a slight limp, so there was likely something similar on his leg.

  “Alex,” she said, all teasing gone from her voice. “Please don’t . . .” Don’t what? Be afraid to trust her? Be afraid she’d laugh at him when he knew she came once before for that very purpose? Not sure how to finish her sentence, she changed her tact. “I’ll make you a deal.”

  “What kind of deal?” He was suspicious.

  “You put your feet in the water, and I’ll tell you why I was here that night, when you chased me.”

  He looked ready to refuse, but curiosity got the better of him. He untied his shoes, slipping them off. Then, not looking at her, he pulled his socks off, and finally pulled his pant legs up just above his knees. A thick, ropey looking scar ran in a wide strip from the side of his knee and down the side of his calf. It wasn’t that bad. She’d seen worse.

  He sat on the cement edge, lowering his feet into the water. He didn’t say anything, and she got the feeling he was ashamed of the scar. It wasn’t nearly as bad as what was on his face, which she looked at all the time, so she wasn’t sure why he was so ashamed.

  “So,” she began, looking at him, compelling him to look at her. If she was going to confess, she wanted to make sure she was looking right at him. When he brought his eyes to hers, she continued. “I was with a group of friends, and one of them proposed we go to Mon—we come here.”

  “Say it,” he said, low.

  She took a breath. She wouldn’t insult him further by pretending not to know what he meant.

  “Monster House,” she said. He blanched, and she realized how incredibly cruel the name was. Her shame ran deep, and she wished she could take back every single time she’d thought the name, or said it aloud. “I’m so sorry, Alex. I’m as big a jerk as all of them.”

  “Well, aren’t you the lucky one who gets to see the monster up close.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “I am.” She was sincere in her words. “Alex, if you’d just let people—”

  “You said you’d tell me why,” he interrupted.

  Calli blew out a breath. She told him the whole story, beginning to end—or at least the end where she tripped and hit her head. She didn’t leave anything out, other than naming her friends. He was quiet when she finished, and she moved to sit next to him on the ledge. She looked at him, at his melted face, wanting to ask him how he’d been so injured. Somehow, she didn’t think he’d want to tell her of all people.

  “Alex, I know saying I’m sorry doesn’t help. But I really am.” She bumped his shoulder with hers, the one way she felt safe touching him. He finally looked at her. “I kinda think of you as a friend, now. And I would never do anything to hurt my friend.”

  His eyes searched hers, and she realized that they were a very dark brown. She hadn’t noticed the color before. Apparently he decided to believe her, because he nodded.

  “What about your friends? They left you behind.”

  Calli shrugged. Honestly, it hurt that they had, that none of them had stepped forward when she was being bribed by Mr. Stratford.

  “Would you mind sitting on my other side?” he asked.

  “Sure. Why?” she couldn’t help but ask.

  “I can see you better from my left eye. And hear better from that side, also.”

  She stood in the tub and walked in front of him, climbing back up to sit on the opposite side—the side from which she could convince herself he was completely normal. And gorgeous, at that.

  “Please don’t tell me you didn’t hear any of that, and I’m going to have to repeat it all again. One confession a day is enough.” She infused her words with long-suffering and sarcasm. He got the joke and grinned at her.

  “I didn’t hear the ‘I’m sorry’ part, maybe you could repeat that part.”

  Calli laughed at him and leaned down to throw a handful of water on him.

  “Hey,” he complained. “I’m dressed.”

  “Then wear your suit next time,” she said. Instead of responding, he splashed her back, and soon he was as soaked as she was.

  * * * * *

  Calli was surprised to see Alex in the dining room the next morning. Even though she was stiff, she had slept well on the cotton sheets and been able to use the shower—which felt like standing under a heavenly, warm rainstorm—and therefore was in a much better mood.

  “Hey, Alex,” she said. “Nice to know you’re human.”

  He looked askance at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I haven’t seen you eat before.” She indicated his plate which held two eggs and a piece of toast. “I was wondering if your diet was something hideous that couldn’t be witnessed by outsiders.” She took her own filled plate and sat next to him—on his left side. “Don’t all monsters eat little babies and stuff?” She held her breath, wondering if he’d allow the teasing.

  He didn’t say anything for a few moments, and she feared she’d gone too far. Then he shrugged and said, “Not babies, just potential baby chickens.” He pointed to the eggs with his fork.

  Calli laughed and butted him with her shoulder. “I knew you had a funny bone somewhere in there, Alex.” He smiled.

  “Wanna see something cool today?” he asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” she said.

  “I’ll show you after lunch.”

  “Wow,” she said. “Eating human food and cutting school. You’re full of surprises.”

  “The new computer is being delivered after lunch. Palmer will be completely obsessed and consumed by that. We’ll just make another appearance right before his going home time and he won’t even know we were gone.”

