by Callie Hart
When Leon reaches me, he spins around and sags against the wall beside me. “Just like every cliched movie you’ve ever seen, right?” he says wearily. “We are the children of America. The country’s brightest and most promising.” He seems resigned as a girl with bright green hair runs into the kitchen, diving for the sink, leaning over it and retching her guts up. The moment couldn’t have been timed better. Neither could the roar of laughter and cheering that goes up as everyone turns toward the spectacle and begins to celebrate the fact that the party’s arrived at its drunken zenith.
A series of high fives are traded around the kitchen. A grinning, slack-faced girl with lipstick on her teeth laughs like a hyena, turning to me, holding her hand up for me to join in. The icy, unamused lift of my left eyebrow is all I require to decline. The girl’s smile falters. She lowers her hand and turns away, hiding her face in her red solo cup.
“Impressive.” Leon laughs softly, scratching at his jaw. “Think you could teach me how to do that sometime? I use way too many words to tell people to fuck off. Very ineffectual.”
This earns him a wry smile. “It’s a gift,” I admit.
“You’re hating this,” Leon observes, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
I throw back a mouthful of beer, draining my cup. “Whatever gave you that impression. Aren’t I the life of the party?”
“I’ve seen nuns have more fun.”
A full smile this time. “Hey, I bet those broads are freaky as fuck underneath those habits.” And then, “You don’t seem to be having the best time yourself.”
Leon lets out a derisive huff of laughter. “Yeah, well, I’m sure I’d be just as moronic as those idiots if I drank, but I’m not quite as enamored with the whole ‘typical high school experience,’ as my father calls it.”
“Your dad encourages this?” I say, empty cup in hand, pointing at the ceiling, encompassing the entire party in one circle of my finger.
Leon pulls a face. “Yeah, well, high school was the best time of his life, apparently. He expects these blow-outs. Means I'm enjoying my life, even though he's never around to witness it. If I don't throw the occasional rager, he tells me I'm working too hard and threatens to ban me from the swim team, so…” He holds out his hands, palms up, shaking his head a little as he takes in the scene in his kitchen. Two guys are holding teaspoons to their mouths, a challenge in both their eyes as they count down from three. Once they reach one, they both shove the spoons into their mouths, attempting to swallow back what looks like a heaping mound of cinnamon. A hale of choking follows after, spluttered brown clouds of fragrant spice coughed up as they both struggle to gasp around the cinnamon. It's the most moronic thing I've ever seen.
“…here we are,” Leon says, finishing his sentence with an air of resignation. “I swear, I have no idea how people can get dumber as they get older.”
“These guys certainly make it look real fucking easy.”
Outside. Apart. I feel other than these people, I always have, and it sounds to me like Leon feels the same. He takes my solo cup from me and heads to the large marble island in the center of the kitchen, punching Austin, one of the guys in my History class, in the shoulder when he tries to give him a tittie twister. Looks like the slug hurt, but Austin laughs it off, slapping Leon on the back. Leon ducks his head, quickly pouring a number of different liquids from a number of different bottles into the cup he took from me and then adding a splash of coke at the end.
I can smell the liquor fumes rising out of the cup as he passes it back to me; I’m gonna be in trouble if I drink this. I sure as shit won’t be riding home, that’s for sure. I can scheme and bust my ass all I like to get Ben back, but if I end up with a DUI on my record, I can kiss goodbye to any hopes of getting guardianship of Ben. Even I’m not that stupid.
“Come on,” Leon says, jerking his chin toward the large set of sliding glass doors to his right. “These assholes are giving me a headache. I wanna show you something.”
I don’t argue. Any excuse to get the fuck away from the party, really, and I’m curious. What this guy wants to show me in particular, I have no clue, but it’s got to be better than watching two dickheads choke on cinnamon.
