Wild War

by Laurelin Paige

  So it was a real shame to have such venomous feelings toward her now. Real, real shame.

  I finished coloring in the block letters of the latest version of the phrase I’d drawn, this time on the borders of the Winter Talent Exhibition program, then stole a glance down the row to where she was seated.

  Big mistake.

  Because she wasn’t just holding Cade’s hand and giggling like she had been the last time I’d peeked. Now they were making out like they were at the local movie theater instead of in the school auditorium.

  I REALLY FUCKING HATE HER.

  I drew the words so aggressively that the program tore. It hadn’t been high-quality paper, to be fair. My father boasted a quality school, but he was cheap when he had the opportunity.

  The annual Winter Talent Exhibition, for example. Everyone knew it was a bullshit day. Half of the school had already gone home for the break. The rest of us had to endure ninety minutes of poetry recitations, piano performances, and choir renditions of holiday songs. With so many empty chairs in the three-hundred-fifty-seat auditorium, there was plenty of space for students to stretch out or break off in cliques.

  Or, in Cade and Amelia’s case, in couples.

  And since my father had already left with an unruly bunch of tenth graders, the couples were now free to get coupling.

  Another glance from me down the row—I couldn’t help myself—this time my gaze smacked right into Cade’s. He was still kissing Amelia, but his eyes were open, watching me, and as if to prove this whole relationship with her was only about pushing me away, he waited until he was sure I was looking before sliding his hand up her bare thigh.

  I crumpled the flimsy paper without realizing what I was doing. God, I wanted to hate Cade. Wanted to wish him dead. Wanted to hate him so much that I would do something just as hurtful back to him.

  No, I didn’t.

  I wanted to not feel anything for him at all. That’s what I wanted. I wanted not to care. I wanted not to notice. I wanted to not be aware of every move he made in his room down the hall from mine. Wanted to not be counting the minutes of the two and a half weeks that had passed since he’d said don’t and then kissed the air out of my lungs and made me light enough to fly.

  He’d barely looked at me since then. Except times like now, when he would throw his relationship with Amelia in my face. Every time I saw him at school these days, he was with her. Holding her hand in the school cafe. Laughing with her in the hallways. Feeling her up in the library during study hall when he was supposed to be in Physics.

  Well, I’d gotten the message. Loud and clear. He’d had a moment with me, but that’s all it was. Anything more was too big of a risk, and I understood that better than anyone what that risk would cost. I wasn’t worth that. I would never be worth that.

  I wiped a tear and threw the crumpled program to the ground, then put my energy into applauding the solo modern dance routine from Isla Perez, hoping anyone who saw me would think I’d been moved by her performance. Who knew that I could still feel things? I’d thought I’d taught myself to bury any emotions. So close to getting out of this hellhole—five months before my eighteenth birthday and graduation—and this was when my heart started to beat again?

  Not fair, God. Not fucking fair.

  “Hey, Julsianna.”

  I didn’t have to look up to see that it was Antoine Birch slipping into the empty seat at my side. Even if I didn’t recognize his voice, he was the only person who called me that nickname. I’d liked it for a hot minute back in eighth grade when I thought it meant I was special to him, but as soon as I realized it was code for I have something for you in my pants, that liking had worn off.

  I especially hated it after hearing Cade’s name for me. Maybe the only difference was how I felt for the boy who’d said it, but I didn’t think that was all there was to it. Jolie came all by itself, with no attachments. It felt more like a gift than a bribe. It was an invitation to be something more than I was. Someone different.

  Julsianna was just an invitation to get on my knees.

  As the applause died down, and Ms. Stacey’s Advanced Drama Class took the stage to perform a scene, I resisted the urge to tell Birch that I wasn’t in the mood for him. That wasn’t something Julianna would say. That was something Jolie would say, and as much as I wanted to be, that wasn’t who I was yet. She was still just a seedling buried under my skin, waiting for the right season to bloom.

  “What’s up?” I whispered instead.

