A Terrible Love

by Eros, Marata

  Maybe Mitch won’t notice.

  Maybe I can claim vanity. I mean... plenty of girls want a different eye color.

  It's a little bit on the stretchy side of the truth considering how low maintenance I am in general. How could I convince anyone that I cared about eye color when my entire make-up wardrobe consisted of moisturizer, mascara and lip-gloss?

  I roll my unglossed lip into my mouth and bite down gently, nibbling with nervousness. Finally, I realize I need to get back there or Mitch'll wonder if I died.

  I walk back to the table and he turns, watching my approach.

  It'd been a good idea about the hair. He can’t get past it long enough to notice my eye color. It occurs to me that he's never seen it down.

  I let the relief wash over me as I slide into the bench seat opposite him and Doris sets a steaming cup of coffee in front of me. Instantly, I wrapped my fingers around the hot cup and sigh in pleasure. Just having the coffee in my hands makes the events of the night seem a tiny bit more bearable, normal.

  Mitch looks down at his own cup and I noticed his tapered fingers overlap. Long fingers, artist's fingers.

  He watches me watching him then asks me the question I'm dreading, “What's with you and Castile, Jess?” His eyes search mine and I make a stab at honest.

  “I don't know... exactly,” I say, back to nibbling my lip again.

  He rakes a hand through his hair and I'm reminded of the shadow on Devin's head and shake away the memory like unwanted mist.

  Mitch leans forward, the light from the street shadowing his pale gray eyes perfectly, deepening them to a storm. “Because... I think we have something here. I think I can give you what you need.”

  My heart begins to beat hard in my chest at his words, my mouth going dry. “What is that?” I croak.

  He takes my hand in his, gently turning it over and I watch him raise it to his mouth and put a single, heated kiss on the underside of my wrist. I tingle where he touched and hold in a shiver. It wasn't the demolishing sexual intensity I gotten a taste of with Devin, but it was a nice enough distraction and I'm not immune.

  “Me,” he says. Then with an exaggerated pause he finishes, “All of me.”

  The revelation is too much, it feels like an elephant has landed on my chest.

  He watches my face and gives a little lift of his lips. “Have I lost you to Devin Castile?” he asks quietly, his probing gaze never leaving mine.

  “I'm not a prize,” I say, “something to be won or... whatever.” I hold my hands up to the side of me. “I'm just a girl that likes a guy.”

  “Two guys,” he probes with uncanny accuracy.

  “Actually... yes,” I say.

  I don't share.

  “May the best man win, then, Jess.” He leans back, studying me.

  “What?” I ask, confused for the second time in two hours. “I mean...” I pause then continue with hesitation, “Why me? There's a million girls more special, prettier... with bigger boobs,” I say with a smile to lighten the heavy conversation.

  Mitch inclines his head and the cleft in his chin deepens with the shadows as he glances through the bay window then back at me. “True on one count...” I briefly wonder which one but he goes on before I have a chance to consider which inadequacy he's noticed. “However, that you'd ask is the very reason why you're so attractive....” He continues to stare at me then adds a last word, “Sexy.”

  “Thank you... I think.”

  “You're welcome, Jess Mackey with one green eye.”

  My stomach drops, he's noticed all right. I'm in deep shit.

  I raced through a response and he holds up his hand. “I don't need to know why you'd cover up those eyes.” Then he winks, “It just deepens the mystery.”

  “What mystery?” I whisper, wiping my suddenly damp hands on my even damper hem.

  “The mystery that is you, Jess.”

  *

  I yawn behind my hand and pick up the mechanical pencil again, taking studious notes in my own version of shorthand while Brad has his legs kicked out in front of him, huge boots crossed at the ankle as he taps out a tune on the desk only he hears.

  “Shush...” I say, warning him that he'll get the wrong attention, which seems to be the trend with Brad.

  Brad winks and shoots me a pistol with his fingers, my curtain of hair falls away from my face and I know when he sees the bruise that marks me.

