Chapter 12
WOLF
I drive until the anger stops burning me alive. Until the roar of my bike becomes a slow, tired growl.
Still, Mark’s words follow me.
How long has it been? Almost three years? And I can still hear him calling me shitty names over and over again. I can still feel his every punch, my ribs and stomach aching.
And the worst part?
I still loved him. Even as it was happening.
I pull over onto the shoulder and park, throwing my helmet on the gravel. My hands itch to ruin something, to make it feel as much pain as I feel.
This isn’t right. Nothing about what I’m feeling is right.
I promised myself never again, and I meant it. I can’t love someone else. Not after the last time destroyed me. Seeing Bee in that dress, so beautiful and elegant and shy, sent waves of longing through me. I tried to open my mouth to say something, but my whole body was frozen. I was fucking terrified how suddenly the urge came to get up and kiss her, right there and then, in front of everyone. Regardless of everyone. Regardless of my past, or Mark, or my fear of touching other people.
She rips right through my defenses, and I’m powerless to stop it.
And my idiotic brothers think teasing me about her will help? No. It only makes it worse. So I lashed out at them, at her, at everyone.
I sink to the ground, leaning against my bike for support.
“If you were here, I’d ask you for advice,” I say, though the bike doesn’t respond. It never does. I know better than anyone it’s just a hunk of metal, but my memories of Mom taking me for rides when I was a child still follow me. It’ll always be her bike, not mine. It’ll always remind me of her, no matter how old I get or how much I forget her face, or her voice.
She left me this, and it’s all I have left. So I talk to it.
“I never even got to tell you,” I say. “That I’m bi. Not that you’d care. But you wouldn’t hate me for it like Dad does. You’d make me cake and throw me a little party, or something equally embarrassing and over-enthusiastic and parent-y.”
The bike is silent, the warmth of the engine seeping through my jacket.
“Love just…happens,” I groan. “And I hate it. I hate every part of it. I wouldn’t be this way if it wasn’t for Mark. If you were here, you would’ve kicked his ass. I know you would.”
Cars pass me, and then the road is blissfully quiet again. The view isn’t much, but there’s the green tops of trees and the pale blue of the sky, and I start to wonder if someday my heart will be as clear and peaceful as that sky.
*******
BEATRIX
My name is Beatrix Cruz and I've never given a shit what anyone says about me.
Okay. That's a lie. Maybe I do give a shit. It's definitely a tiny, pigeon-sized shit, though.
Which is why I wore the dress Seamus made me to meet Mr. Blackthorn at Ciao Bella. It had the dual effect of bumping up my confidence, so that I could actually face him with some shred of dignity. He smiled when he saw me.
"My, my, Beatrix. Wherever did you get that dress?"
"From your tailor, actually," I slid into the booth seat.
"Oh?" Mr. Blackthorn looked as dapper as ever with his silver-streaked hair and crinkly eyes. "How did you chance upon him?"
"Wolf took me."
Mr. Blackthorn blinked, dumbstruck. "Well then. Let's order some food and you'll fill me in on the whole thing while we wait."
And I did. I never hesitated once as I told him about everything that happened at Riley's party - the dancing, Burn saving me from sleazy Eric, Fitz doing weed pancakes, Wolf drinking, the fight between Fitz and Wolf. I told him about Wolf coming to my house and bringing me to Seamus, though I left out the part about my Dad. Something felt wrong, telling such a put-together man about the sad state of my family. I guess his wasn't any better - a deceased wife and three sons who never talked to him. Not even money could buy a healthily-functioning family, I guess.
Our food came just as I finished. We ate for a few minutes, Mr. Blackthorn clearly digesting more than just his rigatoni primavera. I picked at my salmon nervously until he spoke.
"You said Kristin mentioned Mark."
"Yeah." I twirled my fork and tried not to look at him. "She said Wolf and Mark went out. For a while."
Mr. Blackthorn was stone-faced. Finally, he sighed.
"Is that what it was? How strange."
"Being gay - or, uh, bi - isn't strange, Mr. Blackthorn. I looked it up. Ten percent of the population -"
"No, not that." He said crossly. "I knew Mark. Wolf brought him back to the house several times. I always thought - Wolf introduced him as a 'friend', but I always thought Mark had simply bullied him into being friends. They were never quite - normal with each other."
"Normal? I don't get it."
"Friends don't call each other idiots."