  He leaned close enough that I could feel his breath tickle my ear. “This is bo-ring. Don’t you think?”

  I shrugged. To be honest, I’d barely been paying attention, and the show I was watching might have been devastating, but it definitely wasn’t boring. Involuntarily, I slid my eyes back to Cade and Amelia. This time he wasn’t watching me, and now she was on his lap, her legs spread slightly, his hand under her skirt.

  The seedling inside me let out a string of curse words. Jolie, it seemed, had quite a mouth.

  Biting down on the inside of my lip, I brought my ankle up to my opposite knee, facing away from Birch so he wouldn’t be able to see my artwork, and took my pen to the bottom of my Mary Jane.

  I Hate. Amelia. Lu.

  I was too resentful to keep myself from using her name. Too consumed with rage to worry about what I’d say if my father discovered it. I’d have to pretend I was racist or something since he’d never believe anyone could hate Amelia. I couldn’t ever let him guess the real reason.

  “I swear the drama class does this Steel Magnolias scene every goddamn year,” Birch said. “I think I have it memorized.”

  “Not many scenes with lots of characters, I guess.” I doubted he’d paid enough attention to it any of the years prior to learn a single line, let alone memorize it, but that was Jolie who was contradicting him.

  He let a good three minutes go by before saying anything else. “‘...I’ve just been in a very bad mood for forty years!’” He laughed, quoting one of the more infamous lines from the scene.

  I guess he did know the show after all.

  I pretended to laugh. I was quite good at smiling while dying inside. I really should have been on that stage. If my father wasn’t so controlling of all my extracurricular activities, maybe I would have.

  “Whatcha drawing?” Birch stretched his arm on the seat behind me. Casually. Like he was just trying to make it easier to talk to me without disturbing the whole audience.

  I wasn’t stupid.

  “Just doodling.” I dropped my pen in my lap and crossed my legs, instinctively hiding what was between my thighs as well as what was on my shoe.

  Like the single-minded sex addict that he was, he seemed to think I was flirting. He brought his hand up from the chair back to tickle along my neck.

  My whole body tensed.

  He ignored the cues and brought his opposite hand to my knee. “You should let me doodle.” His whisper had grown husky. “My fingers are amazing at...doodling.”

  I knew how to get him to leave me alone. The same trick I used every other time he started to come on to me. By now, I had a feeling that he only offered to take care of me first because he knew I’d push his hand away and suck him off instead.

  Not for the first time, I considered that it didn’t have to be one or the other. It could be both. It could be neither. I could say no to all of it.

  It was possible I didn’t know how to say no. It had been so long since I’d actually tried it. It had been so long since I’d cared about saying no. There were benefits to being the girl who’d put out. There was satisfaction in getting away with something my father abhorred. I was careful about where and when I performed, and the boys definitely weren’t going to confess to him.

  And it made me feel wanted.

  I knew that wasn’t real—they wanted any hand around their cocks. They didn’t care whose face the lips were attached to. They didn’t want me.

  But it felt close enough to real for me to
accept it. To crave it, even.

  And most days I was pretty sure it was all I was good for, so why not be the best that I could be?

  It would be easy enough right now, in the dark. My father, preoccupied with dealing with the troublemakers in his office. I could slip my hand into his khakis and get him off. Birch was an early releaser. It wouldn’t take more than five minutes. Maybe less since, knowing him, he’d probably find the whole public thing too hot to hold out.

  It could even be satisfying for me, if I convinced myself that Cade would look down the aisle and see. If I could believe he’d care. I could fantasize his jealousy into something real instead of just a projection of what I felt inside.

  “What do you say, Julsianna?” His fingertips had reached the elastic band of my panties.

  I pushed his hand away. “Antoine…” I scolded in a tone that was more flirty than reprimand.

  He took my hand with his. “Then maybe you could doodle instead.” He placed my palm on the bulge at his crotch and helped me rub him. “You know what I like.”

  He liked what they all liked.

  The same thing.

  No commitments, no obligations in return.

