Very Wicked Things

by Ilsa Madden-Mills

  But they’d get in if they wanted. We both knew it.

  After we’d talked a bit more, I hung up the phone, fighting down panic. I wanted to sit and mull it all out, but BA beckoned. It was nearly time for second period. I needed to get to Calculus.

  “You mind if I light up?” a male voice said from behind me, making me jump.

  I recognized the voice and forced a smile as I turned to face him. Spider stood there, his lean build encased in skinny jeans paired with a black leather jacket. He’d completed the look with a stud in his ear and a plethora of silver chains around his neck. He may have looked like a thug, but he was a softie on the inside, a very mercurial softie. His whole vibe said he was artsy and slightly unbalanced, kinda like what I imagined a hot-headed rocker type would be.

  I immediately wanted to tell him about Sarah and the phone call from Heather-Lynn, but yanked myself back. No reason to drag him under if I didn’t even know if it was true or not. And if it was true, I wasn’t sure I’d tell him either. Yeah, he was my bestie, but there’s a limit to what I’m willing to admit about my neighborhood and how I’m connected it to. And a small part of me was afraid he’d reject me if he knew the truth about my parents.

  I pushed the Sarah thing from my mind and tried to think positive.

  Maybe it was all a horrible misunderstanding.

  “Fire it up,” I said to him. Spider did what Spider wanted anyway. “You make it a habit of sneaking up on girls?”

  He grinned as he lit his cig. “Only when I see them run out of class for no apparent reason.” He pursed his lips as he exhaled delicate smoke rings that danced through the air.

  “How’d you make those?” I quizzed as he offered me one. I shook my head.

  “Learned it in rehab,” he said.

  My eyes shot to his. “Rehab? Hello, you never told me. When was this?”

  “Old news. Happened when I was twelve, the same year I got my tattoo.” He ghosted his hands over the hand-sized black widow on his neck. Hence the nickname. “And maybe I’m opening up more.”

  “Drugs or alcohol?” I asked as he leaned his shoulder back against the brick of the building, watching his smoke trails drift up into the overcast sky.

  He lolled his head toward me and made a kissy face at me. Yeah, he’d clammed up. Same old, same old.

  I smirked. “I’d like to peek inside your head for one day. See what kind of secrets you got going on in there.”

  He scoffed. “Nothing but a bunch of naked girls, trust me.”

  I laughed.

  “It’s not like you to skip class,” he said, arching a brow. “And Lit is your favorite, right?”

  I nodded and fiddled with my jacket, not ready to explain. He’d always gotten weird when I talked about Cuba.

  I focused on Spider. “How’d you get out of class?”

  “Saw you out in the quad from the science lab. Told Mr. Brenner I had a headache so I could check on you. You okay? You know I’ll kick anyone’s arse you want.”

  I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”

  He grinned. “I saw you talking to yourself. Don’t tell me it’s nothing. You only do that when you’re pissed.”

  I picked at my nails.

  He tilted my chin up, his hands gentle. “It was Cuba, wasn’t it?”

  I shot him a glance, and he seemed good, so I went with it. “I baited him in class. He, I don’t know, snapped at me. I just wanted a reaction from him, you know? It’s been a year…” I stopped talking, noticing his red eyes and scrunched up face. “Too much to drink last night?”

  He nodded. “Hung out at Gilligan’s with some of the band guys. Someone bought us drinks, and next thing I know, I was up there singing karaoke and then shagging some chick in the loo.”

  I shook my head and grinned. “Don’t want to know who you did the dirty with.”

  “Oh, it was dirty.”

  I groaned. “Unbelievable. Girls never see you coming.”

  “It’s ‘cause I’m a musician and I’m British. I’m like Prince Harry to them. Or David Beckham.”

  “You wish. And they aren’t musicians, goof,” I noted.

  He shrugged. “Meh. We favor. What difference does it make?”

  I poked him in the arm. “Your hair is white.” This month.

  He smirked. “Then I’m a freakishly young Davie Bowie.”

  I giggled. “I like Billy Idol better.”

  “Shall I sing White Wedding?”

