Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance

by C. M. Stunich

  I shove my way through them, taking the steps up into the train car with my chest heaving. I’m sure they can all tell that my face is streaked with tears from crying, but I don’t care.

  “Who did it?” I snap, my voice cutting through the music and the laughter. All eyes turn to me—Calix, Raz, Barron, Sonja, the demon-faced girls, and the boys wearing monster masks. “Who posted it?”

  “Who posted what?” Calix drawls, looking bored out of his mind. He tosses the full bottle of liquor in his hand and lets it crash to the floor, soaking the leaf-covered ground in vodka. He’s clearly drunk as he squints at me from behind his mask, dark eyes narrowed but bloodshot. I’ve caught the Knight Crew at the tail end of their party, and every single one of them is trashed.

  “The video,” I grind out, barely able to force the words past my clenched teeth. Raz is looking at me like he can’t believe I’m standing here, like he thinks I should still be locked in the mouth of the Devils’ Den, while Barron’s face is as impassive and empty as usual. Sonja sneers, but she’s got a girl on one side kissing her neck, and a boy on the other. Pretty sure none of them have the energy or mental fortitude to come after me right now. “Who posted it?”

  “How the hell did you get out of the cave?” Raz asks, staring at me like I’ve materialized from space.

  “They were gone hours ago,” Barron says, his voice like steel and velvet, both hard and soft at the same time. “But we don’t know what video you’re talking about. Our phones are in the tree, just like everybody else’s. Well, except for yours; we smashed it.”

  “Bullshit,” I snap, choking on tears. I look from Raz’s blue eyes behind his glasses, to Barron’s multi-colored gaze, and then back to Calix’s dark one. “Somebody posted a video from last year’s party,” I say, trying to get the words out but failing miserably. I can’t say it; don’t make me say it.

  “There shouldn’t be any videos from last year’s party,” Raz growls out at me, pushing the girl from his lap and standing up. He stalks over to glare down at me, the whites of his eyes still slightly reddened from the pepper spray. “To get into the party, you ditch your phone; everybody knows that.”

  “Yeah? Like it’d be impossible for anyone at Crescent Prep to have a second phone? Grow up, Raz.” He reaches out to grab my arm, but I jerk out his grip, keeping my back to the doorway but putting some much-needed space between us.

  “What was in the video?” Calix asks, blinking at me from his position on the old, torn cushions of the train car. His eyes bore into mine, like steel spikes, blinding me to the rest of the world.

  “Us,” I say, and there’s the slightest tightening of that pretty mouth of his.

  “Somebody posted a video of you two fucking?” Sonja asks with wide eyes, and then she throws her head back and laughs. She’s not the only one. Within seconds, the train car is filled with it. Every member of the Knight Crew howls with pleasure at the thought of my humiliation. It takes Calix several seconds to join in, but then he does, too.

  The sound rings in my ears, a deafening cacophony that makes me want to claw my own eardrums out.

  “This is gold. We need to bail on this party, so we can look it up,” Raz says, and I realize that I’ve made a mistake in coming here. A big one. “Maybe we could take Karma here with us, so we can all watch it together?”

  I shove him out of the way—hard—and take off running. Shouts echo behind me, and I just know that some of the crew are giving chase. The last thing in the world I want is to be there when they all see it, when they watch it together and laugh at me. It’ll be like the comments section in real life.

  God, she has an ugly body. She should just be glad he’s willing to fuck her.

  That girl is a straight-up ho. He says the magic words—I love you—and she just falls into bed with him?

  I go to school with these people. Karma Sartain is white trash, through and through. She must really hate herself to sleep with someone who despises her.

  I’d tell the bitch I loved her, too, if it’d get her to screw me.

  I skid in the gravel as I come to a stop beside the car, using my palm to slow myself down, and tweaking my wrist at the same time. But when I glance over my shoulder, I see several of the monster-masked boys catching up with me, and fling the door open.

