by Eden Beck
I’ve had enough. I think one of my ribs might be broken. Not just sprained this time, but broken.
It feels like it’s crackling beneath my fingers, beneath the gauze.
I rip my helmet off and throw it on the ground. “No,” I snap. “I’m sitting out for the rest.”
Heath’s face drops into a scowl, but no one stops me from limping my way over to the bleachers. I just want to be left alone to figure out how badly I’m actually injured, but Olive immediately scurries down to meet me.
Shit. I forgot she was here.
“Alex!” she cries as I sit painfully down on the bottom row and start tugging my padding off.
“Hey,” I say, too tired and hurt to ignore her.
She settles next to me and helps me pull my padding off. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she says happily. “I was worried about you, y’know.”
“Nice of you,” I grunt. I barely have to try to keep my voice deep-ish anymore.
I just wish she would go away. Heath’s already injured me again. Just let Jasper see this and he’ll finish me off.
“That looked like a nasty tackle,” she sighs, still helping me remove my padding. “And so soon after your accident.”
I try not to laugh at the ridiculousness. She was there. She saw it was no accident, not really. I might have thrown myself down those stairs, but she knows it was hardly without reason. That reason being the same one I’m sitting here on this bench beside her.
“My ribs still haven’t completely healed, I don’t think.”
“You poor thing.” My padding finally off, she makes a pouty face and leans forward to settles her hand on my knee.
Holy shit. I stiffen. Olive is hitting on me. For real this time.
I glance out at the ongoing game, where Jasper has stopped in the middle of the field. I can’t see his expression beneath his full-face helmet, but it’s turned toward me.
A small part of me, the part of me that should know better but obviously doesn’t, feels a thrill.
Rather than jump away like I should, I lean a little bit toward Olive. “I don’t know,” I sigh, playing it up. I see Jasper’s shoulders twitch out of the corner of my eye. “I’m okay. Just need a breather.”
“You shouldn’t even be playing,” she says emphatically, scooting closer to me.
The coach’s whistle blows, signaling the end of practice. No sooner has the solitary note ended than The Brotherhood comes jogging up.
“Alex,” Jasper says, jerking his helmet off his head with a ferocious tug. “I see you’ve met Olive.”
“Several times,” I reply nonchalantly. As if he hasn’t warned me about her before. Olive’s hand doesn’t leave my knee, even with the boys’ arrival, and Jasper’s eyes are fixated on it. She doesn’t seem to notice.
Or, if she does, she does a damn good job of hiding it.
“Can’t believe you walked off the field,” Heath snaps. “What are you gonna do if you get hurt in a game?”
“The same thing. There are substitutions,” I retort. “Maybe you shouldn’t hit so hard.”
“I didn’t even hit you that hard! You just wanted to come over here and flirt.”
I open my mouth to reply, but Olive cuts me off.
“Maybe he did!” she snaps. “That’s none of your business. But anyway, I was watching, and you did hit him too hard. You need to calm down, Heath.”
Heath grits his teeth. If it was just us out here, just The Brotherhood and Olive, I have no doubt this wouldn’t be the end of it. Not even close.
But as it is, there’s too many eyes on us. Heath just grits his teeth again and pushes his mop of damp, sweaty hair out of his eyes.
“I’m going to the locker room.”
“I’ll come too,” Beck pipes up, clearly looking to get away from here as fast as possible. They turn and walk off.
“Olive,” Jasper says, stepping closer. “You wanna dump this loser? It’s been a while since we talked. What do you say we meet up later tonight?”
“I have to study,” she replies crisply, her grip on my knee tightening. She turns to me, eyes searching. “But I’ll be free tomorrow night.”
She says some more things, but I’m not listening. She might be trying to catch my eye, but my eyes are locked with Jasper’s. I can see the rage building there, and it’s because of me, because I’m supposedly moving in on his girl. I lean a little closer to Olive so that her lips are almost at my ear. Jasper’s whole face darkens, scrunches up.
