Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance

by C. M. Stunich

  “Pretty sure Shakespeare never wore low-slung, ass-hugging leather pants.” Calix rolls his eyes and tries to pull away from me, but I just cling tighter to his arm. He lets me keep holding onto him, refusing to drag me along the sidewalk in front of all the passersby. He seriously needs to stay in his own lane and stop worrying about what other people are thinking. If he's so interested in the thoughts and feelings of others, maybe he should try philanthropy instead of paranoia over his own self-image? “You don't need to change, Calix. Just … maybe button up the jacket for the restaurant. Hygiene, and all that. Plus, nobody wants to see your nipples.”

  That last statement's supposed to be funny. Only … it doesn't come out that way. A strange tension pulls between us. One of, uh, a sexual nature.

  “People are staring at me,” he says, lifting his gaze up and surveying the people passing by. Occasionally, someone glances our way, but even with the tourists, Eureka Springs is still an artists' colony. The shops sell tie-dye and crystals, glass pipes and gay pride flags. There's even a haberdashery—that's a fancy name for a hat shop—that sells steampunk top hats. The town is basically the antithesis of the rural Arkansas.

  “Nobody here cares,” I insist, pointing across the street to where a guy with neon pink hair stands outside the tie-dye shop, kissing a man with a ponytail and a dangling earring. I look back at Calix. “Let's just go have some eggs and pancakes, okay?”

  With another gentle tug, Calix finally starts toward the front doors of the restaurant.

  I yank the glass door open and take him in with me, keeping hold of his arm as we move down the stairs.

  “Did you know the café used to be on street level?” I ask, trying to distract him. Calix's dark eyes constantly scan his surroundings, always looking for trouble. “Did it ever occur to you that trouble comes to you because you're expecting it?”

  The host takes us to a two-seater table and hands us some menus.

  “Anyway,” I continue, scooting my chair just a bit closer, so we can talk. You'd think I fucking slapped Calix, the way he looks at me. I ignore him. “The café used to be on street level, but there was a lot of flooding and mudslides in town back in the late 1800s. The street was eventually built up, but the café remains on the original level.”

  “You memorized the menu,” Calix says, lifting up the plastic menu in his hands and pointing at an inner flap with the history of the restaurant printed on it. “How quaint.”

  “I've taken many a tour around Eureka Springs,” I quip back, meeting him blow for blow. My old rules—don't attract the attention of the Knight Crew—no longer apply to my life. Whether I've really broken the loop or not doesn't matter; I'm tired of trying to make myself small for them. Nobody can make me feel small, if I don't let them. “If you'd spent even a modicum of time trying to appreciate where you live, maybe you'd know some facts about the area, too?”

  “What do I care about Arkansas?” Calix purrs back, putting an elbow on the table and resting his chin in his hand. The way he stares at me, I'm not sure if I should be offended … or charmed? Calix is like a cat who's rubbing on you, asking to be pet, but then scratches you as soon as you do. I can practically see his metaphorical tail twitching, one ear laid back in mock aggression. “As soon as we graduate, I'm heading back to D.C.”

  “You shouldn't just live for tomorrow,” I say, smiling slightly as I glance back down at the menu. My eyes are so tired they burn, and as I stare at the blurring words in front of me, I realize there are tears waiting in the wings, wanting to be shed. “Sometimes, tomorrow never comes. Now is just as important.”

  Calix chucks his menu on the table, almost angrily, but when I glance over at him, he isn't looking at me.

  “Are you two ready to order?” a busy waitress asks, pausing by our table.

  “Coffee, black,” Calix says, and then after a heartbeat too long, he adds, “and blueberry pancakes.”

  “Espresso, iced tea, and blueberry pancakes for me, too.” I smile as I hand back my menu, and the waitress scurries away.

  For a while there, the two of us sit in complete silence. Neither of us even looks at our phones. I'm pretty sure we're both ready to pretend we don't even have them.

  Yet another yawn hits me as I blink droopy lids, my eyes scratchy and aching as I reach up to rub at them. There's no time like the present, I think, forcing my eyes open so I can look over at Calix. Surprisingly, I find him watching me.

