by Allen, Jacob
“Holy shit,” Kevin said. “This is fucking amazing!”
“I can’t wait to see Mom and Dad’s faces,” Ryan said with a smirk.
“What do you think the whole fucking point of this was?”
Ryan opened his mouth to say something, but I ignored him and turned my attention to Nick, who was texting with a smile on his face.
“Hey, asshole, did you just see any of that?” I said with a laugh. “I am the fucking king of this campus!”
“Uh huh,” Nick said.
“You should probably thank me whenever you get the chance,” I said. “I mean, because of me, you’ll get whichever girl you want to go to homecoming with you. It’s only, what, three weeks out?”
“Oh, don’t worry, I got someone already,” Nick said.
I looked at him in surprise. That’s not how the Broad Street Boys worked. We all coordinated who we wanted so we didn’t cross swords by mistake—at least, to their knowledge—and then we went and got them. It wasn’t like a girl already being asked out scared us, either. What, was some gal going to go out with Tyler or Jacob instead of one of us?
No fucking chance. We ran this school, no one else.
“Who?” I said.
But before he had the chance to ask, someone called his name. I turned to see one of his brothers had shown up. I rolled my eyes. Nick’s betrayal could be dealt with later.
I leaned over the railing and saw a hot brunette I had never seen before eying me, practically undressing me with her eyes right before me. I pointed at her and asked her to come up here. She had something I needed, and I needed it now.
She showed up a few seconds later.
“Hi, Adam,” she said, her cleavage laid bare and her fingers inside her jean shorts. “I’m—”
“I don’t give a fuck what your name is,” I said. “I need a rum and coke. Grab me one and I’ll learn your name. Maybe.”
“Oh, oh, OK,” nameless brunette said as she hurried back downstairs.
It was all just so easy. Just too easy. I needed someone back in the fold who would tell me to fuck off. But now that Emily Zane was ignoring me…
And speaking of…
I looked through the crowd, trying to spot her amongst the hordes of students. Even in what could only be described as a sea of horny, alcohol-infused libidos, I could have easily picked her out from the pack. She was easily identifiable—don’t ask me how, I just fucking knew when she was there.
But right now, she was nowhere to be seen.
And that was a fucking problem. Because for as much money as I had spent on this party, for as many hot girls had shown up, for as much drugs, alcohol, and pussy as I could consume in a single night here… I felt fucking bored.
Fucking miserable.
Where the fuck was Emily?
“Hey, asshole,” I said, snapping my fingers at Kevin, beckoning him over like the good little dog that he was. “Everyone here who’s supposed to be here?”
Kevin almost never looked at me rudely. But the look on his face now was one of confusion, as if he had no idea how he was supposed to know the answer to the question.
“I mean, we put the word out to the entire school,” he said. “I’m, uhh, I guess I could go through and check everyone off in the school yearbook, but that would be a huge—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I said, throwing up my hands. How the fuck can he not get it?
“She’s probably late.”
I turned to see Ryan, arms crossed, smirk on his face.
“I’m sorry, did you miss third grade? Did you not know that when I said ‘everyone’ that meant more than one person? Or did you think ‘she’ meant the entire female population at Providence Prep?”
“Given how obtuse you like to be, I’d say it’s a fair statement for me to make,” Ryan said. “But fortunately, you’re not as cloudy as you think you are. She’s probably just late.”
“And you’re probably just retarded.”
But instead of backing down or keeping his mouth shut, Ryan just laughed in his face.
“It’s amazing how badly you want to fuck her,” Ryan said. “You keep talking shit about her, but you always wonder where she is. I can’t believe you didn’t just take her in the locker room.”
“What of it?” I growled. “You heard what our stepdad said. All women are lies and whores. I think everyone else we’ve interacted with ever since we got here has proved that point.”
“Or we’re all just teenagers and we don’t know what the fuck we’re doing,” Ryan said with another laugh. “Besides, you’re going to believe everything the old man has to say? Are you that gullible that you just believe him at the drop of a word?”
“Maybe not then, but—”
“But you dumped her ass within months of that.”
“She was talking to other people!”
“Yeah, news flash, you fucking moron, talking to other people isn’t cheating, not like she was!”
I glared at Nick before shooting a look back at Ryan, whom I was getting closer and closer to just outright knocking the shit out of. God, he pissed me off so badly.
“You call everyone a pussy, but the only person who’s a real pussy here is you. You refuse to admit you were wrong, and you’re so goddamn scared of yourself that you act all tough and macho on everyone.”
“And you’re a fucking nihilist piece of shit who doesn’t seem to give any of that shit to anyone.”
“Hey, at least I know my flaws and my limitations,” Ryan said. “You don’t. You’re scared to face them.”
“I’m not scared of anything.”
That wasn’t true. No, it was. If it wasn’t true, it wasn’t true on a level I didn’t need to analyze.
But then Ryan said the one thing that he would regret for the rest of that night.
“Except being close to Emily.”
I cocked my right fist back and punched him hard across the jaw. I lined up another shot, but Ryan came right back at me, blocking my strike and tackling me. I kicked him off of me, and the two of us tumbled and fought literally all the way down the stairs. The music of the party vanished in favor of blood pumping through my body.
