Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance

by C. M. Stunich

  “No kombucha, got it. Is there anything you do want?”

  “Celery with peanut butter and little raisins,” April groans, letting her head fall back in bliss, her glasses sliding up her nose, brunette braids hanging behind her. “Please. I'd do anything for it.”

  “My moms used to call that snack 'ants on a log',” I say with a grin. “Like, the celery is the branch, the peanut butter makes it brown, and the raisins are the ants …”

  “Don't say ants,” April chokes out, shaking her head. “I've got strange triggers right now. Everything makes me feel sick.”

  “How's Thad doing?” I ask, realizing that I haven't been giving my girls much attention. What's the point of living in an endless cycle if I don't use at least some of it to catch up? Thad is April's boyfriend and baby daddy. They have that pure puppy love thing going for them. I'm not sure if it'll last, but for now, the only things keeping them apart are their parents. They're both head over heels for each other, and they both wanted to keep the baby.

  “Thad,” April says with a girly little sigh. Both Luke and I exchange a glance, wrinkling up our faces in mock disgust. It's hard to ignore what I know about Sonja and Luke, but I can't spend an hour everyday convincing Luke that I’m living in a time loop, and therefore know about her and Sonja, even if the boys don't take me to the cabin in the morning. “He's living in Paris right now. His dad owns an artist cooperative where he steals paintings from the artists for like, pennies on the dollar, and resells them for millions to his rich buddies as a tax write-off …” April trails off, and shakes her head, caught up on a tangent. “Anyway, Thad is staying there. They gave him his own apartment. He actually said they've been spoiling him between attempts to convince him that we should give the baby up to them for adoption.”

  “You're kidding me,” Luke says, horror tainting her voice as she does something on her phone. Peeking over at her screen, expecting to see Sonja's name in her texts, I find her doing an online grocery order for celery, peanut butter, and raisins, with a rush delivery to the dorms. My lips twitch into a smile as I look back at April. “Obviously you told them to go eat their own toenails, right?”

  “Thad and I want to get married and have a family.” April shrugs her shoulders, rubbing her belly affectionately. “Maybe it doesn't make me a feminist, but that's what I want. To raise a bunch of kids with Thad in a cute pink house with a yard and a pet ferret. That's it.”

  “Oddly specific,” I say with a soft smile and a laugh. “But that's what feminism is about: you make your own choices, whatever makes you happy. If it's a fucking ferret, it's a fucking ferret.”

  “Oh, the ferret is the most important part. Maybe I could get a t-shirt that says Ferret-Loving Feminist Housewife? That'd work for me.”

  “I will silkscreen you that shirt!” Luke says, finishing the order and then pointing at April in enthusiasm. “We'll all wear them when we go out for our weekly luncheons.”

  “We're going to have weekly luncheons, huh?” I say, lifting a dark brow in response. My natural hair is a blue-black, very similar to Calix's, which makes it a huge pain in the ass to dye. I had to bleach it four times to get my hair the color it is now. “Where we will all live? I was thinking … New York.”

  “New Orleans, duh,” Luke says, glancing my way with a smile. “You'll be the artist in residence, Karma; I'll either be a manga artist or studying engineering at the university, probably both. April and Thad will move down there after they both turn eighteen, and we'll help raise the baby—like a proper village.”

  “Thad is deathly afraid of alligators, but I bet I could convince him with uh, the sexual act.”

  “The sexual act?!” Luke howls, throwing her head back with a laugh. My heart pings strangely in my chest and my lips part in surprise. This is a completely different circumstance to day one, but yet, an eerily similar echo. “I thought I was the only person that called it that.”

  “I don't know why I said that,” April laughs, clutching her belly as she chuckles. “I swear, I've never used that term before. That's the term my parents used when they caught me and Thad together. Fucking, that's what I should've said. Fucking.”

  “You're such a goof,” Luke says, rolling her brown eyes and moving over to her closet. She takes out the sequin dress shirt I saw her wear the first day, with a strange bow tie made of sticks and dried flowers that I didn’t notice before. “Hey, question about the Devils' Day Party tonight … do we even want to go?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, thinking about Barron and his sketchbook. He most definitely had it with him on some of the nights I was there. What thing is it that I do that triggers him to bring the sketchbook or not, I can't figure, but my plan is to steal it. I feel like to understand him, I have to see what's inside.