"Well, uh, they do -"
"No, not like Mark called my son an idiot," Mr. Blackthorn shook his head. "Friends don't empty each other’s' wallets on a weekly basis. I'd give Wolf his allowance, and it would be gone by Friday," he said. "Wolf never spends much - if he does, it's on a motorcycle part once every few months. So when it all went missing so quickly, I had to start wondering. I had one of my men follow them discreetly; Mark would take Wolf to video game stores, clothes, shoes, booze - even what I later confirmed to be a drug dealer's house. Mark liked pills, you see."
I downed my lemonade quietly, absorbing all the information. Mr. Blackthorn cut a bit of shrimp and continued.
"Towards the end of their 'friendship', Mark would call Wolf at strange hours, and Wolf would sneak out of the house to see him."
I blushed. "Erm, that could just be -"
"Wolf would come back bleeding," Mr. Blackthorn said calmly. Too calmly, like he'd internalized it to the point of denial. "All over his face, his hands. I asked him once what happened, and he slammed his door on me. He hid his bandages so well under his uniform. He got very good at it. It broke my heart."
My chest twisted. "So you're saying Mark -"
"- abused my son? I believe so, yes. But Wolf did what anyone does in an abusive relationship; he stayed. He justified Mark's actions. Over and over again, I heard Fitz and Burn try to talk to him about it, only to hear him give terribly brainwashed reasons for what Mark was doing. The boy was cruel, and taking that cruelty out on my son."
I remembered the hollow words Wolf said at Seamus’s house. Was that an echo of what Mark said to him years ago?
"Why didn't you - " I breathed in, remembering what my textbooks said. "Sorry. I know blaming someone doesn't help."
Instead of getting pissed like I thought he would, Mr. Blackthorn smiled gently.
"No, it's alright. Seeing you get angry on Wolf's behalf is oddly heartwarming to me. It shows you care."
"Not about him," I started. "Just about - about people in crappy situations."
He smiled brighter. "Of course. Regardless, I did everything in my power to separate them. But Wolf wouldn't have it. No matter what I did, the harder I tried to keep them apart, the more Wolf fought to stay with him. Until finally -"
His eyes got distant.
"The fight happened?" I asked. Mr. Blackthorn nodded, coming back to earth.
"Yes. I got a call from the principal that afternoon. And shortly after, Mark dropped out. It's my belief Wolf finally stood up for himself, and seeing he couldn't manipulate him anymore, Mark left."
"And I...remind him of Mark," I murmured.
"Did he say that?"
"He said that I sounded like him. And Fitz said it at the party. That's what started their fight, so it can't be all false."
He drank his wine slowly, then patted my hand.
"I'm sure you are a much better person than Mark, Beatrix. After all, you agreed to help me, didn't you?"
"For my own gain," I corrected.
"I suppose so." He pulled away and finished his shrimp. "But someone who writes such heartfelt essays about caring for their family surely can't be all selfish."
"You too?" I moaned. "Why does everyone like that stupid essay?"
He chuckled. "It was a very compelling piece of writing! Why else do you think the board chose you as recipient of the McCaroll scholarship? Did someone else said they liked it?"
I hesitated telling him about Fitz hacking his computer for Wolf.
"Just...the teachers. I guess some of them read it."
"Oh, of course. I passed it around quite proudly."
I slapped my hand to my forehead and instantly regretted it - red sauce was the perfect makeup look. I wiped it off as Mr. Blackthorn ordered dessert.
"You've done very well, Miss Cruz. It isn't much, but just knowing what they're up to alleviates my mind. They keep everything hidden from me."
"Are you - " I shook my head. "Nevermind."
"No, please, speak up."
"Are you going to...punish them?" I asked. "For the fighting? The weed? The drinking?"
"And clue them in to the fact someone is watching them for me? No, I won't risk your cover for that. Another few weeks of your reports, and then I'll decide what to do with them."
"'Do with them?'" I repeated, the words hanging ominously. Mr. Blackthorn blinked.
"Well, something has to be done. Fitz's drug use is untenable. I know a very good rehab facility, and then he will be home-schooled, where I can keep an eye on him."
Fitz, homeschooled. By himself, in a room with a tutor, not smiling and flirting and laughing among the people who adore him. Just holding that thought in my head feels unnatural, wrong.
"Burn will need an outlet for his risk-taking, adrenaline-seeking behavior," Mr. Blackthorn wiped his mouth with a napkin. "The military would suit him nicely, don't you think?"
I swallowed. The lack of regard for what his sons had to say in the matter chilled me to the bone.
"And Wolf -" Mr. Blackthorn sighed. "My poor, maimed Wolf. At least six months of psychotherapy at a very good mental hospital I donate to will be in order."
"Mr. Blackthorn, with all due respect, that isn't the right thing to do."