I wanted to kill my brother. There was nothing metaphorical about that. I literally wanted to see him bleed to death under my body. He fucking knew better than to say something so retarded, and he was going to pay the price right now.
Around us, people started chanting “fight! Fight! Fight!” and formed a circle around us. Ryan, when he got some space, snickered, took off his shirt, and pumped up the crowd.
“Come at me, pussy!” Ryan yelled.
I took off my own shirt.
“With fucking pleasure,” I said.
I threw another right cross at him, this one colliding with his jaw. I ducked low, avoiding a swinging fist, and punched him hard in the gut. It knocked the wind out from under him, and I grabbed him by his pretty boy hair and threw him to the ground. I was on him in a heartbeat, but not before he rolled onto his back and blocked some of the blows.
“I fucking hate you, you little prick,” I roared.
“Not as much as you hate yourself,” he shot back. “You’re a little bitch, Adam, and you know it!”
That only increased the fury of my punches, but I finally found something that I feared—that my fists could not hurt him as hard as his words hurt me.
“You don’t know the first fucking thing about Emily and I!” I said as I got him square in the eye.
“I know enough to know that she doesn’t deserve whatever shit you’re throwing her way!” Ryan said.
“Oh, yeah, that’s rich, because you treat all the women like angels here,” I bellowed, knowing full well how many different girls he brought back here or whom he fucked under the eyes of my parents. He was no different than me when it came to women and player status.
“Doesn’t matter what I am, dipshit,” Ryan said. “I can live with myself. Can you? Can you, big brother? Can you handle acting li
ke the bitch to Emily?”
“What about me?”
If ever there was a record-scratching moment at this party, this was it. With me on top of Ryan, I looked up to see Emily staring, her mouth agape, her hands on her chest, staring at me in horror.
“Time to pay the toll, motherfu—”
I shut Ryan up with a hard punch that knocked him out or close enough to it before I dismounted him and went up to Emily. It was like the Beast approaching Beauty; I was scarred, shirtless, and bleeding from the face. She was in a nice cocktail dress—far nicer than anything I had seen anyone else wear—with makeup on, and without blood.
“Emily,” I said, struggling for the words. I wanted to be mean, and yet… for all that Ryan had said…
“Adam, what the hell did you just do?”
“I had to make a point,” I said, nodding toward Ryan, slowly staggering to his feet. “But Emily… you came… you came for my party.”
It was stupid and corny. But I’d just taken a few fucking blows to the head. I figured I’d make up for it later in the party.
“Adam,” Emily said, her face twisted in surprised annoyance. “I don’t know why you think I’d come dressed like this or come to anything you are throwing after the way you’ve treated me for the last few years. You’re not someone whom anyone should come out for.”
“The fuck does—”
“I’m not here for you,” she said, raising her voice over me and silencing me. “I’m here for him.”
I turned and followed the direction of her finger. I had never felt so… betrayed in my life.
“Nick?”
Nick Locke. A member of the Broad Street Boys. One of my brothers. Going out and here with my ex-girlfriend?
What… what… what the actual fuck?!?
“She’s my homecoming date, bro,” Nick said. “Sorry. Didn’t think you’d care, the way you treated her.”
I felt rage boiling in my eyes. I literally began to see red. I wanted to punch everyone in sight to take out my anger. Fucking… fucking Nick?
Fucking Nick?!?
At least she could have picked a different football player if she was going to go jock sniffing.
But fucking Nick?
“Everyone get the fuck out, now!”
A few people murmured in confusion and shock. As if to make my point more, I went over to one of the speakers and violently pulled the plug, so much so that my body weight carried into the speakers and knocked them over. They were probably worth a couple thousand bucks.
I didn’t give a shit.
“I said, party’s over! Everyone out! Everyone out right fucking now!”
I stared scowling at both Nick and Emily as Nick went over, put a hand on her back—a fucking hand on her back—and walked out the door.
My stepfather may have been a massive asshole, but he was right on this one. Women could not be trusted. Emily had just proved that not only would she have eventually moved on, she would have moved on for one of my so-called best friends. The very friend she’d “talked to” that summer.
What a fucking cunt.
What a fucking asshole Nick is.
Guess the fucking boys are down to a triumvirate instead of a quartet now.
“I’d still better get fucking paid for six hours,” the DJ said as he approached me.
“You’ll get your fucking money,” I growled. “Pack up and get the fuck out of here.”
“Boy, I will come for you if you don’t,” he warned. “And don’t think this rich white hood shit is gonna protect you. We will—”
“I said you’ll get your fucking money!” I shouted.
As if to emphasize the point, I stormed over to my room, grabbed over two grand in bills, and shoved them in the DJ’s hand.
“Consider that an advance,” I said. “Overcharge me later and I’ll have your balls on my nightstand.”
“Shit,” the DJ said with a chuckle. “You got problems, kid. You rich, but that ain’t solving any of your issues.”
I ignored him as him, the dancers, the hookers, and everyone else left. The whole process took fucking forever; it might have only been fifteen minutes to get everyone out, but it felt like the last fourteen minutes took fourteen fucking days. Fuck!
