by Vera Hollins
Without taking my gaze off him, I stood up, brushed the salad contents off my lap, and sat back down. I didn’t care if I had to spend the next few hours in stained jeans. Let the whole world see because I wasn’t going to do a thing about them. He wasn’t going to win this.
His only response was a raised eyebrow. I put my mask on and forced myself to eat as if nothing had happened. The food tasted like dirt, but I kept shoving it into my mouth, ignoring hushed whispers and prolonged stares from the rest of the cafeteria.
Jess, Sar, Kev, and Marcus tried to include me in their small talk so I’d cheer up, as Hayden, Blake, and Barbie talked about past NFL season kickoffs, but my fake smiles were nearing their limit. I could sense Barbie’s stare on me more than once, but I refused to look back at him. The next period couldn’t come soon enough, though it wouldn’t bring much relief, because it was psychology, which I shared with Barbie.
The bell rang, and I jumped to my feet, paying no attention to the people staring at the huge stain that had formed on my jeans, which looked as though I’d pooped and peed myself all at once. One girl laughed at me, and I pierced her with a glare, daring her to say a word. She blushed and looked away like the coward she was. Good.
As I picked up my tray and moved to leave, Barbie’s phone rang, stacking the odds in my favor. Finally. I grinned from ear to ear. The chorus of “Barbie Girl” by Aqua blasted through the air, and the students around us all looked for the source of it. The shock on Barbie’s face when he realized it was his phone was priceless. I only regretted not having enough time to grab my phone to film him.
His eyes snapped to me as fury and shame blended on his face, and I jutted my chin forward to show him who the real winner was. He reached for his phone in his pocket and silenced it in a quick move, but it wasn’t fast enough, because everyone saw it, and the whoops and hollers exploded all around the cafeteria.
“Hey, Barbie,” one senior shouted across the room. “Where’s your Ken?”
“I wanna brush your hair for you,” a girl nearby said.
“I want to see him beg on his knees!” a junior next to her exclaimed.
The song references continued, and for once, Barbie’s smirk was gone. There was no arrogance, smugness, or overconfidence, only unadulterated anger. He didn’t look at anyone but me, his blue eyes so dark they almost turned black, and an unexpected shiver of fear rippled through me. It was as if he could see deep inside me, all the way down to that dark part I hid from the whole world, and for a long moment, I felt exposed, vulnerable, and weak. But then I suppressed those feelings, reminding myself I was always in control.
“You want war?” he asked under his breath, his tone conveying pure hatred. “You got it.”
I didn’t blink as I stared back at him. “Bring it on.”
Not even ten minutes into class, I received a text from an unknown number. My heart lurched in my chest as I stared at the screen, feeling this had everything to do with Steven.
No, don’t let it be what I think it is. He’s okay. He has to be.
I opened the message and stared at the words, too confused to grasp their meaning, because it wasn’t what I’d expected. Not at all. Then I read it for the second time.
“Do you ever get rid of that ugly scowl? You look like you’re ready to eat babies.”
I raised my gaze from the screen and found Barbie looking at me over his shoulder from the second row. He was smirking, but I could detect the ice in his eyes that was meant only for me. I didn’t have to wonder how he’d gotten my number, because I bet Hayden would have been more than glad to give it to him after what I’d said to him this morning.
So, this was his tactic to one-up me? By sending me stupid messages? Pathetic.
With a cloying smile, I typed, “At least I don’t eat shit, like you.”
He was facing the front so I couldn’t see his face, but I doubted he was smiling. His replying text arrived only moments later.
“You don’t eat it because you are shit.”
I clenched my phone. Bastard.
Jess leaned toward me. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Barbie,” I said through my teeth. “He got my number, and now he’s texting me to mess with me. But he won’t get away with it.”
Jess looked skeptical. “Are you sure it’s good to engage with him? Maybe it’s best to ignore him.”
