Zach keeps his hands where they are, under my shirt, on the naked skin of my waist, and wedges his hips between my spread thighs.
“Start talking,” he growls and it goes straight to my lower tummy.
We mirror our position from yesterday. His hands on my waist, mine on his shoulders. My thighs around his hips and our chests punching each other with every breath. Only we were horizontal and he was drunk, and today we’re both in full possession of our faculties.
“About what?”
His jaw ticks. “You smile at me. Then, you invite me to have dinner with you. I eat the food. It was fucking delicious so I eat some more. Meanwhile, you’re blushing. You can’t look at me. But every time I try to leave, you stop me. So I’m asking you why the fuck are you acting like a bad rash I can’t get rid of?”
He liked the food.
I want to smile but I bite the inside of my cheek to stop. Instead, my fingers become claws at his neck. “That’s incredibly mean and offensive.”
“I am incredibly mean and offensive. Always have been.”
“I don’t –”
He digs his fingertips into my flesh. “Start talking, Blue.”
“Do you, uh, remember the first time we met?”
My ankles are crossed at his back again, and I tighten them when he frowns. “What about it?”
My fingers begin to move and I curl the soft strands of his hair at his neck. His nostrils flare and my mouth dries out.
I clear my throat. “I don’t… expect you to remember the whole thing, of course. It was a long time ago but, uh, we met on my first day at St. Patrick’s. And we both were in detention. The teacher asked us to do lines, I think. I can’t remember what we were supposed to write, though. Anyway, we were sitting like, two seats over or something because I could see your –”
“One.”
“What?”
“One seat over.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. And we were supposed to write I’m sorry for being bad about a hundred times. Fucking Mrs. Pennyweather.”
Right.
It’s very old-fashioned and outdated. But now I remember that the teacher, Mrs. Pennyweather, assigned to us was older than dirt. And she’d make us do lines every time we ended up with her.
I move my body even closer, my thighs and my ankles cinching up around him.
“What else do you remember?” I whisper.
Zach practically lifts me up and forward, until my breasts are plastered to his chest. “Everything.”
I shudder against him. “You remember everything?”
“Why don’t you just get to the point?”
The point.
Um, okay.
Drawing up all my courage, I look into his eyes. “I didn’t remember it until last night and I…” I bite my lip before blurting out, “Zach, I’ve always wondered why you picked me of all the people at school. I thought that it was because I’m from the other side of town and I was new and because we didn’t have anything in common and I didn’t belong with you guys. And because people like you, you know, rich and rolling in money, think they can do whatever they want. But now I’m… I’m wondering something else.”
I can’t feel him breathing. His chest isn’t moving and his lack of air is making me dizzy. As if even his organs are connected to mine. His lungs don’t breathe so mine don’t either.
“Zach?”
“What happened last night?” he asks, his grip increasing on my waist.
“Huh?”
“You said you didn’t remember but now you do. What happened to make you remember?”
I can’t possibly entwine myself around him any further, but I try as I answer him, “You don’t remember, do you? About last night?”
“Tell me.”
“I saw something.”
“What?”
“I was going… I know you told me to stay away from you but I was going to your room anyway. Because I…” I swallow. “I just had to. But then, I saw you outside my window. You were drunk and you fell. I ran to you and, uh, we talked. And then, I helped you up to your room. When I was tucking you in, I saw your book.”
His hold on me is punishing and I know later when I look in the mirror, I’ll find the red prints of his hands. I also know I’ll touch those fingerprints with my own.
“And?”
His words have a dare.
He’s provoking me to say it.
“Why did you refuse to read the story, Zach?” I whisper, grasping his neck, touching his taut vein, crackling with electricity. “Why’d you lie about it?”
He remains silent. Not that I was expecting him to say anything. But his silence is answer enough.
Zach is dyslexic.
And from what I saw, he also suffers from dysgraphia. Meaning he has difficulty reading and writing. It’s pretty common for people with dyslexia to struggle with their writing as well.
I know very little about it but my mom used to tutor a few kids who suffered from it. She’d say that suffering from a learning disability almost always comes with a certain type of stigma. A certain type of shame.
