by P. Dangelico
“This stings like a bitch.”
“It’s s-supposed to…the milk n-neutralizes the capsaicin.”
“Dora! A word please.” Zoe’s voice comes through the door like a battering ram.
“Just…give me a minute,” I tell Dallas. He holds the towel to his face while I step away and close the bathroom door behind me.
“W-what?”
Zoe is still wearing the purple mask, her platinum hair is piled on top of her head. She’s got on men’s silk pajamas, and her whatever, Golden Goose sneakers.
“What?” I reiterate, desperate to get on with it and return to the guy I maimed.
“He’s an empty vessel. You know that, right?” She pokes my nose with her index finger, and I swat it away. “Don’t fall for the pretty packaging. You’re too smart for that.”
“I’m not f-falling for anything. I blinded the guy in case you haven’t noticed.”
“That was kinda kick-ass, Ramos.”
“Totally kick-ass,” Blake adds.
“Impressive, you little ninja bitch.”
“Can I go now? I’m t-trying to fix the damage I caused.”
Zoe eyeballs me suspiciously for a beat before waving me off. “Carry on––and remember what I said.”
When I enter the bathroom again, Dallas is on his feet and examining his face in the mirror, his eyes barely cracked open. The little I can see is completely bloodshot.
“Still pretty.” He smiles crookedly in the reflection in the mirror, his eyes watering like crazy. “Can you drive me home?”
“I should take you to an e-emergency room.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “All I need is a ride back to my place.”
A few minutes later I’m guiding him to my car.
“What happened to you?” says the boy that Zoe introduced me to at the house party we all attended the day the Sharks won against the Bruins. He’s standing in the kitchen making a sandwich that looks to be approximately the size of my car.
He’s the tallest of the water polo players, with a sharp jaw, strong masculine features, and a full pouty mouth. His name is Brock, if I remember correctly. I also remember that Zoe––as much as she likes to deny it––has a major thing for this guy.
“She maced me,” Dallas tells Brock and hooks a thumb in my direction.
I had to help him out of the car and into the house because he can barely keep his eyes open. Figured the least I can do is set him up with some cold compresses for his poor damaged eyes and leave.
“It’s about time somebody did,” Brock mumbles around a bite of his sandwich. Then studying me curiously, he says, “Have we met?”
“Y-Yes. Zoe introduced us. At the party.”
“Ah yes,” He throws an accusing glare at Dallas, “the night you were acting like a douche.”
After wiping his hand on his shorts, he offers me his hand. “Hi again. I’m Brock, Dallas’s roommate.”
A big smile grows on my face. Despite the serious and frankly intimidating expression, I get the feeling that Brock Peterman is a really sweet guy. “Dora R-Ramos.”
A new guy comes around the corner, wearing a black leather jacket and a motorcycle helmet tucked under his pit. He stops short when he sees me. I recognize him from around campus and the water polo games. Another defensive player.
He checks out Dallas, who’s taken a seat at the counter. “What’s wrong with your face?”
“Dora maced me.”
“Cool.” Cole’s attention doubles-back to me. “I’m Cole––Lughead’s brother.” Cole indicates to the recliner where Brock is busy reading and making fast work of his massive sandwich.
“Dora. N-Nice to meet you.”
Cole Peterman is the polar opposite of his brother in every way. He’s completely unapproachable. His demeanor blandly arrogant. His body not nearly as broad and muscled. His features refined. His hair nearly black and longish. And eyes such a dark blue they may as well be indigo. They’re completely shuttered. This guy is not letting anyone in or out.
His gaze flickers up and down my body, his examination dispassionate. I’m still wearing the same leggings and t-shirt I had on to power walk so I really have nowhere to hide.
“Milk?” I ask Dallas. When I don’t get an answer, I turn to find a frown on his face, his attention fixed on Cole. “Dallas? Do you h-have any milk?”
Shaking off whatever was going on in his head, he gets up and goes to grab the milk from the refrigerator.
