by Nicole Thorn
“Maybe you’re the one who needs to go,” Peter said. “I came here to check up on my friend, and it’s not cool that you’re being a dick about it. I get that you want in her pants, but the tough guy thing doesn’t work on her.”
“Is that so?” Poe asked. “Because you know how to get in her pants? And you not only know that I haven’t been there already, but that’s my goal? That’s a real fucked up thing to say in front of someone you supposedly care about.”
I stood there, watching the boys go at it, feeling like the kid waiting for her turn to jump into double Dutch. They went back and forth, and I didn’t have anything to say. Nothing would have come out clever or well thought out. I wanted to spit fire, and I didn’t know how to aim for the fatality.
“I care more about her than you do,” Peter said. “For example, I wouldn’t feel her up in the middle of the hall.”
Poe smiled, and clapped his hands lightly. “Well good for you, Saint Peter. Aren’t you just an angel? Let’s chat about how you like to nag her all the damn time, making sure her self-esteem stayed low enough so that she wouldn’t have wandered from you.”
What? I tugged on Poe’s sleeve, getting his attention. “What does that mean?”
The heat drained from him, and he turned back into my sweet, careful Poe again when he spoke to me with gentleness. “If you think people won’t like you, then you wouldn’t go make new friends. You wouldn’t meet people. If you didn’t think you were pretty, then you wouldn’t have wandering eyes. If you thought the only person that loved you was Peter, then who else would you need?”
My chest pumped as I worked it out in my head, trying so hard to make it sound like that wasn’t it. Peter wouldn’t have hurt me on purpose like that. He wasn’t mean. Was he?
I stared at Peter as I went over what we had been to each other. How many times did he tell me that I wasn’t meant to be around people? How many times did he take a jab at me, hurt my feelings, and write it off as being honest? Too many. I let those moments go, because I thought he didn’t mean any harm. It never occurred to me that this had been calculated.
“You don’t know shit,” Peter said between his teeth.
“Do you do that to Kelly?” I asked quietly.
Peter sputtered. “What?”
I forced my eyes up from the floor. “Do you make Kelly feel bad about herself too? She’s got friends. You must be worried about that. She’s got other people, when I had no one.”
“I didn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t have hurt you on purpose.”
“But you did hurt me. All the time. You have to have known you did. Watching me get quieter, and curl in on myself. You knew me well enough to understand when I wasn’t feeling good. Instead of trying to make me feel better, you did nothing.”
While Poe took my hand, Peter searched for something to say. “You know I suck at that kind of thing. I would have only made it worse.”
“You could have at least tried. It would have made all the difference. Even once in a while.”
But he didn’t do that. He never took my hand like this. Peter never spoke softly to me, telling me that even though everything felt like mush, and blackness, and hate, it would have been okay in the end. He didn’t try and make me laugh, or clear the tears off of my face. He only told me he loved me, when he’d fucked up, and put his foot in his mouth.
Did I make up everything in my head? Forming this wonderful, important relationship, when it had only been toxic? It didn’t make sense. We’d fit together so well, and it felt so right. My brain wanted to reject the idea that we could have been anything but perfect, and that I had lost something special.
What the fuck did I know?
“You’re out of your mind,” Peter told me.
Poe took over when I couldn’t force words anymore. He spoke calmly, and with the confidence that came from knowing he was my favorite here. I didn’t grudge him that. “You came to see how Clover was doing. I’m taking care of her, so you’re not needed. You should go now.”
Peter looked to me, expecting me to put the boy in his place. So I made it clear exactly where that place was. “Yeah, you need to go now. Thanks for checking up on me, but I can’t keep this up. It hurts me when we talk, Peter. Like a stab to my chest, every single time. Well-meaning or not, you need to let me get over you, because this isn’t working. I don’t want to hurt all the time. I can’t…breathe.”
