by Olivia Grey
Mr. Jones shook his head at me and sighed as I exited the room.
I hated the way men like him pretended to know the world; the way they always had an opinion on everything and everyone. But he, like everyone else, needed to know that their thoughts meant little to nothing when it came to me. My life was already set and though there were little smudges threatening to smear certain aspects of my life, I would come out on top.
I always did.
9
Frances
I’d gone through an entire day in school learning nothing and I had Jemma to thank for that. Against my better judgment, I’d agreed to her stupid proposal. Not that I wouldn’t have eventually succumbed. Everyone eventually succumbed to Jemma. I’d later learn that I wasn’t just an idiot or a fool, I was the biggest idiot and the biggest fool. Rather than being able to head home and drown myself in regret, I had to be there for Jemma once again. I’d exited my last class to find her in front of the door, waiting with her hands folded across her chest.
“Stress relief,” she whispered into my ear and I knew exactly what she meant.
“But it’s Monday,” I replied. “Isn’t your dad home on a Monday?”
“And?”
“He’ll see if you take his gun.”
“Stop being such a party pooper, Jemma. He’s probably out golfing or hanging out at the club and it’s not like he checks to see that they’re all there.”
It was a terrible as shit idea. But being the smartass that I was, I allowed her to drag me into it. Head first.
Before her, I was anti-everything-bad: guns, sex and booze. The whole rock n’ roll scene wasn’t exactly up my alley. Now, I was the kind of girl who allowed her fake best friend to talk her into sneaking off into the woods to shoot at bottles. Unlike getting all dolled up in makeup and waxing off portions of my skin every week, the gun part was the one I hated the most. Check the statistics, there’s nothing in there that says you shouldn’t be scared shitless of guns. Especially when those guns don’t belong to you. Especially when you’re experienced. And especially when you haven’t got a permit or the right to handle the gun pressed to your palm.
I drove behind Jemma, contemplating the benefits of veering my car into a ditch. Once or twice, I might have swerved on purpose. If I knew then, what I knew now, I might have. We got to Jemma’s house, a not so modest structure with enough rooms to house a football team. This too, was one of Jemma’s most prized possessions. Everyone knew where she lived and she liked it that way. The biggest house in town, you couldn’t miss it. Columns that put the Temple of Jupiter to shame and a garden the likes of Versailles. Driving down her street, it was the only house you saw. Her neighbors were a mere spot on a massively extensive canvas.
When Jemma’s parents were out of town, she never refrained from putting the pool, bar, Jacuzzis and beds to use. I was the first of the nerds from ‘nerd central’ to push her way through the bold French doors and take a step inside. It was even more breathtaking than the images I’d conjured up in my head. There was a designer hotel flair to it. With expensive furniture and awe-worthy knickknacks, it was hard to see how someone could be comfortable living there. Even the sofa was more like a centerpiece rather than a cushion of comfort. But I guess not everyone’s home is like mine- plastered with sticky notes and kindergarten paintings that my mom refused to let go of. Yeah, I had one of those families – the ones you don’t appreciate until it’s too damn late. The ones people like Jemma make fun of.
‘Frances turns four,’ she’d said, the first time she visited my house, flopping down on my bed and nuzzling her face into one of my stuffed animals. She’d marched around, dissecting one item after the other. Having seen her house, I understood why. She didn’t have pieces of her childhood reminding her of things she’d long forgotten. She didn’t have photos of family or friends lining the walls like I did. Everything in Jemma’s room, down to her bed was seamless. There were no stuffed animals to crease her pillows or throw off the color scheme she had going on. It was adorned- probably by some overpriced interior decorator- and she didn’t dare to taint its appeal.
The car door opened and a smiling Jemma carefully placed her purse on the back seat of my car.
“Was he home?” I asked.
“No. I told you, he’s probably out golfing or banging his mistress or something.”
Jemma combed her fingers through her hair, ushering each golden strand over her shoulder.
