A Terrible Love

by Eros, Marata

  Carlie shakes her head. “I think they move toward each other, like, polarization. They can't help it.” Her hands come together with a smack, the fingers lacing together tightly.

  “Sounds messed up, intense... dysfunctional,” Amber says, picking up a crumb of my forgotten pound cake and popping it into her mouth.

  “It is,” Carlie agrees. “But who ever said that love makes sense? That's it's healthy... that it's right?”

  “Love is inexplicable,” Carlie says and I look at her in surprise.

  She gives a snort. “I'm not just another pretty face. I got sixteen hundred on my SATs Miss Smarty Panties.”

  “Golden panties,” I correct.

  Amber guffaws. “I heard about the closet...” she says.

  Gawd, will I ever be able to get past that?

  “I think it's hot,” she says in a dreamy voice.

  “What about Mitch?” I ask Carlie, ignoring Amber's musings about my indiscretions.

  “As a pigeon?”

  “He's a dick, I hear,” Amber announces casually.

  I scowl, waiting for my flighty friend's innate wisdom. She takes my question seriously but answers far quicker than I'd have liked.

  “Shallow for sure,” she says without any hesitation.

  “How do you know?” I ask.

  “The eyes.” Carlie gives a slight quiver of her shoulders. “I thought he was La Hunk but he's La Creeper.”

  Amber stops digging on my lunch tray and puts my tapioca pudding down with a clunk, the spoon falling out and the seedy goop splattering slightly on the bright orange plastic.

  I think of those pale eyes in my mind, how warm they'd been at my audition, how he'd kissed me so tenderly. As time wore on, it seemed he was moving almost methodically toward some goal I was unaware of.

  Maybe I was imagining things.

  Speak of the devil; Mitch walks up to the table, his pale eyes are as I remembered them from before.

  Doesn't matter. I stand, ignoring him and begin to pick up my tray. If he came to gloat because Cas has ditched me, that even our sex wasn't enough to keep Devin Castile's interest and a relationship made him dread me... Well, I wasn't going to have Mitch rub it in and tell me what he thought of my behavior.

  Salt in the fucking wound I didn't need.

  “I'm sorry,” he says. It stops me in my tracks and I see Carlie pull her head back with a weird look like, WTF?

  “How sorry?” Carlie asks, leaning forward.

  He laughs a little, color rising in his face. He clears his throat, swinging his dark hair out of his eyes and staring into mine. “Very.”

  Mitch looks at Amber and Carlie then swings those beautiful gray eyes to mine and they're filled with cautious hope. “Can we talk, Jess?”

  I sigh. I can't tell him no, but it doesn't mean it'll ever be yes either.

  “Yeah,” I say, giving a little wave to Carlie.

  “You text me if you need me,” Carlie says, narrowing her gaze on Mitch.

  “I'm watching you,” she tells Mitch and he looks at Carlie, their gazes locking for a moment then the hardness leaves his expression and it softens when he looks back at me.

  He takes my backpack and we walk out into the hall, finally making our way outside. Thankfully, he doesn't take me to the same spot where he basically called me a slut.

  I cross my arms, my charity only stretching so far.

  “Okay, I'm here, Mitch.”

  “I'd just found out about Brock, Jess.” He cast a glance around him then spoke into the light breeze that had sprung up and I shivered, we were a day away from Christmas break and it was pretty cold. Of course, tomorrow it could be a balmy fifty-five degrees. Welcome to Seattle.

  “And the guys were talking about how you were banging Castile and Brock... he killed Tawny,” he says, his fists clenching.

  “Your lacrosse teammates were speculating about what happened in the closet with us rather than the serial killer being caught?” I scoffed, beginning to move away. I didn't need a recounting of what happened in the closet, I knew. I wasn't forgetting that slice of the hottest sex ever any time soon, broken heart or not.

  “Yeah... no!” he says loudly, raking his dark hair back, the fall of his bangs sweeping into his face again. “It's all part of it. They don't know that Tawny was my sister, different last names, y'know.”