I haven't been out the back yet. A manicured lawn stretches down a slope toward a few outbuildings, and I can hear water running somewhere. Lord knows why anyone would bother with a fountain when the sky is basically a permanent water feature. Leon walks off down the slope into the looming dark without saying a word. I sniff the contents of my solo cup as I follow after him, risking a sip and then wincing at the sheer volume of alcohol within the drink. It’s Long Island Iced Tea level shit.
“My dad has trouble finding new and interesting ways to spend his money. He set this up for me a couple of years ago, I guess back when he was trying to inspire some sort of masculine, boy’s club attitude in me.” His face is pale and solemn as he looks back over his shoulder. “As usual, I disappointed him.”
I knock back a mouthful of the drink, my insides burning as the alcohol slides down my throat. “Wouldn’t worry about it. Sons are born to disappoint their fathers.”
We reach the first of the outbuildings—a large, white, corrugated steel structure with a flat roof, the size of a small barn—and Leon takes out a set of keys, unfastening a weighty, industrial sized lock that secures a large steel sliding door. A moment later, Leon steps inside and hits a light, and bank after bank of strip lighting blinks to life inside.
It's a workshop. Not just a workshop; it’s a monstrous space, with two bays to work on vehicles, and countless metal shelving units, packed high with just about every tool and piece of equipment known to man. Everything is meticulously clean, organized and in its place. Wrenches, spanners, and screwdrivers hang from the walls, ascending in size. And along the right-hand side of the workshop, three motorcycles are parked one beside the other. All of them are classics—two Harleys and a Honda. They’re immaculate. The kind of bikes a guy dreams about. They must have cost a cool twenty grand a piece.
I whistle, shoving past Leon into the workshop. “Shit. You just have these sitting here? In a workshop behind your house? You don’t ride them?”
Leon shakes his head. “I put the Honda together. My father had one of his guys come in here and take it apart, down to the nuts and bolts. And then he told me, if I wanted to keep my trainer over the summer break, I had to figure out how to put it back together inside a week.”
“YouTube?” I ask.
“YouTube,” he confirms.
“Can I take a look?”
He holds his hand out, a rueful smile on his face. “Be my guest. You’ll be the first person besides me to lay eyes on them since Dad dumped them here.”
Closer, the bikes are fucking beautiful. I love my Indian—there was a time when I spent every single spare dime that came my way on hulking that thing out—but let’s face it. My bike is nowhere near as lovely as these machines. I run my hand over the Harley Roadster, imagining I can feel the purr of the engine beneath my palm. It would be so, so fucking sweet to put this baby through her paces. “You haven’t shown these to Jake and his friends, then?”
Leon’s expression warps; if I’m not mistaken, it’s anger that I see flaring in his eyes. “No way, dude. Jake thinks anything and everything is put in front of him for his own amusement. If he saw these, he’d have one of them wrapped around a fucking street sign in five minutes flat. And he’d probably walk away unscathed, of course. Jake and his friends seem to have nine lives.”
There’s a bitter edge to his voice that makes me look up at him. “I thought you were tight with Jake.”
“Jake thinks he’s tight with everyone. Truth is, he’s a fucking asshole, and no one’s brave enough to call him on his shit. Jake kind of stole my girlfriend from me, and yet here we are…” He throws his hands up, frustrated. “He shows up, ready to party. He makes himself at home without a second fucking thought. Right now, I’m pretty sure he’s upstairs with Ka
cey, for fuck’s sake, and I’m just supposed to…let it slide. Just like everyone else, I'm supposed to pat him on the back and tell him his shitty behavior is totally fine because he is the great Jacob Weaving, master of everything the light touches.”
I smirk. “Was that a Lion King reference?”
“Kinda,” he replies glumly.
I hold out my solo cup to him, and he takes it for me so I can throw my leg over the Roadster and push the bike upright. The shape of it's much like my Scout, but it's heavier, more substantial. The key's in the ignition. I point at it, asking a silent question, and Leon nods. When I start the engine, the bike explodes into life, and I get the same, familiar burst of adrenalin I always get when I start up any motorcycle. A smile spreads on my face, so broad and wide that my cheeks begin to hurt. “Fuck, man. This thing really sings.”
