Crushing Summer

by C. M. Stunich

  “You're always calling me vulgar, but in reality, it's you,” I said, rubbing at my eyes and struggling to sit up. I had no idea how long I'd been asleep. Based on the fatigue that was clawing at the edges of my brain, not nearly long enough. “Besides,” I said, trying not to sound caustic but failing miserably. “I thought you were spending time with Justin today.” Heidi frowned and turned around to stare at me. She wasn't wearing the blue dress anymore. Instead she had on a tiny black silken thing no bigger than a slip. It was exactly her style.

  “Well, weren't you spending time with Cage?” she countered back. Heidi flicked some blonde hair from her face with her long fingernails and moved over to the bed, falling down to her knee next to me. I hadn't noticed from far away, but even with the cover of makeup she was wearing, I could see black circles under her eyes. “I warned you about him, didn't I?” she asked. “I told you, he's bad news. He tried to get Justin framed. I would not be surprised if he killed her, not one bit.”

  “Oh, please,” I said, giving her a look. She met my gaze with equal force.

  “You can't believe that, but you have no problem warning me away from Justin? Hypocritical much?” I sighed and rubbed my hands over my face. Sometimes honesty sucks, but once you commit to it, you stay there. I didn't want to tell Heidi what Cage had told me, but I had to. To do otherwise would be a betrayal of the worst kind.

  “Heidi, when Tatiana went missing, she thought she was pregnant with Justin's baby.”

  I wish I could describe the expression on my friend's face. For some reason, I'd been hoping that she'd toss the information right back at me like she'd done before. That she'd say, duh, Chloe, I knew that. But she didn't. She just sat there, the color draining from her face. Her hand snapped up to her mouth and she stumbled over to my bathroom door, barely managing to throw it open before she threw up in the sink.

  “That's a lie,” she said, her English accent strong and sharp. She was upset, and she had a right to be. “She wasn't pregnant. We would've heard about that in the papers. Tatiana was a liar,” she snapped, only it sounded like she said Tatianer. Heidi rinsed her mouth out with water and turned to glare at me.

  “I said thought,” I told her, standing up and straightening my purple sundress. “I don't know if she was or not.”

  “This is ridiculous,” she snapped at me. “I don't even want to talk about this crap anymore. Justin and I are together now, okay? For better or worse. That's just the way it is!” Her voice rose with each word until she ended up screaming at me, the sound echoing off the walls of the basement and giving me the worst migraine I'd had in my entire freaking life. “If you want to date emo boys or murderers, I don't care. Let's just agree to disagree from now on. I just want to go to the party.”

  “Yeah, well I don't,” I snapped back at her. “I got my car trashed today. Shayla Harold is out for blood, and I think our peers are effing nuts. Crazy. Psychotic. They almost killed somebody the other day. Doesn't that bother you? Normal people don't beat up a terminally ill kid. They just don't. And they don't turn her brother black and blue just for trying to stand up for her.” I took a step forward and put a hand against the bare skin of my chest. I could feel my heart pounding hard against my ribcage, vibrating with the repressed rage and the horror of what had happened at The Walk. I don't think I'd fully processed it yet, but I was kind of in shock. “I hate The Assignment,” I continued while Heidi stared at me like I was crazy. “I hate it. It's the worst idea I've ever heard in my life, and it's weird. I won't participate, not when the people around me are liable to fly off the handle for some stupid game that won't even matter five years from now.”

  Once I was done, I took a deep breath and dropped my chin to my chest, putting my hands on my hips and trying to reign my emotions in. There. It was out. I felt better.

  “Nobody likes The Assignment, Chloe,” Heidi said, running her tongue over her lower lip. “Except maybe the Queen Bee, I don't know.” She ran a hand through her blonde hair, fluffing it with her fingers and closing her eyes. “We just live with it. That's how life is. We don't always have to like the things we do.”

  “Maybe when it comes to scrubbing floors or picking up dog crap, you're right. There are some things in life we have to do that we might not like. But beating up fifteen year old girls isn't one of them. Attacking and belittling people isn't a necessity.” Heidi kept her eyes closed, but I could tell she was still listening. The lights from my room reflected off the glitter of her eyeshadow and made tiny, dancing stars on the ceiling of the bathroom.

