Themes: Cult, Love, Semi-Autobiographical, Grooming

Chapter One – The Book of Shadows

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He is God.

He is the only God worth living for.

Worth dying for.

​

Matthew often took me out of school. He was an adult – 22 years-old. I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea that they let him take me.

            “Family trouble, again,” he’d say to Mrs. Cope, “Her mother wants her home.”

            “Okay, Matthew,” she’d reply. “Is this from her?”

            “It is.” He handed over the forged note. He was so confident, absolutely sure of the lie. He took my hand and led me to the car park. His touch fueled my heart like heroin.

            The Chevy passenger seat leather was broken and scratched the backs of my thighs. It was a warm day—I’d worn shorts.

            “Where are we going?”

            “To the house, idiot.” The house gave me mixed feelings, all of which were thoroughly intense. The squalor and the passion that occurred within were criminal. But nobody was ever punished for it – nobody would dare snitch on Matthew. No authority existed above him.

            “Who else is there?” I asked – it was an attempt in ambiguity. I hoped Brandy wasn’t there, but I didn’t enquire as to whether she would be. I liked Brandy – she was interesting. She was plentiful of breasts and stomach, and her short, greasy hair, dyed a dark red and cut in bangs would fall over her beautiful crystal eyes. Brandy was a big sister to me, at the house. But she’d want to share Matthew, and though I’d never dare to say, it made me violently jealous.

            “John and Yuki,” he thought for a moment, “And maybe Candyman, if he’s got a long enough lunch.” Candyman was funny and always put Matthew in an excellent mood. He had a shift at the rail factory they worked at – just down the road – so he could make it back to The House on breaks.

            “And Zac?” I wondered. Matthew’s eyebrows shot up, and his lip curled into a patronizing smirk. His brother, Zac, always put a downer on everything. They’d end up smoking weed if he was around, engaging in some deep, philosophical discussion. And if I dared interject with an opinion, I’d be wrong. I was the youngest, after all. 15 years old. I was determined that I was clever enough.

            “No. He’s at college.” Matthew drove on to Finch. I’d said Finch Street, west, once. He corrected me. Not street. Just Finch. Just Finch. “Why did you ask about Zac?”

            “He always wants to smoke.”

            “And?” Matthew fished.

            “And I don’t want to share your attentions today.”

            “Hm,” he fledged a grin, and reached over to ruffle my hair, “Thank you for your honesty, little one. But I won’t be sharing you today.” My tummy flipped.

            The house was his mother’s. She’d willed it to her sister, Belinda, after she passed. But Belinda already had a house, so she’d given it to Matthew and Zac, even paying the inheritance tax before handing the deed over to them. Two barely teenaged boys do not know how to keep a house. With Zac wretched over his mother’s death, it was a miracle that he’d made it into college. So, Matthew dropped out. He was the one who kept house. Albeit, in his very specific, chaotic way.

            “Go and wait in my room,” Matthew instructed. He was fetching something from the flatbed. I didn’t hang back.

            The air was almost hot, but not, and thick with early autumn decay. The summer had dried all the verges and the grass was spiky, and dead, and dusty. The overgrown willow brushed my face as I made my way up the porch steps to the weather-worn, peeling front door. The glass in the window was cracked, but not broken through.

            “Matt?” Yuki’s voice chimed out from the living room.

            “Phoebe. Matt’s coming,” I called back. The genre distinctive chords Insane Clown Posse thrummed from the other room. Dilapidated paneling threatened splinters from the walls. Dead leaves stuck to cobwebs and crust. Cigarette butts littered the ground. I hated it down here. It reeked of sour beer and marijuana smoke. Vile sweetness. The unfamiliar additional smell of burnt sugar hid beneath, adding to the nausea.

            “Go upstairs,” Matt said from behind me, “And you don’t call me Matt.” I tensed.

            “Yes, sorry,” I said, hurrying up the grey carpeted stairs. He preferred I use his other name. The dark one.

            Kuro.

            “What have you two been doing?” I eavesdropped from the upper hallway, not daring to lean my entire weight on the fractured banister. Remnants of a dead family life were hidden in the filthy surroundings. The photos hadn’t been moved from their frames on the walls. Now they were grubby with a year’s worth of dirt.

