Black Iris

by Leah Raeder

  “Who?”

  “Apollo.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Laney, do you know what Eclipse is?”

  I glanced again at the money clip.

  “It’s a secret society at Corgan. Most of them are members of Pi Tau. You know, rich kids, all-star athletes. It’s very prestigious. They recruit guys still in high school, groom them to become masters of the universe. If you’re tapped your life is pretty much set.” Josh sighed. “My dad was a member, so I am, too, but I hate it. A lot of them are bigots. They talk shit about gays, women, people of color. It’s like a locker room. Anyway, you make connections. Business, politics. Nothing outright evil, just sort of unethical. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. But they do some really messed up stuff, too. Hazing. Stuff that ends up hurting people. Innocent people.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What does any of this have to do with me?”

  “Apollo is the leader. And he hates girls like you.”

  “Girls like what?”

  “Girls who like other girls.”

  MARCH, THIS YEAR

  I found a dusty glass at the bar and brought it back to the circle. It felt like we were in the center of the Earth, far from the din of Umbra above.

  Long ago I’d decided my villainy would not extend to things like tying people to chairs, remote detonators, final countdowns, etc. Our feelings for each other were the only tools I needed to make this hurt.

  Well, and the gun. Just to make sure.

  “Armin,” I said, settling the .45 in my lap.

  “Truth.”

  “Good boy. When did you first meet Brandt Zoeller?”

  His teeth flashed in a grimace. “We don’t have to do it like this, Laney.”

  “But this is more fun. Don’t you agree, Blythe?”

  She looked troubled. It was rare to see her wrestling with something inwardly, something that didn’t simply explode from her in a burst of truth. What was I missing?

  “You already know,” Armin said.

  “But I want to hear you say it.”

  His teeth ground harder.

  “You seem tense. You need a drink.” I unscrewed the bottle, poured a finger of tequila into the glass. “Bottoms up, Apollo.”

  He downed it without hesitation.

  “Never take drinks from strangers,” I chided.

  “What’s in it?”

  “That’s not the drink you should’ve worried about.”

  He frowned at me, then at Blythe. She averted her face.

  “So,” I said. “We were discussing Zoeller.”

  “Laney, I didn’t know.”

  “Didn’t know what?”

  Veins bulged in his neck. An ugly pain kept twisting up his throat, creeping into his jaw, but he fought it back. “It was a mistake. I wasn’t myself. I’m sorry. I am so—”

  I stomped my foot, startling them both. “Give it a rest. This isn’t drama club. It’s AV club. Let’s watch a short film, boys and girls.”

  I played a video on my phone and tossed it onto the floor between us. It spun, tiny voices whirling from the tiny speaker. I’d seen it a hundred times.

  On the screen, a gangly teenage boy knelt before a man in a black robe. Candles, flickering shadows. This very same room we were in. The man in the robe wore a deep hood, his face a hole. He spoke in a familiar rasping voice. Initiate, your brothers charge you to swear a sacred oath . . .

  “Christ,” Blythe said, leaning closer.

  Armin didn’t look at the phone. His gaze locked with mine. “Turn it off. Let’s talk. I didn’t—”

  “Shhh. No spoilers.”

  The first boy was charged to score a blowjob from Blythe.

  The second boy was charged to have anal sex with Elle.

  The third boy was Zoeller.

  Blythe watched the screen, her eyes apocalyptic. Armin looked like a cornered animal.

  Initiate, the man in the robe said, your brothers charge you to swear a sacred oath of fealty beneath the umbra that darkens the sun. Will you pledge your shadow to us, brother?

  Zoeller looked up. Yes, my lord. How may I serve?

  The robed man paused. With the others his words had been stylized, scripted, but now a spasm of emotion racked him. Maybe he was responding to the zeal in Brandt’s eyes. He shed the formality.

  You’re young, initiate.

  Yes, my lord.

  Your father sent you to us early. He fears you are on a wayward path. The robed man shook his head. But I don’t see callowness. I see virility. I see strength.