  “What do you want me to say, Chloe? That people are cruel?” Her eyes snapped open and she took a few steps towards me, her heels clicking across the bathroom floor. Heidi paused her toes on the carpet and put her hands out on either side of herself, bracing her body on the door frame. “You didn't see me take a swing, did you? Did it look like I was enjoying myself there?”

  “What did Justin do to you?” I asked her, leaning forward, putting my hand back on my chest. My heartbeat hadn't slowed any. It was still thumping like a live thing, smashing against my ribcage and making my bones hurt. Fighting with your friends just plain sucks. I mean, when you think about it, friends are supposed to be constants in your life. They're there to help you through break-ups, celebrate marriages, be God parents to your kids, that kind of stuff. You're not supposed to fight with them. It just doesn't feel right. I swallowed hard and tried to think of my other friends – Anne Chime, Miley Dobbs, Terryn Mancham. They were more like acquaintances than anything else. Heidi was my only true friend. I wanted her back. “For two weeks, you've been sneaking around town with Justin, lying to your parents.” I felt the tears prick my eyes then and didn't bother to hide them from her. “Lying to me.” I sniffled and shook my head, brunette hair flying in front of my face. “During the school year, you were mostly normal. Yeah, you didn't collect collateral on Justin, didn't tell me about your first kiss, but I just thought you were … you know, really into him or something. But this … this isn't normal. Whatever's going on between the two of you is changing something about you.”

  “You change for the ones you love, Chloe.”

  “And the ones that love you don't ask you to!” I was screaming again, but I didn't care. This had been building for awhile. If she really loved Justin, that was fine, but I could see the pain and the stress written all over her face, in the glint of her eyes, the way her nails curled into her palm. This was more than just simple infatuation. Her eyes lit up with tears, too, but she dashed hers away.

  Kaitlyn peeped in from the top of the stairs.

  “Are you guys alright?” she asked me, but neither of us answered. A minute passed, two. The song started over again, playing on repeat for the fifth time since Heidi had woken me up. After awhile, my anger faded away, leaving nothing but emptiness. Heidi moved over to the vanity table, grabbed her purse and started up the stairs. Neither of us said goodbye.

  “I just thought you should know,” she said, right before she walked out the bedroom door. “You have a text from your little emo friend. You might want to check your phone. He's going to be at the party tonight.”

  I switched out of my sundress and slipped into the new shirt I'd bought, the one with the long lace sleeves. They covered my hands up to the knuckles with a small hole for my thumb to go through, like a half-glove or something. I paired it with a pair of jeans and some ankle boots. I didn't have much time to spare, so I threw my hair up and slathered some clear gloss on my lips.

  “Tell Mom I'm at the Sills' house,” I told Kaitlyn as I passed by her, curled up on the couch with a bag of cookies and an entire liter of soda clutched in her hands. She spun to face me, surprised, a chocolate chip cookie hanging out of her mouth. It dropped to the floor behind the couch as she got up on her knees to yell after me.

  “What time will you be home?”

  I paused with my hand on the front door.

  “Late!” I shouted back, jogging down the steps and taking off across
the street. Guy Sills only lived a few blocks away from me which was a miracle considering I was now car-less and definitely not about to call my dad and tell him I needed a ride to a party. I wasn't picky about most stuff, but there are just certain things you don't do.

  I was in good shape – not bragging, just saying, regular exercise will do that to a person – so it didn't take me long to round the corner onto Guy's street. A few houses later, and I could already hear the beat of the music. God, I hope Cage is there, I thought to myself as I imagined being surrounded by slobbering guys. I'd tried to call him, but he hadn't answered. I figured he was already at the party. Casper, too, hadn't picked up or answered my return text. Why? All his had said was, Time 2 show these ppl I'm a person 2. Even with my expert text message decoding skills, I had no idea what that meant.

