by S Doyle
“Never is a long time,” he whispered. I practically could feel him pulling me toward him. As if first, he immobilized me with this gaze, and now, he was using the force of his charisma to pull me into some trap.
There was this crazy second. This moment of near panic where I was almost afraid I might close the distance between us and kiss him.
“There you two are!” Reen shouted, hopping into our space. “Hey, Fitz, awesome game. Have you met Locke? Locke, Fitz. Fitz, Locke.”
Locke nodded his head but then lifted a vape pen to his lips and took a deep hit. He offered it to Fitz who declined. Then me, with the same result.
Because when you think at any point you might have to verbally spar with your mortal enemy, you needed to have a clear head.
“Welcome to Haddonfield High, Locke,” Fitz said, standing now at his full height. “Watch out for these two. I hear they bite.”
Bite. Damn right I wanted to bite. That spot on his neck, right underneath his ear. I’d show him.
“See you around, Bennet,” Fitz said with a casual salute.
I gave him my own middle finger salute in return, to which he only laughed.
“So he’s the head dog,” Locke said, his chin nodding in Fitz’s direction.
“In his own mind,” I snapped. Because I was still shaking with that feeling. Like I was nervous and anxious and mad and excited all at the same time. I never wanted to speak to Fitz again and I wanted to follow him and tell him so right now.
That seemed like a contradiction.
I even took a sip of beer and reminded myself why I thought it was disgusting.
“What are you doing?” Reen asked, as I took a second, then third sip.
“Trying something new this year,” I offered.
5
Fitz
Never is a long time.
Geezus, did I read that in one of Gi’s romance novels? Seriously what the fuck was I thinking? More importantly, if Reen hadn’t shown up, what had I been about to do?
Bennet was just under my skin. Like a splinter I couldn’t extract, pinching me at odd moments. Reminding me of its presence. Like her sitting on my lap in Chas’s car, the way she smelled of fresh rain drops.
Annoying!
“Fitz, over here.”
I turned at the sound of Heath calling me. Walking toward him, I saw that he had a cup in each hand. One might assume he’d gotten one for himself and me, but I knew him too well. They were both for him.
Also, he knew I didn’t touch the stuff. Being at a teenage party where there was underage drinking was one thing. Pictures of me actually drinking while underage would be damaging to my mother’s reputation and her political career.
We didn’t mess with the Darcy image. None of us. Which meant I never drank or smoked publicly. And the only people I trusted with cell phones around me when I was doing those things were Ed, Chas and Heath.
“I’m supposed to say something now, like great game. Or whatever.” Heath said.
He put down one of his cups and pulled out what appeared to be a dark thin cigarette. Not a joint. Something with a strong smell to it though.
“Thanks. Since when do you smoke?”
“Since I’ve been introduced to the cigarillo. Smells amazing doesn’t.”
“If you think so,” I said.
“Really, well done with all the touchdowns and whatnots.”
He sounded almost reluctant in his praise, but I knew that was how Heath engaged with the world. He was bitter about most things all the time, which left him in a foul mood when he wasn’t drinking. And an even darker mood when he was.
Sometimes I think if we hadn’t been friends since we were kids, we would barely acknowledge each other’s existence. But we had been friends. I’d been the first friend he’d made and desperately needed. And it was my parents who’d been responsible for giving him the help he needed to change his circumstances for the better.
There were times I thought he should be more grateful. Not to me, just about his circumstances in general. Yes, he’d been abandoned by his father, his mother had died, but look at everything good that had happened to him since then. He was being fostered in a town where he was getting an amazing education. He’d already qualified for a scholarship program for college.
Heath needed to get over the circumstances of his birth and look to the future.
I called myself out internally for this thinking because I had no clue what it felt like to be abandoned by my parents. I’d been both loved and wanted from my conception so it was hard to know what the absence of that would feel like.
“You seen Ed?” I asked.
I’d looked for him since I arrived but hadn’t been able to spot him among the crowd. I wondered maybe if after he’d left the game, he’d gone to see Bee. Which was never a good time for him. Why he continued to torture himself that way, I didn’t know.
“Nope. You know him. Sometimes he just likes to take off. Do his own thing. Any word on Chas?”
“Concussion,” I said. “His parents are taking him to the hospital where they work, so they can have a third doctor come to the same conclusion. He’ll be fine in a couple of weeks.”
“Which makes you QB One for now. How lucky is that? You didn’t have to even wait your turn. Just one week for Chas to get his brains scrambled. So tell me. How much money did you pay Toby to pull his block on that linebacker?”
Heath laughed as if he what he’d said had been funny.
I didn’t think it was.
“You do realize Chas is my friend. I would never want him hurt on purpose.”
“Yeah, yeah. But we both know your daddy wasn’t happy with you being number two. And we know how you like to make your daddy happy.”
“Fuck you. You say that like I’m sucking up for some nefarious reason. Wanting to make my dad proud is not a crime. Wanting to make my mother happy is not wrong.”
“Excellent use of the word nefarious. Do you ever hear yourself talk?”
Yes, sometimes I say things like…never is a long time.