  Except Cade. I kept offering myself to him, and he hadn’t taken. Was it possible he cared about me for more than just that? Or did he really not care enough to take the chance?

  Back to that, always back to him. And I couldn’t know what he thought or what he wanted because he wouldn’t talk to me. All I could know was myself, and even if I meant nothing to Cade, there was Jolie now. He’d made her real inside me, and Jolie was faithful, if not to Cade, then to herself.

  Jolie didn’t want to be the school boy toy anymore.

  Jolie knew how to say no.

  Quietly, though, since she wasn’t real enough yet to make a scene. “This isn’t the best idea,” I whispered, trying to extricate my hand from under his.

  He clamped down on it harder, forbidding my escape. “That’s what makes it such a fun idea. Come on. You can use my sweater to clean up if you don’t want to use your mouth.”

  My stomach turned rock hard. I didn’t want to fight him. Please, don’t make me have to fight him. “I really don’t want to right now, Birch.”

  “I’ll be fast.” He unzipped his pants with his free hand, not bothering with the button, and pulled out his dick from the hole in his boxers. “I’m already super hard. Feel it.”

  “No,” I hissed, surprising myself. “No,” I said again, stronger, when he tried to force my hand around his girth.

  “Don’t be like this, Juls. Don’t play like you’re suddenly a prude.”

  “I don’t. Want. To.” I glared hard at him, as though my stare could stand up to his strength.

  “Why are you being such a bitch right now? I’m not even asking you to suck me. Just give me a little tug.”

  I was about to put my shoulder into pushing him away when suddenly he wasn’t there anymore to push.

  “She said no, you asshole!” Cade had lifted him out of his chair and was holding him by the scruff of his shirt, his expression brutal.

  It was an unusual look on Cade. He was generally somber, but he wasn’t a bully. And if anyone were to place bets, odds would probably go to Birch who was practiced at being a bully.

  From my vantage point, though, where I could clearly see the look in his eyes—my money was on Cade all the way.

  “Ah, I get it. Big brother’s got dibs on you now, does he?” Birch didn’t seem to have the same perspective I did.

  Not until Cade’s fist landed squarely in his face. With the sound of skin smacking against skin, I realized the stage had gotten awfully quiet.

  The attention of everyone in the auditorium had turned to us.

  Panic rushed through me—panic for Cade—as a familiar voice cut through the silence. “What the hell is going on here? Birch. Warren. In the hall.”

  My father had returned. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Birch yanked himself away from Cade’s grasp and wiped his bloody nose with the back of his sleeve. “I didn’t do shit,” he said, as he walked past me down the aisle, pleading his case while he used his sweater to help stop the bleeding. “He just hit me out of the blue. He’s trouble, Headmaster Stark. You know he is.”

  It was absolute bullshit but an obvious line of defense. Everyone in the school knew how often Cade was in my father’s office.

  Cade didn’t look at me as he followed after. He also didn’t say a word.

  “Ms. Stacey,” Dad bellowed. “Tell your students to pick up where they left off.” He opened the door to the auditorium and waited for the two boys to follow after.

  I exchanged a glance with Amelia, who was sitting back in her own chair and appeared to want to stay out of the whole business. For the first time since I’d met her, though, her expression wasn’t friendly. She looked very much like she was about to start writing I hate Julianna Stark on the bottom of her shoes.

  I couldn’t worry about her right now. What mattered was standing up for Cade.

  Rushing out, I caught up with them still in the hall. “Cade was defending me, Daddy,” I called out.

  He stopped to throw me a look that I knew very well, one that told me to stay the fuck out of it or pay the consequences.

  I was trained to step down with that look.

  It took willpower that I didn’t know I had to override that instinct. “Birch was getting handsy,” I insisted.

  And I swallowed. Because there was no way that my father wouldn’t think that was my fault. There was no way that he would believe his daughter over the claims of one of the most important students in his student body.