  “Who do you think uploaded the video?” he asks, but I don't have any answer for him, so I just shake my head. “Probably fucking Raz,” Calix grinds out with a scowl, and it occurs to me that there's no love lost between the two of them. It'd be difficult, to try to spend a day making them both happy. Add Barron in, and it seems like a lost cause entirely. But I bet you could do it, Karma. That is, if today isn't my new reality. I sure as hell hope it is.

  “It wasn't Raz,” I say with complete confidence, shaking my head again. “Not Barron either. Could it be Sonja?” I try to pretend like I don't know Luke’s fucking Sonja, but it's hard. The temptation to question Calix about the boys' morning plan of taking me to the cabin is hard to resist. If I mention it, it'll make him even more suspicious.

  “I think it was Pearl,” Calix says, voice low. He ignores the waitress as she sets down his coffee, staring into the dark brown liquid like it holds all the answers. Finally, he sighs and sets his elbows on the table, putting his chin in his right hand. “Too easy. Maybe Erina?”

  “Who?” I ask, and Calix gives me a look.

  “Erina Cheney?” he echoes, and I shake my head. “Are you fucking kidding me? She fucks with you all the time, and you don't even know her name?”

  “I don't make it a habit of memorizing my tormentors' names,” I say, thanking the waitress enthusiastically when she drops off my espresso and iced tea, just to make up for Calix. He doesn't seem to have much to say to that statement, but maybe he's wondering why I know so much about him?

  “Erina is the one with the pale blue eyes,” he says, picking up his coffee and leaning back in his chair to drink it, boots crossed underneath the table, leather pants so low that a bit of skin shows between the waistband and the bottom of the doublet. “Pale skin, raven hair?”

  Ah. The name clicks in my head as I think of the girl from the Devils' Day Committee, the one who broke Barron's necklace on that very first day.

  “Why do you think she would upload something like that?” I ask, and Calix shrugs one shoulder, like he just can't be bothered shrugging both.

  “More likely it was Pearl,” he says again, but he's right: that's too easy.

  “I knew that she was cutting herself,” I tell him, pursing my lips as I add some sugar to my espresso. “And I didn't do anything to help her.”

  “Did you actively hurt her though?” he asks, frowning slightly and looking askance at me. “I mean, did you actively go out of your way to make her life hell? Because we did.” Calix takes another sip of his coffee, turning his own attention back to the table. “That's why she's dead, because we hurt her, and then just kept hurting her.”

  “Why?” I ask, the sound of that one word so desperate, it's like I'm asking for myself at the same time. Why did you do it? Why do you keep doing it? Especially if it hurts you just as much as you hurt everyone else? “What did she ever do to you?”

  “Pearl is my brother's ex-girlfriend,” Calix starts, and then pauses. “Was.” Another sip of coffee, a deep frown. “She got sent to Crescent Prep because of him.”

  “Because of him?” I repeat, still not getting where he's going with this.

  “She was pregnant,” he tells me, looking back up again. Sitting here, talking to him about something so sad … I still enjoy Calix's presence. It's weird, but I just … like being around him. There's a connection between us that's hard to explain. We both think too hard about things, and consequences—different for each of us—mean too much. I've always cared too much what the Knight Crew thought, even if I pretended not t
o. Calix cares too much what the whole world thinks. “Her parents sent her to Crescent, and then they gave the baby to my parents to raise.”

  “Did Pearl want to give up her baby?” I ask, but I don't really need an answer to that to know.

  “She started our feud, even before freshman year began, calling my parents and telling them shit about me and Raz. Pearl is the reason why he's here, too.” Calix scowls, but there's a desperate pleading to that expression that I'm not sure he's realized he's wearing. He wants out of this, an escape, some way to start over and change things, put life on a different path.

  Fuck.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Pearl is a mom. Pearl's baby was taken by the Knights—two of the most awful people I'd ever had the misfortune to meet. Pearl … can't die here, alone and sad and wanting.

  I'm going back.

  I know before I even close my eyes that I'll be going back.

  “Are you crying?” Calix asks, leaning forward and setting his coffee cup down. “About Pearl?”