  This time, when I peel out of there, I’m driving twice as fast as before. Tears stream down my face as I push the pedal down harder, all the way to the floor. I take Highway 62 toward Eureka Springs because … why not? I don’t want to go home, and I don’t want to see Luke at the dorms, and I sure as fuck can’t stay here.

  The road winds through the trees and then skirts the edge of a steep cliff, passing by Thorncrown Chapel on one side. The signs flash beneath my headlights as I sweep past, warning me to slow down, to stay at fifteen miles per hour.

  I don’t listen.

  I’m not thinking.

  I’m not sure that I care.

  And then it happens. I hit the brakes, but I can’t take the curve at the speed I’m going, and I can’t slow down fast enough. The tires skid as my heart leaps into my throat, and the old Taurus slides to one side. More, more, more. It hits the edge of the road, and then I’m weightless, flying through the darkness and into nothing.

  There isn’t even time for a scream.

  Just regret.

  I fucked today up, I think, but really, not just today. Everything. Everything.

  My thoughts spin to my mothers, my sisters, Luke, April, the Knight Crew …

  And then nothing.

  Because the universe just doesn’t give out second chances.

  There’s blood all over my steering wheel.

  I sit up, shaking, disoriented, certain that I must be dead. I reach my quivering hand up to my head and pull it away, staring down at the splotches of ruby red as I blink through the rush of memories. Getting locked in the Devils’ Den, finding out about the video, confronting the Knight Crew. My stomach lurches as I remember driving along Highway 62, the tires skidding, the weightless feeling as I plunged into blackness.

  I look around, but I’m not sitting in the woods, surrounded by the mangled remnants of my mother’s car. No, I’m at the gas station again, tucked inside of Little Bee, her front end buried in the side of Calix’s Aston Martin.

  What …

  I barely get a chance for the thought to form before my door is flying open and Calix is yanking me out, slamming me back into the side of my car. I stare into his dark eyes, rife with anger, and try to remember how I got here. This isn’t like yesterday, when I had a momentary lapse of forgetfulness. Today, I’m just surprised that I’m alive at all. Did I drink something at the party that I forgot about? Did I smoke something?

  “Are you fucking insane?!” Calix snarls, releasing me as a crowd gathers once again, the rainy weather eerily similar to yesterday morning. I blink back at him, but I’m not sure how to respond. Why did I come here? Why did I hit his car again? How am I still alive?

  “How did I get here?” I whisper, my entire body shaking as my knees go weak, and I collapse. Surprisingly, Calix catches me before I fall, scowling as he sets me down on the pavement and steps back. The look on his face is impossible to read, but at least he’s not wearing that black leather devil’s mask anymore. “How did I get here?” I repeat, feeling my eyes tear up.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Calix growls as an older woman approaches, leaning down to put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Are you okay?” she asks as Calix glares at me from behind her, scowling and turning to look at the entrance to the convenience store.

  But today, this time, I’m not okay. It’s one thing to forget a split-second in time, between driving down the road and seeing Calix’s car, to hitting it. I’ve forgotten an entire night this time. I have no idea how I got here.

  Glancing down, I see that I’m dressed in my uniform instead of the outfit I wore to the party. My mask is gone and, after a quick look over my shoulder, I see th
at Little Bee is fully intact. No more spray paint, no more smashed windows. Her tires are back on and, obviously, if I just used her to hit Calix’s car again, she must run okay.

  “Should I call the police?” the woman asks, and déjà vu washes over me. She asked me that exact same thing yesterday.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Calix replies smoothly, standing up and plastering a fake smile on his face. It’s sickening, the way he does it, affixes that look to his full, lush mouth. “We’re classmates; I won’t be pressing charges.”

  My eyes widen as the woman nods and gives my shoulder a quick squeeze before moving away. It takes me a second to realize that she’s the same woman from yesterday, wearing the same clothes. I stare after her, dumbfounded, until Calix bends down and reaches out to smooth some stray strands of hair from my face.

  “You know what tonight is?” he whispers, and I go completely still, a strange coldness sweeping over me that I can’t explain. What tonight is? Tonight is nothing. Yesterday was the Devils’ Day Party. Today is just … Saturday. So why am I wearing my school uniform? And why is Calix asking me that?