  “Now this dick is corrupting your daughter too,” Birch said, with as much drama as the actors on the stage we’d just left, his words muffled through the sweater still pressed to his nose. “Un-fucking-believable. You’re not going to let him get away with that, Headmaster Stark, are you? My dad will be very disappointed.”

  “Watch your mouth, Birch.” But my father was already talking softer to him. There was no way he was going to be punished for anything.

  “She’s telling the truth,” a voice interrupted from behind me. “Antoine was trying to get Julianna to do something she didn’t want to do.”

  Amelia had followed me out after all. Like I needed more reasons to feel guilty for hating her.

  My father might be able to ignore what I said or what Cade said—he hadn’t said anything, apparently aware that nothing he said would matter—but he couldn’t just disregard another paying student’s accusations. Could he?

  “I didn’t do—!”

  “That’s enough, Birch.” My father’s eyes scanned us one by one, the fury behind them growing as he evaluated his options.

  I could imagine what he wanted from me. It’s no big deal, he wanted me to say. Wanted me to save him from having to severely discipline a high-profile student.

  It would be better for me to say it. I was already going to get in trouble for “provoking” Birch’s advances. He might cut me a break if I took back the accusation now.

  All I cared about was what helped Cade. And I honestly didn’t know what that was, so I stayed silent.

  Cade saw an opportunity to help himself. “Just looking out for my sister, sir,” he said, looking directly at me with an expression that said there was no way in hell he thought of me as his sister.

  My heart stuttered in my chest.

  “Regardless,” my father said after a beat. “You can’t punch other students. That’s behavior that should result in expulsion.”

  “Exactly,” Birch said.

  “Shut up, Antoine. If you don’t want to face expulsion yourself, you’ll take what you got as punishment and leave it at that.”

  So he’d get away with it. Of course, he would.

  “Thank you, ladies,” my father continued, dismissing us. “Please return to the assembly. I’ll take care of it from here.” He turned to Birch. “Get yourself cleaned up.” Then
to Cade. “My office.”

  I prayed Cade’s punishment wasn’t terrible. It couldn’t be, could it? He couldn’t risk Amelia Lu running home to her parents and complaining about injustice, and the best way to avoid that would be a slap on the wrist.

  One look at Cade said he didn’t share my optimism. But he stared at me for long seconds, then whispered, “Worth it,” before following my father down the hall.

  Fourteen

  Cade

  I turned off the water, grabbed a towel from the stack outside the boy’s shower, and tied it around my waist. It had taken fifteen minutes before my fingers and nose didn’t feel frostbitten from being outside, but all in all, it had been the easiest punishment Stark had ever given me. I would hands down choose an hour running six miles versus five minutes with the whip, any day, no matter the toll to my body.

  While the physical pain had been more tolerable, I was still wrestling with what it had done to my psyche. I’d thought I’d already seen the worst of my stepfather, or imagined it, and yet I was still somehow surprised by his reaction to today’s events.

  I’d known he was a monster.

  But even monsters protected their own children, didn’t they?

  Guess I’d been wrong because all Birch had gotten was what I’d given him, and in the end, that wasn’t that much. I’d hit him hard enough to bleed, but the nurse had come into Stark’s office while I’d been in there and told him his nose hadn’t been broken. Disappointing. He should have been expelled for assault. He should have been in jail for what he’d tried to do to his daughter.

  I would have killed the guy if Jolie was in any way mine.

  I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t have killed him today if I hadn’t been stopped. I sure fucking wanted to.

  I shook my head of the thought, drops of water splattering from my hair to the tile, then walked out of the shower area toward the lockers.

  Despite all the hard surfaces, the locker room was strangely peaceful when it wasn’t filled with an entire gym class. I was actually glad Stark had suggested I clean up there after my run instead of going home. Of course, he’d passed it off as doing me a favor, and I was sure he’d lord it over me anytime he got a chance. How he’d gone soft on me. How there was no other student who could get away with violence and still be enrolled. How he’d have to think up some way to explain his leniency to Birch’s parents.