This is a dangerous game, one I wholly blame on my probable concussion.
“Alex?” Olive says, her voice swimming back into recognizable sounds, like I’ve just emerged from beneath the surface of a pool. “What do you say?”
“Yeah, sure” I reply, vaguely aware that she’s asked me something.
She takes her hands off my knee and claps them together. The sound startles me the rest of the way out of my locked-eyes stupor.
“Excellent! It’s a date, then. Meet you at the bar in town around six?”
“What—” I whirl around to get her to clarify what the fuck she means, but she’s already standing and running up the bleachers to her girlfriends, who giggle as she sits down among them.
Jasper stares at me when I turn back to him, his jaw working as though he’s grinding his teeth down into blunt nubs. His eyes bore into mine. If he wasn’t carrying his helmet in one hand and his stick in the other, I’m sure his fists would be clenched into tight knots at his sides.
He doesn’t say anything. He just turns and stalks back to the locker room.
I watch him for a bit before getting up and gathering my things.
“Don’t forget!” Olive calls out to me. “Six o’clock tomorrow night!”
As if I could forget. I know Jasper won’t, and in extension, the rest of The Brotherhood.
I turn and wave to show that I’ve heard her, but my stomach has twisted into such a knot that if I open my mouth to reply I’m sure I’ll vomit. I just drift toward the locker room with my armful of padding and try to think exactly how I’m going to get out of this.
The coach barely acknowledges me as I breeze past him to put my equipment away and change into my regular oversized hoodie pulled on over my uniform. Everyone’s pretty much cleared out except for Heath and Beck, and Beck is already dressed and heading out as I finish up.
He doesn’t say anything, but he gives me a look when he passes me. It’s surprising, however. I can’t quite read it. It’s not his usual maniacal anger. Instead, it almost looks … soft? Pitying?
I let it slide out of my mind when he leaves the locker room and I’m left alone with Heath, who’s sitting on a bench still in all his gear. I turn to him and our eyes meet. He isn’t still here by accident.
“Hey,” I say, my voice taught with tension. My head still aches and my ears still ring from the way he slammed into me earlier.
When he just gives me a non-committal nod, I grit my teeth and stride up to him.
“So, wanna tell me what the hell is going on with you? Why are you hitting me so hard? Are you trying to break my ribs? They’re still not healed from last time.”
As if to prove my point, a stab of pain makes me crunch over, one hand darting up to grasp my side.
“Save it,” Heath snaps. He yanks out his phone and starts scrolling through it. “I know your little secret, asshole.”
My stomach drops. My secret.
But … but how? Admittedly, I may have gotten a little sloppy lately. My whole life flashes before my eyes, and suddenly I’m wondering how I’m going to get home once Heath tells the dean. I can’t even pay for a ticket right now, and I really would rather not have to call and tell my parents everything over the phone. All that time I was worried they weren’t paying me enough attention … well … this should finally do it. They’ll have no choice but to notice me when they’re shelling out a grand or more on a one-way flight home in disgrace.
Aside from that, I can’t help but
think of how my brothers will react when I show up from boarding school after getting expelled? I’ll never live it down.
“I have the proof,” Heath snaps, holding up his phone.
A lump lodges itself firmly in the back of my throat.
“Proof?”
I’m not sure I want to know what he means by that, but I also can’t not look.
Heath shakes the phone in front of me until I snatch it out of his hands and force myself to look at the still screen of a paused video.
It’s a video of … the bell tower in the church? Not quite what I expected. I frown and without any more hesitation, I press play.
The video shows me standing there at the top of the steps with Jasper fast approaching. My face is clear in the moonlight lancing through the open windows, but Jasper is nothing but a silhouette. There’s no evidence of the murder I saw in his eyes, just my own terror. From this angle, I look like a coward. Like I’m overreacting to a harmless little game.