  “I mean, let's just stay here. We'll order in food. Karma and I can smoke weed, April you can OD on sugar, and we can … I don't know, what do girls do on sleepovers? Paint their nails?”

  I roll my eyes at her. She's been to plenty of sleepovers with me.

  “You know better than that: we either paint our nails or fuck shit up.” I grin and Luke grins back, probably recalling that time in ninth grade when we snuck out of the moms' house in the middle of the night, pedaled our bikes to the twenty-four hour convenience store, and stole some beers under the guise of buying powdered donuts.

  “The donuts do not make us rebels of any sort or breed,” Luke says with total confidence. “So don't even bring that up. But if you're talking about the tiger thing …”

  “Can you two stop with the bromance and explain both the donut and the tiger thing to me, please?”

  “Luke and I once climbed into a tiger's cage at the wildcat refuge outside of Eureka Springs. The damn cat was even awake and watching us. Fortunately, it was one of the nice ones …”

  April shoves up from her chair and turns to face both me and Luke simultaneously, throwing her arms out to either side.

  “You can't tell me stuff like that and expect me to stay home on Devils' Day. This is my first Devils' Day Party; I have to go. Especially if you might climb into a tiger cage or … I dunno, kill one of the Knight Crew with a package of powdered donuts.”

  “I'm going to try to steal Barron's sketchbook tonight,” I offer up, and Luke howls with laughter.

  “Okay, okay,” she relents, shaking her suit out and lifting it higher with a grin. “This, I have to see.”

  When we get to the party, the guard at the gate—wearing a grinning white fox mask—takes our phones and lets us through. We park Luke's convertible next to Raz's Shelby Cobra and my heart cracks a little in the middle.

  “I'm going to sneak in,” I tell the girls as they climb out. I've switched up not only my mask today—trading it out for one of my moms’—but also my makeup, my outfit … and my hair. I've dyed it half-bloodred and half-black. Pretty sure I've just bleached it to death, but if my assumptions are right, when I wake up, I'll be back to my purple hair. After all, if I can die here and wake up without any injuries beyond what I got in the initial car crash, then I must not be ageing. My nails don't seem to have grown out, nor the roots of my hair.

  Time is quite literally standing still for me.

  I'm not sure how I feel about that: important enough for time to bow down to … or so insignificant that my entire life can be manipulated on a whim.

  “If you see the Knight Crew, tell them I'm not here,” I say, smiling at Luke, who just so happens to be dressed in my original mask. She gives me a thumbs-up, and I slink into the woods, dressed in a black ballgown that I wore for Halloween last year. It has flouncy skirts and a sleeveless, corset bodice with red ties down the back.

  Lifting it up to move through the woods, I feel like some sort of dark princess, especially with the crown of branches on my head. Luke made it in about ten minutes after I told her how much I loved her bow tie. My new mask is a butterfly. It's black with silver sparkles, and most definitely not a Diana fritillary, but that's okay. Clo
se enough.

  Moving around the circular clearing where the bonfire's located, I keep my eyes out for the Knight Crew. Since I've been hiding Little Bee from them, they aren't able to drag it out here and make a throne of it. So where the fuck are they?

  Eventually, I find them already tucked inside the train car, passing around several joints and a bottle of crazy expensive vodka. But it's just the three boys, nobody else yet, not even Sonja. She's probably out looking for Luke. The thought makes me frown.

  “She has to know if we see her ugly fucking face around her, we're going to send Sonja to beat her ass silly.” Raz. My heart clogs in my throat at the sound of his awful words, followed by a surge of wild rage. Wow. After all that I've learned about him, I never would've guessed he'd still be able to talk about me like that behind my back.

  He's lucky I don't have a weapon of any kind on me right now.