“He’s not cheating on your mom,” I grumbled.
“Eh. I wouldn’t blame him. She’s been such a bitch lately. If I was dad, I’d smack her upside the head. Seriously! It’s like sometimes she forgets that he’s the one wearing the penis.”
I said nothing to that. There was no point. Jemma hated her family just as much as she hated everyone else.
No matter what I thought of Jemma’s mom, there was one thing I knew for certain, Jemma was the only one allowed to talk shit about her parents. Katie- Jemma’s old best friend – had failed the test. Thinking it was okay to join in on one of Jemma’s rants. As soon as the first word had crossed her lips, Jemma’s fist was against her mouth. There was blood. A shaky tooth, too. Jemma was pissed. Her new Dior scarf managed to absorb a splatter of Katie’s blood. That was the point at which Jemma decided it was time to dissolve her clique, embarrassing and de-popularizing each and every one of them in mere seconds.
“Drive,” Jemma instructed, already bored with the world and everything in it.
“To the same spot?”
“Where else would we go?” She rolled her eyes and went back to checking her nails, before reaching forward to spin the volume knob all the way up.
I focused on the road, watching through the corner of my eye as Jemma jammed out to ‘her favorite song.’ That’s what she called pretty much every song on the radio- her favorite. Regardless of how crazy she looked whipping her hair in the wind and dancing like my car was the local night club, it was the purest I ever saw Jemma. When there was music, everything came down- the mysterious Stonehenge of her personality, the brick walls built around her emotions. It was like she tuned out the entire world and just channeled the parts of her that were untainted.
“Are you laughing at me Frances?” she punched my shoulder.
I chuckled a bit harder. “No.”
“You are laughing at me,” she said, lowering the music. “you’re totally laughing at me. I’ll have you know, I took a whole bunch of dance classes as a kid and I can definitely kill it on the dancefloor.”
“You just looked really cute is all,” I replied.
“Cute,” she smirked. “Like you have a crush on me kinda cute?”
“I don’t have a crush on you. That would just make things weird.”
“How weird would it be? I mean, you already said ‘yes’ to… you know.”
“But that’s different. Isn’t it?”
A million and one images raced through my mind at the same time, jarring at a point where I was stuck in horrible underwear frowning at myself.
“Yeah, I guess you could say it’s a little bit different, but you’ll still have to at least like me a smidgen in order for it to be believable.”
“Yeah,” I nodded, trying hard to swallow the lump that leapt all the way up my throat.
“‘You look like you want to sink into a hole Frances.”
“Jemma,” I said, briefly looking over my shoulder, pleading with a part of her that I damn well knew didn’t exist “you said we can talk about anything, right?”
“You’re not changing your mind, are you?” The words were more of a threat than a question.
“I’m not,” I said. “It’s just that I’ve never…”
“You’re a virgin and a threesome seems like the biggest deal in the world,” she waved her arms in the air, then rolled her eyes. “It’s not a big deal, Jemma. Seriously. You might as well just get over with it now than wait until…well, who knows when you’ll get another opportunity?”
&
nbsp; Yes, this little plan Jemma had for me included getting into bed with her AND her boyfriend. It was a stupid thing to say yes to, but…if, if, if… a whole bunch of ifs and not enough strength to actually back the hell down.
“My first time was horrible,” Jemma continued, rolling her eyes at the memory.
“Your first threesome?”
“No. My first time ever, with a boy. Trust me, the fact that I’m there will make this so much easier on you.”
The alarm bells were so loud. They begged and they pleaded and they tried as hard as they could to knock some sense into me. But I wanted this life. I wanted it so damn bad. I needed to get out of this town and not need to look back. I wanted the kind of attention that only girls like Jemma got. I wanted the kind of love that only girls like Jemma found. What I didn’t know, was that both the former and the latter were wrapped in enough hate to ruin me from the inside out.
