And Catch the Fly

by Cleo Fox

  With a frown, she turned toward me. I carefully covered the places she missed and she stiffened under my touch. "Is it that obvious?"

  "Only if you know what to look for, but I doubt Brian has noticed if that's what you're worried about. If I were you, I'd stay with him, he's incapable of hurting a fly."

  She gulped. "You know?"

  I snorted. "Of course I know. It's my job to know who's fucking who in this school. Just be better at hiding it."

  Her brows came together. "You're not mad?"

  I took out some of her powder to set it. "I'll only be mad if it becomes public knowledge. As long as you're with him he leaves me alone on the weekends. But take it from me, once he starts doing this, it isn't going to stop. Make the smart choice, go steady with Brian and leave Jason. Brian treats you like a princess."

  Her gaze went to the stall doors at our sides. "Jason treats you like a princess, too."

  I snorted, again. "He hasn't treated me like a princess for real since Freshmen year."

  The frown deepened. "Why are you admitting this?"

  I sigh and put her makeup back into her bag. "I don't have the energy today to keep up a front, and you now know what he can really be like. Do you really envy me anymore?"

  Lyric looked to the mirror and ghosted her fingers over where the bruise no longer came through the makeup. "No. I wanted what you have, but now I see what that really means."

  I hummed. "Not worth it, is it?"

  "Why do you stay with him?"

  I gave my appearance one last glance, making sure the black eye wasn't visible around the edges of the frames. "We all aren't given choices, Lyric, now put your mask back in place. We're supposed to have thinly veiled hate for each other. Time for lunch."

  Steps in sync, we made our way to the courtyard, even with my sunglasses the light burned my retinas. Rum and I would never mix well, and the hangover I had proved that. Time to sit through another lunch where everyone gets to eat but me.

  Part of me wanted to say fuck it, so what if she found out, she wouldn't be home for four days. Roberta wasn't waiting to take my blood sugar levels that morning, maybe she wouldn't be there when I got home either. Maybe she would take the bribe, or Monica would be there to take it. I just wanted something greasy and full of cheese to curl into. Jason had talked about getting Vinny's for lunch since he parked it just outside the school's grounds.

  My stomach clenched as our table came into view. Jason stood at it, holding Rhett's backpack. Why couldn't he just leave him alone?

  "You forgot to say hello to me this morning, baby dick."

  Rhett clenched his hands. Would he break and stick up for himself? He needed someone to help grow his confidence. If he had even a little Jason would lose interest in him quick. Keeping pace with Lyric, we made our way over to them.

  I had to think of a way to divert his attention, and the only thing that would do that without making him suspicious, offer sex. His fingers rested on the zipper, ready to open and dump it onto the concrete.

  Gathering all my diaphragm power I unleashed a whine that would rival that of any supremely spoiled brat. "Jaybear! I'm thirsty, I want a frap."

  I stepped over to him. He paused in his action and glanced at me, usually he had me use frap for when he wanted a blow job or sex during lunch. He hesitated. "Really? Now?" His hands faltered.

  Placing my hands on the bag, I grabbed his eyes with mine, and nodded, making sure to lick my lips. And that was enough for him, his grip relaxed and I took it and rested it on the ground. "You can play with the loser later. I need a frap now."

  A grin pulled at his lips and he took my hand in his rough grip and pulled me down the pathway to the parking lot. I glanced at Rhett as we passed him. I seriously hope they chose to meet me after school.

  Jason's car sat in an alley behind a dying drug store. As private as he would get, while still being close to the school for the bell. I grimaced as he pressed my face into the passenger seat that we tilted back. Every time we had sex it was always from behind, even our first time, he couldn't do it with me facing him. Did a whole lot to myself esteem.

  I gripped at the rear window ledge. His dick even with a lubricated condom, felt like sandpaper. If I tried to finger my clit while he fucked me, he would go psycho asking why his dick wasn't enough to make me come. I groaned and moaned, hopefully, he believed in them and thought I wanted it.

