by Vera Hollins
“I don’t need you to treat me differently just because Steven is gone.”
He came right to the edge of the pool above me. His scent mixed with the chlorine, and I found myself inhaling more of it. I scrunched up my nose. His smell wasn’t supposed to be pleasant. It wasn’t supposed to be pleasant at all, and I wanted to slap myself just for this.
He folded his arms across his chest. “Look, I’m tired of going back and forth with you. Let’s just ignore each other, okay? Seeing that you’re always fuming about every single thing I say or do, I doubt you’d make it to forty. You’ll die of stress and probably a complete lack of sex. If there were ever to be a case of someone dying of celibacy, it would be you.”
My blood pressure soared. “Motherfucker.” I pushed myself up and grabbed his hand, yanking him into the pool.
He hit the water head-on with a huge splash, and it was almost a comic display of inelegance. I would laugh if I weren’t so mad. I started to push myself up onto the edge to get out, but he grabbed me by my calf and pulled me back in. I sank underwater before I could hold my breath and swallowed huge gulps of water as I kicked my legs and arms frantically to get back to the surface. I gasped for air as I surged out, my chest burning.
I sputtered. “You idiot!” I swung my arm to splash him, which did nothing to deter him from swimming toward me with a determined expression on his face.
My heart sped up. I backed to the edge, where the water came up to my shoulders, studying his every move.
“What are you doing?” I asked, painfully conscious of the fact that I was only in a bikini and the water did little to hide my body from him.
“You pulled me into the pool. It’s only fair I get back at you,” he said in a low voice.
He cornered me and grabbed onto the pool’s edge by my side, and my breathing quickened. I was too aware of him this close to me, too alert, noticing everything—his shirt that was glued to his body, making the lines of his shoulders that much more prominent; his unruly, completely drenched hair; the muscles on his arms that flexed and relaxed with his every move; the droplets that slid down his face in an almost hypnotic pattern . . . and most importantly, his nearness. He was getting into my personal space again.
“Move.” I pushed against his chest and stepped to the side the moment I had enough space to do so, but he blocked me once again, this time coming almost flush against my side. Everything in me clenched up.
“You’re seriously asking for trouble,” I hissed and tried to kick him underwater. I managed to catch his shin, but he only responded by pressing himself almost completely against me, sandwiching me between him and the wall, and the contact sent sizzling electricity through me.
I grabbed his shoulder, digging my fingers as painfully as possible into his skin. “Get the fuck away from me.”
He smirked, not even bothered by the fact that I was probably giving him bruises, and that only angered me more.
“I think you like playing games with me,” he said. “I was trying to be a better person and walk away, but you just can’t resist. You want war. So, what is it about me that you just can’t ignore?”
This infuriating prick. He’s asking for the beating of his life.
“You’re an asshole!”
I swung my fist at him, but he seized it in his hand, his eyes never leaving mine. “Remember what I told you about hitting me?” he asked.
“Remember what I told you about getting into my personal space? If you start something, don’t be surprised when I finish it.”
“Likewise. All this time you’ve been asking for a fight, but every time I come close to you, you chicken out.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, squeezing his shoulder harder. “I’m not chickening out now.”
His lips curled into a cunning smile. “Exactly. You aren’t afraid of me this close to you. You’re mad but not afraid, which brings me to my next question—what has changed since yesterday?”
I choked on my breath, turning rigid. I looked at my hand firmly gripping his shoulder and then his hand holding my fist, and my eyes widened at the truth of his words. He was right. We were touching, but at this moment, there wasn’t an ounce of fear in my system. Only anger. And I’d even put my hands on him of my own accord, like yesterday, when I’d felt his heart beating against my palm . . . Heat crept up my neck.
I dropped my hand from his shoulder and yanked my other hand out of his, pressing myself against the wall. He needed to leave, pronto. My mind was all in a mess again because of him, and the longer he stayed here, the less clear were those lines between us.
