by Ruby Scott
Afterwards, we lay together, panting. I felt each puff of air against my bare shoulder.
The anxiety was gone. I trusted Christian, I found in those moments between pleasure and coming back to the real world. I reached out and stroked a hand over his arm, reveling in the pure power that was contained in his arms.
“What are you thinking about?” Christian asked, his voice heavy with sleep. I considered telling him about the trust I had no placed in him, but I felt as if that would ruin the moment.
I narrowed my eyes, trying to think of an adequate answer. I wanted to give him my trust, my reassurance that we would be together through this entire ordeal, no matter what. I wanted to let him know that I would be able to give him the support he needed and that I would not run away. I knew what I wanted now, and I wasn’t afraid to announce it to the world, tightly controlled schedule be damned.
Then it came to me. I smiled, letting it spread across my face slowly as I looked up at him. The early morning light turned him a sort of bronzed color that reminded me of something precious. I placed a hand on his chest and leveled myself upright so that I would be looking at him right side up instead lopsided.
“I was wondering,” I said grinning, “when I can fly again.”
Christian looked at me for a few moments, his brow crinkled. Then it smoothed as understanding hit. He grinned and pulled me back down onto his chest, and I nestled there, feeling completely at peace for the first time in my life. “You can fly anytime you want.”
THE END
© Copyright 2015 by Maya Grey - All rights reserved.
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Forbidden Badass
by Maya Grey
I went to college for the parties. It wasn’t because of the school or the ‘possibilities to expand my horizons’ as our guidance counselors told us in high school. I wanted to go to the best universities for the parties. When we were looking through college applications, I would always search the surrounding area on the online maps to see how many clubs were nearby.
I had been a good girl most of my life. Mom had never had any troubles with me. When other children ran away in protest of some unfair treatment, I was always running to my room to hide. While thirteen year-old girls were kissing their crushes, I had my nose buried in a generic Christian novel. Even in high school, when the shorts started getting shorter and the tops got lower, I was still wearing my t-shirts and jeans. It made me unpopular, but I hadn’t realized how unpopular I was until I got a slap in the face of winning ‘the generic virgin’ prize in sophomore year.
I had opened my eyes for the first time to the stuff on the dangerous side. The kind of things like sex, violence and drugs. I’d kept up the act at home, speaking softly and not laughing at anything unless it was completely appropriate, but at school I changed clothes and put on dark makeup.
By senior year, I’d gotten high multiple times and had slipped vodka into the prom punch. So, of course, I wanted the lifestyle to continue. It was so much better being bad. Being good had taken up so much of my time that I hadn’t even realized what I was missing.
Of course, I hadn’t known that Peter would be going to the same school.
“Meredith,” Mom said, huffing as she set down a box. “You could help, you know.”
I sighed and thought about snapping at her, but I just didn’t have it in me to see that same disappointment in Mom’s eyes as when she looked at Peter. I was still her little girl at heart, I supposed. “Of course,” I said instead, going to the trunk of the Toyota Corolla to pick up a box full of my clothes. “If you want to just leave these here and go back upstate, I’ll live.”
“Nonsense,” Mom said, shaking her head. Some of her auburn hair had escaped from the low ponytail she’d tied her hair into and the wisps framed her thin face like a curtain. I squinted at her. Had she lost weight again? We all had our vices, in this family. Mine was the thrill of being bad, hers was not eating. She looked up at me, and I quickly glanced away, realizing that asking her questions would only make her turn the cold shoulder.
“Thanks.”
We carried the boxes up into the dorms. Luckily, I was on the first floor, so we didn’t have to huff and puff our way up the many sets of stairs the student dorms sported, and it went fairly quickly.
Mom didn’t get teary-eyed as most parents would upon finding that there were no more boxes and that it was time to say goodbye. She simply nodded, as if this were a common occurrence and that she was very used to it. “I guess I’ll see you at thanksgiving?” she asked.
I grinned at her. “Don’t cry, Mom,” I told her, letting a bit of sarcasm slip into my voice as I addressed her. Another thing our family was famed for was our inability to deal with emotions properly. “It’ll be here before you know it.”
She gave me the sort of half hug that most strangers give each other, and a reassuring smile to match. I’m not sure if she was trying to reassure me or herself, though. Before I could decide, she turned away and went to the car, turning it on. I stood on the curb like the good daughter I pretended to be and waved at her as she left. I’m not sure if she even bothered to look in the rearview mirror to see if I was still there or not.
###
“You’ve got to be joking,” I hissed, crumpling the papers in my hand. The receptionist with the bottle glass glasses blinked at me, her eyes owlish and larger than life.
“Pardon?” she asked. She was from the west coast, then. Only people from California and Oregon said ‘pardon.’
“Are you positive that a Peter Cavanaugh checked in?”
She nodded, curls bouncing furiously. “He’s not one I’d forget,” she said, grinning as if she were conspiring with me. I looked away in disgust. All women fell for that douchebag, even though they knew that he was such an asshole right from the start. Was I the only one to resist his charms?
