Crushing Summer

by C. M. Stunich

  “You have time for that?” she asked as she watched me take it over to my vanity table and grab a pair of zebra patterned scissors. I stabbed into the dress with the sharp blades, taking some of my frustration out on the fabric.

  “Give me fifteen minutes,” I said, wondering if Cage would get fed up with waiting for me and leave. I didn't think so, though. He didn't seem like that kind of a guy. Besides, whatever business he had with Justin seemed pretty important. I couldn't imagine what the two of them had to talk about – they weren't exactly the best of friends from what I'd seen. Last year, when Tatiana went missing, Cage flipped out on Justin and beat the ever living crap out of him in front of the entire school. There are still YouTube videos of it posted here and there. Nobody really knew what the fight was about, but there were lots of rumors, most of them hinting at some sort of thing between Cage and Tatiana. I doubted it though. And besides, even if there were, Justin was having an affair with Heidi anyway, so it kind of evened it out.

  “Are you pissed at me or something?” Heidi said when I stayed silent, pulling an extra six inches off the bottom of the dress. I looked up at her then and sighed.

  “How could you?” I asked, even though I told myself I wouldn't bring it up. “How could you do that to Casper and Julie?” Heidi groaned and fell back on my bed, covering her face with one of my throw pillows, the ones with the little jewels sewn all over them. I actually made them myself, after my mom refused to buy me the ones I wanted from the antique store near her work. They were forty bucks a piece – these I made for under ten. “To me?”

  “I didn't do anything, okay? I told Justin what I'd been doing, and he called everybody. What did you want me to do? Tackle him? Run the car off the road? She's the Outcast, Chloe. You can't protect her all summer. Eventually, they'll get her. Might as well not stir up the bloodlust by denying them access. The longer you keep hold of the chain, the wilder the dogs will get.” She touched her hands up by her mouth. “Sodding bastards are already foaming at the mouth.” Heidi sat up and wrinkled her lips, baring her teeth. I tried to smile back at her, but I couldn't seem to find the strength in my cheeks.

  “She doesn't deserve it, you know,” I told her, watching as she slumped back on my bed and groaned, slapping her hands over her face.

  “What do you want me to do about it? It's The Assignment.”

  I frowned.

  I wanted to tell her that that was precisely why I hadn't wanted to be involved in the first place. It was so unpredictably predictable, if that makes any sense. Like, you had no idea what was going to happen, but you knew something would. You knew the Crush would be surrounded by gifts and praises and boys fawning over her every move. You knew the Outcast would be teased mercilessly, chased around town and ridiculed. And that was just the way it was. There was no arguing for a valid point, no exceptions.

  I suddenly had to fight the urge not to run up the stairs and grab my mom's purse, hop on the computer and book a flight to Paris. I just wanted to get out of there and experience something real, something different, somewhere that was anywhere but here.

  I used my toe to slide open the bottom drawer of my vanity and dug out a scrap of purple lace I'd found in the remnant bin at the fabric store. I loved remnants. How cool is it to take something with no expectations and make it great? I sure as heck got a thrill out of it.

  The rhythm of my needle sliding in and out of the fabric calmed me down to the point where I could speak again.

  “Look, I don't want to be mad at you, okay? Just … don't do it again.” Heidi huffed, but she didn't respond. I wondered if she could hear the disappointment in my voice? I hoped so.

  “Cage Lawrence,” she said after a minute of silence. I smiled for real then. If she was talking about boys, she wasn't angry. “I cannot even believe you have a date with him tonight. This is huge, Chloe. Enormous. I mean, the day after Assignment Night, you go on an exclusive night out with the King? Everyone's going to assume you're a couple.”

  “We're not,” I replied, snipping off a bit of thread and shaking the fabric out. “We hardly know each other.”

  “But isn't this how all the best things start?” she asked as the door to the top of the stairs opened and Kaitlyn came barreling down them, cheeks puffy and eyes shining.

  “They're beating the crap out of each other!” she declared proudly, looking between me and Heidi. My friend and I exchanged a quick look, and then darted up the steps after her. The dress was still in my hand, flapping as I slid around the corner into the hall and moved out the front door on Heidi's heels.

