Stolen Crush

by Stunich, C. M.

  “I’m serious.”

  Chasm hesitates for a moment and then nods, standing up suddenly and offering me a hand.

  “I know the girls who run the computer science club; they can access the school’s security cameras.” I give Chas a look, and he quirks a cocky smile. “And when I say I know the girls who run the computer science club …”

  I slap his arm and he gives a smoky chuckle, handing me the phone back. For a second there, it’s like nothing is different, like nothing has changed, like Parrish is going to be waiting for us when we come out of the theater.

  But that’s not reality.

  Reality is that I’m going to set fire to the theater, to the props that I help painted. I’m going to ruin Danyella’s production of Wicked that she’s been working on for an entire fucking year.

  This freaking blows.

  “Let’s start with the gas issue,” Chas begins, reaching into his pocket and sliding out a lighter. He offers it up to me, and we both pretend nothing happens when his fingers trace across my palm. “The janitor keeps a gas can in the shed out back. I only know that because I’ve taken girls—”

  “Kwang-seon,” I warn, and he stops. He seems cocky and self-assured, but that’s the truest sign that he’s nervous as fuck right now. The more nervous he is, the more he talks about girls and plays up his slut persona. “Where is the shed?”

  Chas gives me instructions on how to find the storage shed while he disappears to the computer science room. How he’s going to get the girls to … do something with the footage and keep their mouths shut after the fire is discovered is beyond me. But somehow, I trust that he’s got my back.

  The shed is easy enough to find, situated at the back of the building and behind the student greenhouses. We had greenhouses back at my old high school, too, but we grew vegetables in ours for the school lunch program. Here at Whitehall, they grow exotic plants and do strange experiments with interbreeding and cultivation. It’s never appealed to me.

  I pause in front of the shed, checking around to make sure that I’m alone. For the moment, at least, it appears that I am. Unfortunately, there’s a padlock on the door and I’m seriously lacking in bolt cutters here. With a curse, I circle the shed, peeping in the windows and spotting the red gas can sitting beside a riding lawn mower. There’s a professional crew that takes care of the landscape normally, but just in case a tuft of dandelions or daisies sprouts here or there, they’ve got an emergency fix on hand.

  My eye twitches. I sure wish my worst problem was a stray cluster of flowering plants. That’d be nice.

  After several rounds of circling the shed, I realize that I don’t have many choices here. Either I break a window and take the can, or I don’t do what Justin wants today. He never specified that I had to get this done in a New York minute, but I also know that today is a rare day when nobody is in the theater. Usually, Danyella is there with a handful of drama club members.

  I look around for a stray rock, brick, gardening tool, anything at all … but this is Whitehall Preparatory Academy, where the best shine bright. There’s nothing around for me to use; the campus is as sterile and perfect as the Vanguard’s ice cavern.

  I’m basically out of fucks to give at this point, so I end up slipping my blazer from my shoulders, wrapping my fist in the fabric, and then punching the rearmost window as hard as I possibly can. The old glass gives way easily enough as I rush to knock off the sharp shards around the edges.

  Climbing in is substantially more difficult, but I pad the workbench below the window with the blazer, saving myself from the worst of the glass. My feet hit the dusty floor and I waste no time in snatching the gas can, making sure the cap is screwed tight before I shove it out the window and onto the grass.

  I manage to escape without getting blood on anything, so I consider that a victory.

  Or, as much a victory as someone in my position can have.

  Chasm is waiting at the theater when I get back, giving my ruined blazer a look before I shove it into my bag.

  “Let’s do this,” I say, carrying the gas can down the aisle between the seats. I use my keys to let myself backstage, knowing with every step that I’m going to relive this moment for the rest of my life and hate it with a passion that burns far hotter than any fire I could possibly set.

  This is Danyella’s hard work, my hard work, the work of dozens of students and staff. Dreams, that’s what this production is, a collection of dreams.

  “Maybe I should do it?” Chasm asks from behind me as we enter the room and I stand there, staring at the sea of furniture, the stack of backdrops against the wall, and the boxes full of props. Some of these things, I helped make. Some of them I painted while listening to Danyella talk. Some of them were donated.