  Jason hunched his body over my back, putting his hand near mine to hold him up as he thrust fast and awkwardly into my moist passage. It's all my body could muster. I didn't find a lot of people sex worthy to fantasize about, not even celebrities. There was Sai, but fantasies with him ended up making me sad, knowing I could never have him. I closed my eyes. Sai was out, I didn't want to be depressed for fourth period.

  I tried to picture anything that would put me in a headspace that would make me wet, so his pounding into me would end. A pair of soulful blue eyes entered my mind. Rhett Collins, the reason for me having cramped sex in Jason's car. Why did I help him? Would he even meet me at the library with the others or would he blow me off?

  More images of Rhett danced across my mind's eye. How handsome he looked with his hair pulled back, so everyone could see his beautiful blue eyes. He stood in front of my vision. What kind of lover would he be? From what I remembered, as he'd been cold, his cock was bigger than Jason's. I bet he could hit my G-spot just right.

  A shudder ran through me at the thought. Or how his tongue would feel on my clit, I bet he wouldn't make me feel disgusting and would make me come from it. I wanted to know what he was like. Heat built in me as I continued to imagine Rhett fucking me instead. My walls squeezed around his dick with a small orgasm. I prayed to the universe it would be enough and that he could come from it.

  He put his other hand to my neck and pulled me back as much as he could. I winced at the awkward position. His fingers pushed down my turtle neck and gripped at my throat, cutting off my air supply. He liked to hear me wheeze even though I hated it. Jason grunted. His hips stilled in the next second and he pulled out. He got back into the driver seat and I turned around, putting the seat up, before pulling on my thong and tugging down my black sweater dress to cover my thighs.

  He peeled off the condom and tossed it out the window. I wrinkled my nose. I hated when he did that, I wouldn't dare to say anything though. Starting the car, he sped out of the alley and headed to the coffee shop. We had about twenty minutes to get it and get back to the school so he could scarf down some tacos or something, at least having sex didn't take long.

  As we waited in the drive-thru for the coffee shop, he glanced at me. "What's with the sunglasses all day?"

  Well, if he didn't know, that meant I hadn't been with him at all during the weekend. I figured that much to be true since I didn't remember seeing his face in the fuzzy chaotic images that surfaced over the day. "I've had a bad migraine all day, the light hurts." He didn't need to know a thing about my drinking. If he was one of my mother's informants--even if he denied that fact--he'd be the last person I'd admit that to.

  Jason grunted in return.

  If I loved him for real, his behavior would kill me and mess with my head. After five minutes he passed a cold, whipped cream covered, frap into my hand. It didn't take more than a couple of minutes for him to speed around, get us back to the school, and parked.

  He motioned to the courtyard. "I'm going to go get some taco's from Vinny's, head up."

  I held my tongue. I wanted to ask for him to get me something, anything, but I also knew better. Even if I wanted to say fuck it to everything, fear still sunk her claws into me while playing the what-if game.

  We got out of the car and headed in opposite directions. I took my typical frap selfie, posing with the straw suggestively in my lips. My mother followed my account, but she knew from my levels that I never drank any of it, she never said anything, as I kept up the appearance of a girl who was in love with herself.

  The frap chilled my fing
ers, either I'd throw it away or give it to Lyric, she normally took it without asking why I gave it to her. We had a moment of understanding in the restroom, but that didn't mean she was one of my favorites, at least she realized Jason wasn't some kind of god.

  My heels clacked on the concrete as I passed by Rhett and his friends, they were always in the same place. I glanced at them, hoping they would come to the library. I needed to know if they had any idea what I'd been up to over the weekend. I didn't remember leaving the amusement park, but I knew I'd been with them. It was a long shot, they weren't in any of the flashes I'd had, but there was a chance they might know something. If anything, I needed to set up tutoring with the rest of them, and I might as well do it while we're gathered.