            “We tried to make cotton candy with a motor set up. I got the bits from work,” John explained.

            “I saw a hack on TikTok,” Yuki chimed in.

            “You burned it.” Kuro muttered disapprovingly. “And you stole shit from work? Don’t drag me into your crap.” Giggling. John and Yuki engaged in a hedonistic ideology. Do what feels good when you want to do it. It’ll be funny. Probably. I heard Kuro move into the hall. I raced into his room.

            It was cleaner than the rest of the house and didn’t stink. It only smelled of Kuro. His tobacco, his aftershave, his sweat, his cedary skin. It was a dark, cozy room. Star Wars collectables peppered the shelves, and Psychopathic Records band posters had been stuck to the walls for so long that the paint had given way to the tug of their Blu-tack.

            His boots tramped up the stairs. No wonder the carpet was threadbare.

            The bed was big and deep blue and messy, with a black blanket thrown over the pillows. A black towel from Target lay across the foot of it, about to fall on the floor. Still damp-ish. I hung it on the open closet door.

            “Sit.” Kuro pointed to his desk chair. I sat. He turned on the computer and the hard drive awoke with a whirr. Kuro was six-foot but stood as if he were taller. His hair was almost greasy, dark, and long. Down to his waist, in honor of his heritage. The hair is the soul, the spirit. His cheekbones betrayed his Cherokee-Blackfoot heritage distinctly, despite his pale skin. He detested the whiteness, inherited from his Irish father. The ‘sperm donor’ as he called him.

            “What did you take me out of school for?” I asked, eventually.

            “We’re writing a book. You’re a good writer, so you’ll be my scribe,” he stated. He didn’t need to ask. I was eager to assist him, thrilled to the bones to be of help—to have been chosen.

            “Okay, what kind of book?”

            “Some doctrine. I want us to get our ideas written down.”

            “Our ideas?”

            “All of ours.” Kuro gestured to the others downstairs by nodding his head towards the door. “The philosophies we live by. The magick we can wield.” A tingling sensation skittered over my skin.

            “Let’s begin with the Gods.”

​

Chapter Two – The Point of Contact

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I’d drink the dirtiest water in a desert.

Filthy, life-saving water.

And harbor any parasite it breeds.

​

            “Phoebe, are you paying attention?” Mr. Holmes snapped. I was not paying attention—not to him, at least. I was staring out of the grated window of the chemistry lab at the exquisite Northern Cardinal perched on the dusty green shrub beyond.

            “I don’t understand how you define the mol from the chemical equation, Mr. Holmes,” I sighed, dragging my eyes from my crimson companion.

            “Maybe you would if you listened,” he scolded. My cheeks prickled. Maybe I’d participate if I didn’t feel stupid. Everyone else in the class smirked, looked over at me. I made eye contact with Claire. Dominic. Their heads whipped back to utter brief words with the rest of their table.

            Claire. Best bowling party I’d ever been to.

            Dominic. Watching the Garfield movie in hospital after his operation.

            Muttering on the other side of class.

            My papers so often splayed over my table. I had my pick of four empty chairs, so the space sometimes got away from me. I gathered my pens and papers, ready to run. I couldn’t breathe. When the bell rung, I was still alive. Gall clutched my throat.

            “Phoebe Corbin, would you stay behind for a moment?” The stragglers left with a backwards glance of amusement at my lowered, hot face. I didn’t say anything in case something guttural came out. “So, what’s going on? If you can’t pay attention, we need to address that. How about I put you on a table with some other people, instead of you sitting all alone over there? Would that help you to stay engaged during lessons?”

            “No,” I said under my breath.

            “Why not?”

            “There isn’t any room on the other tables.”

            “Well, do you want me to assign seats?” Mr. Holmes suggested. I was growing impatient, eager to get to lunch – food and drawing and blissful isolation in the empty art room. I didn’t want to meet his eyes, so stared at the straining buttons on his light-blue shirt.

            I embodied the social pariah. I was told I was one, and one I became. Whether I wanted to be one was still up for debate. But I wasn’t going to make people move seats halfway through the semester. Forced friendship was definitely worse than none.

            “No thanks,” I said.

