DANCE OR DIE: Two Guys, One Girl. No Voice. No Choice.

by A. E. Murphy

  “Hey, this isn’t what I want,” he implores when I start to turn away, “I really like you, Scandal.”

  “Then give me a call when you figure it out.”

  “He’s my brother, my best friend… don’t you get that?”

  “I do, that’s why I’m not mad.” I shrug my shoulders, frowning at him as I walk backwards to the car. “But I’m not waiting around either, Carter. I’m not somebody’s dirty little secret. Not anymore.”

  I pull open the door to the car and climb inside. Stanley blows a raspberry. “All good?”

  “Boys are fucking stupid,” I mutter.

  “I could’a told you that.”

  Smiling, I flip down the visor to block the sun from my eyes and off we go.

  A short while later he adds, “Just ’cause I swore last night, doesn’t mean you get free rein.”

  I huff, but it’s done so in humor. Then I buckle in because I forgot to before, and he keeps on going.

  “Are you coming to the shop when you finish?” he asks, sounding surprisingly hopeful.

  I nod eagerly. “Definitely.” I pick up his house keys from the cup holder and look at the picture of him and Lane together on a water ride. Stanley is smiling and Lane is clearly screaming. Her eyes are squeezed shut and her mouth is wide open. “When did you both meet?”

  “We met in high school; we’ve been together ever since.”

  “That’s how many years?”

  He blows out a breath and widens his eyes as he works out the math. His thumbs tap against the steering wheel in tempo with the clicking sound of the blinker. “Twenty-two. And we have been married…” He clicks his tongue against his palate. “Twenty.”

  “Why didn’t you ever have kids of your own?”

  His eyes flash with sorrow. “I was stationed in Kenya for a few months back in two thousand and five where I contracted malaria via a bug bite.”

  “It made you infertile?”

  He nods grimly. “Not so much the disease but the medications to treat it. We didn’t know until I returned and a year later we started trying for a kid of our own. Three years after that, I finally went to get checked out and we discovered the problem was me.”

  “You didn’t consider a sperm donation or anything?”

  “I was a stubborn idiot,” he admits. “I didn’t want to raise another man’s baby. I didn’t think myself capable of loving a kid at all, to be honest. The things I’ve seen while deployed… truth be told, when I discovered I couldn’t have kids, I was relieved. I’m not a good person. I haven’t done good things.”

  “But you changed your mind?”

  “I grew up, and learned to manage my PTSD, took me a while but I got there.”

  “And now you have me.” I gnaw on my lip. “Why did you take me out of the asylum?”

  “Because your doctor told me you didn’t deserve to be in there.”

  I smile at the thought of Dr. Conway. She was amazing, such a lovely woman. She promised me she’d get me out of there and she did. “I didn’t know. She never said.” Another thought comes to mind. “But… if you’re not working for my uncle and never have been, how and why do you know about me?”

  “Your mother,” he replies vaguely and we pull up outside the school. “Have a good day. I’ll see you in the shop this afternoon.”

  I hesitate, my hand on the handle gripping it tightly as I pull and listen for the click. “You’d have been a great dad, Stanley.”

  I climb from the car and don’t look back, though I know he lingers.

  “Yo, Scandal!” Alice calls, waving me over to where she’s standing with Asher and Joey.

  Smiling, I join my friends, a skip in my step and warmth in my heart.

  “S’up, Scandy?” Joey says, raising his chin at me.

  “S’up, Joey?”

  He smiles and looks over my shoulder where Carter is coming towards us on his bike. He doesn’t look my way, but then I’m not sure he has time. He’s going way too fast.

  An arm goes around my shoulder. “My name isn’t Jeff.”

  I look up at the blond-haired angel of a guy and start laughing.

  “Just gotta lock this up.” Carter yells breathlessly as he flies past us, ignoring Mr. Jefferson who shouts at him to dismount his vehicle on school grounds. Though I did notice his eyes flicker between me and Jeff whose actual name I don’t know.