  We pulled into the library's parking lot. Only an old Volkswagon and Chanel's cherry red BMW sat in the otherwise empty lot. I found it odd she wanted to meet there again after the person who texted her over the weekend had been watching her there. Maybe she couldn't think of somewhere else?

  Zeke sighed, having been sour the entire day over the fact we were coming to meet her after she blew me off.

  I sighed in return. "Like I said earlier, you don't have to come in. Just sit out here."

  He snorted, opening his car door. "Fat chance of that. I can't have her manipulating you three."

  Sai also got out and moved his seat forward. He peered over the top of the car at Zeke. "Just don't be a complete douche. If an asshole thought enters your head, don't say it."

  Zeke flipped both of us off as Bon closed the passenger side door and we headed into the AC'd, even in the fall, library.

  We went to the backroom and she came into view through the small window in the door, the rest of the blinds were drawn shut around the copious windows the place held. I doubted her stalker would be able to see through them.

  She sat at the long conference table. Leg crossed over her knee, her barefoot bounced, heels kicked off on the floor next to her. She strummed her fingers on the table. The massive sunglasses she'd worn all day still on as she stared at the wall.

  Bon opened the door. We trailed into the room, and Sai closed it. She stood from her chair and adjusted the skin-tight sweater dress she wore; a little warm for it, but she always seemed to wear things that covered her from the neck down. She'd never been one to wear something revealing.

  "Hi, thank you for coming." Chanel cleared her throat and peered at us from behind her shades. "I wanted to set up a schedule with you." Her head turned in my direction. "Sorry I never responded to your message about yesterday." She ran her finger over a deep gash in the table's surface. "That's the other thing I wanted to talk about. What happened on Saturday evening? I remember I ran into you guys at the park, and the next thing I know I'm waking up this morning with a hangover. I don't drink. I don't remember what happened."

  We looked at each other. We knew about the texts that came in. They were alarming as if someone had gone into her home, but she stood before us, so if someone was in her house, they didn't kill her. None of us could tell her we made a copy of her phone and could see all her incoming and outgoing texts and anything else.

  Sai moved to sit in one of the chairs, and she followed, taking her seat again. He peered at us, before looking back to her. "You paid for food for all of us at the buffet and then had to go when you got a text on your phone. You seemed anxious about it. You didn't say what happened, but that you needed to go. We didn't hear from you again until this morning.

  A frown pulled at her lips and she picked her phone up from the table. She thumbed through several screens and then shook her head. "I don't have any strange texts or anything. I only had one message this morning, and it was from Rhett about Sunday. I didn't see any other messages new or old that I don't remember getting."

  I frowned. We had proof that she'd been getting creepy messages from someone who called themselves Red. I stepped over to her and held out my hand. "Can I take a look?"

  Without hesitation, she handed her phone over. I lifted an eyebrow, I didn't expect her to be so trusting. I opened the messaging app on her phone, indeed the messages from Red were gone as if they never happened, but nothing was ever truly deleted when massive corporations were involved. Going to the settings I looked for the archived messages. The app always said they were permanently deleted, but in truth, they were archived for months on end until they did a data dump, and even then, backups were made beforehand.

  The Red messages appeared at the top of the list. I opened it, scanning over the creepy messages, all the ones we had copies of were there. I handed the phone back to her. "These show they're from Saturday night. They were deleted, but I found them in the archived messages. Deleted never means gone forever in the digital world."

  Chanel took her phone back and scrolled through the messages. She gulped and put the phone down. Her hand went to her head and her fingers rubbed at her temple. "I kinda remember someone being in my house on Saturday. I was home alone, but I can't remember for the life of me what happened after that."

  She pulled her glasses off and ran a hand over her face. A swollen, purple bruise covered most of her right eye.

  Bon came forward and lifted her chin. She startled at his touch and looked at him. "What are you doing?" Then her gaze went to her sunglasses. "Oh. I think a girl punched me at some point, but I can't remember why or who it was."

  Sai sat forward on the table. "So you remember somethings, but not everything?"