“What’s changed, you ask? The size of your brain. It became even smaller. And what’s also going to change is where your nose is on your face if you don’t leave already.”
A half-smile curved his mouth. “You don’t actually want me to go. You pretend you can’t stand me, but you can’t even ignore me. I think you want to get under my skin.”
I raised my eyebrows. The audacity of him! “Don’t flatter yourself. If I had any say in things, you would’ve already disappeared off the face of the Earth, and I would go above and beyond to celebrate that.”
He tilted his head to the side. “Are you sure about that? Here’s what I think—I got under your skin, and now you’re trying to get my attention any way you can.”
Something in my chest tightened for a split second. “And I think Jupiter has got nothing on the size of your ego.”
He observed me too carefully, and I felt like an open book. Like he could see all of my secrets and lies. I shifted uncomfortably. His eyes narrowed at that, growing a shade darker when they stopped on my breasts. I almost choked on my breath.
He stepped closer to me again and braced his hand against the edge, a smile playing across his lips, but this time it felt different. He felt different, with his unblinking, seductive gaze and expression I couldn’t read, and I didn’t know how to play the game he was obviously playing.
He leaned into my ear. His warm breath fanned my skin, turning me into a nervous wreck, and I clenched my hands. “Is that so?” he asked in a buttery voice. “Then why can’t you ignore me?”
Because it’s impossible to ignore you, a voice inside me said, and heat surged through me again, my eyes growing wide.
He didn’t move as he waited for my answer, but I didn’t have any, and the longer he stayed this close to me, the more I felt a strange sensation that was unlike anything I’d felt before. I was supposed to feel fear or revulsion, but there was none. There was absolutely none.
He drew away to look at me, and it was a look I’d never seen him direct my way. If I didn’t know better, I would say it was desire, but despite telling myself he was playing me, I was unable to look away from those blue eyes almost swallowed up by his pupils. His eyes dropped to my lips, and then to my breasts, and I wasn’t sure if that was my heart or his I could hear pounding. Maybe both. He raised his eyes up to meet my gaze, and the hungry look in them took me aback because it was so raw. He wasn’t faking it.
And that in itself was more terrifying than anything.
I snapped out of it, pressing myself against the wall as far as I could go. “I must say, you’re a major disappointment. If this is how you seduce girls, I have to tell you—change your tactics fast.”
The fire in his eyes turned into ice in an instant. He curled his lip. “That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“I think you’d better call a shrink as soon as you can, because you obviously need therapy to deal with your delusions.”
“Keep believing that if it helps you sleep better at night,” he shouted after me as I moved away from him and climbed out of the pool, grimacing at the thought of my ass being so exposed to him.
I ignored him as I marched to the deck chair and picked up my bathrobe, pulling it on in three super-quick moves as he watched me like a hawk. Then I picked up the bag and turned to go. “You know where the door is,” I threw over my shoulder.
I could breathe nor
mally only once I reached my room, ashamed and vulnerable, because for a few moments, he’d caught me in his web as though I hadn’t known better. As though I’d wanted him to seduce me, which was absolutely not true. Not a chance.
But it had happened, and for that, I didn’t know if I hated him or myself more.
When you were at war with yourself, it was important to follow three crucial rules:
1) Never be led by emotions.
2) Never let the enemy win.
3) Castrate the enemy, so he won’t populate our dear planet with his spawn.
What I should be doing was googling the most painful castration techniques imaginable so I could sneak up on Masen when he least expected it and save the whole of womankind from the container of dirt that was his dick.
What I absolutely shouldn’t be doing was punching the shit out of my locker because it wouldn’t open, all the while imagining I was hitting Masen’s face instead.
“Hey, easy,” Marcus told me, and he shared a look with Kevin.
Hayden and Sarah stopped next to them. “You definitely want another suspension,” Hayden said.
