Sweet & Wild

by Viv Daniels

  “Here.” A jingle, louder than a siren. My head lolled on my shoulders, throbbing. This light was so bright. I slumped. I was suspended between two sagging bars.

  “Good. I’ll take her car,” the familiar voice said. “You can follow me in mine.”

  “You know where she lives?” asked the first voice.

  “Yeah.”

  “Stalker,” the first voice accused the second.

  “Would you rather she spent the night with you?”

  “No, thank you,” said the first voice. “The quicker I get this bitch off my hands, the better.”

  My toes were dragging on the ground. Ah, darkness. No more evil light.

  “I cannot believe you came,” said the first voice, now.

  “You called me.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t expect you to rush over here for her.”

  “What did you want me to say?” the second voice replied. “‘That’s nice, now leave her there on the bathroom floor?’ No. She’s my sister, Syl.”

  My body was flung this way and that, until it finally landed on something soft and snug as a cocoon.

  “Wow, her car is nice. Feel these seats. Like butter.”

  “Yeah,” agreed voice number two. Tess. That’s who it was. I knew I knew her voice. “Now pray she doesn’t puke all over them.”

  I felt movement, and lights flashing by, along with waves of dizziness. Then blackness.

  When the light shone down on me once more, I could make out Tess, a dark specter in the midst of bright daggers.

  She looked like a fucking angel. White shirt, hair pulled back into a bun and secured with a pen. Her face was free of makeup, her skin flawless, her eyelashes long and dark, her lips as pink as cotton candy.

  “God, I hate you,” I slurred.

  Tess pursed her lips. “Right. Okay, let’s get up to your apartment, huh?”

  Her friend appeared. The mean redhead. That was the second voice. I knew I’d recognized it! “What did she just say to you?”

  “Nothing,” Tess said. “Now heave.”

  “Bad choice of words,” said the redhead. Together, they pulled me out of the backseat of my car.

  “What apartment are you in?” Tess asked, huffing as we stumbled toward the elevator.

  Right. Right. She only knew where I lived because she’d driven Boone there. I jammed my finger against the floor number.

  Fucking Boone. “What kind of asshole says he loves you and then walks out the door?” I asked in the silence of the elevator.

  “All men are assholes,” the redhead said. “So, all of them.”

  “You got that right,” I replied. “What’s your name?” I must have seen it on a hundred checks over the years. “Annabel?”

  “No,” she replied. “I’m Sylvia. But I’m flattered anyway.”

  I couldn’t even parse that.

  “Were you with a guy tonight?” Tess asked. “Was it Boone? Did he abandon you in the bathroom?”

  No, my so-called friends had done that.

  “Boone’s not even speaking to me,” I murmured. “Thanks to you.”

  Boone. Dylan. All the same. Maybe Sylvia was right.

  The lights were way too bright on the hallway outside my apartment. When we first rented the place, I’d thought it was a bonus. No murderers could be lurking here. But now they threatened to do the job themselves, with their fluorescent piercing brightness. I squeezed my eyes shut and slumped.

  I heard keys jangling and then, oh, bliss. Darkness. I collapsed on a rug I dimly recognized as being the one near my coffee table. So soft. Mmm…

  A golden glow encroached upon my oblivion, and I hissed.

  “No, not there. Hannah, get into bed, at least.” Perfect, soft hands tried to guide me back up off the floor.

  “Stop!” I moaned, swatting at her. “Leave me alone.”

  “Better listen to her,” said Sylvia.

  “As soon as I’m certain she’s not going to die,” said Tess, as I slumped on the couch. “Are you sure she’s just drunk? Maybe someone roofied her… Hannah, do you remember what happened to you?”

  “I remember everything that’s happened to me.” Fucking creepazoid Todd got all handsy, and my so-called friends had decided to give us space at his insistence, so I hid out in the bathroom until he left. “Don’t start acting all big sisterly, like you care…”

  “Sylvia, can you get water? I think she just had too many drinks.”