“Yo!”
I turned and saw Ed making his way through a bunch of the groups. He stopped long enough to fill up a cup then eventually made his way to where Heath and I were standing.
“What the hell took you so long? We left at the same time.”
He shrugged. “I had shit to do.”
I sighed. “Did you seriously go to see her?”
“Her who?” he said, shifting nervously from foot to foot. He was definitely feeling guilty about something.
“Bee,” I said, as if he was thick. “You know you don’t have to go over there. You’re not obligated to be her boyfriend.”
“You know fuck all about it,” he said belligerently. “What did I say before the school year started? We don’t talk about it, we don’t talk about her. She’s fucking Voldemort as far as anyone is concerned. That’s what you agreed to, but it seems like this topic keeps coming up.”
“You do get the irony of that,” I said. “By not saying her name, it gives her more power.”
Health chuckled. “Excellent use of the word irony.”
I snarled at him. “Fine. Then can we talk about something serious? I’ve been hearing rumors. Something about a list with a bunch of girls’ names on it. Wick said something about it the other day. But now I’ve heard it from other people.”
“What list?” Ed asked.
“Oh, so you have heard about it,” Heath mused. “I wasn’t sure how you would react.”
“React to what?” I asked. “Is it real?”
Heath nodded. “Oh, it’s very real. They’re calling it the Freshman Bait List. Apparently, our fellow classmates, well at least the male classmates, have put together a list of hot freshman girls they want to target.”
“Target for what?” I asked.
“Why their virginity, of course.”
Said by Locke, who had clearly been within earshot of our conversation, as he strolled into the ce
nter of our circle. Of course Heath and Ed knew who he was, but as the only person who’d actually been introduced to him, I felt obliged to make it official.
“Ed, Heath. The new guy, Locke. Locke, that broody one is Heath and the other broody one is Ed. Don’t get them confused.”
Ed and Heath lifted their cups in Locke’s direction, and he took a hit on his vape pen letting out a plume of steam. He offered it to me, but again I waved him off.
“You don’t partake in recreational drug or alcohol use?” Locke asked me, obviously noting my lack of cup in hand.
“Not during football season.”
This, of course, was a lie that implied I stayed clean for physical reasons. There was no reason for everyone to know how truly untrusting I was.
“Hmm.”
“So I guess you overheard us talking,” I prompted.
“Yes, well, it seems like a freeform gathering. Everyone moving about between clusters. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“It’s fine,” I allowed. “Tell me why you think this list is real.”
Locke shrugged. “Because I’ve seen it.”
“What?” I snapped.
“I’m a person who likes to gather…let’s call it data. The more data I have, the more conclusions I can make regarding my new surroundings. It helps me to acclimate.”
“Fuck me,” Heath muttered. “Another fucking fancy talker.”
“Yes, but I’m English so it’s perfectly all right.” Locke smiled. “Anyway, I heard the same rumors you did so I wanted to make sure I had the actual facts. Yes, there is a list. I’ve seen it. And yes, your sister Gigi is on it. The Bennet twins, too.”
I moved toward him instinctively as if to physically hurt him when I knew it couldn’t be his fault. He was new to the school. It wasn’t his list. He didn’t flinch, though, and I had this crazy thought he knew I would back off before actually hitting him. Like he could predict my actions.
Instead, I focused on the facts. There was a list. Gigi was on it. Someone was going to pay, and I knew who.
“Wick,” I growled. “That motherfucker. I’m going to kill him.”
“I can’t say for certain who the originator of list is, but I can tell you people are placing wagers on it.”
“Wagers?” Ed asked.
“Sorry, bets,” Locke said. “Someone is holding the book and people are placing bets on when a particular girl might lose her virginity. Not to mention who she gives it up for. Pretty crass if you ask me, but again, leads me to some conclusions about the people I’m attending school with.”
“We’re not all assholes,” Ed said, but without much conviction.
The anger roared inside me. The passion my father thought I hadn’t inherited from him. If he knew about this list, if he knew people were placing bets on when Gi would lose her virginity, he would take apart the entire school until he found the originator of said list and destroy that person.
Which meant I could do no less. Or be considered less of a man. But I was more controlled than my father. So instead, I laughed as if it meant nothing.
“It’s ludicrous. Gi has a mind of her own and isn’t the type who can be seduced into giving up her virginity. People can place all the bets they want, she’s not a target.”
“Perhaps,” Heath said. “But I have seen her leaving school with Wick the past few days. In his new car.”
“Only because she’s been hanging out with the Bennet twins. I’ve put an end to that.”
“Ha!” Heath laughed even as he stared at something over Ed’s shoulder. “Now that is irony. Look who Wick’s brought with him to The Woods.”
I turned to see Wick walking through the crowds of upper classmen holding my sister’s hand.
And that’s when I knew.
I had no choice but to kill him.
“Gigi!” I barked, as I marched toward the two of them. “WTF?”
She had the temerity to lift her chin up at me in defiance, but I cared less about that and more about Wick’s smug expression. He was doing this just to piss me off.