  Zoeller bowed his head humbly.

  Show me that I’m not wrong, initiate. You will demonstrate what befalls liars and deceivers. Find a girl. Find one of those fucking dykes, one who denies it. Seduce her. Fuck her. Ruin her. Take everything from her, everything she cares about. Make her regret what she is. Do you understand?

  Zoeller’s eyes shone. Yes, my lord.

  Initiate, the robed man said.

  My lord?

  Make it hurt.

  The video ended.

  For a second none of us looked at each other. It was too much, this undoing.

  I made myself meet Armin’s eyes.

  His face was no different. Still the gentle, handsome boy I’d always known. But there were tears in those eyes now, a film of gold gel in the candlelight.

  “Armin,” Blythe said, then clenched her fists on her knees, shuddering, as if holding in a terrible violence.

  “When did you realize it was me?” I said. “The girl he found.”

  “Last year.” His words were thin and torn, falling apart in the air like cobwebs. He was a ghost of the man in the video. “Truth or dare. When you said his name.”

  “Did you suspect before then?”

  “Yes. But it could have been coincidence. I wanted it to be coincidence. More than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life, Laney.”

  “All of this was because of you,” Blythe snarled.

  “Because of you,” Armin shot back. “Because of what you did to me, Blythe. For an entire year. Behind my back, in front of my face.”

  “It was a fucking mistake. I can’t keep apologizing my whole fucking life.”

  “Who was the mistake, me or Elle?”

  “Bloody both of you. It doesn’t matter. It didn’t give you the right to do this.”

  “No, it made me crazy with pain. It made me do something I regret with all my heart.”

  “You don’t know what craziness is.”

  “I do. It’s love. I fucking loved you.”

  They were screaming at each other. I’d never heard Armin raise his voice like this.

  “Do you realize you told him to violate her?”

  “I was violated, Blythe. What you did to me, that was a violation. You betrayed me. Physically. Emotionally. With that lying snake, that disgusting—” He bit his tongue.

  She stared at him coldly. “So you told a bloody sociopath to hurt some random girl. This girl. My girl.”

  “Laney,” Armin said, his sudden quiet contrasting against Blythe’s fury, “what did Zoeller do to you?”

  Showed me I’m a monster.

  “Exactly what you told him to. Seduced me, fucked me.” I laughed. “He didn’t ruin me, though. I ruined myself.”

  They both grimaced, her indignant, him elegiac.

  “I’ll go to the police,” Armin said. “I’ll tell them everything. He can still be put away.”

  “For what?” I rocked back on my chair. “He never hurt me.”

  “The searches on my computer. Your symptoms—”

  “Come on, Armin. The Internet is a how-to guide for faking anything.” I balanced one shoe atop the other, jauntily. “It’s such a cliché. The damaged girl must have sexual trauma in her past, right
? Give me a break. Plot twist: there was no rape. I fucked Zoeller because I wanted to. I’m not sexually traumatized, I’m just messed up.”

  I scooted my chair closer with a screech. He jumped.

  “But you. You’re pretty messed up, too, aren’t you? You told a psycho to go after a queer. They have a legal term for that.” I pointed the gun at him like a blaming finger. “You made him target me because of what I am, not who I am. That’s a hate crime.”

  Blythe was breathing so hard I could hear it. A candle nearby stirred, lashing her with light.

  “I was out of my mind. It seemed like the whole world went crazy.” Armin’s voice was ruminative, the anger gone. He spoke now to Blythe. “Everyone sympathized with you. They called you brave. Your cheating was ‘brave’ because it was with a girl. It was okay that you hurt me because you were discovering yourself, and I was just a man, no one to take seriously. Another notch on your belt. I felt subhuman. Like you thought I deserved to be hurt because of what I am.” He met my eyes soberly. “So I made someone hurt you because of what you are. I couldn’t break the cycle.”

  Blythe snared her hands in her hair, ready to snap.

