Crossed Lines

by Lana Sky

  Over a week. I lasted that long. Just long enough to forget for a second that I was always on borrowed time.

  Touché, Thorny. He’s won the war.

  “Did you hear me?” He looks up, unaffected by my shocked expression. “Hurry up.” He smooths his hand along the crisp tan suit I notice for the first time. “We’re going to be late.”

  Late? Mr. Lawyer gets paid by the hour. A few extra dollars won’t kill him.

  But…

  Visits to his office don’t typically require a dress code. I sweep my gaze over the discarded garments scattered over the steps and my eyes widen. A blue-and-yellow-plaid skirt. A navy sweater with a golden crest emblazoned over the left breast. When I seek him out, I have to swallow to keep my voice steady.

  “You’re taking me to Walden?”

  I wait for him to scoff. Haha. I fell for his nasty trick.

  “Hurry up,” he snaps, marching through the front door. “You have five minutes.”

  Five minutes. It takes me three to run upstairs, change, and race out to the car. Thorny says nothing before pulling off, his expression even more closed off than usual. Usually, I’d poke and prod him to find out why, but I’m too busy bouncing in my seat. The fields and beaches of Thornfield fade, and almost comically close by, the landscape surrenders to neat, polished school grounds.

  Walden is a stone structure built like a castle, rising from the crest of a hill, overlooking a different view of the ocean. All this time, it was only about an hour’s walk away.

  “Stay close,” Thorny warns as he parks near the main building. Several outposts, draped in ivy, make it feel like a collection of neat stone blocks arranged around a central courtyard. “You’re still under observation,” he says.

  Oh. I swipe my hand over my bandaged face. This is why he brought me; my busted brain means he can’t leave me alone.

  “You are to sit at the back of my class. The moment you step out of line, you’re on your way home. Understood?”

  I bite my tongue and nod. There’s no point in risking his ire—vocabulary word #19—now. I follow him diligently across the campus and into the main building as students dressed in uniform mill about.

  It reminds me of the good old days. When I was the one skulking around the edges of the populace, going unnoticed while clamoring for attention in the same conflicted breath. Teenage girls are strange creatures. Thorny navigates them with stiff shoulders and a frown that warns he can’t be fucked with.

  I would have made a point of provoking him though. Just because. He has that kind of face. The overtly handsome one you want staring in your direction, focused on you always.

  Even if he’s angry.

  Especially when he’s angry.

  His classroom is on the second floor with a view of the water. How fitting for someone who likes to drink himself into a stupor while staring at the ocean. I wonder if there’s vodka in the mug he sets on his desk.

  At least ten girls are already seated, giggling in anticipation of his arrival. They send me curious looks, but Thorny makes for a more interesting target. They can barely take their eyes off him.

  “This is Maryanne,” he explains while settling behind the desk at the head of the room. The sharp jerk of his chin directs me to the desk in the very last row, far outside the influence of his delicate flock.

  His students watch him like sheep would a wolf. The dumb, innocent kind of sheep from children’s fables. He’s dressed to kill, his eyes sharp, seeking out the hint of wandering attention. When he’s sure he has them rapt and at the ready, he turns to the chalkboard.

  “Today, our topic is…sex.”

  The class gasps aloud as he writes the naughty word for all to see in white chalk. My mouth may be open too. I run my thumb along my lower lip to check. It’s wet and my tongue traces it as those three letters appear on the blackboard.

  S E X

  “Primarily, the role of sex in literature,” he continues, lest someone get any naughty ideas. “Men and women play different character tropes in many novels. Anyone care to name a few?”

  A ruddy-faced girl with bright-red hair raises her hand and beams when called upon. “The man is the protector, like a knight,” she says. “While the lady is always the princess. The one in danger.”

  “Or,” Thorny adds while writing her response across the chalkboard, “the temptress. Anyone remember the story of Adam and Eve?”

  His students giggle and throw out more boring clichés.

  The witch and the warlock.

  The wicked husband and the dutiful wife.