"Isn't it?" His face grew cold, like I saw it that one time when he was displeased with the couple at the table who'd made fun of my dress. "Please, tell me what the right thing to do is, Miss Cruz. Tell me how to deal with my own sons."
I gripped my fork upright, my knuckles white. Mr. Blackthorn continued.
"You are here to give me information, Miss Cruz. Not opinions on how said information should be dealt with."
"But -"
"Do you want to keep your scholarship to Lakecrest or not?"
I closed my mouth instantly. My insides rumbled uneasily. Mr. Blackthorn studied me with his piercing eyes, until he was satisfied about something he'd seen in me. He leaned back, polishing off his wine.
"After all, Miss Cruz. You said it yourself when we first met; you dislike my sons. There is no reason to be concerned about what happens to them. They are the ones who are making bad choices in their lives, and I am their father. It's my job to help them make better ones. To give them the opportunity to make better ones."
I was going to be sick. I could feel it. Mr. Blackthorn smiled at me.
"You may go. Unless, of course, you'd like dessert. I will see you here next week, at the same time."
I got up and left, every step feeling as though I was walking through frozen molasses. In the car ride home, I suddenly understood why the Blackthorn brothers didn't speak to their father.
And I suddenly understood I had made the wrong choice by speaking to him, that day at the bus stop.
***
If I knew then what I knew now, I would've stopped. And I know I keep saying that, but that time it would’ve been for real. I would've told Mr. Blackthorn to shove his scholarship up his silk-clad ass and stopped giving him information at all. But back then I was scared for Dad. Back then, I was worried for my family. Back then I thought I could save the world, if I just tried hard enough.
That night I stared at my rinky-dink phone and tried not to think about how badly I wanted one of the brother’s numbers. I wanted to call them, Burn, preferably, and tell them everything - that I'd snitched on them to their dad. But Wolf's words still haunted me. I was pitiful. He thought I was pathetic. He'd tried to ruin my life by taking my scholarship away. All of it piled up, until I felt my disgust for him like a toxic lump in my throat. Wolf Blackthorn sucked, hard. No matter what he'd been through with Mark, he had no right to say those things about me.
I didn't sleep very well, so running with Burn was torture. Neither of us said much more than ‘have some water’ and ‘watch out for this root’. I barely noticed that we’d gone beyond our usual vantage point at the halfway mark, until Burn turned us around. We watched the sun rise, silently. With all the thoughts swirling in my head, it was a relief to just have silence.
I watched Burn stand on the very edge of the cliff, his shoes inching closer to the edge. And closer. So close I stood up in alarm.
“Burn, you –“
“If you look straight down,” He said slowly. “It’s almost like you’re flying.”
He wobbled a little, and I flung my arm out and pulled him back. We both toppled backwards into the dirt, a tangled mess of legs and arms. Burn’s sleepy eyes were, for once, wide with surprise.
“You can’t j-just do something like that!” I panted.
“I was fine,” He insisted.
“It’s a long way down! Putting yourself on the edge like that – that’s so stupid and selfish!”
“Selfish?” He frowned.
“What if you fell, huh? You might think you’re fine, but what if the ground gave away? What if a strong breeze blew and caught you off guard?”
“It wouldn’t have. You’re just imagining that.”
“But what if it did?” I snapped. “You would’ve fallen and died and then what, huh? What would I have told Wolf, or Fitz? Who would I run with in the mornings then? Who would give me sage advice? Who would –“
“I just like looking down from high places. It makes my body feel like it’s buzzing.”
“That’s adrenaline, dumbass! That’s adrenaline from your body getting close to dying! You can’t just – you can’t just stand on the edge like that when there are people who care about you!”
“People who care,” He said slowly, looking up at me. “Like you?”
“Yes, me. But also a lot of people!”
Burn wiped the dirt off his palms, and offered me a hand up.
“Sometimes,” He said. “It feels like only you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. We walked back down the trail wordlessly, and I watched him get in his convertible and drive off, faster than ever.
Running plus not sleeping well exhausted me, so when I walked into school, it took me until lunchtime to notice the change in the air. People weren’t just looking my way anymore out of anger, or spite. Some of them seemed genuinely interested in me –what I was doing, what I looked like today. They studied me, not just out of disgusted curiosity anymore. I tried to ignore them. I didn’t know what was going on, but I was willing to bet it had something to do with the fact I kept hearing rumors about Wolf and Fitz’s fight. I looked up from the book I was reading and realized someone was standing in front of my cafeteria table.
"Hey," A girl smiled. I recognized her from the party - she was the one who'd hung on Fitz's shoulder while he was making pancakes. "Can I sit here?"
I swallowed my sandwich. I must've took her table on accident - god, I hated myself on two hours of sleep.