  I can’t believe I’m doing this. I just can’t. How can I go through with this and look Danyella in the face ever again? How?

  “No,” I say, my voice firm, maybe even a little scary. If someone has to have blood on their hands, it may as well be me. If Parrish’s captor really is my father, then this isn’t Chasm’s responsibility. And it isn’t Parrish’s. It’s mine. “Stand back.”

  I unscrew the can’s cap before handing it over to him. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath, and I try to remember the look on Parrish’s face, the blazing fire in his eyes, the almost eerie calmness of his voice. He doesn’t want me to do this. Maybe doesn’t think that I can. But I will.

  Justin keeps his promises, does he? Well, good for him. So do I.

  The acrid smell of the gasoline burns my nose as I splash it over a pair of beds intended for Elphaba and Glinda to lounge on while they sing Popular. Guess that isn’t happening. I’m crying as I do it, pouring gas all over my friend’s dreams, destroying hours upon hours upon hours of work.

  With a whimper, I pull the lighter from my pocket, bend down, and flick the wheel. The trail of gas goes up in an instant, and then Chasm is pulling me up and grabbing me by the hand. He leads me out of the theater and, on my way out, I pause and look around before lifting up the glass cover of the fire alarm.

  With a deep breath, I reach out and pull it.

  News of the fire reaches us quickly. It’s everywhere, splashed across social media, highlighted in mainstream news, and most importantly, texted to me via Danyella.

  It’s over. It’s all over. That’s what she says. I’m standing in the shower, leaning against the wall with one shoulder and staring at my phone screen. Little droplets of water splash across the surface, but I ignore them. It’s waterproof anyway and also, I just don’t care. What I do care about is Danyella. Parrish. Chasm.

  I step out of the shower and throw the phone on the counter while I dry off. I’m not ready to message Danyella back, not yet. First, I need to clean up and make sure there’s zero evidence of what I’ve done. The horrible, horrible thing that I’ve done.

  “Some people are starting to suspect Parrish of setting the fire,” Chasm tells me when I step out of the bathroom in one of the fancy robes that Tess bought for me. He’s wearing a robe, too, which is interesting. It must be Parrish’s though I’ve never seen him in it.

  “Good. Maybe they’ll look a little harder for him?” I sit down beside Chas with a long sigh, my phone hanging heavy in the robe’s pocket. It weighs as much as the burden that’s sitting pretty on my shoulders, like a stone gargoyle perched atop my head, watching everything that I do.

  I lie back on the bed, my eyes catching on the vase of sunflowers that are still resting on my nightstand. They’re still fresh, still very much alive, but given time, they’ll slowly wilt. They’ll die.

  It’s a macabre metaphor that I refuse to think too much about.

  “Hey Chas,” I start, but he’s already several steps ahead of me, rising to his feet and moving over to the framed family portrait I hung on the wall.

  “Don’t,” he warns me, glancing over his shoulder with a deep-set frown. “I don’t want to talk about the flowers; they aren’t a big deal anyway.�
�� He looks back at the picture as I sit up, digging my fingers into the edge of the bed as I study him. Teenage guys just don’t randomly give flowers to their best friend’s ‘little sister’ for no reason at all.

  “We don’t have to talk about it right now if you don’t want to, but … I’m not going to forget that you gave them to me.”

  “Who says they’re from me at all?” he queries back, but he’s already shown his cards. It’s too late. “Anyway, don’t look too much into it. I just happened to see them on my way over here and figured what the hell.”

  “That’s the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard in my life. If you don’t want to tell me why you brought me flowers, don’t. Just say that. You don’t have to lie.” I watch as Chasm’s back tenses beneath the robe and he turns slowly to look at me; the expression on his face says everything.

  “You want to hear the truth, huh? You want to hear that I bought the flowers for you because I’m an idiot? Because I thought that maybe, just maybe, you were interested in me the way I was interested in you?” Chasm stalks toward me, and I swear, I can still smell the burn of gasoline, the stink of ash. But no, he’s clean and I’m clean; it’s all in my head.