As I watch, my video-self glances around, looks at the stairs, and then very clearly and deliberately walks backward toward them.
The video makes it obvious. When I fell down those stairs, it was no accident.
I glance up at Heath, our strange conversation after math class the other day suddenly starting to make sense. “You were filming?”
He shrugs. “Yeah, so? Gimme back my phone.”
I oblige without thinking, then immediately kick myself for not deleting the video first.
“I know you did it on purpose. I don’t know why, but you’ve certainly been milking it for all its worth.” He tucks his phone into his pocket and finally starts stripping off his gear. “If Jasper and Beck find out, they’ll do worse than what I did back there on the field.”
“Why haven’t you said anything, then?” I ask him, astonished. Mostly, my head is still reeling to understand what’s going on. I thought for a minute that the secret Heath was referring to …
I shake my head to clear it. Heath doesn’t know my real secret. Just this. And comparatively, this is nothing.
“I had to do it …” Heath looks up at me, his liquid brown eyes bearing a serious expression, “because you saw me making my … purchase.”
So, he knows about that, too. I thought he might’ve seen me when he glanced toward the infirmary window. Heath is too observant for my liking.
I shake my head slowly. “No … I didn’t see anything. Even if I did, who’s to say what you were buying?”
“Adderall.”
“What?”
“That’s what I was buying,” Heath says. “Adderall.”
I’m lost for words for a second. “Why … why would you tell me that?”
“Now we each know each other’s secret,” he says. “It’s for protection.”
I flounder for words, but that’s fine. Heath isn’t finished talking.
“So, as long as no one finds out about the drugs,” he continues, yanking his cleats off, “your little secret is safe with me.”
I watch him for a moment longer, my eyes lingering on his muscles as he pulls his shirt up over his head and tosses it to the side. Scary as he may be, it’s undeniable that Heath is beyond hot. His abs are so defined I could use them as a washboard.
“All right then,” I say, forcing myself to look away before he catches me staring. “Stop trying to punish me for it, though. You’re just going to make me end up in the infirmary again.”
“Can’t make any promises,” he says, but he actually smiles as he looks at me. “We’ll see.”
Chapter Thirteen
“So, tomorrow night,” Rafael says without warning as soon as I enter the dorm, “my friends and I were going to get together for a movie or something. You in?”
I shut the door behind me and stand there for a moment without answering. He’s lying on his back on the bed, one leg crossed over the other, holding a magazine up over his face. My own bed is rumpled and unmade. I drop my bag by my feet and hobble over to it, wincing.
“Can’t,” I say, sinking down onto the bed with a sigh of relief.
I hear the rustle of pages as Rafael puts his magazine down. “What, do you have plans?” The sarcasm is so thick in his voice that I could practically drown in it.
“A date,” I tell him. “Six o’clock.”
“A date?” He screeches. “With who? Did you tell someone about—or—wait, how is that supposed to work?” He suddenly narrows his eyes at me. “If you’re stealing the only other gay boy at this school, then I’ll—”
“Don’t worry. Not about that, anyway.” I shake my head for a moment while Rafael waits impatiently for me to continue. “Olive. Olive was at practice, and she asked me on a date.”
Rafael is quiet for a long time. I squeeze my eyes shut, knowing what’s coming next.
“Alex,” he begins quietly, after what seems like an eternity. “Do. You. Realize. How. Much. SHIT you have put us in?” he bursts out, his voice raising to a volume that I’m surprised doesn’t rattle the windows.
“It was an accident.”
“How do you accidentally get a date with Jasper’s girl?” he snaps. “You’re going to get us both killed, Alex, I swear. I’m trying to help you, and it seems like you’re doing everything you can to ruin it!”
“I didn’t realize what she was asking,” I mumble. “I just said ‘yeah’.”
“You have to cancel,” he says after a moment of frantic pacing.
“I can’t,” I tell him, still lying dejectedly on my back in bed. “It’s not her fault. I’ll just go on the date and then tell her it’s not working out or something.”