  At first, neither of us saw Justin or Cage, but Kaitlyn poked her head out behind us and shouted, “There!”

  The bushes on the opposite side of the driveway shook and then Justin and Cage were exploding out the other side, falling to the pavement and scrabbling to get a hit on one another as they rolled down towards the street.

  Heidi stood there frozen with her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide.

  I, on the other hand, ended up getting slammed with the worst case of déjà vu ever, remembering last year when this exact scene had taken place on the front lawn of the high school. It was the perfectly green one, with the sign that said Please Stay Off the Grass. Violators Will Be Prosecuted., like it was the most horrible thing in the world to set foot on some chemical soaked blades of grass. There was no obvious winner, but when the teachers had finally pulled the boys apart, Cage's face had been red and shining with more than just blood. There'd been tears there. I don't know if anyone else had seen them, but they were never mentioned, not that day or any other. We were all still reeling from the Tatiana thing, I think. It was a rough time for everyone.

  “Hey!” I shouted, breaking myself out my reverie and tossing my dress back to Kaitlyn for safekeeping. I moved down the steps and across the driveway, coming up on the boys just as they rose to their feet, still grappling with one another. I put my hands out, thinking to come between them when Justin's fist exploded outward and smashed me right in the nose.

  Pain bloomed like roses in my vision, knocking me back into Cage's arms.

  It wasn't the outcome I'd expected, but at least it stopped the fight.

  “Oh God,” I groaned as I sagged down to the driveway, Cage supporting me the whole way until I came to rest on my butt on the warm concrete. My vision was dancing with tiny white dots, like fairies, swooping and twirling in the dry air around me, but it didn't stop me from seeing the spots of red staining my chest. I lifted my hands to my face and felt the wetness leaking from my nose. Justin, apparently, had one heck of an arm because for a few minutes there, I felt like I was floating between this world and the next.

  “What the hell is your problem?” Cage roared, his voice amplifying the headache that was rapidly building between my eyes. “Is abuse against women your thing, Justin?” My eyes snapped up, but my vision was too blurry to catch the look on Justin's face.

  “You're crazy, man,” he said, his voice nearly drowned out by the rushing sound of footsteps pounding across the driveway towards me. “And you need to get over yourself. It happened a year ago, move on. I have.” I had no clue what he was talking about, but I could hazard a guess. Tatiana. It had to be Tatiana.

  “Are you okay?” Heidi asked, bending down on one knee next to me. Kaitlyn wasn't far behind her with a crumpled rag in her hand. I took it with a shaking hand and pressed the fabric to my face. Heidi's fingers scooped some hair away from my forehead and tucked it behind my ear. Just that gesture alone was enough to make my head spin even faster.

  “Yeah,” I whispered, closing my eyes tight against the pain. “I'm alright.”

  “I'm out of here,” Justin said, and I opened my eyes just enough to see his feet shuffling backwards towards his car. “This is such bull. I didn't do anything wrong.” He paused and shook his head like he was trying to clear cobwebs from his thoughts. “It was an accident, just a stupid accident.” And then he turned around and jogged away, leaving Heidi biting her
lip beside me.

  “Justin!” she called out, making my ears ring. “Justin!”

  “Let him go,” Cage said, voice somber and hard. He wasn't asking Heidi; he was telling her. This wasn't just plain old Cage Lawrence speaking. This was the King. Heidi opened her mouth like she was going to protest, but instead ended up snapping it shut so hard I heard her teeth click together like a set of dominoes.

  “What a pig,” Kaitlyn said, touching a finger to the blood on my chin. I shoved her hand away and groaned at the effort that small motion had taken. “He didn't even say he was sorry.” I glanced over at Heidi, but she was staring at and through me, like she had other things on her mind. Her turquoise eyes were just a bit more moist than usual.

  “It's fine,” I said, leaning forward and placing my palm on the ground for leverage. Three sets of hands reached out to steady me as I struggled to stand up, my head spinning and diving like a sparrow. “You heard him – it was an accident.”

  The thing that was plaguing me: was Justin talking about me … or Tatiana?