Finally, the door shut as the last of the attendees headed out. A gaggle of students were on the front yard, probably waiting for rides, but they weren’t my fucking problem anymore. They could hike home if they needed to see Mommy and Daddy that badly.
But just before I turned to my room to blow off some fucking steam, Ryan appeared.
“You know,” he said in a very even-keeled, non-confrontational voice. “You can hit me all you want. You’ll win most of the time. You’re the dog between us, we both know that. You don’t quit a fight. But that’s precisely the point. It won’t change that I’m right. And if you keep chasing the wrong car, you’re only going to dig yourself into some deeper shit.”
I didn’t have the energy to form a coherent response back. I was too beaten down, tired, and angry to fight back or put up a mask. So I said something that I usually didn’t.
The hurtful truth.
“I know.”
Before I could say anything else, I stormed off to my room, slamming the door shut and roaring at the top of my lungs in a cry of agony.
Nick, seriously?!? Emily, seriously?!? Everyone and everything… seriously?!?
Was there just one woman, no, just one person in this world that I can trust? Was there anyone that I could lay my soul out for and have them make me feel just an ounce of relief from the pain?
I sure as fuck couldn’t from Emily.
I wanted to go back to the days of blissful ignorance, of not having to know what my stepfather knew, of the simpler times. I just… I just…
Fuck this.
I guess I was destined to be cursed to a life of singlehood, rejection, and unresolved issues.
11
Emily
This isn’t right. I know I don’t like him.
I’d spent the last month and a half just largely ignoring Adam to some degree of success. It had helped that Nick had gone from person I’d sometimes see in the library to a sounding board. His advice to treat Adam as a faucet that had to let out hot water every so often and less as a bully helped a lot.
It also helped that he had, just the week before, asked me out to homecoming. It definitely wasn’t an invitation I was expecting—frankly, after Adam’s tantrum to start the year, I’d figured no one would ask me out and had even planned a pizza night in at the time. Honestly, when Nick first asked me out, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was just fucking with me. Was he pulling off a big prank to mock me and make me feel bad?
But as I stalled, trying to see if Adam would pop out to laugh in my face, I realized that Nick was actually quite serious. He really did want to go to homecoming with me. He really did like me.
And I…
He was nice.
But that was the most I could say. OK, I could also say he was attractive. He had a nice smile, and he had a nice build from playing football. But his quiet nature… there was just nothing to him. He wasn’t like the Adam that I’d dated in eighth grade, who could make me feel like a Disney princess. He was just there.
I felt bad. I really wanted to like Nick like that. For one, there could have been no better fuck you to Adam than that, although it was going to be hard to top what I had done to him tonight. Getting him to cancel his party felt pretty damn good.
Would’ve felt even better if I wasn’t as mean as Adam. Or if I didn’t have as many questions about what they were talking about before Adam realized I was there as before.
At least he was nice enough to escort me out of the party. At least he was nice enough to take me back to Mama’s Ice Cream—the very shop where Adam and I used to hang out all the time. Though, to be fair, it was the closest spot to our high school and Adam’s house, so it wasn’t exactly a choice made out of sentimentality.
“Sorry you had to go through that,” Nick said. “Adam’s done a lot of stupid shit in his day, but didn’t think he’d pull something like that.”
“It’s Adam,” I said with a sigh. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him, but he’s not the same person he once was.”
“Yeah.”
A silence fell over us as we stood in line. I kept waiting for the innocuous flirtation, the tickling of the side, the whispers in my ear for what was to come. But did it come?
No, because Nick wasn’t the younger Adam. Damn you, Adam. Not only have you made my high school life miserable, you’ve killed my expectations for dating. I’m going to need professional help because of this.
I looked at Nick, and he gave me a sweet smile, but it wasn’t a smile that got me going. You know who would be much better for him? Samantha.
Not that I’m going to say that right now.
“Do you have any idea why he’s this way?” I said.
“Why what? Why he’s a huge dick?”
I nodded. Nick gave a shrug and a half smile.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Again, it took me a few seconds to realize he was serious. Nick’s reserved personality and seriousness were not things I was used to in someone I called a date.
“No?” I said back.
“Oh, it’s—”
“Hold on,” I said as we got to the front to get ice cream.
Nick tried to pay for my ice cream, but I wouldn’t let him. I didn’t want to give him any ideas about us being a long-term thing. I was happy to go to homecoming with him for multiple reasons, but that did not extend to past the last Saturday night in October.
As I stood to the side, waiting with Nick for our ice cream to come out, I tried to anticipate Nick’s answer. Trauma of some kind? Abuse? Ignored needs by his parents?
Our ice cream came out—me with mixed strawberry and pecan ice cream, him with just plain vanilla—and finally, Nick answered the question.
Well, he kind of did.
“How do boys who don’t know how to handle girls get attention from the girls they like?” he said.
I stared at him. I wasn’t really in the mood for games like this. Just because I’d gone out with Nick didn’t mean that I wanted to play guessing games over Adam. Especially over Adam.