  When I raise my hand, I sense him deliberately pass over me more than once. He calls on another blond instead.

  “Women usually are in the background, while the man is the lead,” she says.

  “Right.” Thorny nods and adds that to the bottom of his growing list. “And—”

  “The innocent little girl and the big, bad wolf,” I say, breaking protocol.

  Thorny stiffens midsentence. His shoulders ripple as he sets the chalk aside and turns around. My stomach clenches in anticipation of his reaction. Odd. He’s thoughtful, appraising me with his head cocked to the side.

  “Or predator and prey,” he says, rephrasing my words. “A common trope.”

  “Is it though?” I shrug. “Maybe not. Little Red Riding Hood was wearing red. What if she knew that was the wolf’s favorite color?” I lean across my desk, focused on Thorny even as the other students turn to stare. “What if…she wanted to get eaten up from the very beginning?”

  “Interesting take,” Thorny deadpans. “In fact, that’s the perspective I want you all to adopt.”

  His change in tone must be a familiar cue. In unison, his students fish through the bookbags propped against the chairs and withdraw notebooks and pens. It’s study time.

  “Today’s lesson is to invert those preconceived notions you have. Take whatever trope you feel is the most familiar and turn it on its head. Reverse the sexes.”

  Like lambs to the slaughter, his students dive headfirst into the assignment, hunched over their desks, intent with concentration.

  “Here.” A stack of clean paper and a silver pen land before me.

  Invert a cliché and make it my own. I nibble on the end of my pen as I watch the other students hard at work. I bet Thorny loves this: having power over little girls who bow to his authority. They don’t talk back.

  They don’t push his buttons.

  They don’t challenge those “preconceived” notions floating around his distinguished brain.

  The class is nearly over by the time I finally scribble something down. I glance up without realizing it, meeting his gaze as he observes the class from the head of the room. He raises an eyebrow.

  What are you up to? I imagine him thinking.

  I smile a smile just for him and keep writing. But it’s a twisted game of my brain spouting nonsense and my hand racing to scratch it out and start over. By the time I compose the semblance of a paragraph, Thorny rises to his feet.

  “Class dismissed.”

  Muttering amongst themselves, his students race out single-file, eager for their next class.

  But not me. He’ll only give me a taste, nothing more.

  Looking at me, he nods to the doorway. “Let’s go.”

  Resigned, I follow him back to the car, saying nothing. During the drive over to Thornfield, I can’t help thinking that it might be better to starve.

  At least then you don’t know what you’re missing.

  “I have another class to teach,” Thorny tells me, pulling up to the front of the house. “You’ll be all right on your own for a few hours.” He hesitates, and I suspect those words were directed at himself more than at me. “Stay out of trouble. Finish your assignment.”

  My assignment. I retreat to my bedroom and smuggle my red journal beneath the covers. Invert expectations, Thorny said. Destroy all preconceived notions.

  Tell a lie worth telling.

  Dear diar
y,

  It makes me feel so pathetic, wanting him to want me. It’s such a stupid wish. No, desire might be a better word. I’m seven again every time he looks at me.

  That’s all he sees. A worthless burden he didn’t want.

  But he was all I needed. All I wanted.

  You can crave a hug from someone so much it hurts. You can claw at their fingers, begging them to open, even as they walk away. You can scream and shout, but they ignore you.

  They run from you.

  So you run toward them. And you shout louder, and you kick harder, and you scream ten times higher.

  It’s the only way to get their attention.

  But the person they see isn’t really you. It’s just a mask.

  And they despise you for wearing it.

  But the really sad part? You can’t remember how to take it off.

  Reading over the scribbled sentences, I laugh out loud. Haha. It’s such a whiny confession that Thorny would never believe it came from me. Such stupid, bleating, pointless bitching. I rip it out and ball it up before letting it bounce across my floor.

  My eyes are burning because it’s late. I haven’t slept well in three days—since he stole my pills. The moisture seeping down my cheeks is just a trick of the breeze blowing through my window, cooling my skin.