Leon folds his arms over his chest, nodding, but I can see it in his eyes—the sound of this engine doesn't light a match inside him the way it does with me. It goes without saying that Leon's not really a greaser; if he were, he'd be raving about these bikes right now, pointing out every small detail of their engines and their specifications, a fire burning in his eyes. The way he looks at them, they could be interesting ornaments on a mantlepiece.
I kill the engine, still grinning. “So, Jake stole that girl from you? Don’t take this the wrong way,” I tell him, “but honestly…I thought you were gay, man.”
Leon’s tenses up, his spine straightening, eyes widening a fraction. “What? I mean, why would you say that?”
“I don’t know. I just…” I shrug, patting the bike’s gas tank. “Sorry if I’m way off. It’s just what I figured when I met you earlier.”
His eyes narrow. He doesn't seem angry, though. Accuse some guys of being gay, and you'll earn yourself a split lip and a trip to the emergency room. Leon just seems confused. “Am I super effeminate or something?”
“No, man. You’re just…you’re a guy. You’re you. Whatever.”
Leon rocks on his heels. There really isn't any physical reason I would have thought he was into dudes. You meet some people and you know instantly, because of the way they speak or gesticulate, or because of the specific things they say. That didn't happen with Leon. It just seemed true. “No one's ever said that to me before,” he says tightly.
I begin to think I might have overstepped, which kinda sucks. I don’t want to fight him. He’s a big guy, but I’m more than capable of kicking his ass. Leon’s big and broad with a huge fucking reach on him, but he’s not a brawler. No fucking way. He shifts from one foot to the other, his eyes sharp, searching my face. “You don’t give a shit, do you?” he says, the statement an accusation.
“I’m sorry?”
“You wouldn't give a shit if I were gay, would you?”
I jerk my head back, my mouth turning down as I consider what he’s just said. “No. Of course not. Why would I?” I wait for him to say something back, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t move for a second. He just stands there, hands still in his pockets, eyes boring into me…and I realize that he’s holding his breath. Eventually, he shakes himself, as if he’s coming back to life, and scuffs the sole of his shoe against the buffed concrete floor.
“Well I’m not gay gay,” he says stiffly. “Obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have been with Kacey. I like guys and girls. Anyway, let me know if you wanna use this place to work on your bike sometime,” he adds, changing the subject rather clunkily. “I’m never in here. Seems like a shame to let everything just…sit.”
I recognize that as our cue to leave. I climb off the back of the bike and take my drink from him, swallowing down half the liquor inside in one go. I finally feel the effects of the booze, my legs beginning to feel heavier and heavier as we walk back up the slope toward the house.
“You ask me, you’re better off without that Kacey chick, anyway,” I tell him. “She’s a piece of work. Probably would have bitten your dick off if you’d put a foot wrong.”
Leon glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “You’re more right than you know. Kacey’s beautiful. Popular. Fun. But Jesus fucking Christ, her teeth are sharp. Cross her or any of the other girls at your own peril.”
I laugh under my breath, draining the last dregs of the punishing drink. “Don’t worry. I’m not interested in any of those dumpster fire bitches.”
“No. You’re only interested in the weird, quirky, indie outcasts, I s’pose?”
I say nothing, but we trade dry looks and it’s very obvious who and what he’s referring to.
“I won’t tell you to be careful of that one,” Leon says, rubbing at the back of his neck awkwardly. “I know Jake’s already done that.”
“Do I really need a warning?”
For a moment, Leon looks uncomfortable. “I don’t know the details. I can’t say either way. That night just got…it got really fucking crazy, and when the shit hit the fan, Kacey still had her claws in my back so deep, I’m ashamed to say I just did whatever the fuck she told me. All I do know is that Silver used to be one of them…and something really horrible must have happened between her and Kacey for everything to have blown up the way it did.”