            “You’re such a clever girl, Phoebe. It’s frustrating to see you throwing your potential away.” I wanted to scream in his face. I was clearly depressed. I was clearly struggling. And he could offer me… nothing.

            “Yeah,” I muttered, “Sorry.”

            I had to get out of there. I didn’t want a detention for glaring at a teacher.

            In grade school, I had found that when you embodied sunshine, planets orbited. I’d had good grades, been active, philanthropic – all the girls in the class were so eager to braid and sell lanyards to raise money for charity, all under my influence – I was the Queen Bee.

            My halcyon days.

            Then, high school began.

            A new class, new people. Naively, I had forgotten to fight for my place.

            Honor Brant’s birthday was the same day as mine – 8th September, very early in the school year. The first birthdays in the class. I asked Honor whether she wanted to plan a joint party together. She was way ahead of me. My guts fell into my shoes when I realized I’d missed the boat.

            “Why didn’t you invite me?” An almost-grown-up pool party – no parents sticking around, just a drop-off and Honor’s mom pretending to read in the corner on a sun lounger. She had even sent round invitation cards from a proper boutique paperchase and everything. Everyone had received one. Even the nerdy, gremlin kids.

            But not me.

            “I thought you’d be doing something with your family that day,” she said innocently. She rounded her already wide, chocolate-brown eyes, and bounced the waves in her equally shiny, perfect hair – and looked cynically at her best friend, Hannah. “I mean… is that not a fair assumption?” Hannah nodded.

            “Yeah, it’s pretty thoughtful, I think,” she agreed.

            My mother had been furious. She called Honor’s mom. Thorny words were exchanged.      I went to that party.

            I hated every second.

            Because it was my birthday. But it was Honor’s party, not mine.

            It isn’t so much that single event of thoughtlessness that hurts. Years in between something like that and the present are marred by a constant cloud of mistakes and angst and the injustice of a cruel joke reopened and salted the wound. The injury itself was not the worst pain in the world… but I should never have gone to the party.

            Bring in photos of yourselves from when you were little for a class project. I brought in one where I thought I looked super adorable in my big coat. I was two. They had poked pushpins into the pupils of toddler me. I cried.

            I thought I had a crush on a boy in my class… he had heard about it. Shot me down in front of everyone. Laughter. Except mine… I cried.

            Our homeroom teacher organized a paintballing trip for the class for spring break. I had been so scared of the paintballs. She shot me. Our homeroom teacher. In front of the whole class, she’d been trying to prove it wasn’t so bad. I cried.

             She told me not to be such a cry-baby. It was only a paintball.

            Jamie, from math class, would draw in pencil on the back of my crisp white shirt. He drew a penis. I got taken aside with him by the math teacher. He told us both off, for playing around in class and being distracting. I cried and shouted at him – it wasn’t fair! I hadn’t done anything wrong! Detention.

            So, at school, there was now an unspoken rule: don’t talk to Phoebe. If you do, make sure it’s in mocking. Look how naïve she can be, see how reactive she is, not an ounce of self-awareness. She’ll take any conversation you give her. Even if she knows it’s a trap. She won’t be able to understand why. She’ll fall for it every time, and say something stupid or embarrassing.

            A horror flick extra. The first to die. Over and over.

            Friend became Acquaintance… Became Tormentor.

            And to top it all off… I was fifteen. And still hadn’t had my first period. Still didn’t have any boobs. Mom said they would come in, they would eventually.

            I hated it. I hated my life. I hated them, and I hated me.

            To keep myself hidden, I became the Procurer of Secret Spots. I found a secret place in the blissfully large campus to cry, and if that was busy, I knew another closet, another windowless room, a soundproof stairwell where nobody went.

            I found, in the silent parts of a busy campus, the same energy as passing under a bridge in a car in the rain. It stops, for a millisecond, and there’s a moment where time relents.

            Warm sand under a dark-grey sky. And that’s where I felt safe to cry.

            “Are you allowed to be in here?” Then, one time, I was found in the nearly finished auditorium backroom. 

            The workman found me. He and his colleague gave me a Twix to cheer me up – his nickname made sense, now. He’d introduced himself as ‘Candyman’. He wiped my eyes with the dirty sleeve of his paint-stained jumper. His workmate, Matt, hovered around me as we stood beside their truck, while I calmed down and nibbled the chocolate.