  Nothing more.

  Thorny gets back when it’s dark outside and I’ve already stuffed my face with a sandwich crudely made from the last bit of deli meat in the fridge. He enters the house silently, a cell phone pressed to his ear. Without looking at me once, he heads straight for the balcony, leaving the glass door open so that his words trickle in.

  “I don’t want to ‘talk about this later,’” he growls. “Say it now. Fuck! Say it now!”

  I jump. He’s never shouted like this before. So loud that I feel it vibrating in my bones, which makes them quiver. My knees draw together, my stomach a twitching, nervous thing.

  “You think I haven’t fucking known? All this time? That I don’t fucking know!”

  Elaine must say something pleading in that soft, soothing voice of hers. Please.

  Whatever it is makes Thorny laugh. “Fuck him. How long have you been screwing him, huh? Before or after that piece of shit stole my manuscript? Don’t pretend like you don’t fucking know—”

  He lowers the phone from his ear, letting the wind swallow up Elaine’s reply.

  “Fuck you,” Thorny rasps when she goes silent. “Fuck the both of you.”

  He hurtles the phone. It strikes the house, ricocheting off and sliding beneath a lounger. Sighing, he leans against the railing, clutching his head in his hands.

  “Fuck,” he hisses to no one. “Fuck! Fuck! Wait—”

  I look down, surprised to find that I’m on my feet, inches from the hallway. Like a dog on a leash, I jerk in place. Frozen.

  “Come here.” He has his back to me, but he beckons with a wave of his hand.

  Uh-oh. I’m so used to him pushing me away. I don’t know how to react when he draws me closer. My feet twitch, my brain going blank. Cautiously, I take a step toward the balcony. Then another.

  A cool breeze nips at my skin, warning me away the closer I come. He’s inverted expectations. The tables have turned. Giving in will only strengthen the inevitable sting when he rips the proverbial rug from beneath me.

  But I’ve always been a glutton for his brand of punishment. Silence and lies. Interest only when I start to believe he’ll never show it.

  It’s addictive whiplash.

  “I want to ask you something,” he confesses, his shoulders hunched, his gaze on the horizon.

  “Yes?”

  “Your mother. Why did she leave?”

  My chest constricts as the blood in my body drains back to my heart. It’s the taboo subject of which we never speak. My mother, the original blond-haired, blue-eyed psychopath. The woman who gave birth to me on a whim and skipped out when I was barely seven. The vengeful love interest who drove my father to suicide.

  “She left,” I say. The same thing I recite to the many therapists, teachers, and psychiatrists who’ve asked the same question. Marie got bored. She returned to France.

  Marie started a new family after relinquishing her parental rights over me as soon as she could.

  Marie was a bitch.

  “She abandoned you,” Thorny says, using the mean word my therapy sessions discouraged.

  Marie “got overwhelmed with life.” It wasn’t about me or my father. Deep down, she probably loved us both very much. Probably.

  “Why?” he demands. “Did he cheat on her? Screw some other woman? Did you throw one of your fucking little tantrums and drive her away? Why?”

  “She just left.” I sound hollow. A terrible actress reciting the only line I remember from the terrible play I’m in: The Life of Maryanne Mayweather. “She just—”

  “Left,” he snarls. “In the middle of the fucking day. With no goddamn reason.” He forms a fist and slams it against the railing. “No. There had to be a fucking reason. So, what did you do?”

  He bellows the question, demanding an answer.

  What did I do?

  “I…”

  I wanted her to love me.

  I begged her to stay.

  I wanted her to need me. Keep me. Please. Pleasepleaseplease! I wanted to be better and perfect and smile and be good.

  I promised to be good.

  It didn’t matter.

  “I existed,” I hear myself say. “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “No. You drove her away,” he deduces, smiling coldly at the realization. Aha! He cracked the code that had evaded my father. “You drive everyone the fuck away. Do you want to know why?”

  My heart thumps, beating and exposed. His words are a rusty knife, aimed without care. He just wants to hurt. To make me bleed.

