Skin (44 Chapters #1)

by B. B. Easton

  He looked like Lance’s stylish evil twin.

  Whoever or whatever it was, it kept coming toward me, so I stood up and met it halfway—with arms outstretched, just in case it really was my long-lost love.

  When Lance noticed me he smiled and said, “Hey girl!” before accepting my hug, but his embrace was quick and cold.

  I answered back automatically, “What’s up?” but Lance didn’t have a pick-up line for me this time. He was more interested in checking out the source of the smoke. Lance took a few steps past me to look at the situation, then stopped and lit a cigarette of his own.

  Gesturing to the burning building beside us, Lance asked, “You do that, you bad girl?”

  I shook my head. “I just got here. I was at the graduation ceremony and got bored. When did you get back? God, I haven’t seen you in forever.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. A while ago.” Lance’s voice had a tinge of sass to it, as if he were intentionally being coy with me.

  “Really? Why haven’t I seen you at school?”

  “I’m taking online classes.”

  Oh, right. Because Peach State High probably expelled you for drug possession.

  “That’s cool.” I said, trying to mask the hurt in my voice. All that time that I’d been out there smoking by myself after Knight and I broke up and Lance had been just a few hundred feet away. Why hadn’t he come out to see me?

  “How was Las Vegas?” I asked. “Did you make it to Colton’s dad’s house? Dude, please tell me that he used to be in Whitesnake.”

  Lance took another drag from his cigarette, then held it away from his fancy clothes as he exhaled.

  “It was fun, but there was some…drama, so I came back after a few weeks.”

  Everything about him was different. His mannerisms, even the way he talked. He sounded so…

  No way.

  Had Knight been right all along? I scanned my memory for any missed signs. I mean, Lance’s voice was always kind of, effeminate, for someone so big and rough-looking, but he kissed me! Why would he do that if he were gay?

  Then, I thought about August. He had kissed me, and he turned out to be gay. Hell, he talked about getting married and having kids with me.

  August.

  Lance.

  Oh, my fucking God.

  The words, “Lance, were you and August seeing each other?” exploded from my mouth like a gunshot.

  Lance snorted as he took another drag. Even the way he held his cigarette was different. Pinky up, like a teacup. “I guess you could call it that.”

  “What did you call it?” I snapped, my hands beginning to shake.

  This? This was the motherfucker who hurt my August? Made him hate himself? Made him leave me?

  I couldn’t believe it. But there he was. Outing himself to me in a pair of two hundred dollar Armani flip-flops.

  “I didn’t call it anything.” Lance said, rolling his eyes.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I seethed.

  “It was supposed to just be fun. Jesus.” Lance blew a delicate little stream of smoke out and said, “These cherry boys are so much fucking work. You take somebody’s V-card and suddenly they want to fly to Vermont and get married.”

  Boys?

  “Lance, did you cheat on him? Is that why he…was so upset?”

  Is that why he threw himself off a fucking water tower?

  Lance let out an exasperated sigh and put his free hand on his hip. “Goddamn. I just came out here to see what was on fire. I didn’t know I was going to get the third degree.”

  Always so clever.

  Annoyed with me and choosing his next words carefully, Lance said, “You can’t cheat on someone you’re just fucking, B. But speaking of cheating, you might want to sit down because I’ve got some news for you, Little Miss Perfect.”

  I stared at him defiantly, but my gut was churning with anticipation.

  “Your angry little boy toy Knight cheated on you too.”

  What?

  “With who?”

  “With me.”

  I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. Everything was so tense that Lance’s little joke caught me off guard. Knight was the straightest person I’d ever met.

  “I’m serious as a heart attack, honey. Knight fucked around with me while you guys were together.”

  He seemed serious, but it made no sense. “You’re so full of shit. Have you even met Knight?”

  Lance took another dramatic drag from his cigarette and said in a matter-of-fact tone, “It’s always the biggest homophobes who turn out to be gay.”

  Knight isn’t a homophobe, I thought. He just hates you.