  “Jeez,” I said, my tone light. “Everyone looks so depressed. Let’s have a drink.”

  I filled the glass and took a long slug. Blythe next. When it came to Armin he stared at it.

  “What did you mean about not taking drinks from strangers?”

  “Smart boy. You’re learning.”

  “What is it you want me to do? Tell me, Laney. Anything.”

  “I don’t want you to do anything. I want you to feel.” I reached out, grazing his hand. “It’s going to hurt. I’ve been through it. Withdrawal feels like the worst depression you’ve ever known.”

  Armin frowned.

  “They call the comedown ‘Suicide Tuesday.’ My mother died on a Tuesday. It’s sort of fitting.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about chronic MDMA abuse and what happens when you quit cold turkey.”

  He stared at me, expressionless.

  I gestured with the gun. “Let’s review, class. Ecstasy unleashes a shit ton of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine into the brain. It makes you feel amazing. Awake, sensitive, turned on. In love with the whole world and everyone in it. Those neurotransmitters trigger the release of testosterone and oxytocin. Sex and love hormones, basically. You’ll say, ‘You make me feel high, Laney.’ Intoxicated. Pure, dizzying bliss. Like we’re some Adam and Eve in a dangerous paradise. Remember? You’ll drink anything I give you, because I’m the broken little doll who needs a big strong boy to fix her, and that feels so fucking good after Blythe dumped you for a girl. Sometimes when you fuck me, you’ll really be fucking her in your head. But that’s okay. I am, too.”

  Armin leaned away from me, the tension in his body slackening, becoming shock.

  “I got you up to three doses a week. MDMA dissolves in liquid, but leaves a bitter aftertaste. Red Bull isn’t really that nasty.” I shrugged. “Withdrawal is different for everyone, but your serotonin has been continually depleted for months. You’ve been growing more agitated, anxious, depressed between doses. You thought it was because of this secret guilt you’ve been nursing, but actually it’s science. Your neurochemistry is severely fucked, Armin. And it will be for a long, long time.”

  He was totally still. Only his chest moved. Shallow breaths. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”

  “It’s sick, but it’s no joke.” Every time I pointed at him with the gun, he flinched. “I wanted you to feel what it’s like when someone screws up your brain. I wanted you to feel the highs and the lows. Especially the lows. She’s dead because of you and Zoeller. You gave him the poison to put in her head. Now you have a literal taste of your own medicine.”

  “I didn’t know what he would do.”

  “You gave him the fucking pills. What did you think he’d do?”

  “I had no choice.” Armin looked at the glass trembling in his hands. “Zoeller threatened to tell Blythe everything. He would’ve hurt her, too. He doesn’t care who he hurts. He’s a rabid dog. I thought it’d be harmless. For most people, antidepressants are harmless.”

  I sat back in my chair. “So you got my mom killed so your ex-girlfriend wouldn’t find out you’re a homophobe. Un-fucking-believable.”

  “I’m not responsible for your mother’s death. It was tragic, and I’m deeply sorry, but she committed the act.”

  “I bet a court would see it differently.”

  “Do you want to take it there? Put us all on trial, including yourself?”

  I ignored his question. “You shoved a loaded gun in someone’s hands and said, ‘I’m not responsible if she pulls the trigger.’ ”

  “No one forced her. She needed serious help. She—”

  I knocked the glass from his hand with the gun. It burst on the floor, filling the air with honeyed musk. “You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to say what she needed. You don’t fucking know what it was like.”

  “I do know, Laney. I’ve seen Blythe when she’s rapid cycling. I bet she didn’t talk about that much. How many times I coaxed her down from the ledge, how many ‘doctor’s notes’ I wrote that could’ve cost my career if anyone questioned them. I know what it’s like to care for someone who isn’t always herself.”

  Blythe wasn’t looking at either of us. She held one fist to her mouth and bit her knuckles.

  “She’s always herself,” I said. “The illness is part of her. Part of us both. You will never understand that.”

