Forbidden Desires Box Set

by Katy Kaylee

  “Aquamarine is a rock, Tor?”

  “It’s a rock, but it’s also a color.”

  “What does it look like?” I shook my head and bit my lip, wishing he was in my room with me so I could give him a knowing look. For all the trash he talked on Prom and going to dances in general, he sure was interested in what my dress looked like.

  I dropped onto my bed and stared at the upside-down view through the window as my head lolled over the side, wondering if he would like it. I wondered if Lucas even had to capacity to like or dislike a dress. I felt like he might just dismiss them all, calling them ineffective clothing choices and moving on. He was always painfully logical like that.

  “I’m not telling you what it looks like.”

  “Why not?” He asked, in his typical matter-of-fact tone. I could almost see him, thrusting a hand into his hair and looking exasperated. He always paced back and forth in his room when he was talking, it was like he couldn’t stand just doing one thing at a time. If he was talking, he had to be pacing as well.

  “Is this some sort of superstitious thing? Like grooms not seeing their bride in her dress?”

  “No,” I said, “this is me being stubborn about telling you because you always tell me prom is silly. And now you want to know what my dress looks like.”

  “Obviously it’s not working,” Lucas sighed. “And you’re still going with Ron?”

  “Yes,” I said, something strange jumping into my throat at him asking. Lucas and I had been best friends for a long time, and he had always been suspicious of my boyfriends. My boyfriends had always been very suspicious of him, too, insisting there was no way a guy would spend that much time with me if he wasn’t in love with me. I disagreed - Lucas and I had always been best friends and nothing but.

  Though Lucas had always warned me away from boys, with Ron it was different. He really didn’t trust him. Ron was a hothead and had a temper, but he was usually pretty nice to me.

  Some thought Lucas hated Ron so much because Lucas liked me and wanted me for himself, but I could have told them that it was because Lucas was certain he had an innate ability to sense what people were truly like. He was always berating me for trying to see the good in people because he was certain I was going to get hurt.

  There was a pause, a rare awkward moment between us, and I examined my fingernail, a knot growing in my throat. I cleared it away and laughed, forcing the weird tension to go away.

  “If you don’t come to Grand March then you don’t get to see the dress. Simple as that.”

  Lucas laughed too, and he seemed grateful that I had shaken away the strange feeling between us.

  “Torryn,” he said, “your name is at the very end of the alphabet. I’d have to watch everyone else walk down as well, and it’s not that watching people walk isn’t incredibly scintillating, it’s just that-”

  “It beats sitting around and hacking the library or whatever you hack into.” I shook my head in amusement. Lucas was the total nerd package, including computer hacker. Most people thought he was just a brainiac and wiz at coding. Only I knew that he used those brains and coding skills to break into computers looking for information about his mother who’d run off when he was a baby. I always felt bad for Lucas because I had the best parents in the world and he deserved to have a mom who loved him and a dad who spent more time sober than drunk.

  “Actually, it doesn’t. Why don’t you spend the evening with me, and I’ll show how much fun hacking can be over prom?”

  I laughed, although I was a bit surprised. I’d actually thought the hacking had stopped. While I didn’t know a bit from a byte, I did know that hacking was illegal, and that worried me. I was the only one who knew, and his secret was safe with me. The fact that he’d trusted me with his hacking endeavors and shared his feelings about being abandoned by his mom meant a lot to me. I’d never betrayed his secret or his trust. “I thought you’d stopped that.”

  “I don’t do it often. Just when I get an idea or a lead.”

  “What will you do if you find your mom? What will say to her?”

  “My first instinct is to turn my back on her so she can hurt like my dad and I did.”

  I nodded. The feeling of revenge was natural. But I knew Lucas wouldn’t do that. Revenge through pain was more Charlie’s MO.

  “She’d deserve it,” I said.

  “So, you’ll help me?”

  “And risk going to jail? I’d rather go to prom.”