“To ignore that sack of stupidity and let him do whatever he wants? Not in a million years. He can’t mess with me with no consequences. I’m no one’s punching bag.”
I returned my attention to the phone and typed a response. “At least I have a brain. You won’t ever find yours since you lost it when they dropped you at birth.”
My screen lit with a new text shortly thereafter.
“Who needs a brain when you have a package like mine?”
I curled my lip and glared at the back of his head. Because sausages were all this world needed, right? Who cared about curing cancer?
I wrote, “Your package is surely smaller than your ego. It’s more like plankton.”
My legs jittered as I studied him. He slumped further down in his chair, sitting so casually, as if didn’t have a care in the world. I wanted to hurl something at his head.
“I’m sure you snooped through my messages. You know exactly how big it is.”
I glared at my phone, wishing they’d invented a way to instantly kill someone via text message. Eight-inch, my ass.
“Yeah, because I should take your word for it,” I replied and added the eye-roll emoji.
I heard him snort, and I glanced at him. The teacher didn’t even notice, because she was too focused on her lesson. He gave me a devilish smirk over his shoulder before he turned back to type a message.
“Wanna bet?”
I didn’t have time to reply before I received another text. All the air in my lungs whooshed out of me as though I’d been punched in the gut when a picture of a long, thick dick loaded onto my screen. My pulse kicked up, my eyes scanning every inch of it before I could stop myself. I might’ve thought it was someone else’s, had I not recognized the striped black-and-white T-shirt he wore today in the photo. It looked as if he took the photo in the school restroom. He’d planned this.
I had to close my eyes, letting out a long exhale of disgust. That son of a bitch. I could try to get that image out of my head all I wanted, but it was engraved in my brain, and it materialized itself behind my eyelids repeatedly.
My fingers jabbed the keyboard as I typed, shaking with anger.
“I’m going to report you to the police for sexual assault, you sick motherfucker.”
His response was almost immediate.
“Do that, and I may slip up and tell them Steven is a junkie who probably has stashes of drugs all over your house.”
I turned rigid, a shiver of dread rushing down my spine. I’d found drugs hidden in our house too many times to not believe he probably had more in some random places I had yet to discover.
I bared my teeth as I texted back. “You would snitch on your friend?”
“And you would snitch on your brother’s friend?”
“You mean that same friend who sexually assaulted me?”
“Says the person who stole my phone and cyberbullied me. I wonder what the court would say about that. And you promote anti-bullying? Tsk-tsk.”
I fisted my hand until my knuckles turned white. That shitface.
I typed a message and hit the “Send” button a little too forcefully: “Do mankind a favor and flush yourself down the toilet.”
“You first,” was his response.
I was fuming throughout the rest of class, imagining all the ways I could hurt Barbie, starting with cutting that monster—I wasn’t going to call that non-human thing a dick—into slices. The bell rang, and I collected my things quickly, having had enough of his insufferable presence.
“See you tomorrow,” I said to Jess and headed to my locker, ignoring all the stares directed a
t my stained jeans.
I was almost there when I realized I was being followed. Barbie fell into step with me, activating my claws-out mode, and I called to mind all the moves I could use on him if he assaulted me.
My narrowed eyes went down his body. “What are you doing?”
He swaggered with his hands stuck in his pockets, his branded clothing a far cry from the cheap sweatpants and tank top he wore at his house yesterday. He was already attracting attention. He even flicked a few loose strands of hair off his forehead in a move that resembled those seen in shampoo commercials, all slow-mo style, which was obviously for the benefit of the girls around us who so openly ogled him. I wanted to gag.
“I know you don’t have a brain, but even a moron like you would know your locker is miles away from here.” I pointed behind us.
“Since I can’t get a day free of you, I decided to make the most of it,” he told me with a big smile I wanted to punch off his face. “You’ll keep coming to my house to get to me? Then I’ll keep giving you a hard time at school.”