“I n-need a small bowl and cotton pads or c-compresses?”
“I’ll get them,” Cole Peterman announces.
“I’ve gotta lie down,” Dallas announces. His eyes watering like crazy again; he can barely keep them open.
“Okay. I’ll just get t-this ready for you and Cole can bring it up. Leave the comp-presses on your eyes and don’t rub.”
“Why can’t you bring it?” he shoots back.
Ummm…to his bedroom? The tell-tale sign of warmth starts to slow-crawl up my neck.
“Uhh––”
“I’ll be in my bedroom, trying not to cry out in pain from your vicious assault.”
Well, nuts.
He walks away without waiting for a response. Five minutes later, I carry the remedy upstairs and knock on his bedroom door.
“Come in,” he calls out.
It feels like a breech of privacy to be in here, in his bedroom, the one where he entertains the legions of bookends he probably has on speed dial. This is so uncomfortable. And I don’t dare look around. No. I head straight to the nightstand with imaginary blinders on and place the bowl on the bedside table. Then I step back and clear my throat, indicating that I’m about to take off.
He sits up, throws his legs over the bed, blinking rapidly. I feel terrible.
“T-Try and k-keep these on your eyes as long as you can. It’s really the best r-remedy to neutralize the irritation.”
He nods. “Thanks.”
“Please don’t thank me. I-I am so so sorry this happened…” Then I remember. “W-Why did this happen?”
“Because somebody trained you to be a killer, then unleashed you on an unsuspecting general population.”
That makes me unexpectedly laugh. “I m-mean, why were you f-following me?”
He looks momentarily surprised, his brow wrinkling in the most adorable frown. Then he shoves his hand into his track pants and pulls out a phone. And not just any phone…my phone.
He holds it up in his palm and we both stare at it. There’s a gigantic crack in the screen.
“You’ve had my phone this w-w-whole time?” That’s a rhetorical question. It’s obvious he has. My stomach sinks to the floor and the gentle whisper that I have been played a fool turns into a battle cry. Taking it from him, I inspect the damage closer.
“I’m sorry. It must’ve broken when I hit the ground. I’ll replace it.”
My head starts shaking before he finishes. “I-I d-don’t want anything, not f-from you.”
“Dora, I’m…” His voice peters out.
When I finally glance up, he looks unbearably uncomfortable and it has nothing to do with the angry irritation around his eyes. He looks ashamed. As he should.
My thoughts start to splinter into different directions and possibilities. He preys on people lesser than him for entertainment. Is that what he does? Is that who he is? Someone callous and spoiled. And what’s worse is that I was certain there was more to him. I thought beneath the party boy was a decent person with depth and intelligence…I guess I saw what I wanted to see.
“Do your f-friends know?” My prior assessment of Brock didn’t age well. Was he in on it too?
“That’s not––”
“W-Were you all l-laughing at me?” I chew on the inside of my cheek to stop my lips from trembling, hating that I can’t keep it together right now.
“No! No. I was going to––”
“D-Did you l-look through it?”
As soon as I turn the phone on, I know w
Breathless from disappointment, I back out of the room, open the door to leave, and stop. That’s when––inexplicably––the fire in my belly flares again. “Y-You’re nothing but an empty vessel. Everything is a game to you. No matter who you h-hurt.”
I’ve never in my life said something so mean or spiteful, spoken with the express intent of hurting another person’s feelings. That’s not how I’m wired. I’ve been the target of attacks a few times too many and would never inflict that pain on someone else. And yet here I am.
Squinting, his cheeks infuse with color. There’s no mistaking that I’ve hit a sore spot because he looks genuinely mad for once. “You ever need someone to take that V-card off your hands let me know. I consider it my civic duty to make sure your first sexual experience is a great one.”
Flushing red-hot, I close the door and leave.
Chapter Eight
The surf before me stands two stories high, the sky overhead a muddy gray. In the distant horizon, thunderheads charge toward the shoreline.