  I paused three houses down and reached up to pick stray bits of hair out of the sweat on my forehead. I waited a few seconds to catch my breath and continued the rest of the way at a slower pace. Rock music crawled through the sidewalk and teased me from the soles of my feet, vibrating my body with the heavy bass and the racy scream of the guitar. Don wasn't a fan of hip hop or rap music, so this party was a little different than some of the others I'd been to. That, at least, was a nice change. I didn't have much hope for anything else tonight. My plan was to get there, find Cage and use him to get Casper out of the party. What does he think he's going to prove by showing up there tonight? I wondered as I neared the front yard. People were everywhere; it looked more like a frat party than a high school get together. And none of the neighbors were complaining. Most of them looked like they weren't even home. I swallowed hard and took in a big breath. Whatever happened, the cops wouldn't be coming tonight. This was Assignment business, too important to interrupt for anything less than murder. Even attempted murder was cool apparently.

  I lifted my chin high, hefted my purse up on my shoulder and marched forward.

  I think my outfit was throwing people off because it took them awhile to recognize me. Heads turned slowly and wicked grins spread like diseases across the faces of my male classmates. Most of the girls were on the opposite of the lawn, fawning over pat. He had a girl on his lap, one massaging his shoulders and yet another lying across his feet. It was – to put it mildly – sickening.

  “Hi, Chloe,” said a guy with yellow blonde hair and nice eyes. I ignored him and kept walking, moving up the pathway towards the front door. “You look beautiful tonight, absolutely stunning.”

  “Thanks,” I murmured, pretending I didn't notice other guys coming my way, moving towards me like planets in orbit around the sun. God, help me.

  “Hey, Chloe!”

  “How's it going?”

  “Do you want to hang out sometime?”

  By the time I actually crossed the threshold into the house, my stress level was through the roof and I was already deaf from the sound of the music.

  “What are you doing here?” shouted a voice to my right. I spun quickly, expecting to see Shayla or one of her followers glaring at me, but instead I saw CC Marion unfolding herself from the couch. She stood up and faced the owner of the question, a junior whose name I couldn't remember for the life of me. “You weren't invited, CC,” she said, emphasizing the girl's name in such an overdramatic fashion that I couldn't help rolling my eyes. Gotta love The Assignment. More people started getting in on the game.

  “Yeah, bitch. Who said you could come? We're trying to keep this thing chill here. You're bad news.”

  “Cheesy and dull,” said another voice. I let out a little yelp as a hand grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the growing group of boys. They followed, a noxious cloud of hormones and raucous laughter. Casper's fingers were wrapped around my upper arm as he stared at me from his perch on a window seat. Nobody was bothering him, not a single person.

  “Yeah,” I said, leaning close to his ear. When my lips accidentally brushed against his skin, we both shivered. “And dangerous. What the heck are you doing, coming here?” Casper tried to pull me down on the cushion next to him, but I ended up tripping over the leg of the table and landing right in the center of his lap. Casper's hands brushed across the skin on my lower back, making me gasp as heat seared through my spine. There was a moment where time just seemed to freeze around us, locking us into this split second in time where there was just me and him, our green eyes meeting, communicating without words.

  “Nice to see you, too,” he said, and the spell was broken. I stayed where I was though, and he didn't ask me to move. As stupid as it sounds, I felt like I was sitting in my mom's car with the seat warmer on full blast. That's how Casper made me feel. My whole ass was on fire.

  “You shouldn't be here,” I told him, and he shrugged.

  “Neither should you,” he said, gesturing with his chin at our growing audience. Faces were dark, mouths set in thin lines. It was okay for me to be out with the King, but with another Student? Things could get ugly. My mind flashed back to The Walk as I studied Casper's bruises through his makeup. I hadn't bothered to cover my own up, there'd been no time for it. Nobody would mention it though. Maybe the one and only plus side of being Crush. “Besides, since I'm not with Julie, it's like nobody even remembers they're supposed to hate me.” He paused and licked his lips. I'm not afraid to say I watched his tongue move over his mouth. My heart flittered, just a little. “I haven't seen that one crazy chick yet though, the Queen person.”