            “Just gotta unload this lot,” Matt said.

            “You’re building this place?”

            “Construction supply, sweetie,” Candyman corrected.

            They unpacked the delivery onto the empty building site; wood and boxes and clean metal grates – all of which became immediately dusty upon impact with the cracked plastic tarpaulin on the ground.

            “Why were you crying, little friend?” Candyman asked, dusting his thick workman gloves off and tossing them into the open window of the cab. He fetched his own candy bar – a Snickers – out of his pocket and began chomping. He was a little chubby. Like me. His smile was the friendliest thing I’d seen all day.

            “Doesn’t matter.”

            “It does. It matters.” Candyman squatted in front of me, his arms over his legs as he looked up into my fallen face. Behind him, Matt rolled his eyes – it wasn’t malicious, just… weird. They were juxtaposed – Matt was so quiet, and clearly didn’t want to be hanging around here. He stood with his arms folded, still. A scarecrow. Candyman was like a giant teddy-bear with his arms open.

            Soft, fluffy, friend shaped.

            “Everyone hates me,” I whispered.

            “Why would they hate someone like you?” he said, “I’d have thought a pretty girl like you would be more of a cheerleader type?”

            “I’m fatter than the other girls in my class,” I mumbled. I’d been trying not to eat the Twix too quickly. I still had a bar left. Good. “And flatter,” I added. Both of them glanced at my chest.

            “Bullshit,” Matt snorted. His contribution was unexpected, and brief.

            Candyman nodded in agreement. “You’re not fat. If you’re fat, I must be morbidly obese,” he cackled. Their crass tones fascinated me. “Fucksakes. Children think any woman with hips is a porker, these days. Who wants a stick-thin, snobby, richy-bitch? Nobody.”

            “Nobodies like other nobodies.” Matt approached, and a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Don’t you forget – you’re better than them. That’s why they’re so cruel.” Richy-bitches. Bitches with fancy invitations to their private pools. I looked behind Matt and Candyman at the growing auditorium. The school was a private academy – sheltered. Full of children worth taking hostage.

            “I just don’t know what I did to make them all hate me so much.”

            “People used to hate me at school. Just because I wore black and didn’t act like I owed them my time. Why do the sheep shun the wolf cub?” Matt said. “School sucks, little one.”

            “We’ve got to get back to work,” Candyman said, checking his watch, then patting the truck hood. The decal on the panel said: Nortek Construction: Decatur.

            “Yeah, alright,” Matt said. He looked at me very intensely for a moment, “Fuck that lot. You deserve better.”

            “Did you go to school here?” I asked Candyman, as Matt rounded the truck to the driver’s side.

            “Right. That’s why I work the floor at Nortek.”

            “Where did you go?”

            “Macarthur.”

            “I wish I could’ve hung out with you guys,” I said quickly. I bit my tongue sharply.

            “Uh,” Candyman hesitated, “You’re a kid?”

            “If we were the same age, I mean.”

            “Oh, right. Yeah.”

            “Not too late,” I murmured, half-hoping he wouldn’t hear. He thought about this. Probably too briefly. Matt had climbed in and started the motor.

            “Hang on.” Candyman leaned into the truck and scribbled something down on a McDonald’s napkin. His number. He handed it to me. “If you need to talk, or vent, you can call me. Just don’t go giving up on yourself. Or crying like that. That’s not good.” He barely smiled, but it was definitely there in his eyes. My own teared up again.

            “Okay. Thank you,” I said. Matt looked across at me from the shadows of the cab. What is that feeling? When a firework wakes you in the middle of the night. Those deep, hungry eyes in that ghostly, dark face… they consumed my soul.

            “It’s alright.” Candyman’s kind voice reclaimed my attention. “My little sister is your age. I wouldn’t want her to feel she had to cry in a dark room at school. That’s fucked up.”

            They drove away and I felt so alone once more.

            With Matt’s eyes burned into my mind.

            I wanted to go back into the auditorium. I checked my phone; two-thirty-two. I was due for my last class of the day… I could manage art. Art with nice Mr. Tate. The only person who was kind to me in the whole school. Whose watchful eye ensured a base level of civility from my six classmates.

            I could manage art.

            But all I could draw were those eyes.