I grimaced inwardly. I took a deep breath and gave opening my locker another shot. Think Zen mode. Zen mode. Zen. Mode.
“Suspension is my bread and butter. I dream of it every day,” I said sardonically, snapping the locker open. Finally.
“You look tired,” Sarah told me. “Have you been sleeping well?”
I had a dozen layers of concealer and foundation on my face, and I still looked tired? I needed to step up my makeup game. Or drown in Red Bull.
“Like a baby on mushrooms.” I put my stuff into my locker.
“My mom uses s-s-some essential oils for sleep. If you want to try it out, I can ask her for the name of the b-brand,” Kevin said.
I doubted any oils would return balance to my life. Unless they could resurrect the dead or turn back time so I could fix everything bad in my life.
“Thanks, but no thanks.” I slammed my locker shut. “Let’s go eat. I’m starving.”
At least I had an appetite. That was one bright spot in this depressing phase of my life.
Blake and Jess were already seated at our table, and they were both looking at something on Jess’s phone. He had his arm wrapped around her, which was equal parts mushy and touching. He was always touching her in one way or another, as if he hadn’t been her enemy numero uno for six months before he changed his tune. Then again, he’d saved her life and even briefly died before the paramedics revived him, and I was pretty sure a close encounter with death could make people learn to appreciate life and people much more. At least he was treating Jess like a queen now, so I didn’t have to worry about her anymore.
“What are you watching?” I asked as I sat across from them, depositing my tray of food on the table.
“My new song on YouTube,” Jess said. “I posted it last night, and it already has over fifty thousand views.” She was beaming with joy.
Sarah dropped between me and Hayden. “That’s amazing!” she said. “You’re getting more views every month.”
Jess nodded. “Yes. I’m so happy my original songs are getting more views than my covers. At first, I wasn’t sure people would even listen to them, but it seems as though they like them a lot.”
Blake gazed at her like she was a deity to worship, wearing a blinding smile. “Of course they like them a lot. You’re perfect. I don’t doubt you’ll get signed to a record label very soon.” He kissed her forehead. I almost expected him to throw a dozen roses at her feet before kneeling and kissing those said feet.
Something drew my gaze to the cafeteria doors, and I saw Masen entering the lunchroom with a new victim—I mean, a new girl. An unpleasant feeling stirred in my belly, and I unwillingly thought about that moment in the pool two days ago.
I shouldn’t be surprised that he might want me after seeing me mostly naked in the pool, and I surely shouldn’t feel flustered by that. It was nothing to feel special about. He was a hormonal teenager, and his dick dictated his life. He had sex more than an average hooker, and I was sure he would fuck every single girl on this planet if he could. So, the only thing that attracted him to me was my vagina. Pure biology. Nothing else.
I just hated that he had to be that way with me. I didn’t need to know I was yet another girl he wanted to use and throw away.
He grabbed his food and whispered something in the girl’s ear before he headed to our table, exuding an air of overconfidence that could probably be felt even on Mars. And did I imagine this, or did almost every single girl in the room ogle him? As for him, he was basking in it, smirking and moving with a swagger, so different from how he walked and acted at home. He was putting on a show, and the girls were eating it up.
I looked at my food with a grimace, imagining that it was his face I was stabbing with a fork and not a piece of broccoli. He sat down diagonally from me, and his eyes found their way to mine immediately, making my stomach do a mini flip.
I frowned. Why did my stupid stomach flip?
Like, sure, I’d felt something idiotic in that pool for a split second—disgusting—but that was it. A temporary glitch in my body. So, unless it was from revulsion, there wasn’t supposed to be any stomach-flipping here.
I sneered at him and dug my fork into my rice. I killed him in a hundred different ways in my mind, each more gruesome than the previous one.
He’d wanted the “truce.” He’d even apologized. But it was so damn hard not to call him out on his bullshit or throw an insult his way, even more so now that he was obviously seeing me as an object.
