by Olivia Grey
“I’m glad you find this funny.”
“Let’s make a trade off,” I suggested. “You give me something that I’ve been begging you for and I’ll lay off the teasing for a while.”
“You do realize that you’re not the only one with ammo, right?”
“What? You wanna start tormenting me with Uncle Joey threats again? Be my guest.”
“Whatever,” he sighed, defeated. “What is it that you want?”
“That thing you did to Frances. I think it’s my turn.”
“No!” He stood up out of his chair. “Absolutely not.”
“You only went down on her to piss me off.”
“I’m not going down on you, Jemma, so forget it. Go ahead and wave around whatever flag you want but at some point, I might just decide that giving up on college is worlds better than being trapped underneath your hooves.”
“Stilettos,” I corrected.
“No, hooves Jemma, like a fucking animal because that’s what you are. A beast. To think that God actually makes something like you is just despicable.”
“Lucky for me I don’t believe in myths.”
“You might not believe in God, but you sure as hell believe in the devil because you’re as close to him as it gets.”
“You ought to keep your voice down. Mother Dearest was just starting to warm up to me,” I teased.
“Leave my mother out of this, Jemma.”
“You know what, I think it’s about time I got going. Keep your mouth shut and I’ll keep your pockets full. Regardless of what you’re thinking, you will never give up the scholarship my uncle offered you.”
Axel made his way to the front door, swinging it open, prompting my exit. Before walking through, I had to get something else off my chest.
I stopped, directly in front of him, so that he could see the honesty in my eyes as the words left my lips.
“Whatever it is you have going on with Frances, you should probably tone it down a bit. Girls like her, they get too attached too easily and with the plans that I have, you could really cause her heart to go up in flames.”
“Get out,” he spat, anger gripping tightly to his tone.
If he could wave his hands and have me evaporate from the face of this earth without a trace, he wouldn’t think twice. Unfortunately for him, I was here to stay.
“I used to love you Axel. No matter what happens, remember that.”
“You’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. The absolute worst. And for the record, there’s nothing going on with Frances and me. So stick your love in the same dark hole that it came from and get the fuck out of my house.”
“You used to love me,” I said.
The thought of it seemed so distant, as though centuries had passed since we fell out of each other’s hearts. The words, the reminder of affection should have sparked something within us, ignited a fire that was long left to burn out. It didn’t. I spoke the words. They rolled off my tongue without tripping over my heart strings. Axel and I, we weren’t an ‘us’ anymore. It should have broken my heart to know that the me he saw was the real me; the me he hated. I should have cried about it, felt bad about it, think about changing because of it. Instead, it made me feel at peace. Emotions would have made the execution of my plan difficult even if there were none on my part. If he had felt a smidgen of anything for me, I might have reconsidered. Except he didn’t. He took the shitty end of the stick thinking that someone had wiped it clean. His nostrils were blocked, eyes were closed, and all senses out of tune. There was no smelling the defeat he had coming, no feeling it, no seeing it. Blinded by hatred; blinded by me.
27
Frances
I can count on one hand, the amount of days I had ever highlighted on a calendar. All the others, they were just things that made up a week, a month, a year. Nothing remarkable, just twenty-four hours that go by too fast or too slow. Today, however, was a day that deserves to be marked; a day that deserves to be gone over with a bright yellow highlighter. It wasn’t graduation day. It wasn’t my wedding day. I didn’t drop the unnecessary two and a half pounds that prevented me from fitting into my favorite jeans. My parents didn’t send me on a shopping spree or buy me a brand-new car. Regardless, today deserved to be remembered.
Out of town for what they called a ‘romantic getaway,’ meant that I was free to do what I wanted without a single repercussion. Instead, I did the one thing they warned me against. I watched as their car rolled a few feet backwards before veering into the direction of freedom. When I could no longer see the smoke that trickled from the muffler, I pushed the door closed and did a silent celebration, fists punching the air. All by myself- it wasn’t the first time. When gran got ill, mom and dad took a trip to South Carolina and left me to an empty house. Two years ago, they celebrated their anniversary in the Caribbean heat, leaving me for an entire week to cook, clean and care for myself. There was a difference though, between all those times and now. Now, I wouldn’t be cramming math equations or memorizing the periodic table. Neither would I be sipping on soda, not thinking twice about tapping into dad’s alcohol cabinet. And did I even get to the point where my ventriloquist of a best friend wouldn’t be bossing me around. Timing was a hell of a thing, a thing that couldn’t work out any better on this day.
The upper-class of our wonderful town were also away for the weekend getting dolled up in fancy dresses and decked out in overpriced suits. Jemma and the rest of the elites would be eating caviar and dancing the night away with their daddies.
I… I wasn’t one of them. I’d dreamt of it for nights on end, playing out a Cinderella story in my head. The popular girls were the step sisters and I was just that poor girl, stuck in rags and wishing for a ballgown.
All those years of wishing and wanting, for nothing. Had I wanted to go this year, I could have. One mention to Jemma and I don’t doubt she would have tacked me onto the end of her dress and pranced me right in with her. Except my interest was gone, changed, redirected. A weekend without my parents meant a weekend with Axel.