  “Not about Pearl,” I whisper, glancing up at Calix and finding him almost too close to me. Well, maybe it's a little bit about Pearl. “I'm going to miss this.”

  “Miss what?” Calix is staring at me like he wants to understand, to unwrap all of my secrets.

  “This.” I gesture between us with a finger as the waitress comes back with our pancakes, and my heart breaks in two because I know we share the same favorite breakfast food. “Me and you. This talk.” You won't remember this tomorrow; you'll stare at me like you hate me, leaving me to pick up the pieces to understand why. “Us hanging out.”

  “It's not like we can't have breakfast again,” Calix says, as if I've irritated him, picking his coffee back up. “Don't cry, Karma.”

  Slowly, I pick up my fork and eat my pancakes, wondering if this exhaustion I'm feeling will still be there when I wake up at the gas station next. Because it's coming. And now I know one thing that I have to do to move on: I have to save Pearl. Not just because the universe wants me to set things right, but because it's the right thing to do.

  On our way out of the café, I grab Calix's wallet before he can put it away, and I grab the last few hundreds inside. Two of them go in a tip jar on the host stand, and the other two go into a plastic slot on an animal shelter donation box.

  I barely get up the steps before I turn and look down at Calix, two steps behind me. We're on eye level now.

  “Let's get a room at the Crescent Hotel,” I blurt as my chest aches with fatigue. I don't have much longer, I know, before I have to go back. But I'm not ready, not yet. “Tonight, we can go on a ghost tour together. Tomorrow, we can tour one of the local caves. Let's … buy an expensive piece of art together and pretend for a moment like we don't hate each other.”

  Calix stares at me like I've lost my fucking mind.

  “On Monday, we can go back to school and then, when everyone's looking and you feel most ashamed, you can ignore me.”

  “Karma,” Calix says, taking the last two steps, until we're nearly standing toe to toe. “I was never ashamed of you.” He puts one hand on the side of my face, his dark eyes still virtually unreadable.

  “You could've fooled me,” I reply softly, hardly daring to breathe. My head swims with exhaustion, but I push the feeling back, in favor of listening to my heart beat wildly.

  “I lied to someone on Devils' Day last year,” he tells me, his own face softening. “You can pretend it wasn't you for now, and we can try this lame-ass ghost tour. I can't promise anything about tomorrow.”

  “Sometimes tomorrow never comes,” I remind him, but then he wraps his arms around me and pulls me close.

  The Crescent Hotel looms above us, a veritable castle in its own right. It shares the same name as our school, but I'm not sure, exactly, what the meaning behind it is. I’m going to be whimsical for a moment and pretend they were both named after the sharp shape of the Devils’ Day moon.

  “This is one of the most haunted hotels in America,” I tell Calix, glancing over at him as we stand in the parking lot, a crescent moon sculpture guarding the front steps of the hotel. My heart flip-flops in my chest and butterflies take flight in my belly. He glances back at me, his face carefully blank, but not empty.

  There's too much between us for him to pretend right now, especially not with Pearl's death hanging over both our heads. My eyes are sticky with fatigue, and I keep watching the time tick by, wondering how long the universe is going to let me get away with this.

  “If you believe in that sort of thing,” Calix adds, turning back to the hotel. I'm just sort of assuming he has a credit card to pay for the room and the ghost tour. Goddess knows I don't have any money.

  “Even if you don't, it's fun to pretend sometimes.” Looking down, I spot his pale hand resting near the leg of his leather pants. Before I can second-guess my intuition, I reach down and curl my fingers around it.

  Calix stiffens up, but he doesn't pull away. Instead, he starts forward, dragging me along behind him toward the entrance. A doorman steps up and opens it for us, letting us into the grand lobby with its glorious fireplace, flames crackling merrily. There's even a cat sitting in the middle of the floor runner, staring back at us cheekily. There must be some Devils' Day sorcery in this scheme, a time loop crafted of magic and trickery. If there is, this cat is certainly a part of it.

  I resist the urge to flip it off, and it yawns at me, standing up and stretching before sauntering off like it owns the place. For all I know, maybe it does?