Chapter Three – The Kiss of Death

Hidden in shadows

Predator lures hapless prey

And consumes it whole.

​

            “I wasn’t sure they’d let you in,” Candyman whispered behind me as we all slid into a booth at Bub’s Waterhole. A bar first, restaurant second – and incredibly lax on the whole I.D. thing. Matt was on the other side from me. After him, a girl called Brandy whose giggle rang sweet, but dirty. A couple sat beyond Candyman – John and Yuki. Beyond them, on the end, Zac – Matt’s younger brother.

            “Told you you’re not flat,” Candyman added. I grinned through the grimace. I wished he’d let that go, now – so what, I’d got into a bar among a bunch of adults? Me and my big mouth. Matt leaned over me as if I weren’t there, but scolded Candyman as if he’d read my mind.

            “Don’t say that,” he said, “It’s fucking weird.” Candyman shrugged him off.

            They ordered a round of cheap alcohol. Brandy said she’d order us a sweet-as-sugar tasting pitcher to share. And two lemonades. I liked Brandy at once – she had fun nails and scarlet dyed hair.

            “I got bullied at school, too,” she said, poking the air with her mini umbrella as she spoke. She took the maraschino cherry off the end with her lips before elaborating. Matt’s eyes followed her mouth, and by so easily luring their gaze, I felt envy for Brandy. It wouldn’t be the last time. “But don’t sweat it, you’ll find your tribe after school. School is brutal – it’s basically a Battle Royale but the prize is just… useless popularity.”

            “School’s all I’ve got,” I sighed. I took the cherry from my own glass and rolled it between my fingers, letting the syrup and lemonade drip down my thumb. I was watching Matt out of the corner of my eyes. He was watching the cherry, frowning ever so slightly.

            “Well now you’ve got us, too, okay?” She was so genuine, so delightfully friendly, that it was so difficult to keep my unwarranted jealousy going. My smile didn’t fade again for hours.

            Three pitchers: red, pink, orange.

            Two attempts on the Bronco in the middle of the bar.

            One drunken grope from Candyman.

            No money left. I called my parents from the bathroom. “Mom?” I wrapped my free arm around my chest. I knew Matt was chewing out Candyman for the grab at my boob.

            “Where the hell are you?” Some woman came in and darted straight into the stall. Was she going to puke?

            No. Good.

            “Out with friends.” I took out my gloss and dabbed my lips with the wand, trying to ignore the sound of the woman peeing in the stall behind me.

            “What friends?” Ouch. Thanks, Mom.

            “New friends, they’re really nice.”

            “Where are you, Phoebs, I need to know?” I sighed mentally – a fair enough of a question for a mother to ask.

            “I’m at my friend Brandy’s house. It’s on the other side of the Lake. Her older cousin said he’d drive anyone home who needed a lift afterwards.” A long pause.

            “Well… okay. Just keep me posted in future?”

            “Okay mom.”

            “What’s the address?”

            “Uh, let me just check the number,” I said, hurrying to find a random house nearby that had an address I could give.

            “2048 Taunton Avenue.”

            “Right. Which class is Brandy in? Is that the girl who plays piano?”

            “Yep, that’s her,” I agreed. The girl came out of the bathroom stall and grinned at me unnervingly.

            “What’s your name?” the girl hissed at me. Uh… I lowered the phone quickly and replied in a mimicking hiss.

            “Oh my gosh Phoebe, come on girl, mom’s made breadsticks!” the girl said, much louder. My eyes widened – I smiled brightly at her.

            “Thanks, Brandy,” I said, winking. She winked back and then went to wash her hands. A quick rinse under the water that was definitely insufficient to kill germs. She waved on her way out. I returned the gesture.

            “Go on, Phoebe, have fun. I love you,” said Mom.

            “I love you, too.”

            “You’d better not be drinking, young lady.”

            “I’m not drinking.”

            “Okay. When will you be home?”

            “Maybe…” I looked at the time on my phone, and put it straight back to my ear, “Twelve?” Truth. Hopefully.

            “That’s very late. Can we make it eleven-thirty?”

            “Sure.” Eleven-forty-five it was.

