Expel

by Addison Moore

  “Nothing will go wrong,” I say.

  “Famous last words.” Dr. Oliver pierces me with his heavy stare.

  “I won’t let it,” Gage offers. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” He pats me on the knee. “It’s time to break up.”

  ***

  Totally, I think breaking up with Gage is going to be a ton of fun.

  Emma has graciously invited us all into the kitchen where she’s doling out her latest sweet treat, a steaming hot apple pie served over a bed of vanilla ice cream.

  Of course, she and Barron have been completely debriefed to the situation about to unfold, so I don’t feel bad at all about wolfing down two whole slices before hacking into her son.

  Holden slogs down three pieces before sticking the entire can of whip cream down his throat and indulging in one long squeeze. It comes out of his mouth like a tower before he collapses his lips over the creamy mess, and the reserve drips onto the floor. Charlie goes over and licks at his feet. Come to think of it, Charlie has made quite the habit of following Holden around these past few months and with good reason—Holden is a freaking pig.

  “Are you just going to sit there staring?” Gage stirs the pie on his plate, good and miffed while mowing me down with a palpable hatred. “Why don’t you just crawl over and sit on his lap.” He cocks his head at me. “You know you want to.”

  My mouth falls open. My heart picks up pace because suddenly it doesn’t feel so fun anymore.

  “Maybe I will,” I counter. “Maybe I’m sick of you talking to Chloe Bishop whenever you feel like it. I know for a fact she’s been texting you.”

  “So you’re checking my phone now?” He pushes his plate away.

  “You’re the one who planted the seed of doubt. You gave me no choice.”

  “Whatever,” Gage huffs a laugh and gets up. He heads towards the counter and scoops more vanilla ice cream onto his plate, never wavering from his annoyed expression.

  Holden gapes at the two of us, he’s buying this bull by the crap-load.

  I follow him over, abandoning the pie, which is truthfully the best homemade anything I’ve ever eaten. I miss the days Mom would make edible meals for us. With her ovaries on the line, it’s all zucchini and entrails from here on out.

  “I’m really getting sick of you telling me I can’t talk to Logan,” I hiss, “that you want me to quit my job because you’re so insanely jealous every time I’m within ten feet of him. I’m not gonna stand around and let you tell me who I can and can’t see!” I shout the last few words in his face.

  “Everyone calm down,” Dr. Oliver says it low for added effect.

  “I’m really getting tired of this, Skyla.” Gage looks bored, his aggression boiling just beneath the surface as though it were real. “I never signed up to be anybody’s second anything.” He tosses his spoon into the sink a good five feet away in a fit of rage. “I’m sure there are a lot of girls out there that would treat me with enough respect to cut their ex-boyfriends out of their lives.” The copper kettle on the stove vibrates as his voice blasts across the room.

  “Is that what you want?” I howl back. “For me to ignore Logan at school? Treat him like he’s dead to me because you can’t freaking trust me?”

  “Everybody knows I can’t trust you,” his voice booms off the walls, reverberates within my skull long after it leaves his lips. Gage spears me with a look. The hurt in his eyes tells me this isn’t entirely a fabrication, that he’s seen proof, and so has everyone else.

  The moment seems to stretch out an inordinate amount of time, just Gage and I lost in a tunnel of horrible truths. It cuts through me, rips me apart from the inside like a thousand rusted hooks.

  I take a breath before going on. “Maybe it’s you nobody can trust. Weren’t you the one following me around like a puppy just waiting to find a crack in my relationship with Logan, so you could inject yourself? You broke us up!” I accuse. “You had me convinced Logan was some monster who did nothing but womanize, and you were so self righteous. Ha!” I laugh in his face. “As soon as Chloe came back into town you glued yourself to her side like she was macaroni and you were cheese.” OK, that last part was insanely stupid and unnecessary. Thinking on my feet is not my strong suit. “Face it,” I go on, “you cannot stand the thought of me and Logan together because secretly you know that it’s him I really belong with. Logan and I could start a fire with the electricity we produce from across the room, and it kills you that no matter how hard you want to make me yours—deep inside you know it’s going to be me and him in the end.” I point hard over at Holden. “That is my forever Gage—the one you could only dream of.”