"Did I take your seat, or something?" I asked. "Sorry, I'll move."
"Oh no, it's totally fine, you didn't take anything." The girl waved it off. "I just wanted to sit with you."
I frowned. That didn't sound right.
"Are you...sure?" I looked behind her. She usually sat with her friends, and they were miles away, trading carrot sticks for chicken nuggets and laughing. "They look way more interesting than, well, this." I held up my textbook so she could read the cover; 'The Intricacies of the Human Intelligence".
The girl just laughed, her mane of brown hair shaking with the sound.
"No, they aren't, trust me. Plus you seemed cool at the party, so. I just wanted to hang out."
"Oookay." I put my book down and awkwardly ate my sandwich for a few seconds. Was I supposed to say something here? Think, Bee, how did people make friends again? I looked at her tray - salad and a burger. "Do you...like food?"
She did that ironic frown-smile and shook her head. "No, I hate delicious, super important sustenance."
I winced. "I'm really bad at this, aren't I?"
"Just a bit."
I looked over at her friends, who were watching over their shoulders. They saw me and turned away quickly, another laugh bursting out of them. The judgey part of me insisted they were making fun of me - the trying-very-hard-to-be-not-judgey part insisted they were just as bewildered as I at this recent development of people actually wanting to hang around me.
"I'm Keri, by the way," the girl offered.
"Bee," I said. She frowned.
"Your parents named you just one letter?"
"Right, no, it's short for Beatrix."
"Oh, that’s a cool name."
"Just because of the x. Most people think it's old-fashioned. Like, you know, Beatrix Potter."
"Who?"
I spotted Amanda across the cafeteria and sighed. "Just...an author lady. Wrote Peter Rabbit."
"I used to love those when I was a kid!" Keri clapped her hands. "I had all the hardcover ones, with those beautiful watercolor drawings? Aw, man, I wonder where Mom put them. I gotta ask her when I get home."
I felt a smile tug at my lips. "It's nice to go through your old things, sometimes."
"Yeah. What were you into?"
"Boybands."
"No way! Which ones?"
"Neverwinter Knights, Ten Years of Autumn -"
"I loved TYA!" She banged the table. "Don't tell me - you were a Gabriel fan."
"Ho-lee-shit. What gave it away?”
"He was the only cute one in the bunch, duh."
"Hey, Paxton wasn't that bad looking!"
"Well it was nice knowing you, but I have to go now, because gelled spikes were awful and you're awful for liking them."
I laughed. We talked like that for all of lunch, reminiscing about stupid old bands we used to like. The only time we ever broke our flow of conversation as when the Blackthorn brothers came in. Keri watched their tall figures stride across the cafeteria. Wolf stared straight ahead, looking more pissed than usual. He passed our table and his face didn’t so much as twitch in my direction. Fitz waved to Keri with a winsome smile, and she waved back. Burn’s eyes darted to mine briefly before he nodded at me and followed Fitz and Wolf.
Keri leaned in when they’d passed. “You got a red-card from Wolf, right?”
I scoffed. “Yeah.”
“Red-cards are for really awful stuff. Did you – did you like murder someone, or something?”
“If only it was that simple.” I sighed.
“So what did you do, then?”
“You saw the whole thing where Wolf dumped coffee on that freshman and I interfered, right?”
She nodded.
“Well, I defended Eric one day, too.”
Keri winced. “Oh god.”
“Exactly. I felt like an idiot when Fitz got around to telling me what the deal with those two was.”
Keri munched on salad. “So Wolf gave you a red-card to get you to stop interfering?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re definitely the first. No one’s ever tried to stop him before. I mean, he’s Wolf Blackthorn for shit’s sake. We were all shocked as hell when you stood up to him. I can’t even imagine how he must’ve felt about it.”
I watched Wolf’s back as he disappeared around the corner.
“He’s a stuck up, privileged idiot, who needs to be taken down a peg,” I muttered. “That’s all.”
“Oh yeah? And you’re gonna be the one to take him down?”
No, I said in my head. His dad would be the one to do that. By throwing him in a mental hospital. With my help.
Suddenly my food didn’t seem appetizing anymore. Mercifully, the bell rang.
"Well, back to the old grindstone," I stood up and packed my books away. "It was nice talking to you, but I understand if you never want to speak to me after this. We've shared too many terrible musical secrets to ever look at each other the same way again."
"Oh, stop." She smiled. "We only covered the American boy bands. We still have all of the British boy bands to get through."
She waved and I waved, and for once, walking to history class didn't feel like a mindless trudge. We got our tests back that day, and I tried hard not to look at Mr. Brant’s grim face as he passed mine back.