  I nodded, and he held up a finger, hummed to get the correct pitch, and then sang the first few lines. I grinned until wait a minute. “Hold that song. I seem to remember you drunk dialing me last night.”

  “Maybe,” he shrugged, his lips twitching.

  “You did!”

  “Don’t talk so loud,” he said, closing his eyes and rubbing his temple. “I’ve taken four Aleve, and I’m still feeling a bit crap.”

  “At three in the morning, no less.”

  “Speak softly, please,” he murmured.

  “You’ve got to stop calling and saying crazy things—and what was up with all the breathing?” My eyes flared. “Oh, heck no. Please don’t tell me you called while you were getting busy? With some skank, no less—”

  His brown eyes popped open. “What did I say? Do you remember?”

  “No, there was music blaring.”

  “Good,” he muttered, stubbing out his cigarette on the ground.

  What was he afraid I’d heard him say?

  Bzzzz. The bell rang, and because I was anxious about Alexander Barinsky and maybe seeing Cuba, I forgot to ask him what he meant by good.

  At noon, I went to lunch. The cafeteria was noisy as usual and smelled like taco day, which lifted my spirits a little. Tortillas, seasoned beef, and cheese—what’s not to love?

  I sat with Spider and a girl—maybe his date? Her name was Mila, and of course, I’d seen her around, but I’d never chatted with her. She had brown hair, a smattering of freckles across her ski-slope nose, and grey eyes. With her pale pink fuzzy sweater, pink jeans, and a pink headband, she reminded me of a giant stick of cotton candy, and honestly, it hurt my eyes to stare at her too long.

  But, she seemed nice as we chatted, nothing at all like Spider’s usual type which was loud, brassy, and well, not nice. Yet, I wondered if she might be the random girl he’d shagged at Gilligan’s. He did have charisma and even the good girls loved his wild look.

  WHILE SPIDER WENT to grab our lunches, her eyes kept jumping away from me, and when I turned to see what she was looking at, my gaze landed on the jock table. I wasn’t surprised at the who she stared at. Sebastian.

  Did this mean Spider was out?

  “Do you wonder if he feels you staring?” I asked.

  She startled, her eyes darting back to me. “Is it obvious?”

  “Believe me, I’ve done my fair share of secret glances at the football table,” I muttered.

  Her face fell.

  “No, no, not at Sebastian. Cuba,” I admitted.

  “Wow,” she murmured, giving me a surprised look. “Bad choice. Dude has the attention span of a gnat when it comes to girls.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “No joke.”

  My eyes went back to the jock table and found him. Usually he bantered back and forth with his classmates, wearing those sunglasses that drove me nuts, but today he sat hunched over the table without talking, a brooding expression on his face.

  Something was decidedly off with him today. I mean, he’d always been an intense kind of guy, but this went deeper.

  I watched Emma stroke his arm, and my skin grew cold, remembering how she’d pretended to be my friend in front of Cuba last year when we were dating. A mean girl, she was pretty and had a sweet smile, until you turned your back and she shoved a knife in it. It was no secret she’d gone through more friends since freshman year than a dancer goes through shoes.

  My shoulders slumped as I stared at them. I’d heard they were hooking up. In fact, the rumor was he’d sleep
with anyone, even two at a time if he could talk them into it.

  But Emma hurt more than the ones I didn’t know about.

  I focused back on Mila, pushing him away. “Yeah. So. Sebastian, huh? Does he know?”

  Mila blushed. “We’re just friends. It’s nothing really. Plus, he flirts with everyone, especially April and Emma.”

  I squinted my eyes at her long face. Hmmm. “So, am I right in assuming you aren’t the girl Spider shagged at Gilligan’s?”

  She blinked. “Gah, no. We’re just friends.”

  I grinned. “Then that settles it. We’re friends. If Spider likes you, I do, too.”

  “Who does Spider like?” he said, standing next to our table overloaded with our lunches.

  “Me and Mila,” I said, helping him divvy everything out. I gave him a peck on the cheek and tucked some money in his jean pocket. “Thanks for grabbing it.”