  “Yay for technology geeks,” she said. Her tone was light, but she was extremely curious about what he’d show her.

  * * * * *

  Alex wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing. He thought maybe he’d been so long without a friend or companion outside of his school tutor that made him a bit reckless where Calli was concerned. He didn’t know if he could completely trust her, and yet here he was, doing just that.

  Nerves got the best of him during their morning lessons. Luckily Palmer was distracted enough by the idea of a new computer coming that he didn’t notice. He thought Calli noticed a little, but she didn’t say anything.

  They had lunch with Palmer as usual, though he was completely distracted. Then finally the computer came and Alex waved Calli to the door.

  “We’ll be back,” he said to Palmer.

  “Yeah, um. . . okay. Wait, what?” His words were followed by a wave in their general direction as he turned back to the computer, mumbling to himself.

  “Where we going?” Calli asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  He led her up to the top floor where her room was. Once there, he took her to the back of one of the hallways and opened a closet. He shoved the coats in the closet to the side, revealing a door at the back. He glanced back at her, saw that she was curious but didn’t seem suspicious. Kinda weird. He’d be suspicious if someone led him into a closet.

  He reached up to the low ceilinged light and pushed a button on the side, popping the lock on the door. It opened just a bit, and he pushed it further.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she said, stepping forward.

  “Stay close. It’s kind of dark on the
stairs.”

  She stepped into the closet and he pushed the closet door closed behind her. Once that door closed, the closet light went out. She immediately reached out and placed a hand on his back. Alex drew a breath. He hadn’t thought about that, that she’d need contact to follow him.

  He started up the stairs that he knew as well as the back of his hand. She followed behind. At step ten, she stumbled and Alex cursed under his breath. He’d forgotten to warn her about the warped tenth step. Habit had caused him to step over the upturned lip. He reached back to help her, finding her arm. He slid his hand down to hers, wrapping his fingers around her palm. She immediately gripped his hand back. He tried to ignore the sensation of having her hand bound so tightly to his own. It meant nothing, right?

  “Thought you said kind of dark,” she said, a little nerve quivering in her voice now. “I personally would call this pitch.”

  Alex chuckled. “Sorry. I’ve been going up these stairs for a long time. I forget how dark it is. I could find my way with my eyes closed.”

  “Of course you could. It’s the same with your eyes closed or open.”

  Alex smiled into the darkness. Calli was pretty funny, he was finding. At the top of the steps, he stopped and she bumped into him.

  “Sorry,” they both said at the same time.

  “Jinx, you owe me a Coke,” she quickly said.

  “What?”

  “You know, when you say something the same time as someone else, you call jinx then they owe you something.”

  “And you choose to be owed a Coke?”

  He felt the slight uplift of her hand, and assumed it came from a shrug. “Sure, why not?”

  He didn’t answer, assuming it to be a redundant question. He found the door handle and pushed it open. Muted light flooded the stairwell. To Alex’s surprise, she didn’t let go of his hand. He led the way out of the darkness into a long, narrow hallway to opposite direction from which they’d come.

  “What is this?” she breathed.

  “There’s . . . nothing . . . in these rooms,” he said, hoping she didn’t catch his hesitation over the lie. “It’s what’s at the other end of the hallway that I wanted to show you.”

  “Lead the way,” she said.

  He did just that, retaining his grip on her hand. The doors to all the rooms were closed, the light coming in from high, small rectangular windows near the ceiling. At the end, he reached up and took a key from above the doorframe. He had to release her hand to unlock the door as it was a bit sticky. He got it open, and stood back for her to step through.

  She stepped out and gasped, turning back to him with a look of amazement on her face. Alex was relieved. He’d been afraid she would think it stupid.

  * * * * *

  Calli couldn’t believe the view. She could see the entire town from here. She’d never seen it from above like this. To her, Orchid had always been small, dingy, and something like hell on earth. But from here, it was full of color. The trees were changing in the fall weather, painting the town shades of red, yellow, green, and orange. The streets laid out in a nice, square pattern. Town hall, the bank, and a couple of the churches stood tall and proud above the tree line. What she had always thought of as a definite line between her side of town and the rich side of town was blurred from here.

  “Alex! This is amazing.”

  He stood behind where she leaned against the railing. The entire viewing area was small. Five or six people would crowd it and be shoulder to shoulder. The roof came out on both sides of the deck, the only open area opposite the door where she now stood. It was more of a cove than a deck.

  “I can see why you come up here,” she said. She looked back at him. He slid down to the ground, stretching his legs out in front of him.

  “Yeah, it’s a good place for me.”

  Something in his tone caught her attention and she moved to sit next to him. She noticed he sat against the right wall so she could only sit on his left side.

  “What do you mean by that?” she asked.

  He looked down at his hands, tapping his thumbs softly together as if debating. Finally, so quietly she almost didn’t hear him, he said, “No one can see me here, but I can see everything.”