“You need to try harder, Beatrix. I’m disappointed.”
“I will,” I muttered, trying not to look at the C that was written in red marker at the top of my paper. It was a bald-faced lie. I couldn’t try hard, not while I needed Fitz to keep tutoring me. I caught Fitz’s eyes, though they seemed flat, dull. I couldn’t read his expression. It wasn’t until the end of class that I’d figure out how he felt. By him accosting me, of course.
“You seriously don’t expect me to believe you got a C,” Fitz said. “Not after everything we’ve covered.”
“I’m sorry,” I hung my head. “I guess I just don’t get it as well as I thought. It’s not you – you’re a great teacher –“
“And you’re a smartass,” He interrupted, green eyes narrow and not a single wisp of a smile on his face. “So why the hell are you tanking?”
“I’m – Dad is –“
“Your Dad isn’t an excuse, Bee,” He said, a little sharper than usual. “You were doing just fine before I stepped into the picture.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” I argued. “Sometimes I have off days –“
“Only in history class.” Fitz interrupted. “Only ever in history class. The one you have with me.”
The way he said it was so confident. Too confident. He knew something was up.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tried to play it off cool. He rolled his eyes.
“I took the liberty of hacking the school’s grade system. You’re getting a perfect, golden string of A’s in everything except this. That’s kinda weird, huh?”
I could see the doubt festering in his face. I was teetering on the edge, like Burn teetered on the cliff, like Kristin never got to teeter because Fitz was so suspicious of her in the first place. And now he was turning that suspicion on me. I had to do something, quick. An excuse – a good, solid excuse that seemed reasonable and wasn’t related to Dad. A lesser secret to cover up my other awful secret; something that he’d be willing to believe.
“Okay, fine.” I threw my hands up. “I was failing on purpose, okay?”
“So I’d tutor you,” He said quickly. “Why?”
I forced myself to look at my feet, to conjure a deep, dark blush. How did girls blush again? My brain instantly jumped to that sunlight afternoon in Seamus’s, me in a dress, Wolf’s eyes on me. My face lit up like a bonfire in August.
“It’s – God, I feel so stupid saying it out loud.”
I snuck a glance up – Fitz’s curiosity was piqued, his body leaning into mine.
“Can we not talk about it out in the open like this?” I hissed. Fitz looked around, then pulled me by the arm into a stairwell.
“Spill it,” He insisted.
“Because –” I swallowed hard and spat the words out all at once. “IlikeWolf.”
Fitz’s freckled face lit up, all traces of suspicion gone. “Seriously?” he burst out laughing. “Oh, this is precious. I should’ve seen it earlier with the way you two go at each other’s throats. It’s not just him. It’s you, too. So you decided to fake stupid so I’d tutor you and, what, get you closer to him?”
My chest squeezed as I nodded. It felt so wrong, lying so intricately like this. But I couldn’t back down now. I couldn’t let him know the truth – he’d figure out I was hired by his dad like Kristin was. He’d tell Burn and Wolf that I was spying, and it would be over. They’d never speak to me again, and Mr. Blackthorn would have no reason to keep my scholarship intact.
I can’t lose Lakecrest.
Not now.
Fitz rubbed his hands together delightedly. “You could’ve said something earlier.”
“No, I couldn’t have!” I snapped. “You can’t tell him. You can’t tell anyone, or I’ll eat your firstborn. Whenever you have one. Somehow.” There was a pause. “I’ll invent a time machine, wait for you to procreate with some unlucky girl, and then I’ll go into the future and eat your firstborn.”
Fitz applauded me sarcastically. “Alright, Dr. Who, I get it. My lips are sealed. You aren’t as bad as I thought you were.”
“What?”
He sighed. “Listen, our dad’s….an ass. He became even more of an ass when our Mom, you know. So. She was the only one he ever really cared about, not us. It’s hard, living with him. He’s not a nice guy. Burn and Wolf and me are pretty much just buying time until we can move out from under his shitty nose.”
“I’m confused.”
“He’s tried to hire hackers to break into our computers and phones to figure out what we’re up to,” Fitz said. “Since we were young. Where do you think I learned to hack? It was trying to counter-hack the guys he hired.”
Mr. Blackthorn hired hackers to know his kids better? God, rich people were weird.
“Plus,” Fitz mused. “There was Kristin.”
I swallowed hard. He just smiled.
“She was a bit of a bitch. She agreed to rat us out to our Dad in exchange for, I dunno. Whatever Dad can give people. Lots of stuff, I guess. But I saw right through her – comes with territory of being a smooth criminal myself, you know? She was a two-faced liar.”