“Of course not,” I sighed. “Thank you.” I held up my crinkled class schedule and gave her a tight smile, backing away and wondering how I was going to deal with Peter being here. Mom and David had been married ever since I was ten, and I’d had to put up with Peter for nine of those. Since he was two years older than me, I’d escaped his wrath for my Junior and Senior years, but now it looked like I would have to deal with him all over again.
Peter. With his winning smile and crooked teeth that would have looked utterly ridiculous on nearly anyone else, he was very popular among the females. They always fell head over heels for him within moments of meeting him, and while I could see the outer charm that drew them in initially, I wasn’t sure what kept them interested after they found out that his beauty did not extend inward. The man had a soul made of pure black tar that oozed through the cracks.
Of course, as if I had been invoking him with my thoughts of him, I had to run straight into him. I bounced off of the chest of a muscular male and let out a sound of surprise, my lips opening to give a quick apology before hurrying on my way to make sure that I didn’t embarrass myself before I’d even made a good reputation and met a few people.
When I glanced up, however and saw those turquoise eyes squinting down at me, I blinked in surprise and then again in irritation. “You,” I snarled. “You have the audacity to come to the same school that I picked without even letting me know?”
Peter blinked at me for several moments and I realized that his eyes were blank. He didn’t even recognize me. Had I really changed that much? I’d made it gradual so that Mom didn’t freak out and think that I was turning out just like Peter, but I did suppose that I looked much different now. With my low black burnout top layered over a blood-red lace crop top and jeans that showed flashes of skin wh
en I let them fall down too far mixed with my dyed black hair and nose piercing, I could see why he was confused. Gone was the button-up plaid shirt-wearing, brown haired version of myself.
“April?” he asked incredulously after a few moments.
“Ding, ding, ding and we have a winner!” I realized that I was being too loud as people glanced over at me in surprise. I lowered my voice slightly and grinned at my older stepbrother. “Long time no see, asshole.”
He gave me a thorough once-over in a totally inappropriate way for being related to me—sort of—and I crossed my arms over my chest protectively. “April,” he said again. I raised an eyebrow as his gaze finally wandered up from my chest, back to my eyes. “What the hell happened to you? You look as if you’ve been dip-dyed in a bucket of Goth.”
“It’s not Goth,” I said, bristling. “I wear plenty of blue and purple and orange as well. And my jeans are blue. B-L-U-E not black, so cut it with the Goth crap. I already hear it enough from everyone else.”
Peter grinned. “Hit a nerve, did I?”
Damn him and his ability to instantly get a rise out of me. Not even two complete sentences had come out of his mouth and yet I was already up in arms and ready to hit him in the face. People always told us that we fought like an old married couple, and I always snapped at them that he was my stepbrother.
I shook my head and turned away from him. “You will stay as far away as humanly possible away from me,” I commanded, pointing a finger at him over my shoulder.
“Or what, you’ll paint my fingernails black?”
“B-L-U-E,” I enunciated, holding up my neon blue fingernails for him to see. I didn’t glance back to see the look of smug satisfaction he no undoubtedly had on his face at the moment.
I already knew exactly what it would like.
When I walked into my dorm room, I was not in the mood for meeting my new roommate that I would be spending the remainder of the year with. However, she was there all the same.
A tiny thing made of effervescent blond hair that seemed to float around her like a curtain, she grinned up at me. Her eyes were incredible, and I was instantly envious of the cat-like tilt of the glowing green orbs. “You must be April.”
I nodded, still trying to calm my rising anger at Peter. “Yeah, that’s me.”
“I’m Catherine,” she said. “Call me Cat for short.”
Ironic. I took her outstretched hand, and she pumped it up and down enthusiastically a few times. “I totally dig your hair,” she said, motioning to the neon streaks that stood out against the inky black. I decided that I liked her already.
“Thanks,” I said. “So what year are you?”
“Sophomore. They stuck me in the same room as last year, but my roommate switched out.”
Uh-oh. “Why?” I asked, my tone a bit too suspicious for it to be polite. Cat just laughed at me, flashing silver molars in the back of her teeth.
“She said I went to too many parties and she had to get up to let me in all the time.”
Now this is what I’m talking about. My hard work of convincing Mom that this would be the best school to go to was finally paying off. I was getting what I had come here to find. “Parties?” I asked, a smile pulling at the corners of my lips.
“Tons of them. We always go to the Friday night parties down at the local club, Virtuosity.” She winked at me, flashing a golden, glittery lid that reminded me of gold leafing. “Fake I.D.s get you everywhere.”
I let out a laugh. “You and me are going to get along really well,” I told her. “Who are your friends?”
“You’ll meet them later if you come to dinner with me,” she said, waving me off with a perfectly manicured hand. She didn’t look like the partying type, but her attitude more than made up for it.
“Will do,” I said, looking around the room. She’d already unpacked, and I could tell just from her belongings that she came from a well-to-do family. That wall hanging probably cost more than my entire outfit I’d bought for sale at Hot Topic.