I frown, crushing the solo cup in my hand. We’re almost back to the kitchen’s sliding doors. The sounds of the party have reached a fever pitch, the music pulsing like an angry heartbeat. Someone opens the door, throwing an oblong shard of golden light out into the darkness. Inside, someone screams raucously at the top of their lungs, but I’m not focused on what they’re shouting. I’m still trying to process what Leon just said. “Wait, what do you mean, she used to be one of them?”
Leon nods, rocking his head from side to side, as if he finds the idea of Silver and Kacey being friends absolutely un-fucking-believable, too. “Yeah, I know. Kacey and Silver were inseparable not too long ago. You couldn’t say one of their names without the other. Kacey and I were in a relationship for years, but you’d never hear the names ‘Kacey and Leon’ put together. It was only ever Kacey and Silver. You couldn’t picture it now if you tried.”
I am trying. I’m trying to picture it, and he’s right. I can’t fucking do it.
He gives a brittle, hollow laugh. “I guess now it’s not Kacey and Leon, or Kacey and Silver, anyway. It’s Kacey and fucking Jacob. I wonder how long that’s gonna last.”
15
ALEX
Leon goes back inside, but I need a moment to clear my mind. I can’t face the football team right now. All I really wanna do is think for a second, to try and wrap my head around the idea that Silver used to align herself with Kacey and her clones. I don’t hate Halliday, but the rest of them are vacuous witches without an independent thought between them, and it’s strangely unbearable to think Silver used to be like that. Like them.
Around the side of the house, I'm unsurprised to come across a swimming pool. Steam rises off the illuminated body of water, up toward the night sky. Leon made it seem as though his father didn't want to support his commitment to his swimming, wanted him to do anything else but swim, but this makes a different statement altogether. Usually, people have modest pools in their back yards, kidney-shaped, maybe with a fountain or a waterfall. Not Leon's, though. Leon's pool was clearly not put here for relaxation purposes. It's an Olympic sized pool, fiercely rectangular, long and thin with only three lanes. Leon must come out here every morning and swim a thousand fucking laps to justify such a huge, obnoxious body of water.
There are sun loungers to one side of the pool, though they look like they’ve never been used. I sit my ass down on one and then lie back, staring up at the clear sky. Up there, the heavens are a midnight blue, the color of deep, dark water. The stars are incredibly bright, like burning pinpricks of silver.
Silver.
Silver.
My phone feels like a lead weight in the inside pocket of my leather jacket. I pat my hands against my chest, contemplating taking it out and pulling up her phone number. Maybe hitting the dial button. I wonder brief
ly where she is. What she’s doing. It’s late, almost one thirty in the morning, so the likeliest answer to those questions is that she’s in bed, asleep, and she wouldn’t appreciate a drunk dial from me.
A burst of giggled laughter disrupts the quiet behind me, to my right, and I hear the sound of a door closing. The hurried padding of feet follows, and I know immediately that someone’s headed this way, toward the pool. I close my eyes, annoyance rippling beneath the calm surface of my exterior. It’s too late to get up and get the fuck out of here without being seen, and I don’t feel like I should have to move to make room for a gaggle of Raleigh High’s social elite anyway. However, when I crack my eyes and realize who’s coming running around the side of the building, wrapped in nothing but towels, I wish I had gotten to my feet and bolted.
Halliday, Kacey, Zen, and three other girls all study me with amused eyes as they tiptoe toward the pool. They all have wet hair, which makes it seem as though this isn’t their first dip into the water. Halliday’s expression tenses when our eyes meet, but Zen’s on the other hand…There’s something fucking wrong with that girl. She doesn’t seem to be getting it, and I don’t know of many more ways to tell her to fuck off without getting really hostile. She bounces on the balls of her feet when she sees me, covering her mouth with her hand as she leans over to whisper excitedly in Kacey's ear, and I swallow down a groan. Kacey's eyes cut to find me, and she arches an assessing eyebrow—she seems to be considering something. Zen clasps her hands in front of her chest, doing little hops from one foot to the other, her mouth stretched wide, bearing her teeth as she clearly says, “Pleeeeeeeeeeease?”