“Can I ask you something else?” I said, ignoring all the logic that begged me to go running for the hills.
“You can ask me anything.” Jemma smile and rested a hand on my shoulder. The way one does when trying to be reassuring, or conniving. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out the markings Jemma’s hand carried.
“Is it going to hurt?”
“Well... We’re talking about Axel,” she said and squeezed her fingers together until the space between them was the size of a peanut. “You won’t feel a damn thing. But like I said, Frances, you’ve got nothing to worry about. At least you’re gonna be doing it with someone you like. And you’ve already gotten to first base, so there’s that.” There was a small pause while I tried to get my nerves to lock back into place. That small pause led to a panicked Jemma. Her hands on the wheel saved the car from veering into a tree.
I’d been paying way too little attention to the road and way too much attention to Jemma. But did it matter, really? I could die here, right now, or in five minutes. Her dad’s stolen gun. Sneaking off to the woods. Maybe this was Jemma setting me up to drive myself to my death.
Before the paranoia in my head built its way into a mountain, I turned to Jemma. If I was going to die, I wanted at least a fighting chance to take her down with me. “So, what made you want to go shooting today?”
“Ugh,” Jemma huffed. “That stupid biology teacher.”
“Mr. Jones?” I hesitated, knowing that the last thing Jemma wanted to hear was that he was one of my favorites.
“Mr. Effing Jones,” she mocked. “Can you believe he had the nerve to flirt with me in front of the entire class?”
An over exaggeration? A lie? Likely both.
“No way!” I faked surprise, disgust but not disbelief.
“In front of the whole damn class,” she continued, widening her eyes.
“That’s kinda…”
“Inappropriate. Yeah, I told him as much. Damn near reported him to the Dean too. All these older men love trying to get a piece. Can’t really say I blame them.” She let out a small laugh and threw her hair over her shoulder. “I mean, if I was there age, I’d wanna fuck me too.”
“I don’t know, Jemma. He’s married, isn’t he?”
“You do have a point. Maybe I should let his wife know what’s going on.”
I didn’t put it past Jemma.
“Don’t,” I said softly, “It’s not worth ruining his marriage over. Not unless he actually tries something.”
“Eh. I think I’ll hang on to it for a little longer. Things like this have a way of coming in handy just when you need them.”
“An A for saving his marriage. Sounds fair.” I forced a smile and tried like hell not to exhale too loud.
We pulled up to the spot in the woods Jemma had picked out. It was quiet and peaceful and had a decent enough shot at allowing someone to get away with murder.
“Okay, so enough about that maniac,” Jemma drawled, “let’s go kill some bottles.” I hoped to hell that was the only thing she was planning on killing today.
I stepped out of the car and onto the gravel, slightly losing my balance. I forgot how rocky it was here, how similarly unstable the earth beneath my feet was to Jemma. Cocking my head to the side, I took her in as she found her way from the passenger side, tackling the rocks before finding ease as her feet found the grasses patches of land.
“And to think that I have to carry this heavy ass bag all the way through the woods.” She pondered her options for a moment before grunting, “heads up, Jemma,” and hurling the bag in my direction. For once, my hands were quicker than my brain and I caught it mid-air.
I pulled the thick leather strap over my shoulder and pushed the bulky part of the bag away from my hip. This was the third time I had accompanied Jemma on one of her shooting trips and regardless of how nonchalant I seemed to her, I hadn’t quite gotten over my fear of guns. Plus, there was the fact that we weren’t supposed to be here and we weren’t supposed to be doing this, coupled with the fact that Jemma was just as careful with guns as she was with people.
I was afraid of guns when the safety was on, when they were strapped to police officers, when they were blasting bullets on television. Most of all, I was afraid of them when they were in my possession. Statistics showed that people under the age of twenty four- like me- account for the majority of accidental shootings. Two girls messing around in the woods, one with a preschool education on guns, it wasn’t safe. Backing out also wasn’t safe. I was picking my losses.