He took my words, and I watched him think them over. He didn’t wear surprise on his face, but maybe irritation. Worry. Loss. Poe squeezed my hand as Peter said, “Fine. I get it. You don’t want me.” He shook his head. “What would you want with me when you have a shiny new toy to play with?” Peter sneered at Poe. “Have fun then.”
I watched him walk away, and Poe kissed the side of my head, asking me if I was okay. I told him no, and held his hand tightly. If I kept holding it, then the world wouldn’t have hurt as much. It would have given me something other than Peter to think about. And all I’d lost, and never had to start with.
Poe held onto me, and a couple silent beats passed before, in a light tone, he said, “Are you pissed at me for insinuating we slept together? That’s it, right?” He sighed. “If you want to punish me, you may. Maybe by forcing me to pee on Peter’s car.”
No part of me wanted to, but I couldn’t help but laugh at that. When I did, it did just a bit to make me feel better. “I think I would rather ditch class again. Are you in the mood to play video games while I rest against you, with nothing important or interesting to say?”
Poe smiled kindly at me. “Any time.”
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Deeper We Fall
“Nothing makes me feel more like an adult than consuming an entire pint of ice cream in ten minutes. God I feel sexy.” Cathy stretched against the floor, her limbs sprawled out as her bare toes wiggled. She groaned.
Poe and I laid beside her on the floor of his room, having eaten two large pizzas between the two of us. I wanted to lobby for a sleepover tonight, since we’d made it to another Friday. I could have lied to my parents about where I was, saying Cathy and I would be at her house. The real trouble would have been if Poe’s parents minded.
“Has the douche spoken to you since your spat?” Cathy asked, reaching for a bag of chips beside her. “Also, I’m crazy pissed I missed it. We’ll have to do it again so I can play.”
Poe answered her, since I wanted nothing to do with anything Peter related. “As far as I know, he’s said nothing. I’m surprised that he didn’t try and corner Clover when we weren’t around.”
“That hardly happens,” I reminded him. “Since you all have me on Tammy watch.”
Poe patted the side of my leg, probably too lazy to do anything else. “It’s for your own good. Also, for the good of the school, because if anyone hurt you again, I would have to become a murderer. I want to at least make it to my twenties before that happens.”
“You sure?” Cathy asked. “You could be like that Bonnie and Clyde couple from Texas. Sounds fucking cool.”
I shot her a look. “Tell me how it’s cool that two kids our age helped murder a bunch of people at a charity event.”
“I shall,” Cathy said, sitting up as she took the challenge. “They said that the girl killed her parents, so I assumed they had it coming. And I heard the boy got thrashed by his asshole of a father. Clearly those two are doing the best they can.”
Poe sighed. “Only you can take murderers and make them sound like heroes.”
“Of course they’re heroes! They got shit done. You think that people flip like that for no reason? They don’t. I’m on the side of those crazy bastards, and I hope they get the very best in life.”
I smiled to myself, but offered no comment.
Poe and I restarted our video game, while Cathy hurt herself with more food. She moved over to the bed for it, and judged my and Poe’s every choice in Mario Party.
“When are your parents getting back?” I asked Poe.
“Um�
��” he said, staring at the TV as his character fell off a platform. “Probably another couple of hours. Why? You wanna do it on their bed? I’m not into that, but I’m down for the floor or something.”
I play-shoved him, then told him of my sleepover wishes. I mostly didn’t want to be alone for any amount of time. The nights seemed to be getting longer, and I couldn’t sleep through them.
“Am I invited?” Cathy asked with a gleeful grin.
“Obviously,” I said. “Why wouldn’t you be?”
“Maybe you and Poe wanna get all snuggled. I don’t fuckin’ know what you do when I’m not around. I mean, other than grinding.”
My cheeks turned red. “Shut up.”
“Nah.”
Poe looked over his shoulder, at the bed we sat in front of. “Is it going to be weird, us all sleeping in a bed together? I can sleep on the floor.”
“No,” I said, answering both sentences. “We can share. I think it’ll be fine.”