  He leans in even closer, pressing his lips to the side of my throat. Reaching both hands up, I shove him away as violently as I can and rise to my feet. He hits the ground on his ass, but I get no satisfaction out of it. Instead, panic is creeping over me as I glance back into the car and see my phone lying on the passenger seat.

  The phone I left at the party last night, that the Knight Crew claimed they destroyed.

  So how did it get there?

  “Goddamn it, Karma,” Calix snarls, rising to his feet like a shadow, a tall, dark handsome shadow that I can barely see through the white stars in my vision. The little bells on the front door of the convenience store ring and out step Raz and Barron, the former carrying a plastic grocery bag in one hand as he circles the cars and surveys the damage—exactly the same way he did yesterday.

  “What the fuck happened here? Little trailer trash bitch thought she’d get the first Devils’ Day trick on us, huh?” I stare at Raz, but I don’t even have it in me to be angry. Instead, I’m just confused. Frustrated. Panicking. I’ve finally lost my goddamn mind, I think as I look between the three of them with a strange taste in my mouth, like old pennies. The taste of copper, of blood.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” I say as Barron pauses on my right and Calix sneers at me like he could give two shits whether I’m hurt or not.

  “Sick? Nice try, Trailer Park.” Calix steps forward again, getting in my face, towering over me like this is any normal day, like a video of us fucking wasn’t posted online during the party last night, like I didn’t drive off the edge of the road in the dark and … end up here. “Who’s going to pay for the damage to my car? Not you. The change your dyke mothers pay you for working part-time at that dump they call a business isn’t going to cut it.”

  That’s what he said yesterday, I think as I start to sway on my feet, and Barron frowns, pulling the lollipop from his mouth and pointing at me with it.

  “She doesn’t look very good,” he says, and Raz laughs, loud and cruel and obnoxious.

  “You think?” he asks, tossing his grocery bag into the backseat of the car. “Like she ever does. Trailer Park looks like a goth reject most days and some tree-hugging femi-nazi the rest of the time.” He stalks toward me, like he’s thinking of grabbing me, but Barron reaches out to grab his arm.

  “Back off of her,” he says carefully. “People are watching.”

  “Maybe I’ll let you pay for it tonight with your mouth?” Calix suggests as he opens the driver’s side door of his car, and I feel the world tilt around me like I’m on a carnival ride. Before he has a chance to climb in, I see the world rush up toward the sky—or maybe it’s me that’s falling—and then pain, sharp and blinding, straight through my skull like a knife.

  There’s blood all over my steering wheel.

  Shit, no. No, no, no. I sit up, my body quivering uncontrollably as I look out the window and find what’s now a very familiar scene. There’s my little yellow VW bug, the front end planted in the side of Calix’s car. Blood drips down my face and onto the front of my uniform. This time, I don’t reach up to touch it. This time, I grab my phone from the passenger seat and stare at the date and time.

  Friday. Devils’ Day.

  Bile rises up in my throat just before the driver’s side door is wrenched open, and I’m dragged from the vehicle by Calix. Again. Shoved up against the side of Little Bee. Again.

  “Are you fucking insane?!” he growls, but maybe I am, because I just went through this. I went through it yesterday and then … five minutes ago? Then I fell onto this cement right here and woke up in my car. Yet I remember none of it.

  “Very possibly,” I whisper, and there must be something strange in my expression because Calix pulls back, narrowing his eyes like he thinks I’m trying to pull some elaborate Devils’ Day prank on him. Or hell, maybe he’s the one pulling a prank on me? That makes sense, doesn’t it? For the Knight Crew to set me up like this, over and over again, just to fuck with my head?

  “Are you okay?” It’s the old woman again, the one in the yellow shirt with the purple hat. I’d remember her anywhere. Her eyes are as sharp as tacks, and her nails are painted with tiny daisies. They must’ve paid her to get in on this, to keep up the charade.

  I turn an awful look on Calix, enjoying the slight tightening of his face when he sees the venom in my expression.