She’d say that such kids are always more sensitive than the rest. Even if they do work hard and learn how to read and write, they always have this little part in them that makes them doubt themselves. They might not always show it but every little failure cuts them deep.
If it’s true, then I’ve cut Zach, slashed him, made him bleed as many times as he’s done me. All without knowing.
“For years, I’ve been… I’ve been saying all those things to you. All those barbs and insulting comments and I had no idea,” I say, my voice laden with guilt, my fingers caressing the dark stubble on his jaw. “I can’t stop hearing my own voice. All the things that came out of my mouth. All the hate and I always thought you deserved it and it was your fault. But maybe, I’m not so pure and good as I thought I was. I was cruel to you too. And I’ve been wondering if all of this could’ve been avoided –”
My words cut off on a gasp when his thumbs hook into my belly button. The pressure of them is exactly what I sometimes feel for him.
It radiates down, to my lower abdomen, my core, my thighs and I’m all charged up. Just by his one touch.
“Nothing,” he growls again, and I feel it down to my toes. “That happened between you and me. Could’ve been avoided. Not one thing. Because I picked you. And I picked you because you were different. You stood out. You stood out to me. And I couldn’t stop watching you. Not for a single second. Your crazy pigtails that grew into your crazy blue hair. Your socks that grew into knee highs. Your dirty, smudged uniform, exactly like mine. The detentions you used to get for talking back to teachers. Your little outbursts, your little retaliations. And even though I never, not ever, came to your rescue, you still looked at me with your blue fucking eyes. There used to be this… this tiny ray of hope that Zach would probably do something. That Zach would be better this time. That he’d save you.”
Shaking his head once, he flexes his grip on my waist. “It used to make me mad. It used to make me feel fucking… protective of you. Like I wanted to crush everything harmful around you. And it used to make me feel bad about myself when I wouldn’t.”
He scoffs. “You don’t know the first thing about being cruel. Cruel is what I’ve done to you just because you made me want to change. Because you made me want to be better. And I didn’t wanna be better. I didn’t wanna change. I didn’t wanna be a different person. A person who’d save someone. A person who’d stand up for what’s right. I’m not that person. I refuse to be. I don’t care about the world. I don’t care about anybody. I don’t care about you. So nothing that happened between you and me could’ve been avoided. I would’ve found you and hurt you and let you get hurt, anyway.”
His words sink into my bones. Into my very marrow, and I’m burning with them. With his inflammable, incendiary tone.
With his pyrokinetic stare.
I’m burning to tell him that it’s not true. He saved Art, didn’t he?
“And you know something else?” he continues.
I shake my head, or at least, I think I do. I’m not very aware of anything but him in this moment. About the things he’s saying.
“Cruel is what I’ll do to you if you don’t stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong,” he whispers, threateningly. “Do you finally understand?”
When I don’t nod my head like he wants me to, the press of his thumbs on my belly button increases and I swear, I swear, I feel it down to my core in a straight line. That pressure.
Maybe there’s a nerve going from behind my navel down to my pussy and he’s found it without even looking.
“Do. You. Understand?”
He articulates every single word like I can’t hear him. I can. I’m just not comprehending anything.
Still, I jerk out a nod.
His reaction is to clench his jaw and let go of me. He steps back and away from my closed thighs and I’ve never, ever, in my life felt colder than I do right now.
It’s like he took away all the warmth with him.
I slide down the counter and watch him leave.
He takes lunging steps to the door but stops with his hand on the knob. He gives me his profile like he can’t be bothered to turn around and look at me, and I see his hard, angled jaw and his high cheekbones.
A prince through and through.
“And eat your fucking dinner.”
I’m working a dinner party tonight.
It feels more like a tragedy, however.
It’s an intimate affair, with only a handful of people: Mr. and Mrs. Prince; Mr. and Mrs. Howard, Ashley’s parents; and of course, Zach. Ashley isn’t here; she’s away at college.
Thank God.
Now for the tragedy. I don’t think anyone else notices this but I do. So they’re all seated around an antique-looking dining table with an ornate filigree along the edges and curved-at-the-bottom legs.