Blood Like Poison

by M. Leighton

  “Looks like a good turnout,” Drew said as he cut the engine once he’d found a parking spot.

  He got out, as did I. Daughtry’s remake of Photograph blared from a stereo somewhere inside the cabin and people milled about in the front yard, laughing and talking, drinks in hand. A bonfire burned to the left of the structure and beside it, staying cool in a barrel of ice, was a keg. We made our way in that direction. Drew never turned down free beer.

  Trinity was the first to greet us. She had managed to drape herself all over Devon. By the look on his face, the party was not going at all according to his plan, but he knew, as we all did, that Trinity was someone that you just had to humor. Her claws and forked tongue left vicious wounds and even Devon avoided making her angry whenever possible.

  “Ridley! Omigod, you will never believe who is here,” Trinity said excitedly as we stopped in front of them. “Do you remember Bobby Knight? He was a year older than Izzy,” she explained.

  Even after three years, I still felt a small stab of pain every time someone mentioned Izzy.

  “I remember,” I replied.

  “He’s here with LeAnne Warner,” she said, as if that was the juiciest gossip ever.

  “I thought she—”

  “Exactly,” Trinity said, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

  “Ew,” I said, wrinkling my nose.

  We stood and talked for a while. Trinity was having the time of her life and you could tell. Devon was having probably one of the worse nights of his. You could tell that as well. Drew was waiting for something, but I didn’t know what and I was…I don’t know what I was. I wouldn’t call my mood happy per se; I would just stipulate to being happy that I wasn’t at home. That was a certainty.

  In a way I’d become adept at, I was listening to Trinity without hearing a word that she said. She did manage to grab my attention when she stopped mid sentence and exclaimed sharply, “You have got to be kidding me!”

  We all turned to see what had made such an impression on her. When I saw that it was a who rather than a what, my heart sank into my sandals. Walking up to the cabin was Savannah Grant, Trinity’s arch enemy, and she was not alone. She was with Bo.

  I was first struck by how different he looked. Gone was the dark hoodie. Instead, he wore a gray and white Abercrombie and Fitch rugby shirt that made his shoulders look devastatingly wide and his hair look black as the night around him.

  Trinity reached between us and grabbed Drew’s arm, doing her best to turn him to face her.

  “Are you just gonna stand there? That’s the guy that’s been stalking your girlfriend,” she said, her first attempt of the night to stir up trouble. Sadly, even if Savannah left, it wouldn’t be the last.

  “He’s here with someone else, Trinity. I don’t think—”

  “That’s not the point. You need to set him straight about keeping his eyes to himself.”

  “He hasn’t even—”

  “Oh, come on, Drew!”

  “Trinity, I—”

  “Am I the only one at this party with the balls to ask them to leave?”

  No one answered her. I knew she was going to go off, and while normally I would’ve done something to try and avert a disaster, all I could think about was how Bo’s eyes made me feel and how they were now turned on Savannah.

  Numbly, I watched the scene unfold.

  “Fine,” she said, stomping off. “I’ll just take care of it myself.”

  Trinity marched right up to them and said as loudly as she could, “You need to leave.”

  She was standing directly in front of Savannah when she said it, staring right at her, so there was no doubt to whom she was referring.

  Savannah looked confused and taken aback. “Me? Why?”

  “Because no one wants you here. I don’t even know why you came.”

  “I came because I was invited,” Savannah said, straightening her spine defiantly.

  “No one invited you to come here,” Trinity spat.

  “It’s an open party and I came with Bo.”

  “I don’t care if you came with Mother Teresa, no one wants you here. We all want you gone. Now leave!” Trinity’s decibel level had risen to the point that everyone at the party could hear the spew of her venom. After all, no party was complete until Trinity had shown her butt at least once.

  Across the bonfire, Bo’s eyes met mine for a split second before he looked away, turning his attention back to Trinity. In that moment, I saw something flicker in his eyes, something that made me feel small and ashamed, spineless and cruel. I never wanted to see that look again.

  “Why don’t you just go back over there with your friends and enjoy the party? She’s not hurting anyone,” Bo chimed in amicably.