  “I won’t argue with you. But in the end, it was your mother’s choice. Words and care can only do so much. That’s why you did this to me with chemicals, with God knows what. Laney, you could have killed me.”

  “Isn’t it beautiful when things come full circle?”

  “Why did you sleep with me?” His voice roughened. “You could have drugged me without any fake romance.”

  His pain made me feel strange. It made my pulse race, but not in the pleasurable way I’d hoped. It was the sick acceleration of nausea. “Seduce him,” I said doggedly. “Fuck him. Ruin him. Make it hurt.”

  Armin looked from me to Blythe, another wave of pain crashing through his face, breaking.

  “Blythe,” he whispered.

  She wouldn’t look at him.

  “Blythe, did you know she drugged me? Were you in on it?”

  “Don’t blame her,” I said. “No matter how she hurt you, it doesn’t excuse what you did.”

  “Did you plan it together? Get me high and fuck me so you could both break my heart?”

  “Shut up,” she snapped.

  “What?” I said, and Armin said, “Tell her.”

  Blythe’s face twisted, her fingers clawing at her knees.

  “Tell her.”

  “Tell me,” I said, softly.

  She turned her head. I knew her so well. She didn’t have to say it.

  “Blythe.” Keep breathing. Steady, even. “Truth or dare?”

  “Don’t.”

  “Truth or fucking dare.”

  “It didn’t mean anything. It was just—”

  “Fucking pick.”

  “Truth. Blythe, did you fuck him. Yes, Laney, I fucked him.” She hurled it at me like handfuls of broken glass. “Christ, I fucked him, okay?”

  “When?” My voice was oddly calm.

  “After you and me.”

  “When?”

  “Valentine’s.”

  Something tore in me, a tight, neat rip, deep inside.

  “How many times?”

  “Once. Once, I swear to God. It didn’t mean anything. I did it for you.” She laughed, gruesome. “I know how it sounds, but I hated it. I hated that you were with him instead of me. It made me sick, like swallowing poiso
n every day, black and vile. He’s so bloody infatuated with me he promised he’d stop seeing you if I slept with him. I was going mad. I could smell you on him. On his clothes, his skin. I wanted to kill you both.”

  “But you fucked him instead.”

  “Because I wanted you. That part of you that was in him. That part of you that belongs to me.”

  My mouth stayed shut but a door opened in my mind, and I went inside, closed it, and screamed.

  “And for what?” Blythe said, rounding on Armin. “You never stopped with her, you goddamn liar.”

  “I was in love with you both,” he said. “And you betrayed me. You’re the liars.”

  “Take a good look in the mirror, mate. Then go fuck yourself.”

  “Go fuck yourself, Blythe. You wonder why men become this way. Look what you did to me, after all I did for you.”

  “You never accepted that I couldn’t love you the way you loved me.”

  “I could’ve accepted it if you were honest. But you cheated, and lied, and twisted my mind into knots, and now I’m just as fucked-up as you two.”

  She stood and kicked her chair into the shadows.

  My insides were all mixed up. I felt queasy.

  “It’s over, Lane,” Blythe said. “Let’s just go.”

  I fixed my stare on a candle flame. “This is why you wouldn’t hurt him.”

  “I didn’t want to hurt him because we have a history, and it’s messy. It was just sex. It meant nothing.”

  “Your words mean nothing, you fucking cheater.”

  That torn place inside me burned, alcohol seeping into the wound. Valentine’s. After I’d gone home with him, because I missed her. Because I wanted to feel some tenuous connection to her through him.

  I should have known. No one really changes.

  “All that stuff about the police,” I said to Armin. “How I had to cut contact or she’d lose her visa. All lies. You wanted her for yourself.”

  “Exaggerations, not lies. And it was for her sake, not mine. I didn’t want her dragged deeper into our situation with Zoeller.”

  “You made me believe I was protecting her by giving her up, you selfish fuck.”

  Armin shook his head. “Do you realize how hypocritical this is, when you two were cheating on me?”