  After everything that had happened I didn’t know who the fuck to believe anymore, but my gut told me it wasn’t this person. In the six months since I’d last seen him this person had changed his entire wardrobe, his personality, his sexual orientation, and had driven my sad, sweet August to suicide. This person was a fucking stranger.

  “When did this happen?” I asked, challenging him.

  “The day before I left for Vegas. I sucked him off in his truck between classes.”

  Holy shit. I saw them walking through the parking lot together that day. I remember thinking that was super weird. And then Knight was in such a shitty mood after school, and…

  “He attacked you that afternoon,” I said.

  “Yeah, and he fucking narced on me the next day.” Lance flicked his cigarette in the direction of the burning building. “Knight just wanted me out of the picture so that he wouldn’t have to face the fact that he’s gay.”

  “Bullshit,” I spat. A crash sounded next to us as flames ate away at the broken window frame. “Knight and I had sex, Lance. Like, crazy, amazing sex. All the time. How would he be able to do that with a girl if he were gay?”

  Lance looked me up and down and smirked. “I hate to be the one to say this to you, B, but…look at yourself. You’re basically a super fucking hot boy with a vagina. You’re like, every gay man’s gateway drug.”

  I couldn’t tell if the intense heat I was feeling was from the church, which was now completely engulfed in flames to my right, or from the shame and embarrassment that I’m sure were turning my face a nice rosy shade of fuck you.

  Another crash sounded next to us, and this time I looked. The image of Knight’s burning artwork in my periphery emboldened me, and I shoved Lance backwards with both hands. I shouted over the fire, over the cheering families and friends at the stadium on the other side of the woods, and over the sound of my own runaway heartbeat, “Do you want to know why my body looks like a boy’s, Lance? It’s because of YOU!”

  I shoved him again, causing him to take a step backwards, but he didn’t seem threatened. He simply smirked at me in response.

  “It’s because I’ve been trying to lose weight since the moment I first saw YOU!”

  Shove.

  “And the longer you led me on, the harder I worked to be pretty for YOU. Skinny for YOU.”

  Shove.

  “I started wearing studs and patches and punk rock T-shirts, for YOU.”

  Shove.

  “Do you like these boots? I saved up for an entire summer to buy them so that could impress YOU when I came back to school.”

  Shove.

  “I shaved my fucking head, for YOU.”

  Shove.

  “So if I look like a little boy, it’s only because deep down I must have known that that’s what YOU really wanted.”

  I gave Lance one last shove, the hardest one yet. That cruel sideways smile still played on his lips as he went to humor me with another step backwards. Only this time there was nowhere for his foot to go. He had backed up all the way to the edge of the gravel parking lot without either one of us realizing it. The bottom of his sandal got caught in the railroad ties as the rest of him kept traveling backwards.

  I watched in slow motion as Lance’s big body went down, turning and extending one hand to brace for impact at the last min
ute.

  Then I heard a snap.

  And a scream.

  Lance rolled onto his side in a bed of pine needles, grunting and shrieking and cradling his left arm to his chest. It didn’t look right. A huge lump was jutting out of his skin, just above his elbow, and the rest of his arm below that was bent at an unnatural angle.

  “You fucking bitch!” he cried. “You broke my arm!”

  I stood over him as he writhed—one foot on either side of his beautiful Armani-swathed body—knelt down, and pointed the butt of my cigarette in his face. “I used to think Knight was a monster, but I was wrong.” I flicked the cigarette behind me—adding it to the pile of burning, forgotten things in my past—and jabbed my index finger into his chest.

  “It was YOU. The whole fucking time. You’re the monster.”

  Through the sounds of the crackling fire, the crowd, and the cries, I somehow registered the wail of sirens in the distance. Glancing over my shoulder at the empty street beyond, I caught a glimpse of the blazing hole in the side of the church where Knight’s image stood minutes earlier. It was gone. Just like my tattoo. Just like him.