  The room quiets to an unnatural hush.

  Gage ticks his head back a notch as if I had physically slapped him. The undeniable look of hurt in his eyes lets me know I’ve gone too far. It was believable enough with the first few barbs. This is Holden we’re talking about. He won’t be considering a career in rocket science anytime soon. I should have stopped before I carved Logan loves Skyla all over Gage and his tender heart.

  “Get your shit out of my room,” he seethes before speeding away and picking up his keys off the counter. “I’m sure you can find a ride home.” He glares over at Holden.

  “Fine!” I follow him out to the entry. I’m sorry! I mouth.

  Gage holds up his hand, and I give a high five before he takes off into the driveway.

  “I hope I never see your sorry face again!” I shout into the virginal night, with thoughts of Holden behind every word.

  Chapter 78

  Fake Love to Me

  A frigid wind blows through the open front door, sending the newspaper sitting by the entry into a violent shiver. I gaze out at the empty void in the driveway where Gage’s truck sat only moments before. Lavender shadows ascend from in between the trees—tint each blade of grass, soft like a wash of snow. From this angle the driveway hold the curves of a well-endowed woman, the shadow of an evergreen caresses her at the hips like a lover.

  I watch the red glow of taillights long after Gage leaves before slamming shut the door and stomping my way upstairs.

  It’s been an eternity since I’ve been in Logan’s room. The door sits ajar, so I let myself in. Laundry lies about unsettled, drawers left half open with clothes vomiting out, a trail of papers slough off the desk and onto the floor. The entire room has a ransacked appeal.

  On the wall above his desk, splayed out in a neat and organized fashion, are pictures of my faux-tattooed body. Emily had inked me up during ski week at the Pine Pole Lodge. It was supposed to mean something, each image some significant marker that told another chapter of my life. It looks erotic like some kind of gangster girl porn, sans the actual naked body parts necessary for it to qualify. Another row of pictures line the left of his bookshelf, the drawings from Emily’s house that depict the faction war. We were going to pour over these together. This was the Logan I knew—the analytical thinker, the student launched headlong in the worship of this strange girl who isn’t even human—and that inhuman girl just happens to be me.

  I head over to the closet and dig into the deep recesses that maybe Holden hasn’t infected with his poor sense of fashion. I retrieve an untouched sweater still neatly folded on the highest shelf in the back. It holds the geometric configuration of something freshly laundered, or never worn. It’s clear that once Holden jumped on the douchebag bandwagon, he evicted all of Logan’s plain white tees and jeans. I would have accepted them by the bagful.

  I flatten the sweater out over the bed and lay over it as if it were Logan himself. It holds a clean scent, the slight hint of cedar, but sadly, it does nothing to remind me of Logan at all.

  A thin film of tears lines my lashes. I can’t believe I said those horrible things to Gage, nothing but a string of hateful indiscretions. I’ll move heaven and earth to grovel an apology on my knees before sunrise. I didn’t mean any of it, but I know if I’m going to kill Logan—Holden, I needed for him to believe every singl
e word. If ever there was a time for Gage and I to slash each other to pieces with the shards of our tongues, it was tonight.

  “Knock, knock,” Holden comes in, holds his hands out with a bewildered look on his face as if he were about to surrender. I wish.

  I bury my face in the sweater—try to conjure Logan out of it by pressing in a quick kiss against the sleeve.

  “Hey,” he rubs my back, snakes his hand down to my bottom so fast I jump up towards the headboard like a reflex. “I guess you guys really had it out.”

  “Yeah, I’m done with him.” I crawl over on my knees and pat Logan’s perfect cheek with the back of my hand. I miss Logan with a terrible ache. “I’m not going to let him keep us apart anymore.” My stomach sours. Gage would never do that. He would bless me if I ever wanted to go back to Logan because he loves me more than himself.