  “I can give you a hundred reasons why you’re wrong about prom.”

  “I’m not going to listen to one of your talks, Lucas,” I said, smiling to myself as he geared himself up to launch into his debate mode. “I have to go - Charlie is going to be here soon so we can get our hair and nails done.”

  “I still can’t believe that’s happening,” he said, and I could almost hear him shaking his head through the line. I was glad he had dropped the questioning about my dress and Ron. His incessant questioning almost made it seem like he cared about Prom, though he had told me several times that he didn’t. He was far too logical and put together to want anything to do with a silly dance.

  I was still thinking about his infuriating reasoning and how much we argued with one another when he continued, catching me off guard and pulling my thoughts back to our original discussion.

  “I thought Charlie would shave her head before styling her hair.”

  “Yeah,” I said, as the I heard the door fly open. Charlie never bothered to knock or use the doorbell, and my only indication that she was here was usually her heavy boot stomps on the porch in the split second before she threw the door open. “Charlie’s here, I’ll talk to you later.”

  I ended the phone call and stood, pushing my chair back to the desk and hurrying from the room. Knowing Charlie, she had already made it to the kitchen and was looking through the refrigerator and cabinets to find something to eat.

  My mother both loved and hated that she thought our home was her own.

  “Oh,” Charlie said, turning around as I entered the kitchen. The bright sunlight was streaming through the open windows, the room open and airy. It had been a long winter and I was thankful for the warm breeze coming through the window. Charlie grinned at me, barbecue sauce smeared over her lips as she dug into the leftover ribs my mother had slow-cooked the day before. “Hey.”

  I laughed, shaking my head and grabbing a bag of chips from the counter. Though Charlie put up an excellent facade, I knew that she was nervous about getting dressed up for Prom. It was like she thought looking nice was going to affect her street cred.

  I had never seen her in a dress before - in fact, I had never seen her in anything other than skinny jeans and boots - but there was a rumor that she had worn a dress to a school production in elementary. It was also rumored that she had burned any evidence of the incident, and when I asked her about it all I got in response was a mischievous grin.

  “Hey,” I said, popping the bag of chips open and sliding onto one of the bar stools at the island. Charlie had once looked out of place in my kitchen when we had first become friends, but now it looked completely normal to see her Doc Martens and her leather jacket directly in front of my mother’s witty poster about wine. Charlie’s hair was long and blonde and frayed at the ends from her recent stint with dark blue tips. She grinned at me, the barbeque morphing her into something of a grotesque joker character. “Are you nervous?” I asked, knowing I would get a sarcastic answer.

  Charlie snorted at the thought, shaking her head and coming over to the counter, setting down the Tupperware with the ribs and searching for her next piece.

  “Nervous? Of what? A dress and some make-up?”

  “It wouldn’t be ridiculous,” I said, “I’d be nervous to wear boots and a nose ring.”

  “I don’t have a nose ring, Tor.”

  “But you were thinking about it.”

  “And you were thinking about going to prom with Lucas, but thinking about doing things doesn’t m
ake them a reality,” Charlie said, and I shook my head, immediately pushing away the strange feelings rising in my chest at the mention of his name. I wanted to focus on Ron, my boyfriend, and our perfect night under the stars.

  “I wasn’t thinking about that, that’s ridiculous,” I said, “you know how Lucas feels about Prom.”

  Charlie made a face, and I think we could both hear Lucas’s voice in our heads, telling us that Prom was an ancient ritual where women could be treated as prizes and that the funds spent on the event would be put to much better use if they were donated to children with cancer instead of spent on flowers and dresses.

  “And besides,” I said, cutting off the Lucas in my head, “I have a boyfriend.”

  Ron and I had only been dating for a little over three months, and it had mostly consisted of getting fast food with his baseball team after games and spending Sundays at his parent’s house, watching whatever sports thing was on.