I nodded, trying to tame the shaking in my hands as Fitz smiled.
“Look, you want my help hooking you up with Wolf, and I’ve got your back. I know for a fact he’s at the Auto Shop garage at this very moment. Let’s go say hi.”
“But –”
“No buts! I’m your official love-coach, starting…” He looked down at his expensive watch. “…now! Let’s go.”
How could I protest? If I didn’t go, he’d get suspicious again. If I did, and came face-to-face with Wolf after what I heard him say about me – I don’t know how well I could pretend to like him in front of Fitz. But it seemed like I didn’t have a choice, because Fitz grabbed my hand and led me across campus like an unwilling sheep to the slaughter.
The Auto garage was quiet, the doors open. Wolf was the only one there, crouched at the wheels of his bike, a wrench and tuning rod at his feet. He’d taken the blazer of his uniform off, his shirt loose and open a few buttons at his collar, the white of it streaked with oil and flakes of rust.
“Wolf!” Fitz called. He turned, dark hair mussed and a bit of oil streaked on his cheek. His jade eyes narrowed at us. Fitz pushed me towards him and whispered a ‘good luck’ before trotting back out.
“What are you doing here?” Wolf’s voice was laced with flame.
“I live here,” I said. “In spirit. Like a ghost. I haunt this garage, basically – quick, somebody call ghostbusters!”
I made spooky ‘wooo’ noises until Wolf scoffed and turned his attention back to his bike.
“You’re an idiot.”
“A pathetic one,” I agree. “Some might even say…pitiable.”
Wolf stopped raising the wrench to his bike’s wheel. “You heard me talking at Seamus’s?”
“I was right behind you guys,” I say lightly. “I heard every word.”
His hands worked the wrench, obviously preferring silent labor to confrontation with me. But I wasn’t going to let him off that easy.
“You know, for future reference, showing up at a girl’s house, helping her out with a complicated-yet-dire situation by claiming to take her out on a date, and then calling her ‘pathetic’ behind her back to your brothers might not be the best way to get someone to like you.”
“I don’t need or want you to like me,” He snapped.
“Good, because it’ll never happen.” I said it so strongly that I could’ve sworn he flinched. But Wolf Blackthorn didn’t flinch. Not because of the words of girls he thought pathetic, anyway. I noticed his wrenching had slowed, and my irritation exploded. “You’re doing that wrong.”
I grabbed another wrench from a nearby table and squatted next to him. Wolf, as always, made space between our bodies instantly, and I took his absence as an opportunity to do things right myself.
“You have to take the backplate off if you want to rotate the bolts anywhere beyond 180 degrees,” I said. “Otherwise you’re just stripping the transmission cap.”
“I know that,” He spun one of his rings furiously. “How do you know that?”
“It isn’t exactly hard to open a book and study,” I said. “It’s what got me in here, and it’s what’ll get me out of here.”
“Is that all you think about? College?”
“High school is pointless,” I wrench harder. “We sit around, teachers tell us what to do, what blanks to fill out, we go home, and the cycle repeats. We have no control over our lives – we can’t do anything except what they tell us to, or we get in trouble. It’s bullshit. Nothing here is real, or impactful. So yeah, I can’t wait to get out to college, where I can do what I want to, the way I want to.”
“The professors in college are the same way,” Wolf insisted.
“But at least you’re working towards a degree. At least you’re amassing tons of knowledge that’s useful for what you want to do when you graduate. High school is the equivalent of macaroni pictures and fingerpainting. I want poetry from the greats, I want math no one’s heard of, I want philosophy from Greek masters and psychology from actual brain scientists. I want the real thing, not the imitation.”
Wolf scoffed. “There’s this thing called baby steps. Taking it one day at a time. Ever heard of it?”
“I don’t have time,” I muttered. “And I can’t afford to take baby steps. Not when I needed to have been running marathons by now.”
Wolf frowned, dark hair falling in his eyes that he pushed away immediately. “You can’t run marathons without training for them, first.”
“Okay, this metaphor sucks and I’m discontinuing it.”
“I thought it was passable,” Wolf said. “Not going to even throw it in the bargain bin? Straight to trash?”
“Straight to trash. Put myself in there too, while I’m at it,” I agreed. I worked my fingers into the back of the transmission chain, feeling for the nut I had to replace. I gritted my teeth – it was just beyond my reach. “Almost…there…”
Everything happened in a split-second; I put my weight on my other palm, which was balancing on the bike’s foothold. Something metallic snapped - I later realized it’d been the kickstand – and the bike came careening down on me. I had just enough time to pull my hands out and throw them up to shield my face. This was it – this was how I died, my irrational fear-brain screamed at me; crushed under the three hundred pound bike of my worst nemesis. My last thought? I hoped Dad found a better daughter than me; one who didn’t spy on three motherless boys and snitch on them to their asshole father.