  “Why don’t you stay out of this? It’s not you that I have a problem with. It’s her,” Trinity said, poking one bony finger at Savannah’s chest.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Bo said, stepping between the two girls. “We don’t want any trouble. Everybody’s here to have a good time. Don’t ruin it.”

  “I’m not ruining it. She is,” Trinity shouted.

  “Bo, let’s just go,” Savannah said, tugging at his arm. “I didn’t realize that this party was reserved for jealous skanks. My bad.”

  “You b—” Trinity began, darting past Bo to lunge at Savannah.

  Bo grabbed Trinity around the waist, easily setting her away from Savannah. Over the top of her head, our eyes met again. They burned through me like hot pokers of disappointment and then he looked away.

  “Alright, we’re going,” he said quietly. If there hadn’t been utter silence at the party, I would never have been able to hear him. But as it was, all eyes and ears were tuned into what was going on around the trio and no one was moving a muscle. You could’ve heard a pin drop.

  Bo released Trinity and turned to take Savannah’s elbow and guide her back the way they’d come. As I watched them walk away, I was torn between shame that I didn’t intervene and hurt that he’d actually shown up with a date.

  As was usually the case, the party quickly resumed as if nothing had happened, but the night was a total loss for me. The more I thought about it, the worse I felt for letting Trinity treat Savannah that way.

  “Drew, can you take me to school and jump my car off? The battery’s dead.”

  “Now? Can’t it wait?”

  “I just want to leave. You can come back after you help me start my car.”

  With a sigh, Drew turned and walked away, back in the direction his car was parked. I hurried to follow. When we were both in the car, he turned to me and said, “I don’t know what your deal is lately, but it’s getting old.”

  It was my turn to sigh. “I don’t know either,” I said softly, leaning my head back against the headrest and staring out the window. That was a lie, though. I did know what was wrong. Bo was ruining my life, plain and simple.

  Almost an hour later, when my car was purring quietly, I thanked Drew with a chaste kiss, told him I’d talk to him later and rolled the window up. Before he was even back in his car, I shifted into drive and turned the car toward home.

  Once there, I sat in the driveway looking at the house, dreading going inside. I needed a few more minutes, so I turned the ignition switch over to where just the radio would work. If my battery died now, at least I was at home and there’d be someone around to get it going again in the morning.

  I closed my eyes and listened to The Fray sing “How to Save a Life.” A soft knock at my window startled me and my eyes flew open.

  There, standing on the other side of the glass, was Bo.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A myriad of emotions played through me when I looked out and saw him. His eyes were dark shadows in the pale angles of his face. They gave away nothing. It was something about his posture that told me he wasn’t very happy, but I didn’t care; neither was I.

  Angrily, I pulled the keys from the ignition and got out of the car. Crossing my arms over my chest, I leaned back
against the closed door and waited. When he spoke his voice was low, neutral.

  “What was that all about tonight?”

  “Trinity hates Savannah. I thought that was fairly obvious,” I said curtly.

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  I cast my eyes down, knowing exactly what he meant, but not sure how to respond.

  Bo stepped toward me until he was close enough to touch my face. With a finger beneath my chin, he lifted until my eyes met his, until I saw his confusion.

  “I know that’s not who you are. What happened?”

  I shrugged, staring over his shoulder, out into the night, unable to bare the look on his face. His disappointment was crushing.

  “Look at me,” he demanded gently.

  Grudgingly, I did.

  “You’re not this person. I can see it. Why do you give in to them like you do?”

  I felt tears threaten and I willed them back.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes, you do. You go along with them when I can see that you don’t want to. You want to fight against them, to say what you feel, but you don’t. Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me.”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  “I just can’t.”

  “Can’t what?

  “Can’t fight them.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “No, I can’t,” I spat angrily. “I have a future to think about. I need cheerleading to help me get into Stanford. If I don’t get into college, I’ll…I’ll…” I didn’t even know how to explain what would happen to me if I was forced to stay here. I shook my head in frustration. “It is what it is, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “So you’d compromise yourself for a scholarship?”

  There was no accusation on his face, no judgment. He was simply bewildered by my behavior and he was trying to reconcile the person I actually am with the person he thought I was. Somehow, that made me feel much, much worse.