“Fitz. Calm down. I only brought her here to show her how unexciting The Woods really is,” Wick said, then dropped her hand.
“You’re making a scene,” Gi said through gritted teeth. “Wick was only being nice by bringing us here.”
Nice? He wasn’t being nice. He was being Wick.
“We’re leaving,” I said. “Now.”
That’s when I heard it. The giggling behind her. A pair of twin giggles to be precise. It only infuriated me more.
“What did I tell you about hanging out with them?”
“They’re my friends,” Gi insisted.
“They’re users looking to glom on to your eventual popularity because of me.”
“Who the fuck—”
“Language, Gi!” I shouted. My sister didn’t say fuck or shit. My sister was polite and understood what it meant to hold herself to a higher level of class where women did not curse.
“You’re saying I would only ever be popular because of you and your reputation. What a complete…complete…”
“Narcissist is the word I think you’re looking for.”
I looked away from Gigi only to see Beth smiling, and suddenly, my anger was redirected. “This is your fault.”
Her jaw dropped. “My fault? How do you figure that?”
“I told you to keep your sisters away from Gi. Look at the influence they’re having on her. The Woods isn’t a place for freshman. You know that. You know what happens here.”
“Yes, I know that,” she snapped back. “Which is why I’ll be taking them home. But my sisters aren’t any more to blame for this than yours. They’re young girls with minds of their own and they came with someone who they trusted. Wick wasn’t going to let anything bad happen to them.”
“You naïve little fool. You have no clue exactly how untrustworthy Wick is.”
“Hey,” Wick said, a frown on his pretty face. “I think I object to that.”
“Ask him,” I yelled at Beth. “Ask him about the List. Then ask him if your sisters names are on it. Because I hear they are.”
Beth blinked. “What list are you talking about?”
I didn’t answer because I was still struggling to contain my anger. Anger at Wick, at Gi, but most of all, at Beth because she was always the easiest person to take out my frustrations on. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. I wanted to pin her up against a tree and…
No, don’t finish that thought. It would make you a monster.
When I didn’t answer, Beth turned to Wick. “What list?”
Wick held up his hands with an expression of innocence. “Oh no. You’re not going to pin this on me. I am not the originator of the list.”
“But you know about it,” I insisted.
“Yeah, and I told you about it,” Wick said. “Not my fault you didn’t believe me.”
“And I told you what would happen if I found out it existed,” I snarled.
“What list!” Beth shrieked.
I rounded on her again, this time a little more controlled. I could see her sisters behind her, their eyes wide as they watched the scene unfold. Gi was standing next to them still looking defiant with her arms crossed over her chest.
If I were a different person, I would have laid it out for her in blunt terms. That people were taking bets on what juniors would be able to fuck our sisters. Take their virginity. Seduce them and leave them most likely emotionally shattered because there were few fourteen-year-old girls who could handle the seriousness of sex.
Oddly enough, Gigi was probably one of those girls. She’d always been mature for her age, and like I told Locke earlier, she wasn’t so silly as to be easily seduced. Because of who our parents were, we’d both been exposed to more than most kids our age.
We’d attended parties with political royalty, Hollywood royalty and actual royalty. On the flip side, we’ve worked side-by-side at soup kitchens in the poorest neighborhoods
in our state. We’d been sheltered from absolutely nothing and, because of that, I trusted Gi intrinsically not to be fooled by some upper classman looking to score.
What I didn’t trust was everyone else.
Beth stepped into my space. “Tell me about this list.”
I didn’t want to her sisters to hear it. I didn’t want them to know they’d been targeted. But I also didn’t want to leave them unprotected. Silly girls is what I’d called them. Maybe Beth was right. At fourteen, maybe they were allowed to be silly.
And innocent.
“Stay there, Gi. Ed, watch them.”
I grabbed Beth by her upper arm and took her with me deeper into the woods. Away from where others could hear us. I’d made enough of a scene for the night and didn’t want to add to the performance, but Beth needed to know the truth.
“It’s called the Freshman Bait List,” I said once we were alone. “There are certain freshman girls who’ve been targeted. People in school are taking bets on when they’ll lose their virginity.”
Beth sucked in a breath. “But they’re just freshmen.”
“You know it happens. To someone, nearly every year.”
“Yes,” she hissed. “But I didn’t know people bet on it. That’s disgusting. Treating a girl’s virginity like a sporting event.”
“It’s depraved. Your sisters. Mine. They’re not safe with the upperclassmen. I don’t care how long they’ve known Wick, they’re not safe with him either. Will you help me?”
“Help you do what?”
“Work with me. Protect them. We’re responsible for them, Beth. You know we are.”
She looked at me as if she was trying to see inside my brain.
“I don’t understand you,” she whispered. “Don’t pretend you suddenly care about my sisters. Only days ago you told me to keep them away from your precious sister, who, I might add, is also here tonight.”
“This isn’t just about your sisters, or Gigi. This is about protecting those who can’t protect themselves.”
Even in the dark I could see her expression change. Her face softened with what I imagined was a half-smile.
“And you think you can do that? Protect all the vulnerable freshman girls?”