  “You and me?” This bewilders him.

  “I know, it’s about time, right?”

  “I guess you had it pretty bad for him,” his eyes round out, “me, I mean Gage,” he shakes his head trying to play off the oversight.

  Holden is such an impossible dolt he can’t keep his identity straight.

  “So,” he pulls me in by the hand, “where did we leave off?” He burrows his face in my neck.

  “You know,” I push away. “It’s been a while. Maybe we should take it slow.”

  His features harden. “I don’t like slow. I’m sick of slow. If I don’t get some action soon I’m going to explode.”

  “I know, me too.” Crap! “Let’s take it slow this week. We can pick things up later.”

  “Later?” His brows furrow exposing the fact this is going to be a serious challenge for him. “Like when, later?”

  Like never, I want to say. “Like after prom.” My lips twist holding back a devious smile.

  “Like prom night?” He digs those dark amber eyes into me, and my insides melt.

  I nod my head trying to orient myself to the situation.

  “That’s right. Prom night,” I whisper. “You and me. Bring protection, you’re going to need it.” A bulletproof vest couldn’t save him from my wrath.

  “Cool, I’ll get a hotel room.”

  “Totally!” I muster all the fake enthusiasm possible. It’s a miracle I haven’t slapped him by now. And, who knows, maybe Gage and I can put it to good use?

  “But one thing needs to happen before I give you some of this,” he grabs a hold of his crotch. If Logan ever did that I’d kill him on the spot for being a moron. “I want all that Celestra magic infused right back into my blood. Do whatever witchcraft necessary to make it happen. Because without that,” he lifts my chin hard with his finger, “there is no this.” He points to the bulge in his pants.

  Nice.

  Killing Holden will be a pleasure.

  ***

  Once I arrive home, I have the distinct feeling if I don’t shower soon my skin will melt off from the toxic slime Holden drooled over me.

  I make my way upstairs silent as a mouse. I’m not in the mood for the Mom and Tad show. Mom, because she’d want to talk about Dad, and Tad because, well, he’s just an ass. Plus, he got away with remarrying my mother once again, and that, in and of itself is an unforgiveable offense.

  Drake slinks out of the upstairs bathroom. He has a commode of his own, why he insists on destroying the girls’ toilet is beyond me.

  “Hey,” I yank him to the corner, “why on freaking earth are you not taking Brielle to prom?” I should hit him over the head with the spiked heels dangling from my fingers.

  “None of your business. But, since you make everything your business, it’s because I already asked Emily. Why isn’t Gage taking you? I hear he’s suddenly got a fetish for knocked up teens.” His brows pitch.

  “Because,” I take in a gulp of air, “Logan already asked me.” I don’t wait around for Drake to gloat. Instead, I bolt into my bedroom and shut the door before he espouses something profanely reflective on how we’re both doing the same things for the same reasons—because it would so not be true.

  The walls tremble with laughter—a boy and a girl. I move closer to the closet. Sounds like their coming from the butterfly room. I open the closet a crack and listen—more buzzing.

  Sounds like Mia. But what if it’s not? What if it’s a pair of clown Fems getting it on just waiting for me to go up there so they can take turns strangling me?

  I pick up one of Dad’s skis that I rescued from Mom’s ‘discard my ex-husband pile’. I never planned on letting Gage store them for me. Contrary to what Tad believes, my father’s things do belong in this house.

  I give a good shove and knock the transom to the butterfly room off its base.

  “Crap!” I hear Mia’s worried voice clear as a bell.

  A familiar face pops in and out of the opening, boyish, about fourteen.

  A surge of adrenaline gives me just the right amount of courage to climb up after them. I pull myself up into the butterfly room to find the two of them cowering in the corner.

  “Out!” I point hard at the exit. It’s Gabriel, I recognize him from the Althorpe dinner, then today at the wedding. He’s got a dodgy look about him, same beady eyes as his untrustworthy sister, sharp handsome features that would make any two girls turn their backs on one another.