  When Cage and I arrived in the boardwalk's parking lot, there was a space waiting for us right in the front, near the handicapped spots. The weird thing about it was that the rest of the lot was packed to capacity. In fact, near the entrance there was even one of those signs that says Parking Lot Full. But my town, not just my school, took The Assignment very seriously.

  As soon as we parked, Cage was out and over at my door before I could even get off my seatbelt. I smiled at him as he opened it for me, the perfect gentleman.

  “Thank you,” I said, stepping out into the warm evening air, my purple flats loud as they hit the ground, echoing across the lot. There was nobody around, not a soul. Everyone was already inside waiting. My heart clenched a little at the thought of Heidi wasting away the night alone at home, but she'd refused to come after the Justin thing, claiming she didn't feel well. I felt bad for her, but I also felt like I needed to get out. The fight between Justin and Cage had left me with an eerie feeling in my gut that I couldn't identify, like there things going on that were about me, but didn't include me. I didn't like that, not one bit.

  I paused as he closed the door and tried to grab a glimpse of myself in the reflection on the glass. My nose was red and swollen, and there was a bit of a bruise creeping its way across my skin, mottle purple with green threads, like the skin of a rotten grape. Nice way to start off The Assignment. Not that it would matter anyway. Everyone would be telling me how gorgeous I was, how it wasn't my fault, how you could barely see the injury anyway. I was Crush therefore I was the prettiest girl in town, except for maybe the Queen Bee.

  “You look great,” Cage said, giving me a smile that didn't reach his eyes. They were far away and wandering. After the fight, he'd been great, very apologetic, but there was something missing in his voice that had been there before. Confidence, maybe? I mean, it wasn't like Cage was walking around with his shoulders hunched and his brow crinkled, but there was some air about him that had changed. He still stood tall, and his hair still shone like ebony, but he wasn't happy, no matter how nice he was being to me.

  “Thanks,” I said, hooking my arm through his for the walk inside. As soon as we stepped across the wooden platform near the front, past the ticket booth, all eyes would be on us. I had to make sure that everyone there knew I was with Cage, at least for the evening. That would keep the hordes of false admirers at bay. Just the thought of being swarmed with smiles and gifts that I didn't deserve, from people who either didn't know me or maybe even didn't like me, made me sick to my stomach. Frankly, I'd rather get punched in the face by Justin Haldeman again.

  We walked in silence, his mind occupied with whatever was going on between him and Justin. Mine, filled with thoughts of white-toothed smiles and saccharine sweet words. I reached down and adjusted a fold in my dress, checking to make sure the lace was sewn on right. I didn't get much of a chance to check.

  “He doesn't care about Heidi, you know,” Cage said as our feet hit the splintered wood that led into 'The Walk'. Signs leapt out at us from every available space, glowing in neon colors and flashing in the fading orange and yellow light of the evening. There were advertisements for games, food, rides, even for The Assignment itself. Despite the warm caress of air wrapping around me, I shivered when I caught sight of a Crush sign. Don't fight it. Get Crushed. The Walk was famous, pulling in tourists from across the country, but whenever anyone asked about the signs, we made excuses. What happened in San Aplastar was supposed to stay in San Aplastar.

  I didn't look at Cage, just kept walking, straight past the ticket booth where we didn't pay. The sophomore working inside simply stared at us with stars in her eyes and a massive grin pulling at the corners of her thin lips. I pretended not to notice.

  “We can't really know that,” I replied, wanting to stand up for my best friend, but hardly capable of forcing the words across my tongue. I didn't think Justin Haldeman cared about anyone but himself. As if to reinforce my thoughts, my face throbbed and sent a small stab of pain through my head.

  Cage pursed his lips and shook his head. The closer we got to the crowd, the more nervous I became, breaking out into a sweat and fighting back a wave of nausea. Cage, on the other hand, didn't look at all bothered by the approaching crowd. I kept my eyes straight ahead, past the ferris wheel, and on the ocean, but I couldn't entirely block out the blur of faces and bright smiles, the whispers and the laugher.

  “Justin doesn't care about Heidi, just like he never cared about Tatiana.” Cage paused and blinked a few times, like he was coming out of a trance. I studied his face, his smooth skin, his gray eyes. He was trying to tell me something, but I wasn't picking up on it. Bright lights flashed and twinkled around us, like a rainbow of stars. After a minute of silence, he turned to me and his expression changed, like a car shifting gears. “Are you ready for this?” he asked me, and I nodded, my tongue tied up in knots.