Jemma’s pace was a lot quicker than mine. She slowed every few steps and looked behind her just to make sure I was keeping up. Each time she turned around, I would flash her an I’m-okay-smile and keep trotting along.
We came up to spot where the trees hung low, emerald green leaves bundled on their branches. The grass beneath or feet was fresh and green, and the air smelled fresh and crisp, begging you to suck as much as possible into your lungs.
Living in a city packed with mansions and flushed in asphalt, it was easy to forget that nature existed outside of a few palm trees planted in front of homes or in between islands in the road. This area, it was wholly untainted. There were no trails disrupting Mother Nature’s pattern. Everything was just as pure as she’d intended it to be; until, of course, Jemma and I sprinkled the ground with shiny cases and littered the air with thunderous roars.
“This one is for Mr. Jones,” she said, gripping the gun tight in her palm, shoulders pulled back. She aimed for a bottle she’d set on a pile of tree branches.
I stood behind her, my right hand far to my side, heavy with the second weapon she’d brought along. Jemma moved her feet around, perfecting her stance and then… Bang.
I flinched, eyes closed, heart racing a million miles a minute.
“Not bad, huh?” she said, running over to the bottle.
She picked it up and leaked out the remainder of its contents. “He’d be as dead as a doornail,” she chuckled. “Now, your turn. I’ll set some targets up for you. Remember, don’t shoot until I say shoot.”
10
Jemma
I dug out the last three bottles from my purse and set them up for Frances. She was so nervous, which I found hysterical. It was like she had a personal connection with each bottle and found it hard to watch them go. Jemma was like that with a lot of useless things. One day, she’d learn that the more things you care about, the more you have to lose.
“Alright, let me get behind you and then you can get started.”
Frances rearranged the gun in her hands. Nothing about the way she was holding it was right.
“Hey! What did I tell you?”
She looked down at her hand and adjusted the gun another time.
“I’ve got to make sure I have a firm grip or it’ll just fly out of my hand.”
”Yeah. And what else?”
Frances was a smart girl but she could be so absentminded at times.
“Look, you’ve got to make sure that the slide doesn’t fly back and take half of your hand off,” I said, pulling her hand a lit
tle lower. “You always want it under here.”
“Okay,” she nodded, breathing audibly, more nervous than a nun in a brothel.
“Now…shoot.”
Frances fired the gun… Once, twice and then a third time, missing everything in sight.
“Aim Frances. Plant your feet on the ground, aim and then shoot.”
She tried again, barely skimming over the top of the bottle.
“I’ll take it from here, I said,” pulling out my gun and showing her just how easy it should be; how easy it would be if she practiced enough.
She squeezed her thumbs against her ears. “I suck really badly, I know.”
“You’ll get better,” I replied, patting her on the back because what choice did she have, but to get better? None, really. A few more targets and another hour, I drilled her until she’d basically shot an entire hole through the tree in front of her. I’d have stayed out here until the sun dipped and rose again, but there was no point in pushing this longer. The darker it got, the higher the risk that I’d get shot in the ass. I wasn’t opposed to have some things in my ass. A bullet, however, was not one of them. “Let’s call it a day though, alright? I should probably get these babies back before dad gets home.”
Frances agreed with relief, taking the bag from my hand and hiking back to her car.
Back at home, dad was too busy tapping away at his computer to notice me sneak his guns back in the safe. I wasn’t particularly quiet when moving through the house and I think a part of me wanted to get caught. There were never too many consequences dealt when going against my parent’s wishes. A slap on the wrist here and there and then all was forgotten. I think the most ‘trouble’ I’d ever gotten into was when I’d smashed one of mom’s vases. It was an intentional accident but even that didn’t go as planned. I wanted mom to yell, to get whatever it was that was bothering her off her chest. But as soon as the complaining started, dad was there to pick up the pieces and bring order to an almost chaotic situation.