  Brad sits straight up in the desk and says in a furious whisper, “What. The. Fuck... is that?”

  Automatically my hand goes to the tender lump that I'd iced all weekend, the swelling was gone but a light bruise and a glaring abrasion remained.

  “Uh...” I begin lamely. “Wrong place at the wrong time?”

  “Shush...” the girl with braces says in front of us. Brock's replacement. As a matter of fact, I could feel his malignant presence like a walking tumor from across the room; his eyes on me.

  “Turn around,” Brad snapped.

  “Fine!” she hisses back at him, flinging her back against the seat with an exaggerated huff.

  I smile a little, she is almost worse than Brock had been. How can it be in a class of three hundred souls that we get stuck with the biggest butts in the entire group? Murphy's Law was how. If it was going to happen, it would definitely happen to me. My smile widened and Brad frowned.

  “Uh-uh, dancing girl. Tell me. Tell big Brad, baby.”

  I giggled, I couldn't help it. Prissy in front of us stiffened, giving me a peripheral glare.

  I tell him. Brad's face is a study in comedy, his brows having a life of their own: popping to his hairline, descending like a falling wall on his brow, only to rise again.

  When I finish, having utterly missed the entire lecture on the delightful Punnett Square, he crosses his arms in thought, his leather making a crinkling sound, not saying a word.

  Class ends and I stand, stretching as the small bones of my back pop at the motion. Brad watches me as I search for Brock and his cadre of pals. They give me a look and the one who'd belted me tips an imaginary hat in my direction.

  “Is that the cocksucker who decked you?” Brad asks, already moving forward.

  “No,” I implore.

  “Yes,” he says, ignoring me while he moves faster than I can stop him.

  Like I could, I think, doing an internal eye roll.

  The jocks see the wall of black leather moving toward them and they stop, their eyes going first to him then to me.

  I shrink back into myself, never wishing to be anywhere else as badly as I do right then.

  That's not true, there was one incident I wish I could erase. I shut my eyes tightly, wishing I was anywhere else. When I open them, I'm still there.

  “Brock,” Brad says his name like a swearword.

  The one that hit me looks at me but says Brad's name, “Gunner.”

  “You the chick beater?” Brad asks him, his eyes all for the abuser.

  “I don't hit girls that don't deserve it,” he says sullenly, his beady gaze shifting to me as he evades the question.

  “No girl deserves it, dickless,” Brad declares. I can tell he's warming to his subject, subtly moving his body to square off with the other guy.

  “You know what your problem is, Gunner?” Brock interjects congenially.

  We wait and I know it's going to be bad and I move backward, finally smart to the potential for violence.

  “You don't recognize what this is about.” His eyes lock with Brad's. “Women are good for bagging and making sandwiches. That is it. The sooner you realize that basic principle, the less angry you'll be that the rest of us guys already have a handle on it,” Brock says with classic stupidity.

  Brad's hand pops out like a flesh torpedo, snapping Brock's head back, his face already wearing healing marks from where Devin worked him over two days prior.

  I know I'll have his full attention now, a guaranteed spot. I realize with miserable finality.

  “Leave,” thwack, crunch,
“Jess Mackey alone.” Brock crumples from the beating... I’m beginning to think he likes it. Kinda like a pastime or ill-considered hobby. Of the no talent variety.

  The guy that had backhanded me moves in and Brad swings a well-placed boot and takes out his knee. The one he used for football or some other full contact sport would be out of commission for awhile.

  Two hundred thirty pounds dropped like a sack of potatoes and his two buddies came in to finish Brad but he wasn't done. He swept his arm out and swatted the closest jerk. The guy wailed, grabbing his ear.

  “You can sing that tune all day long, ass jack,” Brad says in a conversational tone, reversing the dis, keeping up his jabs and swipes.

  Then campus security came and pulled everyone apart. The two that were standing.

  Brock wasn't.

  He's lying on the ground. Staring at me with hate so apparent I can taste it. I step backward from that look and straight into the chest of Devin Castile.