  “Queen Bee,” I corrected automatically. Casper shrugged, and I didn't miss the feel of his arms tightening around me.

  “Yeah, her,” he said, looking around conspiratorially. “Without her, it's the rest of these people are just droids, running on pre-scheduled programming. I don't need to tell you how friggin' weird this all is, right?” I shook my head. God, I love you for being out of town, I thought and then flushed, just a little. Casper couldn't read my thoughts, thank God. “This town is absolutely crazy. You know, my parents tried to go to the police today to file a complaint. There was a car in the middle of Pine Street, just sitting there, with people hanging out all around it. You couldn't even get to my house.” He stopped and leveled a look over me at the other boys. It wasn't a nice one. Unfortunately, it didn't scare any of them away. “You know that they told them?” he asked. I didn't know, but I could guess.

  “Tough luck?”

  “Damn straight.”

  We were silent for a moment, drowning in the music. It was so loud it was making my teeth clatter together.

  “This whole town is under a spell. It's so … God, it's terrifying.” I nodded. I'd been thinking that same thing. Everyone, my parents, the neighbors, the employees at the boardwalk, they were all in on it. I tried to think back a few years, before I'd ever been involved in The Assignment, trying to remember if I'd seen anything strange. I couldn't come up with anything, but my so far, my parents had kept Kaitlyn away from all the drama. Maybe they'd done the same for me? “I just wanted to come out here tonight to make a stand for myself and my sister. I can't let her get mauled every time she walks down the street, and I sure as hell am not going to sit there while people bombard our house. They broke a window today,” he continued, his voice growing angrier by the second. “And called and called and called. I had to turn our cells off and unplug the house phone. The worst part, I think, was when they stood on the driveway, fake blood on their chins, coughing and hacking, laughing at us. At her.”

  “Oh my God.” I stared into his face, mortified to be a part of this game, this town, this species. Humans could be so cruel. Sometimes, you forget. Sometimes, you tell yourself that humanity's come a long way, that we've evolved into a better group of beings. But that's not completely true. I thought about Lord of the Flies again, about how the boys changed during the story, broke down and did things they never thought they'd do. The boys in that book, however, were trapped on an island. We weren't. We had every opportunity in the world to do things better, right. “I'm so sorry.” Casper shrugged again.

/>   “Not your fault,” he said, and then he smiled and it lit up his pale face like a lightbulb, bringing out a slight pink color in his cheeks. Even with the swelling and the bruises, I could see it. “Julie hardly noticed. She spent all day researching skates, the animal kind, online. My parents are taking her to the big aquarium down south this weekend.” He looked up into my eyes. “I think you really inspired her.”

  “Chloe!” I turned at the sound of my name, grudgingly breaking my contact with Casper's beautiful eyes. I couldn't tell who had called to me, but it didn't matter. It didn't stop there.

  “Chloe!”

  “Chloe!”

  “Hey, Chloe!”

  “Ditch that weirdo and come hang out with me.”

  “I got you tickets to the orchestra in San Francisco. Come spend the weekend with me.”

  I closed my eyes against the barrage of voices, enjoying the feel of Casper's arms around my waist. We fit together nicely, like two pieces of puzzle. I used that thrilling feeling, that exciting blip that occurs in the timeline of your life when you meet someone new. It always feel so good. Doesn't always last though. I wondered briefly if Casper could be an exception to that rule.

  I opened my eyes back, dragging my gaze over the ring that had formed around us.

  “Come play a game of pool with me,” one of the guys shouted.

  “Come sit on my lap.” This from Rush. Wow. I couldn't even believe he had the audacity to show his face here, to freaking hit on me.

  “Leave me alone,” I said. I didn't shout, didn't let them see my fear. I was firm, and I was loud. I had a voice. Sometimes, talking isn't enough, but it never hurts to try.

  “Can I get you folks anything?” Guy said, sneaking in and doing his best to smile. Looked more like a grimace to me. Watching people trash his parents' house could not have been easy. Guy was a sweet person and it was no big surprise that he'd been Assigned the title of Neighbor. He was just a giving person. I hated to see him being taken advantage of like this. “Some food? Drink?”