“Sorry, that still doesn’t answer my question. Why can’t you cancel, again?” he demands.
“Because how would you feel?” I ask softly.
“What do you mean?” His footsteps approach my bed, so I open my eyes to see him looming over me.
“Everyone treats her like she’s Jasper’s property,” I say with a sigh. “She makes a date with another guy and he cancels the same day? No, that’ll be just as bad once she lashes out as Jasper over it. I’ll just go on the date with her.”
“So you’re going to get us killed to spare her feelings?” Rafael asks in disbelief.
“I won’t get us killed.” I turn over with my back to him, hunger pangs shooting up my stomach. I curl into a ball. “I don’t feel good, Rafael. Please let me sleep.”
He sighs, and to my astonishment, he actually does.
I don’t dare breathe until he’s gone for fear I jinx my good luck. Well … good comparatively.
I close my eyes as he walks out of the room. The door shuts quietly behind him. I really hope I don’t get killed over my date with Olive, because as much as I keep trying to claim I only accepted the offer because I don’t want to hurt her … I know that’s not the truth.
I accepted the date because I knew it would hurt Jasper.
I just hope whatever price I end up paying is worth it … because there will be a price.
I can’t count on many things here, but I can count on that.
Rafael lends me some clothes, telling me I should “at least look nice” for my date. I’m uncomfortable in his suede jacket and too-big dress shirt, but I look better than when I’m in my giant hoodie.
Just not as comfortable.
“Be careful,” Rafael sighs, patting some wrinkles out of the shirt. “And don’t eat too much. And don’t get any stains on my jacket,” he adds, poking me in the collarbone.
I laugh. “Okay. I’ll try.”
He grips my shoulders. “Hey, but for real … be careful.”
I nod seriously. He lends me some money to catch a cab down to the village so I don’t have to walk.
I gave up trying to pay him back weeks ago now. The last time I tried to pay him for cigarettes, he pulled up a Wikipedia article about his family and spent half an hour jabbing a finger at a net-worth with more zeros at the end then I care to remember.
My German isn’t
very good, but the cab driver understands where I want to go well enough. I tip him and slide out of the backseat in front of the bar Olive specified.
I glance at my phone to check the time. It’s not quite six, but I pull a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of Rafael’s jacket and fumble to light one. Might as well get ahead of schedule.
I’m surprisingly nervous. I’ve never been on a date, let alone with another girl. For a girl as straight as a pin, this is certainly not how I expected my first date to go.
I take a long drag on the cigarette after I light it. The familiar motion of smoking calms me down, even as the hot smoke raking down my throat makes me want to die. Hopefully this will make my breath so bad she won’t want to kiss me.
Of course I want my disguise to be convincing, but even I have my limits … and actually seducing a girl from the neighboring school is where I draw the line. If I wasn’t grateful for the cover her interest in me has provided, I’d be offended.
I’m still leaning against the wall by the door when an extremely nice, shiny Audi pulls into the parking lot of the bar. I can see through the windshield that it’s Olive.
Even if the dean insists otherwise, it’s pretty obvious that the girls’ school has the same affinity for rich patrons as Bleakwood. In the end, beneath the sparkling facades, they’re one and the same.
I pull the butt of the cigarette out of my mouth and flick it onto the sidewalk below me, grinding it out as I watch Olive out of the corner of my eye. She slides out of the driver’s seat in a sleek black coat that does little to conceal the revealing dress beneath it before walking toward me in heels that I know I’d break my neck trying to wear. Her blonde hair is curled and shiny even in the light of the streetlamps. She’s pulled it into a half-up, half-down sort of thing, making her look like some sort of elven princess—or a vampire one—as her lips are painted dark red.
She’s more of a woman than I could ever hope to be.
No wonder she can only see the boy I’m pretending to be. Compared to her, no one would ever suspect me of being anything else.