  I looked down at the crumpled vulnerable boy on the ground before me, curled into the fetal position and whimpering like a little bitch, then flashed back to the first time I ever laid eyes on Knight, right there in that very parking lot. As I recalled, he was standing over another crying, sniveling little shit who liked to run his mouth.

  You know what? Maybe that fucker did have it coming...And maybe this one does too.

  And with that thought, I pulled my ten pound steel and leather-covered foot back as far as I could, and kicked Lance Hightower directly in the lower back, a few inches away from his spine, right in the motherfucking kidney.

  Then, I ran like hell.

  Staying off the main roads, I cut through Lance’s neighborhood and made a beeline straight for the highway. I only stopped once, to wait for the light to change so that I could cross the four-lane highway that bisected our town. By then I was too tired to keep running anyway. On the other side of the highway I walked through the parking lot of a strip mall shopping center, an apartment complex, and a used car lot before making my way back into the woods.

  And up the steep hill.

  To the place where I drank my first sip of whiskey and lost my first friend.

  Pouring sweat and gasping for air by the time I reached the top, I was simply too tired to consider what I might see up there. I guess, if I had thought about it, I would have expected it to look the way I’d left it—insensitive yellow police tape, maybe a heart on the ground with our initials in it, and not much else—but what I saw took my breath away. What little breath I had left after that climb.

  Teddy bears—dozens of them—littered the ground. All colors and sizes. White wooden crosses jutted out of the hard clay, dripping with silk flowers. Framed photos of August were propped up against tree trunks—some included images of kids I knew, draping their arms around him and smiling for the camera. And tiny white candles—their paper skirts soiled—peeked out from under a thin layer of fresh pine needles.

  All the anger and exhaustion I carried with me up that hill drifted away like a balloon on the breeze, and for the first time in almost a week, I smiled. Tears pricked my eyes as a bubbly feeling spread through my body and out of my mouth. Laughter so loud that it chased the birds from their nests erupted from me, and I watched in wonder as the flock took to the sky through the opening in the canopy surrounding the water tower. They were so beautiful. Fast and graceful and free.

  As I squinted into the white-hot mid-day sky, an even whiter thing caught my eye. It floated down to earth and landed gracefully at my feet. It was a feather. Long and full. An angel feather, I thought. I didn’t even believe in angels, but I knew. August was there, just like he said he would be.

  I picked up the feather and kissed it, blinking back bittersweet tears as I whispered, “Look at all your teddy bears,” into its downy tufts.

  Ducking under the yellow barricade, I walked over to the front side of the tower, to the spot where the clearing was. Stroking the underside of my chin with the feather, I remembered the conversation I’d had with Knight there months before. How his truck and pockets held so many World War II mementos from his grandfather. Maybe joining the Marines would be good for him after all. Give him a sense of purpose. A more productive outlet for of all his rage. I hoped so.

  I thought about what Lance said too, about him and Knight. Maybe he just made the whole thing up to deflect from the fact that I knew about August. Or maybe he was jealous that I’d been giving my undivided attention to someone else when it had belonged to him for so many years. But as I gazed out at the column of smoke rising from the spot where Knight and I first met, I realized that it didn’t matter. What we’d shared had been real.

  Knight had allowed himself to be vulnerable with me. Only me. He’d let me in, shown me everything that was broken, and then watched helplessly as I tinkered around, not fixing much of anything. He’d come to me broken, and he’d left me broken, and I vowed, right then and there, that it would never happen again.

  For the first time in my life, I felt like I had a purpose.

  I was going to become a psychologist.

  I was already on my way to an early graduation, but I hadn’t been pushing for it too hard because I didn’t want to leave all my friends. Well, I didn’t have that problem anymore. All my friends were ghosts. Even the ones who were still alive. Not a single one of them would be back at Peach State High School the next year. And that’s when I decided—neither would I.

  A small smile tugged at my lips as I stared down at the smoking crater below—the place where so many bad things had happened—and a lightness filled me.