My head should be in the game. Better surfers than I have died at Mavericks but it isn’t. It’s on something entirely different and equally dangerous. I can’t get this girl out of my head and I have to before she gets me killed.
It never even occurred to me that she would think I was pranking her. Fuck. I feel terrible. I wasn’t trying to hurt anybody, least of all her. I actually like her.
“’Sup, brah,” one of the locals hollers at me. We both stand on the sand looking out, boards tucked under armpits, eager and ready to charge into the freezing Pacific.
“Praying the surf gods don’t call me home today.”
“Today is a good day to live,” he returns. Smiling, he gives me the shaka sign and I nod back.
He’s got the look of a guy living out of his van, baked by the sun to a dark coffee brown, his dreads bleached out. Free to be and do whatever the hell he wants. To love whoever he wants.
My mind snaps right back to big brown eyes widening in surprise. Then looking crushed under the enormous weight of a dumpster-load of disappointment.
Fuck if I know why I care, but I do. Which pisses me off. She’s a stranger. She doesn’t know me––not really. Nobody does. Empty vessel, my ass. I’m far from empty. And who is she to judge me, anyway. One day soon I’m going to be the king of fucking beer, owner of a bottling empire. On Forbes richest under thirty. She’s just a girl––a nobody…a girl who doesn’t give two shits about who I am or what I have.
The pressure starts to build, my head aching with it, my skin hypersensitive. Anger makes me run full-throttle into the frigid ocean. As soon as I hit the water, I take an involuntary sharp inhale. Not even the roar of the surf breaking can drown out my errant thoughts, my head filled with images of a cute redhead who thinks I’m dumb and spoiled. An empty vessel. Shit, maybe I am…maybe she’s right.
I mount the board and paddle hard into the surf. Waves crash over me as I cut them in half, diving under and out the other side, the salt in the air scraping my lungs raw. I welcome the pain. Maybe I even deserve it. Maybe there is something inherently wrong with me. God knows I come from rotten stock.
Shaka Brah is already up and riding the next one in. He swivels his hips, rides up the crest, goes airborne, and comes out the other side. His dreads flying behind him, grinning from ear to ear.
Today is a good day to live.
He gets it. Nothing like the jacked-up thrill of a big wave ride. It’ll burn your veins, make the organs inside your ribcage expand until it feels like your lungs will explode, and crown your ego a king among men.
Or it can kill you. Leave you paralyzed. Shit like that.
Paddling hard, I catch the next one. It’s bigger and breaks early, building and building into a monster. I enter the tunnel, hand scraping the wall, the thrill blanking out everything else.
For a split second, the quiet makes me whole again. Soothes my soul. Then I realize I wasn’t paying attention and rode too far in. I’m suddenly seconds from crashing into the jetty, an outcropping of rocks. It’s either bail or get hammered. In a split second decision, I bail and get dragged under. The force of a big wave is similar to that of a tornado. You are literally powerless to resist, a rag doll at the mercy of its undiscriminating violence.
Caught under, the washing machine keeps me spinning and spinning. The safety line to my board snaps. It feels like I’m under an eternity. Until a strong hand takes hold of my wrist and pulls me to the surface. Breaking the waterline, I suck in air and the backwash of the wave. My lungs are on fire, my throat a 405 pile-up––nothing is getting through.
Gasping for air, I stumble out of the water and fall to my knees next to Shaka Brah.
“Thanks, man,” I croak, desperately trying to suck in air. I’d be dead if it weren’t for him.
“You bet,” he says and walks away. “Be well, brah.”
Problem is, I don’t think I’ll ever be well again.
“Baby, what happened to your beautiful face?” Brenda says as soon as I walk into the living room.
My mother doesn’t even bother getting off the couch. She places the glass of red wine she’s nursing like a baby with a bottle on the coffee table and raises her thin suntanned arms, her long fingers waving me over.
“Surfing Mavs,” I mutter.