But nothing hurt. No pain came. There was the sound of the bike crashing to the floor, and then silence. I squinted, a blurry slice of white and black fabric in front of me. I could feel warmth all around me, arms cradling me like a protective cage. My face was buried in a chest – white t-shirt, smelling like motor grease and cinnamon and sweat. Someone’s Adam’s apple bobbed just above me, and my eyes widened.
Wolf.
Wolf held me close, the bike splayed on its side. With the way we were angled, I realized he got in between it and me. It must’ve hit his back on its way to the floor.
“Are you alright?” I felt his voice rather than heard it – rumbling just near my ear.
“I’m f-fine,” I started. Wolf was holding me. Did the crash punt me through a rip in space-time into another dimension? One where he wasn’t phobic of touching people? His smell and his voice and the sight of the delicate skin of his throat entranced me, like it did that time in the pool building. That moment felt frozen in time, neither of us moving, both of us too incredulous at our entwined state. We were both breathing like rabbits – fast and shallow.
“Y-You can let go, now.” I tried. I felt his arms around me tighten. His whole body was shaking – I could see it from the tips of his dark hair down to the vibration of his fingers on my shoulders.
“No,” He muttered, hoarse. “Help me.”
“With what?” I tried.
“You’re the shrink-wannabe,” He said. “Help me. This is the first time since – ”
He swallowed hard, the words dying on his lips. He was right – I was the shrink wannabe. As weird as this situation was, I could help. This was the first time in a long time, apparently, that he’d touched someone like this. Think, Bee! Remember what the books said about exposure therapy, how to handle it, what to say -
“What do you need me to do?” I asked softly.
“Just…stay like this,” He murmured. “For a while. With me.”
By all rights I should’ve stood up and left. I was just going over my hate for him in my head not twenty minutes ago! I should’ve left. But I couldn’t – not when he was shaking so hard. And to tell you the truth, a part of me liked being hugged like this; er, if you could call it a hug. It was so desperate and encompassing it felt more like…an embrace. But it was warm, and nice, having another person so close you could hear their heartbeat.
I rested my head on his chest, slowly, afraid I might spook him. He didn’t start, or move, but his heartbeat sped up, so fast I could’ve sworn a dozen butterflies were trapped in his ribcage.
“Is…is this okay?” I asked. I felt him nod above me.
“Y-Yeah.”
A part of me was vaguely aware what this would look like if Mr. Finch - or worse, Fitz – walked in. But another part of me didn’t care. As long as this was helping, as long as Wolf was comfortable, it was fine. Except he wasn’t comfortable, clearly. His body was fighting him every inch of the way to hold me like this, I could feel it in his tensed muscles. But he was trying his best. Phobias involving the sense of touch often evolved from severe PTSD, or at least that’s what that one textbook told me. Mark must’ve been fucking terrible to Wolf. I started to hate him, wherever he was, as Wolf trembled around me and above me.
“Would it help if I talked?” I asked. “We could have a conversation. It might distract you.”
“About what?” He struggled from between gritted teeth.
“I could just blather on. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m good at that. Or we could talk about anything that’s been on your mind.”
There was a silence. I looked up at him; I knew his jawline was sharp, but up close I felt like I could cut myself on it.
“The dress,” He started. “I never got to say that it looked…good. On you. I mean, you looked pretty. In it.”
He struggled on the exhale, like he was annoyed with himself. It was strange to hear the immaculately poised Blackthorn brother, the boy who ruled this school with an iron thumb and his red-cards, speak so brokenly. His compliment was late, but it bloomed like a warm, embarrassed flower in my chest. I’d been so afraid of it, before, but hearing it in real life actually felt nice.
I couldn’t let it get to me, though. He was still definitely Wolfgang Blackthorn, and he’d said I was pathetic. If nothing else, this was the perfect time to practice my professionalism – even if a patient insults you, you still have to distance yourself from the insult and try to help them as much as possible. Being a shrink meant dealing with all kinds of people – mean ones included.
“You said this was the first time since,” I said. “Do you mind if I ask what comes after that ‘since’?”
Wolf hesitated – I could feel it in his shoulders.
“You don’t gotta tell me. It’s just – I’m supposed to be the shrink, right? It helps if I know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re going to use it against me,” He muttered.
“If I wanted to use something against you,” I said pointedly. “I wouldn’t be here, hugging you.”