I turned to face him as I stopped next to my locker. “I don’t think you realize who you’re messing with. I’m not like those people you bullied out of this school. I’m not going to take your abuse lying down. I’m going to hit back, and it’s not going to be pleasant.”
He stepped into my personal space again, and I raised my fist, ready to punch him. If this motherfucker put a single finger on me, he was going down.
He eyed my fist and my stance, and he smirked. “Cameras, remember?” He motioned with his hand at the cameras in the corners. “And I know exactly who I’m messing with. A deranged bitch. You’re not going to take my abuse lying down? Well, here’s a news flash for you: I’m not going to take your abuse lying down either.”
My whole arm started to shake with how hard I was clenching my fist. “Get out of my sight,” I gritted out, clinging to the last threads of reason before my rage consumed me.
He took a step back and looked over my shaking form once more. Slowly, his lips twisted into a cruel smile. “Breaking you is so much fun. You’ve already given me more than enough material to work with.”
Bastard.
Letting those words hang in the air, he turned around and strolled away, leisurely and with all the confidence of this world.
My arms and legs burned as I swam to the pool’s edge, pushing myself to the limit to finish my thirtieth lap. My muscles didn’t appreciate the torture I’d imposed on myself in order to let off some steam. I stopped to catch my breath and rested my head against the tiles, embracing the ache that washed over my whole body in waves.
Green Day’s “Platypus (I Hate You)” blared from the built-in speakers around the pool room, which was my anthem that depicted perfectly how I felt about Barbie. I closed my eyes and let my body float in the water.
I was too wired from all those close encounters with Barbie over the last few days, and my usual safety valves weren’t enough. I was slowly slipping back into that old phase where I resented and blamed the whole world for my shortcomings. Steven was right. I was a ticking time bomb, and I needed so little else to finally explode.
It was tempting. It would be so easy to give up and let destruction take hold of me. It would be so easy to finally stop faking who I was and show the world how dark it actually was in my head.
I could hardly stand guys, and that was something I couldn’t tell anyone, not even Jess or Sar. Before Mateo and Kevin, I hadn’t had any male friends in years, refusing to even try befriending one. I had a hard time trusting men. Men were disgusting degenerates who would ruin you the first chance they got, and I had no intention of handing myself to them on a silver platter. Hell, I panicked just imagining being with anyone, which was why I swore to myself I’d stay alone forever. I would rather die a spinster with twenty cats than lose the last remnants of my soul.
When I met Barbie, there was something about him right off the bat I just couldn’t stomach. He was the epitome of everything I hated in guys—an arrogant, selfish bully and a heartbreaker who didn’t care about girls—and I took an instant dislike to him. I wanted to punish him. I wanted to show him he couldn’t use girls or abuse people and get away with it.
But that slimeball was tough. He wasn’t going down without a fight, so I had to step up my game.
I got out of the pool and dried myself off. I was starving, so I put on my bathrobe and made my way to the kitchen, thinking about a big-ass sandwich I couldn’t wait to wolf down.
I was midway through the foyer when I saw Steven sitting at the bottom of the stairs with his head hung between his legs. I stopped. I had to rub my eyes to check if they were playing tricks on me.
“Steven?”
He raised his head to look at me, and my chest constricted when I took in his appearance. He looked awful. He was a living skeleton with his ghostly pale skin, bony cheeks, extremely dark rings under his eyes, and his crooked, broken nose, which he had apparently not gotten treated. And he was crying. My stomach hollowed out at the sight of his tears, which I hadn’t seen in years.
“Steven.” I rushed to him and dropped to my knees on the floor, grabbing him. This close, I could see each rash and sore on his face, which had gone through a lot of changes since he’d started using. “What happened?”
He looked to the side and licked his lips. “I’m a fuckup.” I winced at his harsh tone, and he continued, “I’ve fucked up my life. I don’t know what to do.”