  “I could have told you that. They were all doing shots all night.”

  “But then her friends went and left her?” Tess said.

  “Yes,” Sylvia said, exasperated. “Because they are bitches. We have established this, haven’t we?”

  “Right on, Sylvia.” I pumped my fist in the air and my head lolled to the side. Bunch of bitches.

  “Come on, Hannah.” Tess put a mug in my hands. “Drink this.”

  “No.” I pushed it away. “You’re a bitch, too.”

  She sighed.

  So did Sylvia. “I rest my case, Tess.”

  “Shut up, Syl.” There were hands on my shoes. Tess’s hands were on my fucking shoes!

  “Don’t touch me!” I kicked out.

  “Ow!”

  I peered through slitted eyes to see Tess with her hands over her face, glaring at me.

  “Oh my God, Tess!” cried Sylvia. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” Muffled.

  “Um, no,” said Sylvia. “You’re bleeding! Did she break your nose?”

  “No!” cried Tess. She removed her hands. There was blood on her face. My mouth opened. And then, for some reason, I started laughing hysterically.

  “That’s it.” Sylvia stood up and headed toward the door. “I’ll be waiting in the car. I can’t stand here and watch you humiliate yourself like this.”

  The sound of the door slamming was louder than the Big Bang.

  Tess and I just stared at each other. I felt dizzy. And there was blood on her face, dripping like a giant ball of snot from her nose, dark and slow and beautiful.

  “I hate you,” I said.

  “I know.” She nodded, slowly. “I wish I hadn’t hurt you.”

  “You know what I wish?” My throat burned as if my words were acid, creeping up through my spoiled rotten soul. “I wish you were the Swift. You’re so fucking perfect. You’re everything you’re supposed to be.”

  “No, Hannah.”

  “Everything Dad wants. Everything Dylan wants. Nobody wants me. I don’t even want me.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “Well, if you say so, it must be right. Because you’re always right. You’re always right, and I’m always wrong. So where does that leave us?” I slumped into the sofa cushions.

  Tess was quiet for a moment. “I’m really sorry. For everything. I…think you’d be more comfortable in bed.”

  “I think you’d be more comfortable with your head out of your ass.”

  She made a little growling noise in her throat. “Hannah.”

  I groaned. I could not take another lecture, another piece of advice. Not from perfect, perfect Tess Not-Swift. “Get. Out.” I pointed, I hoped at the door.

  I heard it open. I heard it shut.

  And then it all went black.

  * * *

  The first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was that I was lying in my bed, my blue-gray sheets muting the morning light. The second thing I noticed was that someone was knocking on my door.

  I sat up. Bad choice. The insides of my head had turned to wet sand, and everything was sliding off its foundation. I put my hand to my temple, as if to hold my brain in place.

  There was another knock, very soft. My cell phone lay next to me on the comforter, but when I tried to check the time, I saw it was dead.

  The knock came again.

  I looked down at myself. A T-shirt and panties. But the inside of my mouth tasted like roadkill, and my face felt gritty with sleep or makeup or vomit or possibly all thre
e.

  Another knock. Not urgent. Not angry. Just…not giving up.

  “Just a minute.” Bits and pieces of last night were floating up from the swamp of my brain. If that was Tess, I’d never answer the door. I’d shut myself in here for all time and learn to live off toothpaste and ceiling plaster.

  Gingerly, I crossed the floor and went on tiptoe to see through the peephole.

  Not Tess. Boone.

  Boone. Boone looking fresh and gorgeous, even through the distorted fish-eye glass. Holy crap, had Tess called him? That whole toothpaste and ceiling plaster idea was starting to sound better and better.

  I groaned. “Go away.”

  “I brought you some medicine. And some breakfast.”

  “There is no way I am letting you see what I look like right now.”

  “Trust me, babe. I have a pretty good idea of what you look like based on how you sounded last night.”

  Last. Night. “We spoke last night?” Bits and pieces of memories were rising to the surface, and all of them were humiliating.