  Calli bit her lip. “You mean you can hide here.”

  His eyes flicked up to hers for a brief second. He nodded.

  “That other thing, at sunset . . .” She hesitated. Would he tell her? She supposed he wouldn’t if she didn’t ask. “Why do you do that?”

  He didn’t say anything. He reached over and took her hand, pulling it into his on his lap. He cocked one eyebrow as he looked sideways at her, as if asking if it was okay. Suddenly it occurred to her that he probably hadn’t ever held anyone’s hand, and her heart constricted. She smiled and bumped her shoulder against his before leaning her head on his shoulder, looking out over her town.

  “Sunset is the worst time of day for me,” he said slowly. “It’s the time of day that the accident happened.”

  Calli forced herself to stay in place when she really wanted to gasp, stare at him and demand more information. What was he talking about? Instead, she twisted her hand in his, tangling their fingers together, and placed her free hand over top, sandwiching his hand between hers.

  “My mom, my sister . . .” He shuddered. “The fire was too intense. I couldn’t get to them. It should have been me. Not them.”

  His voice was filled with sorrow and self-recrimination. Calli tried to reason his words. Then, as if someone had flipped the light bulb on in her brain, she began to get a picture. Just him and his father living here, his face that appeared melted, the sadness that always seemed to shadow him. She’d seen scars like his before, on other burn victims. Not in Orchid, of course, but on TV and in photos. In her mind she saw a picture of a blazing fire and Alex trying to get into whatever was burning to rescue his mom and sister, and failing.

  “They were . . . burned?” she asked.

  “I couldn’t get to them,” he repeated. “I tried, Calli, I swear I did. If I hadn’t screwed around with my friends after school. If I had just gone straight home I might have been able to get them out before it started. If I had . . .”

  His hand tightened in hers. She wanted to glance up at him, but didn’t want him to see the tears of grief and pity that filled her eyes. She did the math in her head. It had to happen before they’d moved here or everyone would know about it. They’d been here eight years, he was seventeen, and certainly some time had to have passed between that and their moving to Orchid.

  “Alex, you were, what, like seven, eight years old? An eight year old can’t be responsible for something like that.”

  When he remained silent she looked up at him. His jaw clenched, lips pulled tight, a mixture of grief and guilt coloring his expression.

  She turned around so she faced him, and placed her hands on both sides of his face. He flinched as she touched the damaged side, whether from pain or something else she didn’t know. But she felt strongly that if she removed her hand, there would be no going back.

  “Alex, look at me.” He brought anguished eyes to hers. “You were a little boy. What could you possibly have done if you’d been there?”

  He opened his mouth, then clamped it shut again. “Alex,” she said, pleading. Suddenly he sat forward and wrapped his arms around her. He leaned into her, laying his forehead against her shoulder. She put her arms around his broad shoulders and he turned his head, burying his face in her neck. She tightened her hold on him and he reciprocated. Her heart cracked at the burden Alex carried. She couldn’t imagine why he carried the guilt. On top of that he carried the physical evidence of his failure, the evidence that kept him from living a normal life, that made him something to be stared at and mocked. To be called monster. And she had been part of that. She thought that at this moment her self-recrimination might just match Alex’s.

  They sat that way for a long time. Calli thought she could sit there forever and hold him if it woul
d help ease his pain at all.

  Finally he released her. “We should go back in,” he said, not meeting her eyes. She nodded. He stood and held out a hand to help her up. He locked the door behind them, and led the way back down the hall. She stepped into the stairwell and waited while he closed the door behind them. He pushed past her, taking her hand and leading her silently back down the stairs and into the closet. He immediately dropped her hand once he opened the closet and they were back in the light.

  They returned to Mr. Palmer, Alex still not saying anything. Calli felt he was probably feeling vulnerable. Just before Mr. Palmer left, Alex slipped from the room, still without a word. Not surprisingly, he didn’t join them for dinner.

  * * * * *

  Saturday morning, Alex watched from his private cove as Calli climbed into the cab that his father had called for her. She glanced backward once, as if searching. She looked up toward the cove. Alex knew she couldn’t see him. Her shoulders slumped and she climbed into the yellow car.

  Alex was angry with himself for telling her what he had, for allowing her to see that side of him that he hid even from his father. He’d been reserved with her the rest of the week in spite of her attempts to tease him out of his mood.

  He’d never admit it, but he dreaded the next two days without her.

  * * * * *

  Calli knew she should be relieved to be home. After all, hadn’t she negotiated for this? But as she stepped into her small, dingy house her spirits fell. Her father snored in his room. She knew that snore. He’d gone drinking last night.

  She walked into her room and looked around. This had been her room her whole life. So why did she suddenly feel like a visitor, that her room was up on the hill? The room she’d only been in for five days.