  “Because you’re so fucking desperate for attention. No one else gave you the time of fucking day and I knew you’d bleed me dry. You bleed everyone fucking dry.”

  I blink as my hands claw at each other, pinching and scratching. It hurts, but not enough to help me ignore the pain slicing beneath my rib cage, spreading like blood. The air in my lungs seeps out along with it. Drip. Drop. I’m hemorrhaging.

  “Are you listening to me?” He grabs my chin, tilting my face closer. We’re eye to eye now. His are bloodshot and unfocused. Alcohol drips from his breath, seeping into me.

  I sway. Maybe this is secondhand intoxication?

  “You’re pathetic,” he hisses. “You use people like tools. You think you really win them over—but it’s a lie. They could never love you in the first fucking place—” He breaks off, frowning as his thumb grazes my cheek and comes away wet. “Is this how you fooled the others? You cried on command?”

  He’s referring to his sisters. My family. Their friends. How I charmed and manipulated them, twisting my emotions to suit whatever fit the occasion.

  I’m a master manipulator.

  Feelings? I have no feelings.

  I’m not crying now. Crying is fake. You boo-hoo and pinch your wrist until your eyes water. Ta-da! The person tormenting you feels guilty and you live another day.

  I’m not crying. My boo-hoos aren’t rehearsed and dainty. My throat makes a weird noise and I try to hide my face. Smother my mouth with my hands. Anything to shut up.

  I sound like a cat that broke its leg once. The damn thing couldn’t stop wailing. Whimpering. It wailed and wailed and wailed. It curled up in a little ball and screamed when I tried to touch it.

  Crying is for Daddy’s funerals and Mommy’s unapologetic goodbyes.

  The real pain comes when you’re alone. When your heart rips from your chest, bleeds out of your eyes, and you can’t catch your breath. You can’t sniffle and peek through your lashes to watch the sucker you’re conning fall for it.

  You shriek like a helpless little kitten.

  “Maryanne… I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  The wood of the balcony chafes my kn
ees. I’m clinging to the railing with one hand, hiding my face with the other. Something heavy weighs me down, unbearably warm. It shudders as I struggle to breathe, growling insistently into my ear.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s me! It’s fucking me. Everyone always leaves me. I’m sorry. I’m such a fucking…”

  I’m suffocating, wrapped up tight by two arms, strong and firm, that crush me to a heavier body hunched over mine.

  “I’m sorry. Do you hear me?” He rakes the hair from my eyes with shaking fingers, burying his face against my neck. “It’s me, not you. I’m the fucked-up one…”

  The one who runs.

  Who leaves.

  The one who drives everyone away.

  Morning is a reset button—but this time, the universe doesn’t hit it properly. I wake up smelling salty air, with the sun beating down on my skin.

  Something heavy and warm shrouds me from most of the vengeful rays though. An arm. A shoulder. A body nearly twice as long as mine.

  He smells the way I assume older men smell. Like wine, and sea salt, and stale cologne. He’s awake. I know it from how he’s breathing: raggedly and slowly. Like each intake of air requires that he manually churn it down his throat and through his lungs.

  Because every drop of oxygen is tainted with me and he’s too sober to deal.

  I sneak a peek through a crack in my eyelids. We’re too close, Thorny and I. More than touching. Clinging. My head is resting against his shoulder, and I can see the blondish stubble coating his jaw when I look up. He’s brooding, his teeth clenched tight, his eyes narrowed and stormy.

  I could be dreaming. I try to pinch myself just to be sure, but his posture shifts slightly.

  Poof. The spell is broken.

  His arm tenses around me then goes slack. I should do the polite thing and scoot away, maintaining our distance.

  But I don’t. I linger guiltily while his heartbeat plays a frantic tune that melds with the crash of the ocean’s waves. Swish. Thump. Swish.

  “We need to talk,” he says. I can hear the words form in his chest and croak from his throat, but they sound so heavy. So tired.

  Talk. I know about what.