  Right, of course.

  “I just saw red. They'd finally caught the bastard and they said you and Cas were all wrapped up in what happened and to know that... that he'd had you like some whore in that room...” He cast his eyes down to his feet while I blushed to the roots of my hair.

  It wouldn't be so bad if Cas had backed me. If he were with me now. But he wasn't. He was all secretive and wanting to have sex with me when it worked for him. Now he didn't even want that.

  “I'm not a whore,” I say so softly I figure he doesn't hear me.

  I swipe at my swollen lids as they begin to leak again.

  “Jesus, Jess... I know. Come here,” he says, pulling me against him and I cry against his chest, the pieces of my soaked heart flowing away with the river of my sadness, drenching his shirt, drowning my soul.

  “Shh...” he murmurs, stroking my hair.

  “Get your fucking hands off her,” Cas says from somewhere behind us.

  I don't even turn. I'm wrung out.

  “Why don't you ask Jess what she wants, Devin?” Mitch asks, using his name like a curseword.

  Cas circles us and I press my face against Mitch's chest. I can't face Cas, it's too raw, his rejection of me a fresh seeping wound.

  “Well?” Mitch says. “Ask her, Castile.”

  “Jess,” Cas says with a husky catch in his voice.

  Just his voice makes my body react. Does he even know how dangerous he is? Do I?

  Yes.

  “Go away, Devin,” I say, using his real name.

  “Look at me. Tell me you want Mitch and I'll go,” he says.

  I look at him from the circle of Mitch's arms and it's a mistake. His brooding eyes are on me like banked fire, the muscles of his body taut with unease and expectation, his dark short hair like an inky cap.

  “I don't want you,” I lie through my teeth.

  “You're lying,” he says.

  So true.

  “You heard her,” Mitch says, holding me against him.

  My eyes flick to him, then away.

  I don't like what I see there. It doesn't look like what he's told me.

  His words say he doesn't want me.

  But his body loved mine, it did. I felt the consumption of the flames of his feelings.

  Right now, his eyes say he loves me.

  I can't do it.

  Whatever It is with Cas, I can't.

  “I want Mitch,” I say.

  The second lie of the night.

  Devin Castile stares at me for a moment, then he turns on his heel and walks away.

  He doesn't look back.

  I can't look away.

  17

  Mitch walks me to my next class and the tears don't come. Neither does anything else. It's like my feelings have been stolen. I hang onto the idea of dance at four o'clock today like an anchor. That will be the one time where I don't think about Cas, my hidden life, the mess with Mitch... I can just let the The Dance take me.

  “I'll text you later, K?” Mitch asks, his hand holding mine, his gray eyes sweeping over my features, searching for an emotion, anything. I'm sure he's discovered what I already know: an insidious indifference has taken up residence where my passion was. Like ink slipping out of a bottle, it slides toward the lowest grade. I can feel the black spreading inside me.

  “Jess?” Mitch repeats softly.

  “Huh?” I ask then quickly nod my head and answer, “Sure.”

  “Great,” Mitch says and leans down to peck my cheek and I let him. My mind shying away from the boiling image of Cas inside my brain.

  *

  The day drones on, the other stude
nts have stopped staring at me every moment of every day. I can actually move through the halls without a path of eyeballs sinking into my back as I move by. It's good because today I desperately need anonymity again.

  I trudge up the stairs and toe my door open after the ineffective doorknob I shoved back in place rattles. I stare at the thing after slamming the door closed with my hip. It hangs at an angle, mocking me.

  I frown. The hell with it, this weekend I'd get Carlie to take me to the hardware store and I’ll install a new one myself.

  I begin my warm-ups at the barre; I hate arriving cold for Boel. Big mistake. When my body begins to heat my leotard and tights and I'm almost sweating I chance a glance at the clock on my nightstand, the glaring blue digital number blaring three forty-four, time to go. I rush out the door and hear the knob engage the striker and satisfied it's secure enough after having twisted the internal lock while in the room, I jam my keys in my duffel and fly down the stairs toward dance practice.