  We ate our lunches and they talked, but I barely listened, too caught up in my anxiety over getting home. My ears perked up more when Mila mentioned the athletic dance in a few weeks. You had to be invited by either a football player or a cheerleader to attend. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. Not that I wanted to go anyway.

  “I’m going to crash it. Dovey, you should come with me,” Spider murmured as I popped a piece of lettuce in my mouth.

  I chewed, shaking my head. “Cuba would freak. He hates me. I hate him.”

  I didn’t really hate him.

  “Show him you don’t care. I promise not to drink,” he implored, his eyes searching my face.

  I smiled. “You do puppy dog eyes very well, and you must be desperate for my company to not drink, but no way will I go.”

  Odds were I’d see Cuba with another girl, kissing and making out. My hands clenched.

  Last year, the first time I’d seen him with a new girl after we’d broken-up, it had been in this very cafeteria. That day, watching him laugh and flirt with her had shattered me, making me feel a lot like the day I’d been attacked by a stray dog when I was six or seven. That seemingly sweet dog had been lurking around the street I’d lived on for weeks, letting me pet it. I’d sneaked out pieces of bologna from the fridge for him when mama wasn’t looking. Being young, you believe in anything, and I believed that dog loved me. Why wouldn’t he? He’d licked my hand and chased me around the shrubs in the yard. But, on that particular day, when I approached him, he’d had open sores and matted fur. He’d jumped in my face and latched on to my arm, his teeth big and sharp. He’d growled and his eyes rolled, and I screamed louder than I ever had. Mama had flown out of our apartment, an empty whiskey bottle in her hand. She’d slammed that bottle down over and over on his head until finally, he let go. Then he’d looked at me, whimpered, and died.

  Isn’t it strange, that it hurt me more when he died? Because I realized the bite would heal. I would get better, but he was dead forever. He’d betrayed me, leaving me there to carry on alone with my mama and my little life.

  And Cuba had betrayed me too, telling me he loved me when he didn’t. And the sting of that bite would never heal.

  Spider poked me in the arm, reminding me to pay attention.

  “No, come with me to the dance. Be my date.”

  I set down my taco. “What do you mean?” I asked. “Like a date, date?”

  He rubbed his forehead and then glanced over at Mila. “Mind if I catch up with you a bit later?”

  Mila gave me an odd smile, like she knew something I didn’t, and then packed up her lunch and said good-bye. As she walked away, the tension crackled in the air, most of it emanating from Spider.

  He fiddled with his soda can, his brown eyes growing hooded as he watched me. Hot and filled with promise, his gaze made me sit up straighter. I’d sensed a change in him lately, not missing how his hands lingered longer than a friend’s should.

  “Is this some plan to get a girl off your back?” I did that for him sometimes, pretended to be his new love interest to discourage the stalker types.

  “No.” He came around the table and sat in a chair next to me, smelling like smoke and spearmint. It tickled my nose, and it wasn’t unpleasant, reminding me of his dorm room. “Cuba isn’t the only bloke at BA. And we’d be good together.”

  Oh. I cleared my throat. “We are good friends, but Cuba taught me a bad lesson, and I’m not revisiting…” I floundered when his lips tightened. “Spider? Are you mad?”

  “It pisses me off to see you write me off because of what he did. You’re not over him.”

  “I am over him,” I said, louder than I intended, catching the stares of other students.

  “Why did you talk to him today, then? Didn’t he do enough to you last year?”

  “It was part of our class assignment, if you must know,” I snapped. “And don’t talk to me like I’m stupid. I know full well what happened. Hello, I was there. ”

  His nose flared. “I was too. But, obviously, it doesn’t matter how bloody awful he treated you because you’re still in love with him.”

  The blood pounded in my veins at his words.

  This entire day had been wrong. Since the moment I’d rolled out of bed, I’d sensed a sucky day, and then Cuba had made contact at my locker, and now Spider was acting strange. Besides all that, some lingering, ugly thing was jabbing at my head, just waiting for me to remember.

