A Little Bit

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Warren

I shouldn’t be here. I’ve said the same thing the last few days. But I just want to look. A quick one to ease some of the tension that’s been coiling inside of me since I opened my mouth for him.

I had no intention of that happening when I went to the bookstore to apologize. I was going to say sorry and kind of insinuate that he shouldn’t tell anyone about what he saw. That’s just what Mother would love, a picture of me splashed across the entertainment section of the local newspaper. A fun and catchy headline stretched above my head “Senator Baker’s Son Gets Down and Dirty in Public” or something better than that, but point made.

It was just so easy to listen to him. It quieted me, blanketing all of my loud wounds—the ones that scream at me all day—with a serenity I’ve never felt.

But the moment it stopped, the moment he stomped his black boots away from me, leaving me there next to the evidence of my perversions splattered on the floor and on my face, it all came rushing back. But in technicolor this time. Vivid and real. Suffocating.

I found an Astorville University T-shirt and wiped my face before sprinting out of there, practically running home, but not quite, because I can’t have people wondering what’s going on with Darlene’s son.

Pulling out my journal, I wrote the words over and over and over again. The pen started ripping the paper under my force, but it didn’t help. My insides just kept screaming.

I turned my room upside down. Throwing clothes out of drawers, scattering papers and pens across my desk. Searching. I knew I had one here. I kept it in case of an emergency. And this felt like an emergency.

Finally, in the back of my closet, under some shoes I hardly wear, I saw the tan little circle sticking out beneath the heel. I pulled it out and put it around my wrist. Such an innocuous little object, just a rubber band to anyone else, but it was dark and ominous for me, a reminder of bad times—of all my sins—and definitely a sign that my demons were taking over right now.

I didn’t snap it. Just stared at it for a while and that helped. Things started to get quiet. Not as quiet as when I was on my knees for him, swallowing down the taste of his skin while I whimpered and came on the floor. But still, quieter.

I’d have to get rid of it before fall break. My sister, SJ, wouldn’t like to see it on me. She knows what it’s for. She also partially knows why I had to start doing it, but not all the reasons.

So if my mind is calmer now, why am I still standing half-hidden behind a tree, watching him sit on a bench? I don’t have a clear answer for that. Only that I want to be here.

He lights a blunt and bends over the sketch pad in his lap, a black charcoal pencil flying vigorously on the paper. Sitting back up, he takes the blunt from his lips—that I won’t linger on or describe—and tips his head up toward the moss swinging above his head, blowing the smoke out in a greeting, before going back to his drawing.

Marijuana’s not even legal here. Not even for medical purposes in this conservative state. But still, he sits there without a care in the world. Doesn’t know the stares he’s getting. Now or any other time he swaggers around campus.

Eli glows red. A bright and unashamed ember in a town where everyone tries to dim themselves as much as possible. There’s only one end to this story. I’ll get burned. I don’t want to. But what else could possibly happen?

I rub my thumb against the rubber band circling my wrist, trying to force some kind of peace out of it.

“You don’t have to stand over there like a creepy stalker. Even though I guess you kind of are,” he says calmly, not stopping his work.

I shuffle a little farther behind the tree, like maybe he’s talking to some other person who’s also watching him.

He sighs loudly before popping his head up to look at me. “Yes. I’m talking to you. Come sit down or go away.”

I comply, because that’s what I do with him, walking over and depositing myself on the bench next to him.

He doesn’t acknowledge me or stop drawing. He looks down at the paper, his brow pinched in concentration, that blunt hanging between his lips, dropping ash every so often on top of his work. The charcoal glides over the paper, a kind of dance that a non artistic person like me could never replicate or understand. He’s drawing a woman. Her bust up to her nose is drawn realistically, swoops and strokes of the charcoal coming together to show the beautiful curves and lines of her neck and face. But right where her eyes would start, it’s all chaos. Smears of charcoal that create a clouded, dark storm where the rest of her head should be.

I stare, mesmerized by the accuracy of his depiction. It’s obviously not me. But I feel every sentiment of the drawing deep in my bones.

“Who is that?” I quietly ask.

“Nope,” he answers harshly.

I raise my brow in slight surprise, the spell his drawing cast me under broken by the finality of his words. “Nope?”

He raises his head to look at me, a weird, unsettling smile on his face. My eyes catch on the eyeliner smudged under his eyes, reminiscent of the charcoal currently in his hand. Heat pours through my body as he continues to stare, his eyes flicking to different parts of my face, lingering on my lips then darting back up to my eyes.

“Nope?” I repeat while he takes out a piece of transfer paper and carefully tapes it over his art before closing the book.

“Nope. I’m not doing small talk. Why are you following me?” he asks, pulling out a pack of baby wipes from his backpack and wiping the black dust from his fingers.

I flounder for a moment, trying to grasp onto some good excuse, which I don’t have. “I wasn’t following you.”