  I swallow hard, but I don’t know what to say to that. Part of me feels ashamed for not chasing after Chasm that day. The rest of me loves what happened between me and Parrish. I don’t know. It isn’t exactly the time for romance, is it?

  “I should never have brought it up,” I whisper, and Chasm scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Besides, I told you: I have a crush.” He keeps watching me, this unspoken communication in his gaze that I finally, finally get. Oh. His crush, the crush he told me about at the lake is … She’s me. If Chas is an idiot, then so am I for not seeing it sooner. “Anyway, she’s smarter, prettier, and way less dorky than you.”

  What he’s saying, it isn’t a lie. It’s a game, one with stakes that are much less dire than the one I’m engaged in with Justin and Parrish. But a game, nonetheless.

  “I bet she can run a six-minute mile and spends her weekends working out.” I try to smile, but the expression falls flat. I committed arson today; I destroyed Danyella’s dreams. Tears threaten, but I push them back. I can’t cry right now; I have work to do.

  “Damn straight,” Chasm replies, but he isn’t even trying to smile. He’s watching me so carefully, like he’s afraid that I might break. He needn’t worry; I’m made of stronger stuff than he might think. “Don’t cry, Little Sister,” he murmurs after a moment, taking a step toward me. He adds something in Korean, but I obviously don’t understand. I wish I did. Oh, how I wish.

  I cover my hand with the robe’s sleeve and rub away even the possibility of tears.

  “Shall we get started?” I ask, pulling the phone from my pocket and doing my best to change the subject. It’d be nice to have my laptop; that’d make things much easier. But there’s no way in hell that Tess is going to give it back to me now. This’ll have to do.

  “Started …” Chasm trails off and then nods, moving into Parrish’s room to grab his bag. When he comes back, I see that he’s got his own laptop in hand. Thank god for small miracles. “Just tell me what you want me to do; I’m yours.” He pauses, and we both take a moment to process the unintended double entendre. “Put me to work.”

  “How are your hacking skills?” I query with a raised brow. I’m not technology stupid or anything, but my forte is video games, not real-life detective work.

  “Ahh, I’m alright,” he responds with a loose shrug of his shoulders. We settle down together with our backs against the headboard, bare legs precariously close to touching. I decide to give Chas the phone to view the recorded video before I delete it.

  I wish I could describe the expression on his face when he sees Parrish for the first time. As much as I care about Parrish, Chasm cares just as much, if not more.

  “Do you mind if I play with this a while before you delete it?” he asks, and I nod.

  We end up sitting like that for the rest of the night, until both of our alarms go off for school, but it only took me a couple of hours to see that ‘I’m alright’ in Chasm’s language clearly means ‘I’m damn good at what I do’.

  It makes me wonder if he really does know the girls in the computer science club … or if that was just cover for ‘I am the computer science club’.

  We’re both bleary eyed and exhausted as we crawl out of bed to grab our uniforms, but I don’t miss the fact that one of the sunflowers has wilted briefly overnight. A single petal drifts to the floor as I watch, and chills creep up and down my spine. That’s not a good omen, not a good omen at all.

  “School’s cancelled today,” Tess snaps as soon as we come downstairs. She’s in the kitchen with the rest of the family, nursing a flat white and looking like she got as much sleep last night as Chasm and I did. Once again, Maxx is there, sitting at the table and working on a plate of eggs.

  The way he watches me when I move into the room scares the crap out of me. He hasn’t forgotten about our conversation yesterday; he’s just been busy. Yeah, well, so have I. I was busy setting fire to my best friend’s dreams and trying to figure out where my stepbrother/boyfriend has disappeared to.

  “It’s cancelled?” Ben queries, looking up from his own food. His face is just as red from crying as anyone else’s.

  “Not yours, buddy,” Paul says, reaching out to give his son’s shoulder a squeeze. It’s literally the first time I’ve ever seen him show physical affection to his children. Guess losing his oldest knocked some sense into Dr. P. “Just the high school. There was a fire in the theater.”