  “She's been calling my dad again,” Calix says casually, and I pause, putting my fingertips up against the cold, steel sides of the train car. I'm wearing lace gloves today, but the metal seems to freeze the bits of my skin showing through the fabric. “That, and she threatened my brothers. Found a video they made on TikTok and then stalked her way into their emails. I thought if I let her hang with us, she’d back off, but she’s only gotten worse.”

  “Let's find her and lock her in the Devils’ Den tonight. She can spend the night there. I mean, you guys pussied out on our plan for this morning. It's Devils’ Day; we have to prank somebody.” Raz, again. Even without being able to see the boys, I know their voices. I could probably pick them out of a crowd, to be honest.

  “Don't act like we were the only ones who didn't want to get Karma this morning.” Calix. He pauses, and then exhales, like he's either smoking or has just taken a huge sip of vodka. “You got all weird about it, too.”

  “Like it even matters. She took off and we haven't seen her since. Do you think she'll be here tonight?” It's interesting, how eager Raz sounds when he asks that. So they obviously weren't talking about me. Who then?

  “No clue,” Barron says, and I can hear a sound, like charcoal on paper, that distinctive scratching that makes my heart beat wildly. Yes! He has his fucking sketchbook, and I'm going to take it. “Why do you think she hit your car?”

  Calix makes a small sound of disgust, his voice far away, distant.

  “I have no fucking clue. Maybe she wanted a repeat of last year's Devils' Day Party?”

  I have to resist the urge to punch the side of the train car. I settle with cursing him out inside my head instead. Cocksucking son of a bitch.

  “You think she hit your car because she wanted you to fuck and run again? Adjust your expectations, Lix. To be honest, I was worried she was still into you. Not anymore, not after today.” Oh, Raz …

  “She obviously hit my car because she wanted my attention,” Calix snaps back, and this time, it's Barron who laughs. There's a bemusement to the sound, like he finds both of his friends completely and utterly ridiculous.

  “She isn't interested in either of you; she's better than both of you.” Barron goes back to drawing as Raz scoffs in disgust.

  I can't take anymore of this, I think, moving around to the front of the train car and pausing in the doorway. They all pause to look at me. Calix is wearing yet a different outfit today—he seems to have as many outfits for the Devils' Day Party as I have timelines. Tonight, he's dressed in a red military jacket, undone and showing off his bare chest. It's lined with silver buttons and silver caps on the shoulders. Paired with skintight black jeans and boots, he's a vision in nightmare colors, his dark eyes lined with kohl, a crown of raven feathers and branches on his head, his black devil mask firmly in place.

  “Who are you?” he asks casually, lazily, canting his head to one side.

  “Are you deaf?” Raz asks, smoking a joint and looking me over like he's enjoying what he sees. He’s wearing the same outfit as he did on night one—red leather pants slung criminally low, and a Luciferian sneer that brings goose bumps up on my arms. His tattoos catch the light from the lantern in the corner of the room, drawing my attention to a small crescent moon that I just vaguely recall pressing my lips against.

  My gaze flicks to Barron who's paused in his drawing to stare at me. On his lips sits a knowing smile.

  He can tell it's me.

  I pull the pepper spray out of the small bag slung on my shoulder.

  “Sorry boys,” I say, spraying all three of them before they can react. My hand clamps down on the sketchbook, and I take off out the door and into the woods, Raz howling in pain behind me.

  “Who the fuck was that?!” he screams, voice echoing as I lift my skirts and sprint through the woods to the car. Luke's put the top up as I asked, and left the doors unlocked. I climb in and hunker down in the back seat, panting heavily, shaking with adrenaline. The spicy scent of the pepper spray seems to cling to me, making my eyes burn. I have no choice but to open one of the back doors and sit on the ground against the tire. In the bag where I carried the pepper spray, I have a flashlight that reminds me of the one Barron uses when he takes me into the woods.

  Clicking it on, I stare down at the page in front me.

  The blood drains from my face, and my throat gets tight.

  There's a beautiful girl in charcoal, staring back at me, her smile almost too tight but happy, even if she doesn't know it. Her eyes say she tries really hard, but she's human, and she's not perfect, and she fucks up a lot.

  She's standing in an alcove, beneath curving rock walls, a butterfly in her hand.