“You’re this hateful, judgmental, aggressive bitch who keeps barking and never stops to think how badly she can hurt someone. Always so explosive.”
Steven’s words came back to torment me again, and I closed my eyes, gripping my fork. Okay. I could be a better person. I could control my anger. I could just ignore him and hope lightning would strike him tomorrow—
Hateful.
Aggressive.
Crazy.
Bitch.
Yes, it was true. I was all of this and so much more. I had so much venom in me. So much venom circulated through my veins, and it was hard not to want to lash out at him. I was too aware of him, almost to the point of blocking out everyone else, especially since I could feel his gaze on me more times than I wanted to count, and I wanted to punish him for affecting me this much.
But then Marcus mentioned prom and the suit he’d bought last weekend, and my mood went downhill in a whole different kind of way. The whole school had been yapping about the prom and its grand ball theme, and it was as if nothing else existed in the world. Everyone was so hyped about it that I wanted to puke, and then puke again. The school council meetings had become unbearable, with Shreya being the most enthusiastic about it.
Me? My enthusiasm was zero. No, it was even less than zero. More like minus one million.
I just wanted to gallop into the sunset and forget prom ever existed. I didn’t want to go any place where I had to smile, dance, and be happy. I couldn’t be happy when my brother’s new address was Six Feet Under, Stupid Cemetery, CT.
I didn’t need to study textbooks to know I should move on with my life, but it was hard to move on when:
1) My brother died.
2) I was partially responsible that he’d gone to his early grave.
He should’ve lived to go to prom, date, marry, and have many kids I would spoil and maybe kidnap so I could pamper them for all eternity. Not be eaten by insects as his body decomposed.
Also, I didn’t have a date, not that I wanted one. I looked around our very much lovestruck table, thinking how everyone had a date. The only single person besides me was Masen, but I didn’t have any doubts that he would easily find some girl to be his date, if he hadn’t already. I could already imagine him parading around with the next potential Miss United States, looking as obnoxious as ever.
I stuffed veggies into my mouth. Maybe I
could just say I had some deadly disease and stay home. Yes, I could stay home and watch reruns of Breaking Bad. I could even make sure I had enough Nutella to last me a month and drown myself in that jar of deliciousness. But then I would hate myself for hiding and acting stupid.
“My mom is going to take me this weekend to look at dresses,” Jess said, breaking through my thoughts. “I was scrolling Pinterest a few days ago and saw a pink dress with beaded detail on the chest. I want to buy something like it, but I’m not sure if I’ll find it.”
“You can ask a dressmaker to make it for you,” Sarah suggested. “That’s what I’m doing. Mrs. Black has a good friend who sews dresses, and I’m going to see her this weekend.”
“I’ll order my s-suit online,” Kevin said. “I’m still not s-sure what I want.”
“We need to make sure it matches mine,” Marcus said, winking at him. “Or at least the ties. We can wear the same ties.”
Kevin smiled in response, his cheeks rosy and eyes twinkling with affection. “I’d like that.”
Sarah cast a dreamy smile at Hayden. “I can’t wait to see you in a suit.”
Hayden smirked. “I bet you can’t.”
“I hate suits,” Blake said. “They’re so uncomfortable.”
“But you’ll look good in one,” Jess told him. “I can already imagine it.”
“Have you found one yet?” Hayden asked Blake.
“Nope. I’m in no rush.”
“You might want to do it soon,” Marcus said. “You don’t want to do it at the last minute.”
I looked between everyone as though I was following a ping-pong match, completely silent. I had nothing to contribute to this conversation. I didn’t even have a dress or any idea how it should look. Maybe I should just dress into a potato sack and be done with it. At least it would be a memorable outfit.
“What about you, Mel? Have you found a dress yet?” Marcus asked me.
All eyes turned to me. Just great.
My lips bent into a smile. “Yep. It’s going to be purple with green dots and have a train as long as the Great Wall of China.”