  Mr. Jefferson shakes his head and sighs, not bothering to go after him. There’s no way he’d be able to keep up.

  “I better go meet him,” Joey says, pointing his thumb in the direction of the bike lockup area.

  “I need to go warm up.” I nod to the entrance. “Meet you after second period?”

  “Fuck yeah, I have so much to tell you,” Alice crassly blurts and hugs me briefly. “And so much to ask.”

  I recall my conversation with Carter this morning and pull her to the side. “Don’t tell anyone about the Carter thing yet, okay? He’s umm…”

  Her smile fades. “Oh hell no, he didn’t kiss and ditch did he?”

  “I don’t know. He said he wanted to talk to Presley.”

  “Uh-huh.” She doesn’t look like she believes him. “You go do your dancing. I’ll meet you after second.”

  “Where are Myers and Denzell?” Hammond asks when I walk in and dump my shit under the table. I assume Denzell is Carter’s last name because I don’t know who else he could be talking about.

  “Denzell is on his way; he’s just locking up his bike. I don’t know where Presley is.”

  “Presley isn’t coming,” Carter declares, walking in behind me. He winks at my reflection in the mirror.

  “Is he ever coming?” Hammond asks and Carter’s smile that is solely for me vanishes and his face takes on a sadness that I don’t like.

  “He’s going through a lot right now, sir. I’m sure he’ll be back.”

  “His daddy beating him again?”

  “I don’t think he’d appreciate you talking about that,” Carter snaps, having his friend’s back.

  “It’s no secret, Carter.”

  “Still.”

  “Well… let’s work on what we’ve got for now. If he doesn’t come back by the end of the week, we might have to look into replacing him.” Hammond doesn’t look joyful at the prospect in any way at all.

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  “Make sure you do.”

  I stretch, minding my own business, and Carter joins me. Now my partner in exercise. He winks at me as he pulls me forward and glances at my lips.

  “You okay?” he asks quietly and we swap positions.

  “Fine. You?”

  “I’m sorry about this morning.”

  “Don’t,” I whisper, shaking my head.

  We stand and jog on the spot, loosening our limbs.

  “I meant what I said, though, I really do want to kiss you again.”

  Fighting my smile, I start doing squats per Hammond’s instruction, holding Carter’s eyes as we face each other.

  “See? You want to kiss me too.”

  “Not in secret,” I reply and his mask slips again. “I’ve got too many secrets already. I don’t want you to be one of them.”

  “Presley—”

  “Hates me for no reason. Bullied me for no reason. Still hates me for no reason.”

  “He is going through hell right now.”

  “I know, but I’m not going to let you use that as an excuse to hide me away. If you want to kiss me, you should respect me enough to have my back.”

  He sighs and we start to lunge, getting slightly too close to each other as we lean on our front leg. “I’ll talk to him.”

  “He’s seventeen, nearly eighteen, right?” I ask and he nods. “Then why do you care what he thinks?”

  “Because I don’t want to add to his plate right now. For whatever reason, he’s chosen you as the outlet for all his shit. Doesn’t make it right and I will try and change that, but until it changes, I don’t want to make his life h
arder by dangling you in his face.”

  I shrug but try to display some small amount of sympathy. “And like I said… call me when you figure that out.”

  He groans and drops back onto his rear dramatically.

  “Come on, guys,” Hammond urges, looking at his watch. “I want this entire routine decided on by the end of second so we can perfect it.” Then he turns towards the door. “I’m getting coffee.”

  I extend my hand to Carter, squealing when he yanks me down with him and rolls me onto my back.

  “No fair,” I grumble petulantly as he grins down at me.

  When he leans in to kiss me, I grin and start pushing myself along the mat, making the skin of my shoulders pinch against the smooth surface.

  Carter laughs and follows, crawling over me until I stop again. “We should add that to the dance.”