  The knob rolls off from the flimsy brass cradle again and hits the floor, rolling underneath my bed.

  I never see it because I'm halfway to the auditorium by that time, I only put it together after.

  Of course, I mistakenly made sure something that encourages a predator to attack was available.

  Opportunity.

  *

  Boel is his normal, consistent self, pressing Shelby and I to our limits, then past them.

  “He's gonna kill us,” Shelby promises in a whisper as she lands next to me.

  “Again!” Boel roars, cracking his palms together and we make our diagonal progress across the auditorium. My head whips, finding my corner as my leg bends rhythmically to allow as many pirouettes as humanly possible before I reach the other corner.

  I hear the clap of Boel's hands as he counts with his body and his mind. How many times can I spin with perfect form in the space allotted?

  Quite a few, I decide as I make a gliding land into third position. Boel strides to Shelby and I hold third. I hear a grunt behind me and know Boel will strike in the next second. He does, grasping my thigh and it's solid, unmovable.

  I turn and he gives a rare smile. I grin back like a fool.

  “You've done well, Miss Mackey.”

  It's the second compliment he's given me in all the time we've been practicing.

  “You may go, both of you.”

  Shelby shrugs and I walk away, glancing back once to see Boel, his arms crossed over his lean and muscular chest. The ghost of a smile rides his lips.

  I didn't know I wouldn't be practicing in this auditorium again.

  None of us do.

  *

  “Come on, Jess,” Shelby says.

  I never make new friends. I'd already botched it big time with Carlie and to a lesser extent, Amber.

  But today had been kick-ass and I was riding that high. Boel had said I'd done well. Even with Cas not into me... him running around wearing my heart on his sleeve like a trophy, I can't be totally sad.

  I feel the corner of my lips twitch. “Okay, yeah.”

  We're freshly scrubbed and I give my ballet outfit a sniff and chuck it right into my locker. I hesitate over my slippers, bending and straightening them by habit.

  “What?” Shelby asks, her dark brows popping, halting my nervous fidget.

  I don't want to leave my slippers. My pointe shoes have an almost talismanic relationship with me. If I have them in my possession, good things happen. I sigh, realizing I'm being foolish.

  Stupid superstition. I put them carefully on top of my ballet gear. I don't throw them.

  Not so silly after all, as the slippers inadvertently save my life.

  At the last moment, I pick them up, placing them with Shelby's. There, she has a locker whose combo works.

  “Let's go, ballerina,” she says, looping her arm through mine.

  “You're a dancer too,” I protest as we march down the hall, my jeans dragging a little over the heels of my Dansko clogs.

  Shelby nods, “I know, Jess... but you're gonna be principal.”

  I open my mouth to protest and she shushes me. “Listen, I have eyes in my head. I see the way Boel looks at you....”

  I turn, looking at her as her hand rests on the bar of the door leading out to the parking lot, a hot breve waiting for me at the coffee house of her choice.

  “How does he look at me?” I ask, because I don't know. I'm too busy spinning and leaping to catch the emotional signature of Boel.

  “Like he just won the lottery,” she says.

  “Oh,” I say softly.

  “Isn't that what you wanted?” Shelby asks, her eyes searching mine.

  I always end up as somebody's prize. “Yeah, I guess.”

  Shelby rolls her eyes. “You're crazy....”

  Maybe.

  We walk out into the night together.

  Malevolence hangs just out of reach, waiting for its companion, opportunity.

  *

  “So we never talk,” Shelby says, warming her hands on the sleeveless stiff coffee cup.

  I do the same and smile at her. “No, we don't. We're too busy getting our asses handed to us by Boel.”

  Shelby gives a sarcastic snort, trying not to spit her coffee out. “That's the God's honest truth.”

  We tap our coffee cups together. “Damn straight.”

  Shelby drags her finger in circles around the lip of her cup, her eyes flicking to mine. “What do you think his problem is?”

  I feel my brows rise. “Boel? He doesn't have a problem. He's all about The Ballet.”