            When I left the bathroom, I couldn’t help but feel somewhat removed from my surroundings; lying to Mom about where I was had taken me out of it. I didn’t want to be a liar. But now, I was one. I wished I was at a friends’ house, safe and unintoxicated.

            “Hey.” I jumped out of my skin.

            “Oh! Hi, Matt.” He observed me with tentative eyes.

            “Do you want to go home? Did Drew upset you?”

            “No?” He raised an eyebrow. “Candyman’s just drunk, it’s okay.” Matt’s cheekbones should have been hurting his skin, the way they stretched. But they could never undo what his eyes gave in tenderness. He was hesitant to touch me… his hand resisted, but ever so slowly, it reached out and held my upper arm anyway. My skin tingled. I kept very still, as if – like some timid chipmunk – his hand would retract with any little, unexpected move.

            “I told him to leave you alone, now.”

            “Oh.”

            “You do want that, right?”

            “I guess? I don’t think I mind.” Slowly, I looked down over the balcony of the upper floor towards the bar and the dance floor. The red lights circled like search strobes.

            “What’s the matter, then?”

            “I’m just contemplating the difference in morality between a liar who knows they’re lying, and wishes they didn’t have to; and a liar who lies because it comes naturally and serves their selfish purposes…” I leaned against the western-style balustrade of the mezzanine, overlooking a packed dance floor – cowboy hats and boots and Daisy Dukes.

            “Is there a difference?” Matt asked.

            “Pleasure might be the difference?” I offered. He followed my aimless gaze to the dance floor. So busy, as we stood so still.

            “Who are you lying to?” he said, eventually.

            “My mom. I told her I was with a friend.”

            “Aren’t you?” Our eyes both went to the spot where Candyman danced – half-comedically, half-lecherously – with a too-willing pair of Coyote Ugly type women. Brandy was resisting Zac’s attempts to advance their dancing from friendly to sexy.

            “A female friend… whose cousin’s driving me home in half an hour from her house at Lakeside.” Matt turned towards me.

            “I can drive you home,” he suggested, his tone straining to remain casual.

            “Thank you,” I said, too-quickly enthused by the idea of being alone in his car with him, “But aren’t you a little drunk, yourself?”

            “I’ve had one drink. I don’t like to get wasted. My… father,” he struggled on the word, “was an alkie. I won’t be like that. Abusive piece of shit.”

            “Oh.” What could I say?

            “I don’t think you’re immoral, to lie. There are far more immoral acts happening in this bar. And you deserve a good time, for a change.” He smiled at me, and unexpectedly, my heart thrilled at the sight of it.

            “Come and dance with me,” he suggested. He didn’t seem the type to dance.

            He wasn’t. I didn’t want to embarrass him though – dancing alone in your room for the serotonin boost every weekend gave me flexibility as a thin, wispy silver lining – and I worked hard to keep my moves and my excitement dampened down.

            Though the music was pop-country, and Matt – dressed in a metal band t-shirt, with a leather cuff on his wrist and a chain on his worn, black jeans – clearly wasn’t the sort of man who listened to Dolly in his free time, he made sure my smile returned.

            He wouldn’t touch me, so I took a chance. I touched him first. Just my hands, lightly positioned on his shoulders. Before I could take my next breath, he smiled slyly, a half-smile – suave and charismatic – and then his hands were on my waist. Then… my hips.

            His body was against mine. His face was so close.

            His lips were an inch from my forehead.

            And when I felt his breath – his hot, smoky, sweet breath – on my skin… Like when the band hears their song sung back to them at a concert full of tens of thousands of people, it echoed in my heart and head. It felt religious. Spiritual. A home.

            His hand slipped into the small of my back. They found my hot skin as his fingertips bunched up the back of my top. I’d chosen black, with frills along the top and sheer sleeves to obscure my shortcomings. Was it working? Had he forgotten the weepy schoolgirl? I could have cried now, but for the opposite purpose. Instantaneous magic.

            But nothing can prepare a girl for the moment that the man she desires above all others holds her face in hands, those hands that had fired up my skin. Hands with black nail polish, the hands of a six-foot-two, muscular man who knows how to work those hands for a living. A real, grown man, who made my brain tingle.

            “You are so beautiful,” he murmured.

            I had never understood what it meant to be desired.