  There was a chuckle. “Something like that. Come on, let me in.”

  I unlocked the door, then backed away as he opened it.

  He came in, and his jaw fell. His eyes widened as he took me in. “Whoa.”

  I tugged at the hem of my shirt. “I told you.”

  “Yeah, you were right. I probably shouldn’t have looked at you like this. I don’t think I can unsee this.”

  “Oh, God, it’s that bad?”

  He held up a hand. “Kidding!”

  I tried to smooth my hair back. “You’re a jerk.”

  “And you’re an extra from a zombie movie.” He cocked his head toward the bathroom. “Why don’t you get in the shower and come out when you feel like a human again?”

  I lifted my arms at him, my hands dangling from my wrists. “Braaaaaaains,” I moaned.

  “You think that’s funny,” he said. “But have you actually seen your reflection yet?”

  “No. Maybe I’m a vampire instead.” I wandered into the bathroom and looked in the mirror.

  Holy shit, there wasn’t a monster gross enough to describe me. Hollywood would kill for this kind of effect. My eyes were an insane mix of raccoon smears and gritty tear tracks. My hair was sticking up in odd directions and stiff with something I feared was my own vomit. My lips were chapped and pale, my skin was blotchy, my teeth were a sickly greenish-grey, and my eyes were bloodshot.

  And Boone had made jokes about horror movies and flirted with…this.

  I turned on the shower.

  I emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later amid a cloud of steam, wrapped up in my fluffiest robe and with my hair combed back from my forehead. The inside of my mouth had been scrubbed to minty freshness. No makeup, and the eyes were still on the red side, but the beast had been tamed.

  “Ah, there’s Hannah.” Boone had set the kitchen table with plates and mugs, and was busy setting out some pastries and some egg sandwiches. “I wasn’t sure what your hangover would want to eat, so…”

  “My hangover wants coffee.” I plopped into a chair.

  “My lady.” He poured me a mug, then watched as I snatched an egg sandwich.

  “So,” I said, breaking off a corner of the bread and nibbling.

  “So,” he said. “Some night?”

  “I called you.” My memory was slowly being dredged for the unsavory details of the previous evening. Apparently I’d become close personal friends with Boone’s voicemail.

  He chuckled, then pulled out his phone. “A few times.” He placed the phone between us and pressed a button.

  My voice came up, tinny and slurred, but unmistakable.

  “And then she just, like, left me here. Alone. I mean, double-u-tee-eff, right? You all do that. Dylan did it. Then my dad. Then you. Then my friends. Then Tess. And you all looooooove me, so much, right? Good to know. Good to know.”

  I put down my mug and pressed the heels of my hands into my forehead. “Please, make it stop.”

  “The double-u-tee-eff was possibly my favorite part of that one.”

  “Staaaaaaahp.”

  “Want to hear another one?”

  I looked up at his face. “How many are there?”

  “A lot. I saw them this morning.”

  Fuck me, fuck me, fuck my life. “Oops.”

  “Yeah.” He pressed another button.

  “You want to know the truth? I might as well tell you, since no one listens anyway. I would rather not graduate than not take this class. I mean, I’d rather take this class than graduate. Is that the same thing? Whatever. My father would kill me. Kiiiiiiiiilllllllll me. Like in my screenplay. Except without the demons. But I don’t care. God, could you imagine? Make him pay to teach me screenwriting and then drop out? Ha, take that Steven Swift!”

  This was torture. Actual torture. I should put it in a screenplay. “I am so, so sorry.”

  “What class?” Boone’s gaze went right through me. His pastry lay untouched on his plate.

  I looked down. “A screenwriting class I got into. It’s stupid. It doesn’t matter.”

  He tapped the phone. “It mattered last night. You said you’d rather take it than graduate.”

  “No,” I said. “I was right the first time. I’d rather not graduate than not take it.”