  “The ballet...” Shelby muses out loud.

  I nod, taking a small sip of the creamy confection of my breve, loving the taste.

  “You got a guy?”

  I look at her and she registers some information from my expression.

  “Noooo...” she breathes, her eyes becoming wide.

  “Yeah,” I say, my eyes glued to my cooling coffee.

  “He's like... hot,” she says.

  Gee thanks, I think. “Well, we're not seeing each other anymore,” I say in answer, lifting a shoulder and letting it drop.

  “God, girl... why not?”

  My eyes meet hers. Shelby whistles low in her throat, leaning back. “You got it bad.”

  I don't deny it.

  Shelby's hand covers mine. “It'll be okay.” She pats my hand.

  I don't feel like it'll be. Ever. In fact, I feel vaguely ill.

  “We'll dance it out,” she says sagely.

  “Huh?” I ask, sipping my coffee. I set it down, it's grown a little too cold to enjoy. I'm a transplant to Seattle, I'd never drink it cold or old like a local.

  “We'll dance until you can't think about Stud Muffin.”

  “Okaaay...” I say slowly.

  “Where?” I ask.

  “Skoochie's.”

  “No way, he bounces there,” I say.

  Shelby rolls her eyes, giving my outfit a once over. “I guess you'll do.”

  “No,” I say.

  Her eyes narrow and an evil sparkle glimmers. “Oh yes.”

  “We'll dance it out in front of Castile.”

  I widen my eyes.

  She nods. “I never forget a hot looking guy...”

  I laugh. “How does that work out?”

  Shelby laughs too. “Not too great so far, but hope springs eternal, they say.”

  I think about that for a minute. “Who the hell is 'they', anyway?”

  Shelby shrugs, wrapping her scarf around her throat. “A bunch of assholes in dark, windowless rooms, thinking up expressions that sound good in theory.”

  I stand. “That's what I thought.”

  “Let's go and show Stud who's boss.”

  Maybe Cas won't be working?

  No. Such. Luck.

  *

  Shelby has the bottomless purse and does my face up in her car outside the Starbucks.

  “Sit still, open your mouth wider,” Shelby instructs, her full l
ip held tightly between her teeth. She takes her time, having already applied eye shadow, liner and swiping mascara on each of my lashes.

  I look in the rearview mirror and don't recognize myself, I'm all cheekbones and eyes. Blue ones, my natural green still safely hidden away underneath the contacts.

  Shelby eyes me critically. “We're the same size...” she begins then digs through a second bag, pulling out spiky heels and a gauzy top in a shimmering aqua.

  It will barely cover my boobs.

  “No,” I say, giving her the sign of the vampire cross, my index fingers crossed over each other.

  “Do you want him to notice you?”

  Yes. “Not really.”

  “Liar,” Shelby says and I don't refute her.

  Again.

  I change quickly and she gets a twin outfit to mine. Her shoes are a little snug.

  “How tall are you?”

  “Five four,” she answers. That's why my feet are cramped.

  “Tight?” she asks, eying the borrowed stilettos.

  I nod.

  Another shrug. “Beauty is pain.”

  Right. Or pain is just pain.

  Shelby scoots into the driver's seat, closing her compact with a snap. She pulls out of the university parking lot and we head to Skoochie's.

  My stomach's in my throat.

  I’ve become the thing I detested, a player. It isn’t my style. None of this is.

  I guess I was making one last attempt at exhausting this thing between me and Cas. Just thinking about him put the familiar ache between my legs. The longing to have him there swept reason out of my mind like errant cobwebs from a corner.

  *

  Another crowd waits and I rise up on my toes to see if Cas is there.

  I hate to admit I'm a little disappointed when he isn't.

  “You see him?” Shelby asks, looking herself.

  I shake my head.

  “That's okay, you still look good enough to eat,” she says, winking and an image of Cas's tongue as he licks my lips and plunges that hot wetness inside me rises unbidden in my mind and I actually stop breathing for a second.