Now he graces me with a bored look, his eyes half-lidded and head bowed in my direction, the blunt still lazily trapped between his lips. “So it wasn’t you acting like a sexy Michael Myers? Badly hiding behind trees and around bushes the last few days?”

I can’t come up with any good words, so I just slightly shake my head at him. Also, it hasn’t been a few days. Maybe two, I’ll give him that. But definitely not more.

He smiles at that. It shows all of his teeth, full of all the brilliance that I’m missing in my life, then shakes his hands and stands, pulling his tattered black backpack over his shoulder. “Well in that case”—he turns and starts walking—“see ya.”

“Wait.” I scramble after him. “I-I…” I trail off. I have no idea what to say to him. Or what I even feel. I just want to be around him. Pick him apart. I guess that’s why I’ve been watching him. Answering some calling deep inside my soul that I don’t quite understand but still obey.

“It’s not legal to smoke that,” I mutter dumbly so something comes out of my mouth.

He abruptly turns back to me, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk while people glare at him, then see me and widen their eyes in surprise.

Shit .

The last thing I need is this getting back to Mother. I’m sure she wouldn’t want me hanging around him. The grungy exterior. The eyeliner. The black nail polish. The tattoos. None of the things Mother would like associated with me.

And I don’t want to be associated with that either. I think.

The longer I stare at him, seeing how every one of those “bad” things comes together to light my blood on fire, makes it harder to remember that I don’t want them.

Taking the blunt from his lips, he bends down to gently tap it on the concrete before tucking it into his front pocket. “Happy?” he asks sarcastically, then grumbles under his breath, “This town is fucking archaic.”

“Well, it’s illegal in the entire state. Are you from out of state?”

He gives me another bored look for that. I don’t know why I’m still talking about this.

“No. Just an actual city where people are modernized and aren’t going to call the fucking cops if they see me smoking.”

“Oh. The capital?” I barrel on talking because I can’t stop it apparently. “I wasn’t going to call the police. I was just letting you know because?—”

He snaps his fingers in front of my face, stopping the train wreck of thoughts rushing out of me. “Look. I get it. You want to explore, and yet you don’t. And that’s confusing for you. Not interested, though.”

My brows slam forward. “I didn’t say that.”

He puts on an easy smile and tips his head back to get a better look at me. “You didn’t have to, sailor.”

He turns around again and begins walking, a brisk pace toward the dorms ahead of us. I quickly follow after him, still talking to his back. “Stop calling me that.”

I stumble over a tree root disturbing the sidewalk and when I look up, he’s right in my face again, causing me to halt my steps so I don’t smash into him.

His face is thoughtful before a smirk crawls onto it. “Okay. How about I call you my pretty little straight boy?” he rasps, caressing my chin between his thumb and pointer finger.

I say nothing back. I can’t. He just shut my brain off.

Dear god, I need to back up. Put as much space between us as I can muster. I definitely can’t be seen with a man caressing my chin. Especially this man. But my body won’t move. It sings for him the moment it feels his skin, every hair standing at attention.

He laughs, turning and walking away again, and soon we reach his dorm, because of course I’m still following him for some reason unknown to me.

Once we’re in front of the door, he turns and digs in his backpack for his keycard to get in while lazily running his eyes up my body. “Why are you always wearing sweaters? It’s still hot outside.”

I look down at my outfit. A pale-blue sweater vest with a white button-up underneath. It is still warm outside, which is why I’ve rolled the sleeves up. Being September in the South, it doesn’t get much cooler for another month or two.

I shrug at him. “This is how I’m supposed to dress.”

“Supposed to?”

I nod.

He pulls the keycard out, holding it between his two fingers like a cigarette, effusing an air of coolness with the small gesture that I could never reproduce.

Taking a step closer to me, he reaches out and plucks at the sweater. “You look so clean and put together. Makes me want to wreck you again.” He runs a finger under the neck of it. Not even touching my skin, but his contact with the button-up underneath still makes me shiver. A moan bangs against my shut lips, begging to be let out. But I push it away. “Makes me want to come on your face again.”

My lips part. Nothing comes out, but I suddenly can’t get enough oxygen.

He gasps in mock outrage while slowly backing away from me and toward the door. “Whoa.” He holds his hand up to his chest. “What? How degrading and disgusting. Who would enjoy that? Definitely not you, right, sailor?”

Turning away, he swipes his keycard and opens the door, before throwing over his shoulder, “Stop finding me.” And then he’s gone.

I stare at the reflective glass door for a while after it shuts, trying to ignore the intense desire to follow him inside. Even without a keycard, to just wait until someone opens it. Slip inside. Find his room.

The sensation builds the longer I stand there, commingling with a chant of gay, wrong, disgusting, perverted until all the sounds are screaming in my brain.

I take a quick look around, making sure no one is near me, then pull the rubber band as far away from my wrist as I can.

Snap.

Then the sting. Then quiet.

I turn from the dorm and nod my head, silently agreeing with his last statement.