He was, propped in front of my television, legs tossed on top of my couch and an arm stretched around my shoulder. Perfect? Highlighter perfect. Pull out the calendar. Mark the date. Remember it forever. Perfect.
I cocked my head to the side, breathed deeply, caught a breath of Axel and preserved it. Weird, I know. But I was weird, always had been. It was one of the things Axel liked about me. Weeks ago, I would have done anything to fall into the normal category. Now, I realized that the best pictures aren’t the perfect ones, but the ones captured in the perfect moment. That’s all our lives are, moments. Some more remarkable than others. When it all comes down to it, we’re all just looking for those select few times that blow all the others out of the park- the ones worth mentioning to kids and grandkids. The ones worth being jotted down in a journal and held separated by a bookmarker. But what are moments without people? Nothing, because it’s the people worth remembering that help to create the memorable moments. I decided I’d rather stick out as odd than be ‘one of them’- those who fake perfection and are defined by it. There are too many of them and too little of me. At least in Axel’s eyes. He said it’s what drew him to me. Not the person I am when with Jemma, but the person I was before. My heels didn’t have to precede my entrance for him to know I was entering a room. I didn’t have to talk louder than everyone for him to hear me. My lips didn’t have to glow shades of red for him to see me. I was different, hiding away from attention but still demanding it.
“What’s your brain buzzing about?” Axel asked, his finger tipping my chin in his direction.
Each touch from him was like a volt of electric current surging right through me.
I smiled. “You. It’s hard to think about anything else.”
“Good thoughts?”
“The best or maybe the weirdest. I dunno, it’s hard to differentiate sometimes.”
Axel tugged on the waist of my pants. I aided in maneuvering myself i
nto a straddle.
Axel was entrancingly, nerve-rackingly gorgeous, everything but average. I should have been panting wildly. My heart should have quickened, then stopped, then be forced to beat again. But as I stared at him staring at me, I didn’t feel my nerve ends warn me against it. In his arms, however, I felt at ease and though I loved the feeling, I knew that I should have feared it.
“Falling in love with Frances,” he said, tracing a finger over my bottom lip.
“Are you?”
“I think the question is, have I?”
I looked away, leaned down and whispered the question against his neck.
“Have you?”
“Let’s just say, getting you off my mind is next to impossible. Combine that with the fact that when I’m around you my problems feel so distant, my heart feels full, like you fixed the parts of it that were broken, filled the parts that were empty.”
“Sounds unhealthy,” I smiled and pressed my lips against his.
“Sounds like maybe I love you already.”
The world felt as though it stopped spinning.
“It’s too soon, isn’t it? I can think it but I’m not allowed to say it or I’ll scare you away.”
“You won’t scare me away,” I replied defensively. “I think maybe I do too.”
Axel pressed his lips together and nodded in an encouraging manner as though my sentence was too curt, and he wouldn’t stand down until I finished it. But I did finish it. I left out a word or two, but all in all it was complete.
“So you do… love me.”
It wasn’t embarrassment that I felt. I was too comfortable with Axel to feel embarrassed. I pulled myself into him, so close that his curls tickled my eyelashes, my cheek, my nose.
“I do love you,” I admitted, the words aligning with the beats of my heart. A trembling beat that if measured would be deemed unhealthy, but regardless, felt right. Butterflies or some other small, sweet, innocent creature trapped between my ribs, pushed up against my heart, teaching it to flutter rather than to pound. The feeling of love? A feeling that goes away or one that stays?
Axel tightened his hands on my shoulders and guided me back so that he could, once again, catch glimpses of my crimson shaded cheeks. “What if…” he said, taking a pause that didn’t only seem to halt his sentence, but time itself. “What if we took Jemma out of our equation?”
“Then we wouldn’t have made it this far.”
“Seriously Frances. What if I just said fuck it. Fuck you, fuck the scholarship, fuck your secret, fuck every damn thing that you stand for.”
“She’d ruin you,” I answered honestly.
As skinny as a twig as she was, Jemma’s little brain had more power than anyone I knew. The evil kind of power.
“What’s there to ruin? I have you and that’s enough.”
“She’ll find a way Axel. All games need to be played by her rules. That’s how it works. You know that.”
“Well I’m sick of playing.”
“I just… I dunno. I’m fine with things how they are.”
“You’re fine with me being her little puppy. Holding her hand, kissing her…”
I cut him off before he could finish. “Of course I’m not but we’ve both been doing a decent job at avoiding her recently.”
“Even if you’re not sick of it, I am. I can’t do this anymore. It feels like I’m selling my soul to the devil for a reward I’m not even sure I want anymore. Can you imagine what will happen after I take that scholarship? It won’t just be a matter of dealing with her bullshit in high school. I’ll have to be answering to her all through my college days too.”
“This secret that you say you have,” I said, “can’t you somehow use it to your advantage.”
His face went blank, his pupils seemed, as though my words had suddenly removed all light.
“No.”
“Sorry. I just don’t get it. Not that I’d want you to hurt her in any way. But whatever it is she’s hiding, whatever it is that you know, it seems big enough for you to be able to, you know, get her to conform a little.”