Cathy sighed, hanging her head. “Imagine the fanfic… You can be the meat in our platonic little sandwich, Clover. I would rather not accidentally get all up and close to Poe if he gets all happy in the morning.”
I didn’t fight her. One, because I knew that Poe did get all ‘happy’ after a nap. And two, the thought of her feeling it gave me the irrational urge to murder her, and it would have been a shame to lose a friend like that.
“So it’s settled,” Poe said. “I think my parents would be fine with it. Since it’s the both of you. They wouldn’t think I had enough game to bag two girls.”
I frowned. “Aww. Wanna prove them wrong?”
“Yeah,” Cathy said. “I’ll screw you to prove a point. I can close my eyes and pretend it’s a girl inside of me…” Her face got a little sad. “I didn’t like how that sounded out loud.”
“No one did,” Poe said. “And might I say that I’m offended you’d have to pretend I’m a girl. You like dudes.”
“Barely,” our friend said, literally rolling off of the bed. “Come. I want ice cream, and I wanna pick up my jim jams. No need to wear your clothes to sleep.” When the two of us got up, she smirked. “I bet Poe just looooves it when you wear his clothes.”
“I deny nothing,” Poe remarked.
We walked together downstairs, no one commenting when Poe handed me his sweater before we got out into the chilly dusk. Cathy waggled her eyebrows at me though, and I stuck my tongue out at her.
Poe grabbed me by the arm out of nowhere, and did the same for Cathy, pulling us back roughly. It almost hurt, and he didn’t let go. Before I could question it, I saw where his gaze landed, and mine froze on the same spot.
Maybe fifty feet away, Tammy leaned against a brick wall that separated the two streets we stood on. She didn’t move when she saw us find her, and I couldn’t read her eerily blank face. She looked like a mannequin, so stiff and empty. I saw nothing in her eyes that could have even suggested Tammy saw anything. If she ended up being dead, and pinned against the bricks, it wouldn’t have surprised me.
But Cathy’s scream did.
She ripped herself away from Poe before I knew what happened. Then I saw her running to her car, broken glass of her door window on the ground beside it. My eyes went there first, but to the rearview mirror second.
It looked small, and fluffy, and white, and bloody. The thing hung from her mirror, and my heart might have stopped beating when Poe and I started hurrying after Cathy as she screamed out Cujo’s name. She didn’t heed the glass around her car, trying to dive in after the white and red lump. Poe got to her before I did, and pulled her away from the car. She fought, hitting him in the arm.
“Get her,” Poe told me, holding Cathy back.
I did my best to keep her, and Poe did the dirty work of getting into the car. Cathy stopped, and hid her face against my shoulder at the same time I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see the mangled dog, and I didn’t want to hear the scream when Cathy knew for sure what this had been.
Poe sighed, but I didn’t look. “It’s not Cujo,” he said, letting all the pressure out of our heads.
Cathy turned to him, and we looked at the same time. She still clung to me, and I saw Poe cradling the corpse of an innocent rabbit. At a closer look, it became more obvious than before. His bent ears and shredded body made me feel cold, but he wasn’t Cujo. Blood stuck to his fur, coming from the many…many wounds on his body. The holes looked about the width of a pencil.
“Oh my god,” came out of my mouth.
Cathy’s head whipped around, fury in her eyes. “Where’s that little bitch? I’m about to take a life here.”
I raised the glass on the ground, making Poe step back. “I got about two hundred little bullets here that I can direct anywhere you please.”
“Good,” Cathy growled.
But neither of us saw Tammy where she had been standing. I searched, and the girl had vanished.
“TAMARA!” Cathy screamed out at the sky.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I saw Poe behind me. “Think for a second, and breathe.” He set the bunny down on the hood of the car, and stared for a moment at the blood on his shirt.
I couldn’t kill Tammy, and it seemed obvious now. Instead of cutting Tammy to pieces, I put the window back together while Cathy paced, and attempted to pull herself together.
“What kind of a psycho bitch…” she said. “What the fuck is her problem? This isn’t pictures, or threats. She killed an animal, and put it in my car.”