  Strong fingers curl around my shoulders and my nose fills with the smell of Devin: male, leather, fresh air and some undertone of whatever musky soap he uses. His scent is my drug of choice.

  I stay against Castile. “I'm sorry,” I say to Brad as he's dragged away.

  “You're gonna be,” Brock says in a low promise from the ground.

  Castile comes around the side of me and squats down next to Brock, “Touch her again and you'll deal with me. And it'll be final, douche.”

  He straightens and gives a nod to the campus police who take the five away... including Brad.

  “Gunner's a good sort,” Devin says, his eyes following security until they disappear out of sight. “Do you know them?” I ask, my eyes following the security. Devin nods, his face shutting down with my question. “Yeah, I work a part-time gig for campus security.”

  I don't say anything, hoping Brad will be okay. Instead I allow Castile to herd me to a dim corner where the eyes of the student body aren't staring at us. He moves in close, uncomfortably close. “I wanted to kick Maverick's ass for touching you.” He moves his hand against my hair, palming it tightly against my skull.

  I make a guttural sound low in my throat and his eyes move to my mouth. “Don't make noises that make me want to take you right against the wall, Jess.”

  My eyes widen and he smiles his amusement at my taking him so literally. But there's that small part of me that knows he's serious. The bulge against my pelvic region is a real convincer.

  “I...”

  “Shush...” Devin says, pressing a kiss as gentle as his last one was brutal and I fall into it. Brad and Brock's entanglement forgotten, Mitch and my anonymity a distant concern as Castile takes my lips, sipping at them like a fine cognac that he never wants to break contact with.

  Finally, he leaves me against the wall, flushed and dazed, my backpack has slid down and leans cockeyed against the wall. The room is deserted of everyone but us.

  Again.

  “We're terrible together,” I say, meeting his eyes, the savage truth hanging between us like an unmovable weight.

  “It's not about true love, Jess.” I see the conviction in his eyes and it is equal parts horrible and a comfort. I don't want a relationship, I want this burning ache to abate. The fire for him to subside.

  I answer even though one is not required, jerking my backpack up off the ground as I begin to walk away, “If it were love then it's a terrible love.”

  I don't wait for his response.

  *

  I swing and lunge, drops of sweat beading and flinging off my body like wet gems of punishment, the colors of the auditorium a ribboned blur of mixed colors, purple and gold becoming swimmingly gray. School colors morphing as I execute faster and faster pirouettes.

  Finally, Instructor Boel claps. “Stop!”

  His hands pegged on his hips, he stalks over to me and Shelby, on a war path, at any moment I expected a Native American headdress to spring from his head.

  “What. Is. This?” he asks and his skin broils with color, his finger pointing to my face.

  For a heartbeat I have no idea what he's talking about then I remember the wound. I fight touching it with an effort as I think of how nice it will be to have people stop asking me what happened.

  Although using the purse cum weapon had been a good story. Brock's group was not popular so it'd been well-received.

  I was pretty sure that Brock's recounting would be quite a bit different.

  Shelby waits as I tell my ballet instructor what happened. Of course, it sounds childish and foolish when I hear myself tell him. I put my hand on my sweaty hip and one foot goes up en pointe and I swivel it as I elaborate.

  “We do not thwack people with accessories,” he commands, adding, “you are a dancer, not a thug.”

  I flush, embarrassed. “Yes, Instructor Boel.”

  He studies me until I cast my eyes to the floor. “Do you wish to dance?”

  I snap my eyes back to his. “More than anything.”

  “Then prove it by curtailing this ruffian behavior.”

  Shelby walks away, chancing a sympathetic glance at me.

  “Wait, Miss Mackey,” Boel says, grabbing my arm.

  I stop.

  “Have you thought about my comments?”

  Which ones?

  I watch his facial expression and I instantly know.

  “Yes,” I answer.

  “Good,” he says. Then adds, “I await the passion that is absent in your dancing.”