  Cage raised his arm with a flourish and then took a bow.

  The crowd erupted in front of us, surging forward and surrounding us with the sweet scent of cotton candy and sunblock. Everyone was here – everyone – and they'd all been waiting for us, crowding around the area where the food stands started and the security booths ended.

  Patrick Carrob was the first person to emerge from the mess and actually speak to us. His sandy hair was slicked back and his shirt was missing again. There was a massive red heart painted onto the center of his chest. Heartthrob. Here was male equivalent, eating up the attention, trailing a harem of giggling girls behind him. If I thought I was sick before, it was nothing compared to the empty feeling that yawned open in my stomach just then.

  “Your Majesty,” Pat said, sweeping a faux bow and popping back up like a jack-in-the-box. He flashed me a wink and then leaned in close. I could smell the salt of the sea on his skin and see the flash of freckles across his sunburnt nose. “Don't look so scared, Chloe. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. Live it.” And then he pulled away, laughing, drawing his entourage along with him. Personally, I didn't see how playing cat's cradle with heartstrings was an opportunity, but I wasn't going to say that aloud, not here. Instead, I forced a tight-lipped smile and waded with Cage through the fake words and false smiles. Everywhere I looked, the green shine of envy winked back at me from the faces of the girls, and the harsh glaze of conquest burned in the eyes of the boys. I wonder if Tatiana felt the same way? If her skin broke out in cold sweat and her legs got shaky? If, that fateful night, she ran away to escape it all?

  At least with Cage on my arm, nobody tried to touch me, nobody handed me gifts. They stared though, their eyes cutting through my clothes, my skin, my heart. It felt like I was on a magician's stage, being poked through a box with hundreds of blades. They might not actually pierce my skin, but the threat of them was enough.

  “Glad you could make it,” a voice said from our right, near the entrance to the Tilt 'n' Hurl. Unfortunate name, terrifying ride. I went on it once my sop
homore year and ended up with the smell of Missy Ula's puke all over my clothes. They – meaning the Students – had forced her to ride it over a dozen times in a row, and well, twelfth time was a charm. She really did hurl all over herself, covering the cage from head to toe in puke. My cart was right next to hers, and I swear I could taste her pain. Since then, I haven't even looked at the blue and silver monstrosity. Besides, it was hard for me to see the point of climbing into what was basically a giant dog kennel, so I could get spun in a circle and twirled around until my stomach was in my chest and my heart in my throat.

  Shayla was standing alone with her arms looped over the chains of the fence. Her long braids swayed in the breeze as she smiled and turned her brown eyes over to us.

  “I was starting to think you weren't going to show.” She glanced at my swollen nose and raised her brows, but didn't say a thing. I was glad because her words were nice, but her tone wasn't. In each syllable I could hear how disappointed she was. I looked over at Cage, but his face didn't show he recognized it. Either that or he was playing dumb.

  “We just ran into some trouble,” he said, his voice even and smooth. Little goose bumps sprung up across my skin. I swear, if I hadn't known better, I really would think Cage Lawrence was a vampire or something. He just sounded so much older than he really was. There was a weight in his voice that I couldn't place, a sort of solidarity that hinted at wisdom far beyond the years of a seventeen year old boy. Cage snapped his fingers and his soft smile turned into a rictus grin. “Oh, and Justin Haldeman?” he said as Shayla stood up and turned to face us, her white dress blowing around her ankles and clinging to her calves. Looking at her, I suddenly felt embarrassed about my dress and my mussy hair. She looked perfect, like an ad in a magazine. The white dress was a perfect contrast against her soft brown skin, and when I squinted just right, the billow fabric on the back looked like a set of wings. Unfortunately, also like a model in a magazine, she had an untouchable coldness about her. Whatever it was that I'd done, whether it was my hesitation at The Assignment or my coming out with Cage, I'd been written off her short list. Despite my title, I was not in Ms. Harold's good graces. “He's dead to me,” Cage finished as I blinked and looked away from Shayla and back to him.