  “Do you want me to go?” He turns to Mia for support.

  My jaw goes slack at the audacity.

  “Yes, she wants you to go,” I answer for her, throwing a pillow over at him, “and she wants you to never come back. Get the hell out. If I ever see you messing with my sisters again, I’m going to make it my personal mission in life to humiliate you on a grand scale.”

  “On a grand scale?” He mocks on his way towards the exit.

  “I’ll make sure the entire island knows you have balls the size of chestnuts and that you sleep in diapers.” He’s obviously some male version of a home-wrecker, honing his skills right here on my sister.

  His features loosen as though I hit a nerve. Obviously I was spot on about the diaper, probably the microscopic nuts, too.

  “I’ll catch you later,” he says, climbing into the dark oblivion, which reminds me—that twisted gift from Demetri is still lurking up there.

  “Call me!” Mia shouts after him.

  “Call me? Are you insane being alone with him in here?” I scold.

  “Me? You’re the one who keeps it stocked with pillows and bedding. I was afraid to sit down. I had to turn the covers over not to get grossed out by the bodily fluids you’ve probably littered them with.”

  “I haven’t done anything up here.” Not worthy of disgust, anyway. Of course, if Holden gets his way we will, but not until after prom, and for sure not here—but he’ll be dead by then, so it totally won’t matter.

  “I think he likes me,” she bites down a guilty smile.

  “What? He doesn’t like you—he’s using you. I saw him pawing all over Melissa today at the wedding.”

  “He’s getting ready to break it off with her.”

  Dear God. He’s drafted Mia into the home-wrecker training program.

  “That’s what they all say. I promise you, any guy who’s willing to two time is no good.” Gage and Logan flash through my mind. That is technically how Gage and I started out, with him pretending to be my boyfriend. I still remember the day he gave me his class ring. My stomach does a soft roll as I soak in the sweet innocence of it all. But anyway, Gage and I are different. “You need to find someone else.” If only Gage had a little brother, hell I’d take a Harrison offspring at this point.

  “I don’t want anyone else. There’s only one person for me and that’s, Gabriel.” She knocks me back on her way out. “And Skyla?”

  I recognize that satisfied smirk on her face. It’s usually followed up by a threat so big you can drive a truck through it.

  “I know,” I start, “if I don’t enable your secret relationship you’re going to run to Mom and Tad and rat out the butterfly room.”


  “I was going to say,” she drills into me with venom, “thank you for caring about me enough to share your opinion.” She shrugs. “But you’re right.” She sinks down into the closet, landing hard on the floor with a thump. “He’s coming over tomorrow at ten. Consider yourself warned.” She shouts before scampering out of the room.

  I fall back onto the pillow. I hate this. Who knows what they were doing—about to do. I’m going to have to burn the butterfly room just to sanitize it from the carnal offenses they might have committed. I’m going to have to keep it stocked with condoms to stave off Mia going the way of Brielle. Just thinking of Mia and condoms sends a shiver down my spine. There has to be a way to keep Mia out of the butterfly room once and for all.

  Gage blips into the room, startling me back to reality.

  “Gage!” I get up on my knees. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean any of those things. Please forgive me.” I pick up both his hands, pull him down to me and offer a kiss.

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” he whispers. “Holden just came in and told me you two were back on—that prom night is going to end with a bang.” He flexes a half-smile.

  I exhale in disgust. “He’s a real poet,” I say, wrapping my arms around his neck. “The only person I plan on sharing my life and my body with is right here in this room.”

  “Well then,” Gage pecks in a quick kiss, “I look forward to both.” Our eyes lock, radiating the gravity and joy presented by those two prospects.

  He leans in and offers softer more melodic kisses that span a stretch of time immeasurable. Gage writes a poem over me with his tongue, his teeth, his lips. He absolves all of the fleshly offenses that Mia and her boy toy may have violated the butterfly room with. Gage could cleanse the world with the breath from his lungs.

  We continue to wash it clean until the sun comes up.

  Chapter 79