  “Good plan.”

  “Maybe a kiss too. People love romance.”

  I place my palm over his lips and shove him until he rolls away, laughing louder than before.

  This time when we get up, we practice the routine and it is amazing. Even Hammond agrees we have amazing dance chemistry.

  I spend the afternoon with Stanley learning how to change oil, water, and a refresh on how to change a tire. I help organize the office too but admittedly that part is boring. If I had the choice between answering the phone and working on cars, I’d choose cars any day.

  Although, he has a junkyard too and I’m surprised when we find an old trailer in pretty good condition.

  “That’s what I used to come live in when I got back after deployment. I wasn’t a good person, so I used to stay here until I became one.”

  “Lane didn’t mind?”

  “No, she understood. I was hard to be around. I struggled to switch it off.” He pats the side of the white trailer and smiles fondly. “This boy helped me switch it off. I worked in the shop, slept and lived here, started going home for meals and then moved back in.”

  “Every time?”

  “Every single time.”

  “You must have done some heavy shit.”

  Nodding sadly, he pats the flaking white exterior again and motions for me to follow. “Come on. I need to find a part that looks like this.” I examine the object and tag along.

  “Don’t like talking about it?”

  “I hated who I was back then.”

  I understand that better than he thinks. “I like who you are now, Stanley.”

  “Thanks, kid, me too. Almost.”

  “Almost,” I agree with a smile.

  It’s almost five when Carter arrives to pick up his vehicle, it’s an SUV, only a couple of years old. He’s so spoiled.

  Presley accompanies him on foot and completely blanks me and Stanley. Not that I care. He can keep that stick up his ass forever, at the end of the day, if my presence perturbs him so badly, I’m the one who’s winning. It makes no difference to me if he likes me or not, and truth be told, I love to see him so riled without even having to try.

  Stanley glares at Presley like he did Officer Myers when I was tackled to the ground and cuffed that day. He waits for them to leave before telling me to stay away from the Myers family because they’re nothing but trouble.

  I salute him and pull out my phone when it vibrates.

  Carter: I like you covered in grease.

  Scandal: Does your boyfriend know that?

  Carter: I’m not going to dignify that with an answer. I’ll pick you up at 8.

  Scandal: Why?

  Carter: Dance practice. This routine is the gateway to our future. It must be perfect.

  Scandal: And what about Presley?

  Carter: I’ll talk to him.

  Scandal: You keep saying that. What makes you think you can convince him of anything?

  Carter: Duh… because he’s my bae. :-p

  Scandal: I’m going to make that go viral around the school.

  Carter: You wouldn’t dare.

  Scandal: *evil smirk*

  Carter: 8. Be ready.

  I am going to be exhausted.

  “That’s the kind of smile a girl gets when she’s texting a boy she likes,” Stanley comments, pointing at me with a spanner.

  “Mind yo biznis,” I retort making him chuckle before getting back to work.

  True to his word, Carter arrives at eight on his bike not his fixed SUV.

  “I need the exercise,” he informs me, patting the handlebars. I laugh when I see that he has strapped a cushion to the center with long cable ties. The cushion curves around the bar and really helps with padding my ass. “Face me this time.”

  “Face you?”

  He helps lift me on and shows me where to put my feet on the middle bar. “You look gorgeous.”

  “Now I know you’re trying to sweet-talk me.” And I have a feeling a lot of it is because he needs me now to get a place in the college he wants.

  Laughing, he kisses my chin and starts pedaling.

  “I don’t know if I like this,” I say around a nervous and excited giggle. “I feel blind.”

  “Trust me.”

  The path is bouncy but it feels even more so as I hold on to his shoulders and smile like a giddy child. Apart from when Stanley started teaching me to drive, I haven’t felt this happy since I was a little kid.

  It is such a rush going so fast and not knowing what’s coming. It’s like the future, I can’t see it but I see the present blurring by.