  Baron's drawn … me. In a timeline he doesn't even remember.

  Choking on my own breaths, I keep flipping through the pages, realizing that I'm staining them with my tears.

  He was right: he does like to draw scenery. He also likes to draw girls.

  Or more specifically, one girl.

  Me.

  On the next page, I see myself kneeling on the grass in front of the gas station, tears streaming down my face. In the drawing, Barron stands behind me, a lollipop between his lips. I flip the page again. There's me, wearing the necklace. Next page. Me, sitting on the picnic table bench next to him. Next page. A drawing of me and him, kissing while my fingers toy with the key around his neck.

  Holy shit.

  Closing my eyes, I lean my head back against the car and try to process what I've just seen.

  Barron draws me. He dates each piece, and, flipping back to the beginning, I see they go all the way back to freshman year.

  That, and in some strange, small way, he remembers the other timelines.

  My friends and family might not remember the day is going in repeat, not really, but they're here with me in heart and spirit; we're in this together. We'll get out of this together.

  Barron steps around the rear of the car, crouching down beside me as he reaches up to push his mask away from his face. His beautiful eyes are red and weepy, but he doesn't say anything as he reaches out, grabs the corner of the sketchbook, and yanks it away from me.

  “You remember the other timelines,” I whisper, and he gives me a look like he's fighting between fury and genuine interest.

  “I'm not very happy with you right now, Karma Sartain. Why don't you explain yourself before I decide to tell Raz and Calix where you are?”

  “You told them it was me?” I ask, but when Barron doesn't respond, I realize that no, he hasn't. How could he tell them? The way he draws me … It makes sense he'd keep it a secret. There's care and focus and attention in those drawings. “You deserve to be pepper sprayed, drawing me all these years while treating me like crap? That's some creepy stalker ass shit.”

  “What timelines?” he grinds out, looking down at the sketchbook. All the images he's drawn that show the timelines, he must've drawn today. So he's clearly been thinking about it. Obsessively so. I wonder if he does that every day? Draws what he can remember.

  “All those scenes you drew in there, like me with the butterfli
es. Or … at the gas station, crying? Even the one with us kissing, I know about all of that. Because I lived it.”

  He narrows his eyes at me, dropping into a full crouch and pushing the sleeves of his jacket up to reveal his black and gray tattoos.

  “My eyes are killing me. Explain.” He rests his elbows on his knees, watching me with trepidation and unease, like he isn't certain I'm not about to pepper spray him again. There's a bit of betrayal in his eyes, too, like I let him down tonight.

  “You and Raz and Calix were planning on taking me to the cabin in the morning, the treehouse cabin where Calix and I slept together last year. Sonja and Luke were there, and you were going to surprise me with that. Today, you decided not to do it, but that's not always true. Some days, you do. And then you come and get me from the cabin after dark, lead me into the crevice in the woods with all the butterflies. We kiss, and then you run off after telling me that I'd prefer a male butterfly trapped in resin because I'd never accept a fairytale where the female was trapped like that.”

  Barron stares back at me with equal parts frustration and confusion.

  “Karma, you've lost your mind,” he whispers, but there's a doubt there. Something about this is rubbing him the wrong way. “If you wanted to see my sketchbook, you could've asked.”

  “And you'd have shown it to me?” I ask skeptically, raising my eyebrow. “Don't act like you would have.”

  He says nothing, rising to his feet and then, reluctantly, holding out a hand. I place my gloved hand in his, and he pulls me to my feet. Our bodies are too close, and his face seems raw and exposed without the red devil mask. Even with his eyes red rimmed and swollen, Barron is remarkably handsome, just as much a devil as either Raz or Calix, but in a different way. He's like black and white, light and dark, a dichotomy of errors.

  “Did Calix drive you here?” I ask and Barron shrugs one, large shoulder.

  “Does it matter if I have his keys?” he replies, lifting a key fob out of his pocket with a single finger. We head over to the dented Aston Martin, and I slide into the front seat. Before we leave, Barron turns on the song “Shut Up” by New Years Day, and my heart lodges in my throat.