“It’s why she hates me so much,” he said grimly. “When she told me what she told me, I’d promised not to tell anyone. No one gets to see Jemma vulnerable. I did, once but I managed to prove to her just how wrong she was for letting her guard down.”
“What did you do?”
“Well, she said I shouldn’t tell anyone, but I guess I didn’t think that included her. We got into a fight once and I used it against her. I threatened her. Since that day, she’s never been the same with me. It was a mistake, you know. Like one of those things that you say just out of anger but would never...”
“I understand.”
“I can’t use it against her because I would never tell. As heartless as she seems to be, what happened to her isn’t something that needs to be revealed, not in a hurtful way.”
“Maybe there’s something else you can do.”
“Yeah. That’s my point. I can refuse the scholarship. Do what I want. Love you, openly, in front of everyone. I can do that.”
“And what if we don’t turn out to be everything you want.”
“You’re already everything I want.”
“Distance can be tough, Axel. I’ve seen so many people try to make it work and you know what happens… it doesn’t.”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take. Plus, if I get to spend just these few months loving you right, then that’s more than enough. I want to at least have that.”
“Here’s what I think. You wait for a bit, see if Mr. Jones has some more tricks up his sleeve and cross your fingers that something works out. You’re talking about your future here and as dumb as it sounds, Jemma is a big part of that.” His lips parted, but I put up a finger to stop him. “College is the start of the rest of your life. You don’t want to be some guy who got stuck here because he loved a girl too much. You want to be great. Make your mom proud, be something, be someone. Put up with a couple years of bullshit if necessary but at least know that your life’s headed in a better direction.”
“I know that you’re right and it’s definitely big of you to think like that. Jemma though, she’s just so suffocating. When I was a kid, my mom used to get a bouncy castle for my birthday. Every birthday until I was about nine. Thing is, I hate those things. All my friends would have so much fun just bouncing around and bumping into each other. Not me. I’d go inside and rush right back out. I don’t think my mom ever noticed.”
I laughed. “I loved bouncy castles, still do.”
“Point is. Jemma reminds me of a bouncy castle. At least my fear of them.”
“And what was that?”
“I was always afraid that it would malfunction, cave in and suffocate me. And well, she’s the bouncy castle that malfunctioned.”
“That’s mean.”
“Yeah,” he laughed, gripping me by the hip and flipping me around on the couch. Axel settled his body on top of me, all his weight pressed into my chest. “This is what Jemma feels like.”
“Okay. Okay,” I said, gasping for air.
“Sorry.”
“Whew. You’re a bit much sometimes.”
“That girl drives me absolutely insane! Anyways, enough about her, I’m more interested in the part where we were trying to figure out just how in love we are with each other.”
We kissed, long intrusive kisses that left the both of us winded but not keen on catching a breath. We kissed, from the couch to the stairs, from the stairs to my bedroom. When kisses were no longer enough, we gave into the desire we had to feed each other with passion. Each article of clothing hit the floor, our bodies sunk into the bed and we were lost, in a daze that took us beyond the realms of our imagination.
Jemma
What an amazing night. If I could ditch high school and call Miami home, I would do it. Right there and then I would have been ready to run away and leave everyone and everything behind. It’s not often that I contemplate such a thi
ng. I like the limelight I keep glowing at Rebel high, it’s like my own little hint of fame. Practice for the real world?
I pushed the curtains apart with one dramatic gesture, and stared into the night. So many lights, so many people, so much to explore. I didn’t though. Wandering the streets at these hours would never result in anything good. Not to mention the fact that I was by myself. The solo game was a boring game; a dangerous game. Having a scapegoat is always good. Someone wants to hurt you and they take the pain. Someone wants to kill you and well… they take the death. I wouldn’t take on Miami by myself. Mom and dad had thoroughly warned me about the consequences of sneaking out, which tempted me to do just that. But I wasn’t stupid, so though I had rolled my eyes at the both of them, I obeyed their demands.
I stepped onto the balcony floor, the bottom of my feet feeling the bite of cold concrete. Such a change from the daytime when the heat felt like it was trying to vaporize everything in its way. I settled down on the lounge chair, staring up at the non-existent stars. There was indeed one huge downfall to living in the thick of the city. The sky was nothingness. A boring kind of nothingness that could- for those who needed something to look up to- be depressing. Not me. As much as I would have loved to see a full night sky, I was fine looking down. Sitting so high in some extortionate suite, with the balcony a long fall from the beach, I was at peace. There was no Frances, no Axel, no secret.
Serenity lasted for only a few short moments before my head went buzzing with ideas of just how to make Axel pay. Maybe I had a vendetta against the both of them, now. No, not Frances. She was too innocent, too pure, too idiotic. Only a fool hates an idiot and I am no fool. Such a shame that Frances had to get scorched in all of this. But then again, it’s the reason I built her up as high as I did. The deeper the fall, the louder the crash.
If anything, Frances should be thankful for the time she was able to spend outside of the shadows. Before me, she was a nobody. Just another reject waiting to fail at maneuvering the world.