“An animal we have to take care of,” Poe said. “Follow me. I’m not throwing it in the trash.”
We all went to his backyard, and Poe got a shovel from his shed. Poe started digging a hole while Cathy seethed.
“This ends here,” she said. “We’re going to the fucking cops, and telling them everything. And then I might go kill Tammy anyway, and then cuddle Cujo for like ten years.”
I put my hand on Cathy’s back, hoping to comfort her. “Okay, we can talk to the police. After that, we’ll go to your house, get Cujo, and come back here. Does that sound good to you?”
She breathed, and then nodded. “Fine.”
Poe finished the grave, and laid the bunny inside. I wanted to thank him for being the one to do all this, since it couldn’t have been pleasant for him either. Instead, I stared at the bloody mess, realizing with perfect clarity, that I was the reason this innocent animal died.
“We should say something,” Cathy insisted. “Give him a proper burial.”
Poe looked frantic for a moment, stalling with, “Umm. He was a good bunny… A brave bunny…” He bumped me. “Help please.”
I had trouble too, but I made the effort. “I’m sorry, little bunny. I’m sorry that a psycho bitch killed you, and I’m sorry that she did it because of me. I will avenge you.”
Poe pulled me to his side, and rubbed my arm while Cathy stepped to the grave. She stared at it, angry and ready to murder. “I’m sorry too, Mr. Bunny. I’m sorry I didn’t scare the fuck out of Tammy before she got to you. And I’m sorry that Clover is crazy and thinks this is her fault.”
Before I could correct her, Cathy glared over at me, daring me to fight it. I didn’t.
Once Mr. Bunny was laid to rest, we took Cathy’s car, and headed down to the police station. It made me twitchy just to be there, even though I didn’t do anything wrong. My anxiety liked to screw me over like that, convincing me the police would magically discover I’d broken a law, and lock me up. Never mind that I didn’t break a law, or look like I might have. I didn’t look like I could have done so much as swatted a fly away.
We walked in together, and it took no time for an officer to see my bloody friend, and approach us. His body language came across as cautious, but concerned. “Are you hurt?”
“It’s not my blood,” Poe said, half a second before realizing he shouldn’t.
The officer—Fallow, by the name on his uniform—blinked. “Are you here for a confession?”
Cathy cut in,
and Poe and I didn’t get a chance to say anything. “A girl from our school busted the window in my car, and put a murdered animal inside, trying to make me think it was my dog.”
The man blanked for a second, and then told us to follow him. The three of us went into another room, with officers moving around, and some talking on phones at their desk. We sat at his, after he got chairs to put across it.
“Did you see this happen?” he asked. “Tell me everything.”
Cathy still led the conversation, explaining how Tammy had a problem with me, starting back to the car thing. She laid out all the facts as we believed them, deciding that we didn’t have to hide anything from the officer. I guess we didn’t, since none of us did anything wrong. My smashing the car had been an accident, and everything else, had been Tammy.
The man wrote it all down on a yellow pad of paper, but I couldn’t see exactly what the notes said. He filled a page, so I assumed he got all of it. He sighed, and looked up at us, his eyes catching Poe’s bloody shirt.
“Do you have the dead rabbit?”
Cathy narrowed her eyes. “We didn’t stick it in a freezer to keep him fresh. It got buried.”
“Okay. Did you drive here in the car that was broken into? We’ll have to take a look at it.”
My eyes closed as I cursed to myself. “I’m a glass worker,” I said. “I fixed the window before we got here.”
Officer Fallow sighed. “The only physical evidence you had is buried, and repaired? Is that what you’re telling me?”
Cathy wasn’t about to let this go, and I didn’t blame her. If someone tried to scare me like Tammy had, then I would have destroyed her like she wanted to do with me. “I feel like the blood on my buddy over here is evidence. Not to mention that we saw her when I found the rabbit. And she had someone punch my other friend in the face. See all the bruises.” She pointed to me. “Does that count for nothing?”