  Bon ran a finger over the bruise and she flinched out of his touch with a scowl. He lowered his hand. "Sorry. Well, you can open your eye, so the swelling should continue to go down. Taking some ibuprofen should help."

  She blinked at him and Bon laughed. "Sai isn't the only one becoming a doctor."

  Picking her glasses back up, she put them on her face. "Thanks. I think I have some of that at my house."

  My stomach rolled, something bad happened to her, and she couldn't remember most of it. The situation had gone from wanting to teach her a lesson in humility to finding out she had a stalker or something, who could be drugging her.

  Her gaze went to Sai. "Sort of, I'm seeing flashes of random things, but there's no order to it, and half the time the sound feels chopped up."

  Bon and I took seats near her. Zeke snorted. He still stood at the far end of the table, arms crossed over his chest. "Could it be you just took some Molly, drank too much, and blacked out?"

  Chanel stiffened and stared at him. "I don't know what happened. I know I drank, but I don't know why. I don't drink, not even at the parties Jason throws. It's not worth it, and I learned early on that I hate rum, yet, that's all I threw up this morning. Now seeing those messages, I have no idea what happened. And I've tried Molly, it never fucked me up bad enough that I couldn't remember what I did on it. I don't appreciate your condescension."

  Zeke lifted an eyebrow and I braced for whatever harsh thing would fall out of his mouth and splat on the floor. He flicked his blonde hair from his hipster black frames. "Ooo, another big word. Don't burn out your brain."

  Sai growled. "Zeke, if you're just going to be an asshole, you can go wait in the car. We'll be out in a bit."

  Zeke rolled his brown eyes and pulled out a chair, he flopped into it, he kept his mouth shut.

  "Beauf." Her muttered breath reached my ears and I snickered.

  Sai leaned back in his chair. "Do you have anyone at home?"

  Her gaze went to the table, her fingers running over the various markings marring the surface. "The maids are supposed to be there since my mother is away, but Roberta had the night off last night. I paid Monica to take her shift off and lie to my mother, so I could go to the park. This morning Roberta was supposed to..." she trailed off. "To be there, but she wasn't and it's Monica's day off. I don't know if anyone will be at the house or not."

  The urge to reach out and take her fidgeting fingers in my hand overwhelmed me, the tone in voice felt so distant, and she didn't speak of her home as her home, but a
n object. I got that feeling.

  Bon leaned toward her. "You can't be alone if someone is messing with you like this."

  Chanel's shoulder heaved with a sigh. "I have no choice. I can't stay somewhere else, my mother would kill me, she has to approve it first and know who I'll be around. Can't have someone stay at the house either for the same reason. She's gearing up to run for president, I need to remain squeaky clean."

  Zeke sighed. "How old are you?"

  Her head lifted, brows coming together. "I just turned eighteen over the summer. What does that have to do with anything?"

  He sat forward. "Well, for starters, if you don't want to stay under her roof, you legally don't have to. She can't force you to live with her. In the eyes of the law, your a competent, independent adult now. You can live where ever the fuck you want."

  Her eyes widened behind the shades. "Saturday night, after I left you guys. I remember! I was going to run away. I'd wanted it to be to a college as far from here as possible, but after those messages, I decided it needed to be right then and I didn't care. I went back to the house and packed a bag, but before I could leave, they were there, scratching at my bedroom door. They called me on the phone and played an audio clip of when my dad would sing to me, which are on old DVDs we keep in the attic."

  A chill ran down my spine for her. "That's creepy."

  Her hand went into her hair, messing it up. "I feel like I'm going insane."

  My heart hammered against my chest as I sat next to her. I'd expected myself to go back to normal around her once I was sober. However, despite trying to be rational about it, seeing that bruise around her eye sent a rage through me I didn't think I could possess. She needed help and I wanted to do nothing more than get her out of the situation she found herself in.

  I kept myself cool on the outside. "Do you have a girlfriend you could stay with? What about Lyric?" If she said no, I'd offer the guest room at my place, my parents worked so much I doubted either one of them would notice.