  He releases me and I step away, gathering my sweater and start walking, so sore and tired I want to sleep on the hard gym floor.

  “Miss Mackey?”

  I reluctantly turn.

  “No more misbehaviors, understood?”

  I nod, wondering why he doesn't worry about the harm that befell me.

  Right now it feels like I'm floating in a pool of anonymity of my own making. I don't like it anymore.

  It feels like drowning.

  9

  Study hall is packed as per usual. I take my seat and wait for Carlie and Amber. We'll pretend to study while actually getting in some much-needed girl time.

  After all, our time was cut short by the episode outside of Skoochies. That wonderful slip of history was still following me around almost a week later. Now it was the weekend all over again and I had two sets of smoldering looks following me.

  Carlie sauntered over, slinging her almost thirty pound backpack on the long cafeteria-style table.

  “Hi ya,” she says, plopping down beside me.

  “Hi,” I reply.

  Amber joins us and plops down, sans backpack. “Hey.”

  I arch a brow. “Where's your books?”

  She tears the wrapper off a sucker and jams it inside her mouth, sucking obscenely on it while not answering.

  “Eeew,” Carlie says.

  I roll my eyes. “Like you think that's gross?” I begin. “You're probably taking notes!” I laugh and Carlie scowls, muttering, “True.”

  Her scowl is phony and she breaks into a smile when I give her a disbelieving look.

  “I'm supervising today,” Amber says, sucking and slurping the bright green sour apple knob, her tongue turning an alarming shade of green.

  “So tell us about the beat down outside Bio,” Amber says.

  I hesitate, it's starting to sound like a soap opera but I give her the condensed version, Reader's Digest style.

  “So... you've got what? Two guys and two something else’s?” Amber asks with a puzzled expression.

  “It's like the twelve days of Christmas with a partridge in a pear tree,” Carlie quips.

  I shake my head with a nervous laugh. “No, it's so not like that.”

  Amber tears the sucker out of her mouth, swinging it like a prop. “What is it then?”

  “Okay, so... Brock's a dick,” I say and the girls nod, Carlie says slowly, “Clearly.”

  I sigh, the sounds of the busy study area swallowing our conversation. They remain unconvinced
but I plow ahead, wanting them to see it my way, if possible. “Brad's my friend...”

  “No way, girlfriend, he digs your cute dancing ass,” Amber states with absolute faith, her lips puckered in a distracting way around the green globe of the lollipop.

  I shake my head again, like that will make it real. “I don't know... but he's a friend to me,” I say, putting a splayed hand on my chest.

  “Okay,” Carlie says doubtfully. “But what about the asshat Brock?”

  “I don't know why he's become fixated on me, but maybe now that he's been beaten twice he'll just... forget about me.”

  They look at me.

  “Or not,” Amber notes in her droll way.

  True.

  We have a lull in our conversation and the sudden blare of the television constantly tuned to the news interrupts with a boom about the Presidential election candidates.

  My bowel hiccups as my stepfather's face fills the screen.

  My girlfriends are unaware of my inner turmoil and Amber turns away from the interruption with a bored grunt.

  Then my face flashes on the screen: deep auburn hair, eyes so green they don't look real.

  I make an instant decision, heaving my backpack off the table like it fell. It crashes with a huge thunk and both girls turn at the distraction.

  “Shit!” I say, like I'm pissed that tampons, lip-gloss, cell and wadded gum wrappers are everywhere to be picked up.

  I'm not angry, I'm relieved as my stepfather fields questions about the election. And really low and quietly he answers, Yes, the investigation to find my missing daughter is underway and they have strong leads.

  Very strong leads.

  His face fills the TV screen again and I feel his eyes on me, and through them, Thad's.

  I shudder.

  A commercial break takes him away and I let out the breath I'd been holding.

  My friends and I collect the bag that spilled. I happen to look up and find Devin Castile's eyes on me.

  With suspicion.

  Did he see?

  If he did, which part? The part where I purposefully dumped my bag, or the part where I felt I had to based on what was on the TV?