  “I’m never going back there,” I whispered into my feather.

  I was free.

  With my grades, I could enroll in community college for my junior year instead of attending a regular high school, and, if I busted my ass, I could skip my senior year altogether. By the time I turned seventeen, I could enroll at a major university with a few college credits already under my belt.

  I relaxed.

  I lit a cigarette.

  I stroked the underside of my chin with my angel feather.

  And together, August and I watched our old life burn.

  All my friends may have been ghosts, but me?

  I felt more alive than ever.

  I didn’t think it would ever happen, but that summer I finally fucking turned sixteen. I didn’t have enough money to buy a car yet, but my mom agreed to loan me what I needed to make it work. I was a muscle car girl on a Ford Escort budget, but I managed to find a ‘93 Mustang hatchback with a five-liter engine, and, much to my dismay, a stick shift transmission for pretty cheap. It wasn’t exactly vintage, but at least I wouldn’t have to rely on a boy for rides ever again.

  All I wanted for my birthday that year was every Mustang accessory ever made. I got a pony key chain and pony embroidered floor mats and little pony mud flaps and a shiny pony license plate cover. But the coup de grace, was the brand-new set of alloy five-spoke pony wheels that my parents gave me to replace the piece of shit plastic hubcaps the car had come with.

  I went to the cheapest body shop in town to get them installed—and immediately understood why it had that distinction as soon as I walked in. The place was grimy as hell and had clearly been decorated by a blind person in the 1970s. A squat, furry troll-like man who looked like he had a dark brown toupee stuffed in the collar of his shirt took my keys and left me standing at the front desk.

  I wandered through a door to what I assumed would be a nicotine-colored waiting area, but instead found myself in the main garage. I normally would have just turned around and gone back in, but the car on the lift closest to me refused to let me leave.

  It was love at first sight. A late ‘60s Mustang, fastback body style, a massive open air scoop on the hood, tinted windows, matte black paint job, and matte
black rims. It looked like something straight out of a Mad Max movie.

  “Can I help you with somethin’?”

  I turned and met the amused stare of a broad shouldered, baby-faced, blue-eyed mechanic. His blond hair was pushed back in a messy pompadour. His forearms were covered in hot rod tattoos. And his name was embroidered on the A&J Auto Body shirt hugging his hard chest.

  Hellooo, Harley.

  “Sorry,” I sputtered, caught off guard by his hotness. “I know I’m probably not supposed to be back here, but I…” I looked back up at the beast on the lift and a deep longing seized my chest. “I just can’t leave her.”

  Harley—if that was even his real name—chuckled and said, “So, you like the ladies, huh?”

  “What? No!” I giggled, fighting the urge to reach out and smack him.

  “Good.” The mechanic smiled, and the twinkle in his mischievous blue eyes reminded me just how much I liked boys.

  Trying to bring the subject back to cars and away from my sexual orientation, I looked around the garage and pointed to my faded black hatchback on the farthest lift. “I drive the baby version of this.”

  Harley glanced over at my most prized possession and nodded in approval. “Five-oh, huh? Not bad. Manual or automatic?”

  “Manual,” I said with a groan.

  “No shit? Your boyfriend teach you how to drive that thing?”

  “No!” I said, letting my mouth hang open in pretend offense.

  “Ah,” Harley said with an exaggerated nod. “You met him after you got the car.”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend,” I said, rolling my eyes and biting the insides of my cheeks to keep from smiling. God, he was cute. The guy had a face like James Dean and a body like Dean Cain. And that accent. Living in the south I usually couldn’t stand southern accents, but his was just subtle enough to be cute. Cute, cute, cute.

  Harley smirked at me and asked, “Your old man must be a car guy then, huh?”

  “You got me,” I said. “I’ve been hoarding copies of his old Muscle Car magazines since I was a kid. I used to cut out all the Mustang pictures and tape them to my bedroom walls, but the tape fucked up the sheetrock so my mom bought one of those clear plastic shower curtains with the photo pockets and—”