  When we come to a stop by the same fence as before, we ditch the bike and I ask, feeling particularly vulnerable, “Are you just being nice because we’re dancing together? I just don’t trust that you suddenly like me after everything you did.”

  “Who’s your bestest friend in the entire world? The person who you would absolutely do anything for?”

  “Alice, I suppose? But I don’t really know her that well.”

  He frowns. “There’s nobody from where you used to live?”

  I chew my lip, daring not to say anything else.

  “Are you telling me you don’t have a single friend in this entire world other than Alice fucking Bonner?”

  “I haven’t been to a normal school before now. I was homeschooled until my cousin died, and then I was in juvie for his murder.” My hands are trembling. “I’ve never spoken about this before.”

  “You can trust me.”

  “So you keep saying.”

  He touches my braid, following the grooves of it down the center of my back where it rests snug against my spine. “Tell me about it.”

  “Would you believe me if I told you that juvie was the happiest I’ve ever been?”

  “Really?”

  If only he knew the kind of life I had before then. “Let’s dance. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s making me feel sick.”

  “Okay,” he whispers, not prying. I like him even more now. “Anyway, as I was saying before you rudely interrupted with your sob story.”

  I smack his arm in jest making him grunt and feign pain with a dramatic hiss from his parted lips.

  “Careful there, killer.”

  “Shut up and get on with it,” I demand, growling slightly.

  “When your bestestest friend in the entire world tells you he hates someone, or she hates someone, you hate them too. It’s how it works. So when Presley said you cost his father his job and his mother her health insurance, I was angry.”

  “Why aren’t you anymore?”

  “It wasn’t your fault. Myers brought it on himself. He’s always been a sadistic fuck. He…” He picks a stone up from the ground and throws it so far I don’t see where it lands. “It’s not for me to say.”

  “You can trust me,” I throw back at him, albeit gently.

  I see the war in his eyes, the need to talk, to vent, but also the need to protect his friend’s secrets. But when it comes to abuse and somebody shares that with you, is it still just the victim’s secret? Taking on the heavy truth that others so bravely carry, especially if you love
them deeply, can be as detrimental to your health as theirs. Knowing that a loved one is being hurt and having no power to change it can be traumatizing I imagine.

  “I swear I won’t say anything.”

  He nods, sighing heavily. “Jim Myers, Presley’s father, struggles with depression and other shit and uses it as an excuse to smack his family around. He drinks all the time, even more now that he’s got no job, he’s a lazy fuck even when he does have a job. He became a cop because there’s no fucking crime here, you know what I mean? Presley’s mom is in the hospital with heart failure and Presley is looking after his four-year-old sister because he wouldn’t dare leave her alone with Jim.”

  “Is he a pedophile?” I pray this isn’t the case even though I’m not a praying type of girl.

  “No, nothing like that, at least I hope not. He’s just got no patience for her. Presley got into a fight with him a year ago because he slapped Paisley around the face for knocking over a cup of milk.”

  My heart hammers in my chest. “She’s just a baby.”

  “Exactly.” He pushes his hair back and smiles but there’s no happiness in it. “This job was the only thing keeping Jim busy enough to not drink and not be an ass. It’s the only thing keeping Mrs. Myers, Presley’s mom, alive. So even though you didn’t do anything wrong, you were the last straw. When Jim assaulted you, he forced the sheriff’s hand. Which forced Presley’s hand. Now he feels like he’s never going to get out of here and he sees you as the reason for that.”

  “That’s so tragic.”

  “Yeah.”

  I hug his arm, pressing my temple against his shoulder.

  “Why can’t he just blame his dad?”

  “Because he can’t punish his dad. His dad doesn’t give a fuck. But he can punish you.”

  I blink up at him. “Shit… dude… you should be a shrink or something.”

  “Nah. I want to be a dancer.”

  “Me too, there’s nothing I enjoy more. For me it’s dance or die. There’s nothing else. Without dance… I will die.”