  “It’s not that easy. And I don’t look at it as compromise. I ignore a lot and bite my tongue to keep peace. Why is that such a bad thing?”

  “When you want so badly to do otherwise, that’s compromise.”

  “Well, call it what you will. This is the only chance I have to get out of here,” I explained.

  I didn’t want to admit that another reason I hadn’t helped derail Trinity was because of my ridiculous jealousy of Savannah.

  Bo watched me intently for several minutes before he spoke again.

  “Why did you invite me to that party?”

  His question took me off guard and I stammered a little. “I, uh, I thought you might like to come.”

  “And yet you didn’t even speak to me,” he reminded.

  Again, I found that I couldn’t look him right in the eye.

  “You weren’t there long enough,” I prevaricated.

  “But that’s not the only reason,” he stated.

  Bo shifted his head to be in my line of sight, forcing me to meet his eyes. When I did, I felt like I’d stepped in quicksand.

  “Ridley,” he prompted.

  “I just wasn’t expecting you to show up with Savannah.”

  “But you were there with a date,” he pointed out.

  True, but rather than say that, I shrugged again.

  “I just met her,” he clarified. “She lives near me. She seems like a sweet kid and she didn’t have plans, so I thought she might like to go, get out of the house for a while.”

  As much as I hated it, I felt relief wash through me. I was so eager for an explanation that didn’t break my heart, I barely questioned it.

  “She’s just a friend,” he assured me with a small smile.

  I nodded my acceptance, staring at Bo’s throat, afraid if I looked up he’d see my shame and humiliation.

  “I went there to see one person,” he said.

  When my eyes darted up to his, I found that they were as velvety and absorbing as his voice. They made me feel so many things, all at once, that I was overwhelmed by sensation.

  “You don’t love him, do you?”

  Bo didn’t need to include any names in his question. I knew exactly who he was talking about, and without hesitation, I shook my head in answer.

  “Good,” he said, bending his head to mine.

  When he kissed me this time, it was with passion. His mouth devoured mine and I thought there was probably nothing more I wanted in the whole world than to be consumed by him. I gave myself up to it. I’d wanted this since the first time I’d laid eyes on him. I wanted his lips on mine, his hands in my hair, his focus on me and nothing else.

  My fingers were fisted in his shirt, hanging on for dear life when Bo lifted his head with a quick jerk. Out of the blue, he whispered, “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  And then he was gone. I didn’t even see him go, something I attributed to my spinning head and clouded senses. I just looked around and he was nowhere. Just gone.

  A fraction of a second later, I heard my dad’s stern voice at the door. “Ridley, get in the house.”

  The brisk winds of reality quickly blew the fog right out of my mind. If it hadn’t been for the cool moisture on my lips from his kiss, I might’ve wondered if Bo had been a figment of my imagination. But when I touched my fingers to my mouth, I could still feel him there.

  With a smile of satisfaction in place, I made my way inside and back to my room where I laid down and fell immediately into a sleep that was filled with dreams of Bo and his breathtaking kisses.

  ********

  The next morning, we went to church, making our weekly foray into the spiritual realm. What used to be a family that enjoyed a close relationship with God was now one that observed nothing more than the appearance of clinging to religion. All three of us were about as hollow, as wounded and as far from God as we’d ever been.

  Church was always a tense experience, tense and draining. The effects of it were emotionally staggering. Afterward, as I did every Sunday, I spent the rest of the day in a delicate tap dance of evasion, determined to avoid another energy-sapping family performance. I stayed in my room the entire afternoon, coming out only for food and drink.

  It affected Mom and Dad, too. They pretended to be engrossed in any number of consuming projects, anything to avoid…life.

  There was only one problem with staying in my room: it brought other unsavory issues to the forefront. My phone rang way too much to allow for a peaceful day. Drew called several times, as did Trinity, neither of whom I was particularly anxious to talk to. I got calls from numerous other people, none of which I answered, all wanting to talk about what happened at Caster’s.

  The only person that I really wanted to hear from was the one person that had yet to make an appearance, physical or electronic, and it wasn’t doing good things for my mood.