Just like that, another piece of my fragile heart broke inside me. We rarely got touchy-feely with each other, if ever, but seeing him this lost—seeing him show this vulnerable side of himself for the first time—I had to comfort him any way I could. I sat next to him and pulled him into a hug, ignoring his foul smell, which told me he hadn’t showered in days. I wrapped my arms tightly around his rather gaunt frame and placed his head against my shoulder. He turned rigid for a moment, but then he relaxed and drew closer to me, shedding silent tears.
“What do you mean?” I asked him. A few droplets of water dripped off my wet hair and onto his head, but he didn’t seem to care.
“I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be better.”
“Better?”
“Yes.”
I bristled at this. “But how can it be better when you’re an addict?”
He pulled away and wiped the tears from his face, his lips drawn into a taut line. “You don’t understand. You never did.”
He was becoming defensive, which made me want to criticize him, angry with him for not seeing reality. But I’d done that all those times before when we couldn’t agree, and what good had that brought me? He’d been away from home for a week, and I’d feared for his life. I didn’t want to lose him, so maybe I could just bite my tongue and try to understand this time.
“Then help me understand. Talk to me. I want to listen. For real.”
He didn’t look convinced. “Do you, really?”
I pressed my hand against my chest ever so dramatically. “I solemnly swear that what I said was truth and nothing but the truth.” I held his gaze, crossing my fingers that he would let me in.
“If you lay into me after this, I’m out of here before you can blink.”
I nodded and mimicked zipping my lips. He lay down and rested his head against the stair, looking at the ceiling.
“Back then, no matter what I did, it wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t good enough.” He smiled bitterly. “Dad was always there to remind me I was good for nothing. I would fail in life. I would be a nobody without college. And the tirade went on and on.
“I was tired of constantly thinking what a failure I was, so when a friend offered me meth, I didn’t think twice about it. It was my escape, and it felt so good to just forget and give in to that carefree feeling. It was unlike anything I’d experienced before. A rush of extraordinary euphoria and energy.”
I shuddered, studying his expression. H
is eyes were glazed, and a small smile twisted his lips at the corners as he went over that moment in his mind. Nausea settled in my stomach.
Drugs terrified me because they robbed you of control and sanity. They turned you into a prisoner, and you couldn’t set yourself free no matter how hard you tried. Addiction was a disease that killed slowly, one drug at a time, and you let it. You embraced the shackles, even when you wanted to fight them, anything just to get another high.
It was terrifying.
He licked his lips. “I didn’t want to give a fuck about anything or anyone. I wanted to relax. So, I took it again. And again. And then I used other drugs, and it went on and on, and it was easier to live that way.” He looked at me guiltily. “But now everything feels out of control, and I’m hurting you. Maybe I don’t know what to do with myself, but I know I don’t want to fuck you up, too.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. I was shaking. “What are you talking about? You can never fuck me up. I’m invincible!” I grinned and hit my chest with my fist. “I’m Superwoman!”
His mouth formed a half-smile, sadness clouding his eyes. “And I’m your kryptonite.”
My smile faded away.
“I see how you look, sis. You look worse than shit, and it’s all because of me.”
“That’s because you’re like a ton of chili peppers eaten all at once.” My trembling lips refused to make a smile. I let out a long sigh. “If it’s so bad, then why don’t you let me and Mom help you?” I asked carefully, worried he would withdraw again if he felt pressured.
He grimaced. “Mom doesn’t understand me. Her ‘help’ is suffocating me.”
“Then let me help you.”
“How?”
“I’ll brainwash you so that you don’t want drugs anymore.”
He chuckled. “Oh yeah? And then what?”
“And then I’m going to pick a girl for you from a ‘Perfect Wifey Candidate’ catalogue and send you off to a college for delinquents where they’ll train you like a military dog and force you to shower with cold water, which, by the way, you need badly—seriously, when did you shower last?—and when you get back, you’ll be a reformed citizen, and—”