His shoulders tensed, like he was having some internal war with himself.
“I don’t like you, Wolf. But I don’t want to hurt you, either. I’m not that kind of person. Or at least I don’t think I am.”
“No, you’re right. You’re not,” He sighed. “I’ve known those kinds of people, and they are nothing like you. But I can’t tell you. It’s something I deal with on my own.”
He’d been dealing with it for years solo, obviously. And obviously, he hadn’t been very successful, if all he had to show for it was a crippling phobia and a bit of ring-turning to assuage it.
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll have to start inferring stuff.” I said. “And I know you hate that.”
“I’d rather you infer than know the truth. My past is…too shameful to talk about with someone else.”
I wasn’t going to press him – pressing too hard had bad consequences, or so the textbooks said.
“Alright,” I put my head against his chest again. “If all I can do is sit here and get hugged, I guess that’s okay, too. I’ve never turned down a good hug. Or a bad hug. Not that your hugs are bad, they’re just a little, uh, rusty.”
He laughed. He actually laughed, and I could feel it in every bone. Wolfgang Blackthorn, the angriest, most sullen guy in the school, actually laughed. And it wasn’t a mean-spirited chuckle, or a scoff. It was a true, honest-to-god laugh. I was pretty sure I wasn’t hearing things right. But he wasn’t shaking as much as he was earlier, so I took it as a good sign.
“I’m not that funny,” I frowned. He caught his breath quickly.
“Give yourself some credit. At least fifty percent of the jokes you make are passable.”
“Passable,” I repeated. “I think that’s the highest compliment I’ve ever gotten from you.”
“And it’s also the last,” He said. “Because the second I let go, it’s going to get very awkward, and we’ll never be able to face each other again.”
“Right,” I squirmed, suddenly aware of how long we’d been like this. “That’s fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yeah. As long as this like, helped you, I’m fine if you don’t ever look at me again. I think. Since you never actually look at me anyway, and if you do, it’s always with that pissed-off look on your face, which is sort of bad for my morale. If I had any morale left after high school sapped it all away, that is.”
He was quiet. I squirmed again.
“Just…as long as it helped. It doesn’t matter what happens after this, as long as I did something to help you.”
“Because it’s easy for you to default to being a martyr,” He scoffed.
“Because…because I get a lot of happiness,” I corrected. “From helping people.”
“So you really wouldn’t care if we never spoke again?”
“We don’t exactly get along,” I pointed out. “Me and Fitz get along, as much as anyone can get along with a fickle snake, and me and Burn get along because he’s easy-going. But you and me? No way. I think – I think we’re just way too different. Mindset wise.”
“Not even going to give us a chance?”
I felt my face getting hot. Why was he so insistent on getting a chance in the first place?
“You sort of tanked that chance when you called me pathetic.”
He let go of me, and without his body heat, the cold air of the garage attacked my skin again. I almost missed him. Almost. Until I remembered who he was, and who I was. He stood and pulled his bike up, inspecting it for damage. I got up too, still unsure of what to do or say.
“So…that’s it?” I asked.
“It’s better this way,” He said shortly, his words laced with fire again. “You’re right – I lost my chance. If we stay enemies, it will be easier, in the long run.”
“Easier?” I furrowed my eyebrows. “Easier for who?”
He didn’t say anything, jade eyes so determined to stay on his bike it was like he was trying to bore a hole through the metal.
“You should go,” He finally said. “I have no further use for you.”
The words stung like a slap across the face. They shouldn’t have – he only held me like that because it was such a rare occurrence, and he was trying to get better. It was nothing personal. And yet there I was, getting offended like he owed me something just because of one therapy hug and his offhanded comment about me being pretty. I was pissed at the time, irrationally. And I let it get to me.
“You sound just like your dad,” I snarled. Wolf froze.
“How do you know what he sounds like?”
Hot panic choked my throat. “B-Because. He talked to my Mom and Dad when I first got accepted. He sounds just as mean and callous as you do.”
Wolf, despite his suspicion, still didn’t turn to look at me. I couldn’t let him get a clue. Not now. Not when I’d barely made friends with his brothers.
“You want to be enemies?” I asked quickly. “Fine. We’re enemies, Wolf Blackthorn. So don’t expect me to ever help you again.”
It was petty of me. It was something a shrink would never do – threaten to stop helping a patient. But I did it because he was my enemy, not my patient.
I did it because I was confused, and angry, and apparently to him, pretty in that dress.
Pretty stupid, in my opinion.
If I was smarter, pen-and-paper, I would’ve figured out what his laughter meant. What his words meant. What his heartbeat meant, that day.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t until it was too late.