  Charlie made another face, and I knew what she was thinking without needing to hear it from her. She didn’t like Ron, and she never had. She didn’t understand how I could date a douchebag like him, but he was nice and strong and had gotten me a little teddy-bear for our three-month anniversary.

  “Girls!” My mother came bustling into the kitchen, her hair pulled back into a tight bun, as per usual. Her sharp eyes landed on me and I straightened up immediately, then her eyes swung to Charlie and she shook her head. Charlie grinned at her, not as impacted by authority as I was.

  “Mrs. Williams,” Charlie said, nodding her head like she didn’t have barbeque sauce all over her face.

  “Don’t you girls have a hair and nails appointment in half an hour?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, glancing at the clock and realizing time had slipped away from us. Charlie snapped the lid back on the ribs, apparently realizing it was time for us to make our exit. She swiped the back of her hand over her mouth, making my mother grimace.

  “Well, you had better get moving. You don’t want to be late.”

  My mother smiled at me before I closed the door, silently wishing me good luck.

  Charlie and I climbed into her old white Honda Accord and it rumbled to life under us. Recently the muffler had been ripped off in an event Charlie wouldn’t describe to me, no matter how curious I was. She had pulled up to my house in the morning with her car roaring, sputtering, and I’d had to sprint out there before my mother stopped to interrogate us.

  “Are you ever going to get this fixed?” I asked, over the growl of the engine. Charlie pretended like she didn’t hear me and turned the radio up, though it was difficult to hear that, too. We rumbled to the salon and climbed out. I shook the buzz from my bones and we walked in together, and Charlie looked around, her face suspicious.

  “Hello, ladies! You must be here for some Prom pampering! Come along, let’s get you checked in.”

  A brightly-dressed and animated salon worker was standing in front of us, wildly gesturing with her hands, and for the first time in my life, I saw genuine fear in Charlie’s eyes. She glanced over at me, fight-or-flight instincts flashing over her face. I quickly looped my arm through her’s and allowed the woman to guide us to the back of the salon.

  There were other girls there getting their hair done, but they didn’t pay any attention to us, and once Charlie was seated in her chair and she realized she was still in control of the situation, she relaxed, making jokes and allowing the salon worker to cut off a few inches of her hair.

  By the time we were finished I didn’t recognize her, and by the way she kept glancing at herself in the mirrors, I guessed she hardly recognized herself, either.

  Charlie drove us back to my house, where our dresses were pressed and hung in my closet, their dust sleeves protecting them from my other garments. We slipped them off of the hangers and helped each other into them.

  I stared at myself in the mirror as Charlie went to the bathroom, admiring the way my dress fell and accentuated my curves. I had always been a bigger girl, but I didn’t let that get in my way. Not only was I dating one of the best-looking boys in school - I was going to win Prom queen tonight, I was sure of it.

  The top portion of my dress was white with blue jewels studded along my chest, and just below my breasts, the long, flowing skirt fell, hanging over my hips and falling with my body perfectly. I couldn’t help wondering what Lucas would have thought of it- if he would have called it “blue” once he had seen the shining hue.

  “Okay,” Charlie said, coming out of the bathroom and clapping her hands together. Though she must have still been nervous, she was excellent at hiding her feelings because she approached her dress like it was her prey and she was ready to take it down. “Let’s get this thing on.”

  Charlie’s dress was, surprisingly, the kind of dress Lucas had been talking about earlier. The skirt was princess style, which meant it was a lot more work to get on her. It was a deep purple, the tulle layering different shades to create a shimmering effect, and the sweetheart neckline fit her perfectly. Once we had it on and situated, I couldn’t stop sneaking glances at her.

  “Would you stop staring already?” She asked, her cheeks flushing as she glanced up from her phone.

  “I can’t help it,” I said, smiling at her in what I hoped was a comforting way, “you don’t look like yourself.”

  “Tell me about it,” she said, “I can hardly move in this thing.”