  He considered this. “You’re right. There is a difference between the two. Maybe you should be a writer. Maybe you could take a class or something and figure that out.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  I nibbled on another corner of the sandwich. “It conflicts with one of the required classes for my major.”

  “The major you don’t want.”

  “Yes.”

  “For the degree you don’t give a crap about.”

  “Yes.”

  “At the college you’re only going to for your father.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who you hate.”

  “Who I’m mad at,” I corrected.

  He smiled and all the crackly bits in my brain smoothed out for a moment. “Another important distinction.”

  I took another sip of coffee. A big bite of sandwich. “I can’t take it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I won’t graduate on time.”

  “Then don’t graduate on time. I don’t figure you’re going to run out of money.” He raised his coffee mug in a silent salute. “Plus, if you take it and really like it, then maybe you will decide to be a film major. Maybe you’ll decide to switch schools to one that doesn’t have these dumb requirements.”

  “Maybe it’ll be a huge waste of time like all my other majors.”

  He shrugged. “Could be that, too.”

  I was halfway through the sandwich, and nearly through the mug of coffee, and my brain was starting to come back online.

  “What if I do that, though? Give up everything and take the class, and I get there the first week, and I’m completely out of my depth? I’m not like these other film people. My script could suck.”

  “But you got into the class. They picked you for a reason.”

  “Yeah, but this was just a draft. We’re supposed to make it better. Suppose I can’t make it better?”

  Boone considered this. “Let me read it.”

  “No way.”

  He stared at me for a second, then smiled and grabbed his phone. “Fine. We’ll just listen to it instead.”

  Oh, no. Oh, no no no no.

  “And then she turns around and he’s just like…shredded. You know? His face, his eyes, his mouth. Ripped to pieces. And the bits of the contract are all over the room. And she realizes that she can’t escape, that whatever it says on the contract, that’s what’s going to happen. And then there’s a flashback. Oh, shit, another flashback. Do you think there’s too many of these?”

  I groaned and turned it off. “How long does that go on?”

  “Let’s just say you left me in suspense round about the f
ourth gruesome murder,” Boone said. “But even with what little I understood, I was riveted.”

  “No you weren’t.”

  “Okay,” he conceded. “I was amused.”

  I rubbed my temples. “Dude, what are you doing here? Whoever that crazy person is, you should stay far, far away.”

  “Probably,” said Boone. “But I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Pick a reason,” he said with a shrug. “Because I’ve been there, too. Because it sounded like you needed someone this morning. Because—” He broke off and looked away.

  Because he was still in love with me.

  I gulped down the rest of the coffee, letting the liquid scald my throat. It was better than the burning in my eyes or the molten ball of lead in my stomach, or the questions in my brain.

  “What else did I say?” I asked hoarsely. “Last night?”

  “All kinds of things.” Boone nudged the phone at me. “And some of them, not going to lie, were very, very wild.”

  I groaned.

  “And some were extremely sweet,” he added. “You can listen if you want.”

  I didn’t need to listen. I remembered well enough. “That girl was drunk.”

  “In vino veritas.” He cocked his head at me. “Wait, is that Voltaire?”

  I laughed in spite of myself.

  He scooted around the table and captured my hands in his own. I swallowed. My heart pounded from the mix of caffeine and Boone.

  “The girl I heard last night knew herself, Hannah. And you do, too.”

  I shook my head. “It sounds easy when you say it.”

  “Then I’m saying it wrong. It’s not easy. But it’s true.”

  And that was the crux of it. The truth wasn’t easy. That’s why so many people hid from it. That’s why my father had crafted an entire secret life, then forced Tess and now me to play by his rules. I couldn’t do anything about his secrets, but that didn’t mean I had to follow his lead.

  Boone was here, now, not caring about what had passed between us. And Tess had come for me last night, and helped me, no matter what I’d said to her. Meanwhile, the friends I’d spent years trying to impress had left me passed out on a bathroom floor. The kind of men my parents wanted me to be with—the Canton boys like Todd—had no compunction about taking advantage of me when I was down.