My side would look pathetic compared to hers, but I found that I didn’t really care. She had already tossed her newest iPhone model onto the bed as if it were a brick and completely unbreakable, so I figured that she didn’t really care either.
After all, if she were such a well-to-do girl, she wouldn’t be sneaking into over-twenty-one clubs anyways. “Do you have an I.D?” she asked, and it took me a moment to return to the present.
“Yeah,” I said, patting my wallet that was shoved in the back pocket of my jeans. “I have two; one for New York and the other for Pennsylvania. My friends and I would always leave town—and the state.”
Cat raised her eyebrows and let out a soft whistle. “Your mom never found out?”
“I don’t know if she would do anything if she did,” I said, and it came out much more bitterly than I had originally planned. “My older stepbrother kind of made it impossible to do anything worse.” Arrested four times on different charges, in the hospital twice for almost-overdoses; once on cocaine and the other on heroine. On top of all of that, he would buy and sell prescription drugs at our old school to make some cash to feed his drug habits; he stole everything else he didn’t buy. Of course, I didn’t tell her that. I simply said, “He was the rebel of the family.”
She looked me once over. “Sorry to say, but if you’re the good girl, I’m scared to meet him.”
“Oh, you just might,” I said dully, brushing hair from my face. “He’s a junior here.”
“I might already know him. What’s his name?”
“Peter,” I spat. It was more of a curse than an actual name, but I didn’t care. “Peter Cavanaugh.”
Alarm flickered in her eyes. “Are you talking about Peter as in the honors student who is popular with all of the athletic coaches?” she asked.
I laughed. “You and I are talking about very different people. My Peter might dress and talk pretty, but he’s a demon in disguise. Those dimples are what got him out of way too many candy shoplifts.”
Cat raised an eyebrow and then shook her head. “We must be,” she said. “Anyways, I’ve gotta go down to the office and pick up my schedule. I’d offer to take you with, but it looks like you’ve already been there.”
“Yup,” I said, reminded once again of my conversation with stepbrother dearest. “I’ll wait here; I have to unpack anyway.”
She grinned, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “See you soon! I hope you have something absolutely breath-taking to wear tonight,” she said.
“I do,” I assured her, and she was gone through the door like a shot. I glared over at the blank wall after watching her leave. Peter was here, and he would find some way to make my life a living hell, that much I knew already. Wherever he was, trouble and strife followed. I had to stay away from him as much as possible.
Trouble was, he had a nifty way of showing up where I least expected and wanted him. I sighed and went to sit down on my bare bed. I put my head in my hands briefly. I had left New York City to come to this college to get away from my domineering mother and stepfather, and most of all to get away from the haunted look Peter had left in their eyes. Now he was here and I couldn’t just switch schools. I’d worked hard for the scholarship and remaining tuition and I did not plan to let him drive me out, though I knew that he would try. He had a notorious way of driving people insane that usually gave them the immense need to leave. He wasn’t going to succeed this time.
I stood and nodded at myself in the full-length mirror that was propped up against the bathroom door, still waiting to be hung up. Peter might be here and that was fine. He wouldn’t bother me anymore.
###
As we got ready for the party side by side, I was reminded of the very first party I had gone to with my friend Cassie from back home. The similarities of that disastrous night were eerie and I tried to push them out of mind as I applied a shimmery lip gloss that made my lips look nearly twice as big as they usually did. Cat pulled on a slinky black dre
ss behind me as I turned my face from side to side, making sure that my contour was perfectly blended. I frowned at the way my nose hooked and the slightly uneven tilt of my eyes. Peter had always impersonated me by tilting his face to one side, and I’d always smacked him for it. Dammit, why was I thinking about Peter again?
“So,” she said, moving on to the equally slinky black boots. I glanced up at her, catching her gaze through the mirror. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah,” I said, pulling back. I wouldn’t get any prettier; she was right. We’d better go before the lines got too long and my feet started aching in these monstrous heels I’d bought awhile back. “Let’s go.”
I pulled on my jacket over the deep red halter top. It almost was longer than the tight black skirt I wore, and I smiled to think of Mom’s horrified expression. Except she wouldn’t have one. She’d just look at me with those dead eyes and tell me to put something else on. Before the smile could slip from my face, I turned to Cat and started asking her about all of the details of the club.
We met with the rest of the group that I had been acquainted with at dinner, and I gave them curt nods in greeting. Darren, the tall, lanky man slung an arm around my shoulder as if we had known each other for years. “So, April,” he drawled in his sweet southern accent. “What brings such a good-doing girl like you to our club?”
I stiffened. Had my reputation somehow preceded me?
“Don’t tease her,” Cat tutted. “She can dye her hair black if she wants.”
I relaxed. It was a joke. I forced a smile and faked an innocent voice. “My friends said I was studying too much and needed to get out. They even gave me an I.D. I can’t tell if it’s fake or not.”