  We laughed, and when she shifted the skirt around and propped her feet up on the chair across from her, I noticed that she was still wearing her Doc Martens. I raised an eyebrow at her, glancing over at the nice shoes we had picked out for her for the occasion, but she held her hand up to stop me from saying anything.

  “I’m here,” she said, “and I’m in a dress. I think that’s enough for one night, I don’t need to be breaking my ankles as well.”

  “Fine,” I laughed, knowing she was right. Besides, the shoes looked edgy with her dress and I liked how they fit her, though everything else was different.

  We were both sitting in my bedroom, exhausted from the effort of getting our dresses on, when the doorbell rang. We glanced at each other right away - the boys we were going with were not supposed to pick us up for another hour.

  Charlie leaped to her feet and went sprinting down the stairs, and I was surprised at how well she could move in her dress without tearing it. I followed her down the steps, carefully holding my skirt up with one hand as I went. I was glad I hadn’t slipped on my high-heels yet, or I might not have made it down the steps in one piece.

  “Jaelyn?” Charlie was asking as I hurried into the room, trying to peek around her to see who was at the door. She shifted and revealed one of our classmates - a friend but not a close friend. She was already in her sparkling pink dress and she looked worried, glancing over her shoulder like she was being chased.

  “Torryn,” she said, spotting me over Charlie’s shoulder and speaking directly to me. I could tell Charlie was resisting the urge to shut the door on her, but I was willing to bet it was her curiosity that kept her standing there as Jaelyn spoke to me.

  “I don’t know how to tell you this…” she said, her eyes starting to tear up. She shook her head and took a deep breath. “I saw Ron at the mall today when I was getting my hair put up…”

  I shook my head slightly, not quite sure what she was getting at. Faintly, muffled through the closed garage door, we heard a slamming car door that sounded suspiciously like Ron’s truck. Charlie glanced back at me as Jaelyn nervously spat out the last part of her message.

  “He was with another girl. I didn’t know her but… they were kissing, and not in a friendly way. I just thought you should know.”

  Jaelyn turned like she was prepared to sprint out of the garage in her heels, but the door to the garage swung open and Ron came in, his normally calm face bright red, his eyes wild and searching.

  “You!” He said when he saw Jaelyn standing at the door, looking disheveled and frightened. In
the next moment, his eyes swung around to meet mine and he raised his eyebrows at me, an expression I was used to seeing. “What did she tell you, babe?”

  “Ron,” I said, “what’s going on?”

  For a moment, everything paused as we all looked at each other. My heart was pounding in my chest as I stared at him, glancing at Jaelyn occasionally, who looked like she wanted to be anywhere but where she was.

  I wanted to be able to jump to Ron’s defense, but I couldn’t. I was shocked at how easily I accepted the truth that he had been cheating on me, how I was still standing there, watching the scene unfold in front of me, not even feeling like I was a part of it.

  “I don’t know what she told you, but it’s a lie,” Ron said, his voice shaking with anger. He met my eyes again. “You believe me, right, babe?”

  I paused, glancing at Jaelyn again. Suddenly, I felt stupid in my dress, like a little girl dressing up like a princess. My whole night was shattering before my eyes. I shook my head slowly, unable to say anything to him, knowing Jaelyn was telling the truth.

  When he realized I didn’t believe what he was saying, he slammed his palm into the wall of the garage. It connected with a smacking sound, the solid concrete wall not giving in to his attack.

  “You little bitch,” he roared, taking a menacing step toward Jaelyn, who was looking more and more like she regretted coming. Though I didn’t think Ron would ever hurt someone, I was grateful that Charlie stepped between them. She put her hand on Ron’s chest and shoved him, making him stumble backward.

  “I’ll give you three seconds to get the fuck out of my sight,” Charlie growled, “or we’re going to see who the little bitch is here.”

  “Whatever,” Ron said, then, glancing at me again before turning and stomping out of the garage. I felt like my heart was supposed to be breaking, but all I felt was a hollowness in my chest, almost like I had just watched all that happen to someone else.