  “Can I help you?” the man behind the counter asks as Calix pulls me up to the window, leaning his elbow on the counter. The way he moves, acts, it reminds me of that fucking cat. Imperious. Domineering. Masterful. It's both part of his charm and his Achilles’ heel, all wrapped up in one darkly beautiful package.

  “We need a room for the night,” Calix purrs, his eyes narrowed slightly. He yawns, just like the cat, and even that has a haughty air to it. “For me and my lover.” He gestures back at me, using my hand to drag me closer to the counter. Calix stands up and slides his right arm around my waist, making me shiver.

  “Of course.” The employee checks his computer and then glances back at us. “How easily do you scare? Because Michael's room is available.”

  “Michael's room?” Calix retorts with an annoyingly superior air. “Who the fuck is Michael?”

  “Only the Crescent Hotel's most famous ghost,” I say, and it must be true that yawns are contagious because one slips out of me before I can stop it. “He was a stone mason who fell to his death.”

  “How romantic,” Calix deadpans, pulling his wallet out of his pocket with his left hand. He manages to get his credit card out without removing his right arm from around my waist. Having him touch me like this, so casually, it's warming me up in places I didn't even know were cold. How? How can I let such a lordly asshole as Calix Knight have such an effect on me?

  Love is irrational, certainly. Mad as a hatter.

  “We'll take it,” he adds, when the man behind the counter doesn't seem to quite understand his arrogant quip. The credit card is run, and we're handed a key. Not a key card either, but a real key. It's a nice touch. “I can't believe I'm paying to stay in a room where someone died. It's a bit macabre, don't you think?”

  “Not at all,” I retort, steering him to the concierge. There's a sign next to the podium where the employee stands, advertising ghost tours for tonight. I so desperately want to go on one. Now that the idea's come to me, I feel almost frenzied for it. A night that doesn't end in the Devils' Day Party, an outing with Calix, a chance for us to do something together. But holy shit, I'm tired, and I'm worried I'm not going to make it.

  Never hurts to try, right?

  Calix buys us two tickets for ten o'clock that night, and then leads me down the hallway toward the elevator. It's strange, being with him like this. We're not fighting or fucking or putting on a show for the Knight Crew.

  “I like being with you,�
� I tell him, and he stops with his hand halfway to the button for the elevator. “A lot. I hope you know that.” He just stands there, staring at me, so I take the initiative and call the elevator myself, pressing my finger into the button slowly, almost teasingly.

  “Why?” he replies, blinking dark eyes. His black liner is smeared, almost like that sharpness of his is smudged, too, his infamous cruelty blurred at the edges. “I'm a total dick to you.”

  “You can't help who you love,” I tell him as the elevator pings and the doors slide open. “But you can demand respect. Could you give it to me?”

  Calix is silent as we step inside the elevator, leaning our butts against the railing and waiting patiently as the old doors slide closed.

  “I could try,” he says, voice cracking slightly. Calix reaches up and runs a hand down his face. I recognize the motion; he's tired. He's fucking exhausted. And I don't just mean because neither of us slept last night. No, there's more to it than that. He's tired in his heart, his soul.

  “Don't try, Calix. Do. Just do.”

  The elevator doors open, and we step out, taking our time in the hallway to examine the old photographs lining the wall. At least, I'm examining them. Calix, on the other hand, is examining me.

  “What?” I ask after a moment, tucking some stringy purple hair behind my ear and wondering how dead on my feet I must look. I'm still wearing the Burberry Prep sweatshirt and sweatpants, so I can't be painting a very pretty picture. Speaking of painting, my hands are stained with color. A quick glance at my reflection in the glass of the picture in front of me shows a splotch of pink on my right cheek.

  “You just … I don't know.” Calix turns away, pretending to be interested in a black and white photograph of some girls in old-fashioned PE uniforms. Once upon a time, this place actually served as a college for young women, sometime around the early 1900s. Meanwhile, my school, Crescent Prep, was being used to beat filthy rich boys into submission.

  “We're alone here,” I repeat again, and he spins, grabbing me by the shoulders. But gently. He doesn't throw me into the wall or squeeze me until I bruise. He just looks at me, and I know in the fucking depths of my soul that even if he can't remember the last few weeks, there's a mark on his soul because of them.