  “I’m just fucking fine,” I snap, feeling my anger get the better of me. It’s been doing that a lot lately, hasn’t it? Taking over everything and blinding me with white-hot rage. I reach up and find that the cut on my head is open again. Since it was scabbed over last night, that means the Knight Crew must be reopening it every time I pass out.

  Karma, you drove off the edge of a cliff. The Knight Crew didn’t engineer that.

  And yet, I can’t come up with another logical explanation for what’s happening, so I roll with it. Besides, it feels good to hate Calix, to look at him and want to kill him, to look at him and blame him for everything that’s going wrong in my life.

  “How are you doing it?” I hiss as the woman takes another tentative step forward, clearly unconvinced by my proclamation.

  “Should I call the police?” she queries as the rain pours down from the sky, and I try really hard not to wonder how the Knight Crew could possibly engineer the same weather patterns over and over again. I just need to go home and lie down. That’s it. It’s Saturday, so there’s no school. I can take a moment to collect myself.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Calix says, smiling in a way that sends chills down my spine. He’s good at it, I’ll admit, following the same script over and over. “We’re classmates; I won’t be pressing charges.” When he leans forward to swipe some hair from my face, I hit his hand back, and his jaw clenches with anger. “You know what tonight is?” he snaps, much less practiced than he was the last two times we played this game.

  “Fuck off, Calix, I know what you’re up to,” I snap, so freaked-out by the whole situation that I forget how bad the Knight Crew can really make my life when they put their minds to it. “And I’m not sticking around to play this game.”

  “Play this game?” he repeats, his own anger rising in a violent wave. I can see it in his eyes, teetering on the brink of destruction, like a tsunami about to crash into shore. “What game? You crashed your car into mine. So what could I possibly be up to?”

  “I’m not buying this Groundhog Day shit.” I shake my head, thinking about that old Bill Murray movie, the one where he wakes up over and over again on the same day. Life doesn’t give second chances, and it most definitely doesn’t give third or fourth or fifth ones. Sorry, but the prank is over before it’s even really started.

  “Groundhog Day?” Calix echoes, looking at me like I’ve truly and utterly lost my mind. “You must’ve hit your head pretty hard, Trailer Park. Maybe I should call an ambulance
and let you explain how this all happened?” He gestures at our smashed cars as the bells on the front door of the convenience store ring and Raz and Barron appear, right on schedule.

  “What the fuck happened here?” Raz asks, still carrying that plastic grocery bag as he circles us. Like Calix, he plays his part very well. I’m almost convinced. Almost. But time travel does not exist. People do not get caught up in an endless cycle of days. I mean, imagine that? Imagine having to live Devils’ Day—and the Devils’ Day Party—over and over and over again. “Little trailer trash bitch thought she’d get the first Devils’ Day trick on us, huh?”

  I turn and head around the back of Calix’s car, climbing in the driver’s seat of Little Bee before Raz catches up to me, grabbing the door to keep it from closing. Doesn’t stop me from trying the engine and, on the third try, getting it to turn over.

  “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Raz asks, leaning in with a menacing sneer on his face. Barron steps forward, smelling like watermelons, and touches a hand to his friend’s shoulder.

  “Back off of her; people are watching.”

  Raz scowls at Barron and throws his arm off, but at least he lets go of the door and steps back. Behind the two of them, Calix just stands there, watching me with dark eyes.

  “Maybe I’ll let you pay for the damage tonight with your mouth?” he says, before turning away and removing the gas hose from his car. I ignore him and hit the pedal, reversing out of the parking lot and heading straight toward home.

  This too shall pass, I remind myself.

  And at least for now, in this moment, I find some comfort in that.

  During the drive, I play Lost by the band Stitched Up Heart and let my mind drift to distant things. I don’t think about the Knight Crew’s prank or Calix’s face, or anything else. I just focus on getting home. Once I’m there, I feel better, turning the engine off and leaning back into my seat with a sigh. The rain’s just slowed down, the same way it did yesterday. Don’t think like that.