“One of these days, it’s going to catch up with you.”
“I’m pretty sure it already has.” I point to my face.
Making my way to the couch, I sink down into it and tap the shiner developing on my brow bone which hurts like a bitch.
“You should put some ice on that,” she says with a goofy smile, a clear indication that the wine has taken its toll.
Brenda’s tall––around five foot ten––and really thin so it doesn’t take much. I’ve watched her for years go from one controlled substance to another, which makes me an expert on the subject.
“In a minute…” I glance around. The house is too quiet, all twenty-thousand square feet of it. “Where’s Harry?”
Brenda’s current boyfriend. The only reason we get along is because he doesn’t pretend to like me so I don’t need to pretend to tolerate him.
“We broke up.”
“Again?”
She looks off. “For good, I think...He took his stuff with him.”
I’m not celebrating yet. They’ve broken up a million times in the last three years.
“The bike too?” Dude loves his Harley.
“Yep.”
“Too bad. I would’ve taken it out and wrapped it around a tree.”
She makes a sound. “Baby…”
My first genuine smile of the day. “And Grandpa?” I mean, what’s Thanksgiving without family, right? That’s sarcasm FYI.
“He’s in Mustique with Brandy.”
I chuckle darkly. My grandfather––the honorable patriarch of this great family––is, for lack of a better term, a fucking horn dog. He’s seventy-seven and dates twenty-year-olds.
“Brandy?”
“New one. He met her at Morton’s.” My mother smirks around another sip of vino. “An aspiring actress.”
“So…porn?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
The coffee table is littered with take-out boxes, bags with The Bench logo, and an empty bottle of Chateau Margaux. She’s working on her second one. Nothing out of the ordinary here.
The super chilled-out expression, however––that’s cause for concern. Brenda’s usually bouncing around with excess energy. “You seem like you’re in a good mood.” The unspoken accusation hangs in the air.
“New medication,” she explains, giving me a sly smile.
Figures. Then, placing her glass on the table, she lays down with her head on my lap; something she used to do all the time when I was still living at home.
My mother is what the rich call “eccentric” and what the rest of the civilized world––including the medical community––call “bipolar.” Which means I learned at a very early age to watch people closely and search for signs of change in their demeanor. Not for nothing but I’m kind of a stud at it.
Had she gotten a proper diagnosis and medication twenty years ago I have no doubt she wouldn’t be nearly as fucked up today.
“Love this new shrink. I’m even thinking of moving to L.A. to be closer to her. Did you like her, by the way?”
No. She’s another total phony and I don’t intend on seeing her again. “Yeah, she’s great.”
“I knew you guys would hit it off.”
A heavy silence falls between us and the pressure under my skin builds. It’s almost too much to bear.
“Beth died…” It comes out before I can stop it. Like an infection purged by the body.
My mother’s eyes blink open. Pupils dilated, her brows perfectly still thanks to her dermatologist. “Beth Bradley? Your old tutor?” She sits up and turns to face me. I nod and watch something unreadable cross her face.
I met Beth the summer I turned sixteen. My parents had been separated since I was two so it should’ve been a simple divorce. It wasn’t. Nothing that involves my family ever is. It turned into a bloodbath. Basically an excuse to get back at each other. Including accusations of orgies, drug use around a minor, and physical abuse.
With all the bullshit that was going on––the two of them fighting for custody when in truth neither of them really wanted me around––my grades took a nosedive. They hired a tutor to get me up to speed for the new boarding school they were looking to ship me off to––the second one in three years. Beth was getting her PhD in Women and Gender Studies at Stanford and needed a job with flexible hours.
The attraction was immediate.
At least, for me it was. I wasn’t a virgin, but being shuttled from school to school didn’t exactly make it easy for me to keep a steady girlfriend. Beth was sexy and confident. She was easy to talk to. And most of all, she listened. Except for the part that she was twenty-seven and I was underage, it felt like fate.
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