  “It was purposely set on fire,” Kimber corrects, cutting her fried eggs into pieces and playing with the runny yolk. I just freeze where I am, my book bag slung over one shoulder, my feet rooted to the floor. Luckily, Chasm is a far better actor than I am, sauntering into the room like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

  “Any news?” he asks, and even though we both know more than the rest of the family combined, he can’t seem to hide the small spark of hope in his words.

  “Nothing,” Tess chokes out, her hands shaking around her mug. She lifts her gaze up to mine, and I feel that sick, sad feeling inside of me twist into a dark shadow that overwhelms every part of me, drowning me in pain. How can I keep this up? How can I keep lying? “You really haven’t heard from him?”

  “If I knew where he was, I’d tell you,” I whisper back, sliding my book bag off my shoulder and tossing it beside one of the stools at the breakfast bar. I’m in desperate need of sleep and so is Chasm, but I’d rather spend our day searching for Parrish.

  Last night was a total wash, but Chas had the brilliant idea of looking up wine aficionados in the area. We figured if we could find someone who liked to, say, collect expensive vintages or bid on rare bottles at charity auctions, maybe we could get a lead. Other than his own father, there were about six other locals in Medina who fit the description.

  Then again, that’s assuming Parrish is even in the Seattle metro area. For all we know, he could be ten states away by now. But it’s a start and that’s more than we had yesterday. Also, Chasm was able to take the audio from the call and run it through voice matching software. Don’t ask me how: I’m not the genius valedictorian hacker who likes to play dumb with everyone around him.

  We didn’t get any matches unfortunately, but that isn’t to say that we couldn’t. Or that we couldn’t track the phone number if we had the proper resources. Obviously, law enforcement could do all of this and more, but I get the feeling that Justin is a little more cautious than that. If he truly is the Seattle Slayer, then he’s been fooling not only local law enforcement but also the FBI for months.

  Tess eventually disappears, driving off in her Mercedes while Paul readies the kids for school.

  “Whitehall is closed until Monday, but your mom wants you to stay put,” he tells me before he leaves, and I nod, taking a bite of my own eggs, the ones that Chasm coo
ked for me because he’s awesome like that. “Kwang-seon, your dad wants you home before lunch.”

  Chas balks at that, but there’s no point in arguing with Paul; he has no control over what Chasm’s father does.

  “God-fucking-damn it,” Chasm snarls, throwing his fork into the sink so hard that it bounces back out and lands on the floor. Delphine, who’s in the process of cleaning the kitchen, heaves a tired sigh and picks it up. I’d apologize to her if I had the energy for that sort of thing.

  “It’s okay,” I tell him, even as he rakes his fingers through his ebon-black hair and curses under his breath. “We can video chat or something.”

  “If my dad wants me home, then it’s because he’s planning on riding my ass into the ground. He won’t let me …” Chasm lets his gaze slide over to Maxx. He’s finished his food, leaning back in his chair with his orange juice cupped between his hands. Kimber’s sitting beside him, glaring at me for having the audacity to talk about video chatting with her crush. “Anyway, he’ll make sure I’m studying in his office with him all night. I’ll be trapped, Dakota.”

  “What is it exactly that the two of you are so desperate to keep working on?” X queries, his voice edged like a blade. He’s furious and frustrated with both of us at this point. “What the hell is more important than going out and looking for Parrish?”

  We exchange a look that just seems to set Maxx off.

  “Kimber, could you give us a minute?” he asks, turning to her with a forced smile. She gives him a wary look, like she has no intention of doing any such thing.

  “Kim, come on. Go upstairs and give us a second, and I’ll take you to coffee after Parrish comes home.” Chasm raises his brows at her, and her face flushes as red as my tits usually do.

  “Fine.” She shoves up to her feet and takes off. I lean back on my stool to watch her, ensuring that she’s well out of earshot before turning back to the boys. Delphine seems to realize that we need a moment and quietly excuses herself as well, heading into the gym area to clean the equipment. Tess and Paul want it wiped down twice a week, even if nobody uses it which just seems like a total waste of energy in my opinion.