            He kissed me in the middle of that dancefloor. But in all the commotion, we were alone. I heard his heart beating. I breathed in his cigarette smoked skin, his warm cedar scent. The brush of his facial hair.

            Those long, thin fingers fisted in my hair… I reached mine into his – it was long, so long, and surprisingly soft. He was so. fucking. sexy. I could feel his body writhing to the bassline of the music, pressed against mine. The hardness of his belt buckle was no longer alone… the idea frazzled my mind – but I wanted it more than I needed to breathe. I was made, in that revelation, into a woman. Maybe I was about to have a heart attack?

            And too soon, it was undone. The flashing lights hurt my eyes.

            “Shit,” he mumbled into my lips. He was looking around already, by the time I’d re-opened my eyes. Satisfied, he looked back at me. “Okay. Sorry.”

            “Huh?”

            “I shouldn’t have done that.” I barely heard him.

            “What?” I didn’t want to understand. I didn’t want to hear. Matt looked around again, and, beckoning me to follow, we hurried back into the shade of the booth. I followed close behind. John and Yuki were meant to be minding our bags and coats, but were far too engaged in tackling each other’s tonsils to notice when Matt and I perched on the opposite end of the bench seat. He made me go in first, hidden from the rest of the bar-goers.

            Yuki looked over.

            “Hey, you guys, you alright?”

            “Having a good time, Phoebe?” John asked. I nodded, blankly staring – my mind was far, far away, minutes behind everyone else, replaying the kiss.

            “Give us a minute?” Matt said, and the pair of them nodded, sliding out of the booth and heading out to replace us in the manic crowd.

            “What’s going on?” I said, sliding my hand on to Matt’s. He flinched and I removed it at once, hiding both hands instead between my thighs.

            “Don’t you get it? I could get in serious trouble for that.” From the stars to the burning core of the sun, my heart plummeted. “For… this.” He gestured to his crotch. It would have seemed comic if his face weren’t so utterly furious. I glanced at it – stretched by an enormous lump under his fly. I wanted to be proud of myself, but I was too scared by this change of pace.

            “I won’t tell anybody,” I whimpered.

            “No, you won’t. And I won’t. That’s it. It was just a stupid kiss, and it never happened.” What was he saying…? I couldn’t make myself understand. I didn’t want to understand – if I didn’t understand, it might not happen. A path without Matt in my future meant… going back. Or forward, into more of the same horrible, endless, cruel banality that was my life.

            “But…” I was floundering. My heart was in overdrive. He wanted me. He did.

            “But?” Matt’s jaw was as tight as his jeans.

            “Why can’t we…?”

            “I could get in legal trouble!” he hissed. Lights flickered around the room, startling every mind that was not present in the drink and the music. It hurt my eyes, which prickled and spurted tears beyond my control. I wiped them away with every wave, with desperation to erase from Matt’s mind who I really was. I wanted to be so much more… to be the woman he’d just kissed. Better than everyone else except him. “You’re jailbait, kiddo!”

            “I wouldn’t tell anyone!” I promised. He didn’t say anything. “Please… you can’t just call me beautiful… you can’t just kiss me like that and touch me like that, and then pretend I don’t exist!” His eyes were boring into my own with a cruel blankness.

            “It was just a kiss.”

            “No, it wasn’t,” I cried. “Didn’t you feel any of that? Don’t give me something and then take it away again!” His head twitched towards me. I’d said something that was working. He gave in too easily. In retrospect. But all I could find in his relent was glee. Overwhelming glee.

            “Are you being racist?”

            “No?!” I was startled by the accusation. What?

            “Indian giving?”

            “You’re… Native American?”

            “Cherokee.”

            “You don’t look it…”

            “I’m half Cherokee. Quarter Blackfoot, but the quarter Irish seems to have won out in the paleness department.” I smiled – he was talking to me again. Cherokee… the cheekbones.

            “Please can I see you again?” I murmured.

            “Maybe? Just…” He reached over and cupped my cheek. Weakness engulfed me. “…please, just don’t tell anyone about us. About this. Phoebe.”

            Us!? There was an us? I couldn’t have stood up if I tried.

            “I won’t. I promise. Just give me a chance.” He nodded ever so subtly… but I knew had him.

            I had him.

​

This is an extract from "Infatuated Grim".