  “Say something, Dovey. You’re distracted as fuck and if it has to do with him—”

  “Just stop. Stop saying his name. Please,” I said, my fingers twisting the napkin on the table.

  He groaned and threw his hands up. “I’m right sick of you moping over him. Just learn to trust somebody else.”

  “I’m not moping. I’m fine.” I hadn’t been fine in a year.

  He barked out a laugh, but it sounded humorless. “Why won’t you give anyone else a chance, then?”

  “I went out with Jacques.”

  He waved his hands, dismissing me. “You used him. I mean a real relationship.”

  “Like with you?”

  “Why not me?” he stated earnestly, some of his earlier irritation fading. “I’m your friend. I care for you. And maybe I’ve only been going through every girl here, waiting until you noticed me. Maybe I’ve decided to risk it. Go big or go home, right?”

  I blinked, struck speechless. One part of me wanted to explore the possibility of us because I was attracted to him—how could I not be?—but the other side didn’t trust him with my heart. Hell no. Not with the way he treated his girlfriends.

  Because he was just like Cuba.

  “You mean the world to me,” I said. And he did. Without him, I was basically friendless.

  “But?” Spider asked.

  “I—”

  Cuba sauntered by, his long legs encased in low slung jeans, his impossibly broad shoulders stealing my gaze. His roses and thorns tattoo peeked from under the sleeve of his shirt, and my mouth got dry, remembering those biceps and how tight they’d held me. Why did he have to be so beautiful? My eyes searched his face, looking, waiting, yearning for him to see me.

  But his head never turned in my direction.

  “Fuck you,” Spider said to me in a low tone, his face reddening.

  I flinched, my eyes back on Spider. “I’m sorry,” I said, reaching for his hand, but he jerked away, snapping out of his seat.

  “And that’s my answer.” Giving me a grim look, he walked out of the cafeteria.

  I felt hurt by how fast he left me. But then anything to do with Cuba had always pushed Spider’s buttons.

  I got up and took the remains of our lunches to the trash. As I passed the jock table, my eyes sought Cuba. As usual.

  He was back at his seat, sunglasses off, staring down into his uneaten lunch while Sebastian and crew talked around him. Perhaps feeling my gaze, he lifted his head and our stares connected. I didn’t know what I’d see there, maybe left-over anger from this morning, but not the hopelessness he allowed me to see now. I’d seen a similar expression this
morning at his locker, but the emotion I now read in his eyes clawed at my chest.

  And in the face of his desolation, a trickle of truth came to me.

  It all made sense.

  It dawned on me the ugly thing I’d failed to see.

  Today was the day his mother had killed herself.

  Caving in to the inevitable, I moved toward him, my feet pointing his way, being drawn like a magnet in his direction. I wanted him to know he wasn’t alone. That I understood his darkness today. I’d lost my own mother to pills and alcohol when I was ten.

  He stiffened at my approach, his gaze hurriedly dropping mine. I winced and waited for him to look back up, but who was I kidding? He’d never needed me.

  Even in his darkest moment last year, he’d rejected me.

  Emma tugged on his arm, and he turned to her, a fake smile on his face.

  I had to turn away.

  “Lie until it becomes the truth.”

  –Cuba

  STROKE, BREATHE, STROKE, breathe.

  I swam in the Olympic-sized swimming pool inside the athletic center after class. Football was officially over, but I continued to work hard at keeping in shape. There’s something about pushing myself with exercise that numbs me out and makes me forget. And I’d gotten addicted to the high of powering through exhaustion. Conditioned by years of sports, my body was my machine and the only thing I had real control over.

  Everything else was a crap shoot, especially my personal life.

  My arms sliced into the water in a perfect rhythm, reminding me of Dovey and how she danced. The first time I’d seen her dance had been through the huge windows of the Symthe Arts Building where she practiced. It’s not surprising since the building sat adjacent to the football field.

  One day, during football practice while I was supposed to be covering the line of scrimmage, I got distracted by her short skirt and long legs when they flashed by the window. I came to a dead stop when I saw her do this flying jump thing through the air. Next thing I knew, I’d woken up, stretched out on the field.

  The concussion had been worth it.