Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance Read online

  I climb out, taking my phone with me. I don’t look at the date on it again. If the Knight Crew had access to my phone to sneak it back into my car, they very easily could’ve fucked with that, too.

  “Karma?” Mama Cathy asks when I walk in and find her in the living room, bent over a small canvas, a pile of bubble wrap on the floor beside her. The moms are always ordering art. Sometimes it’s to keep, sometimes it’s to sell. “What are you doing home?”

  “Um, it’s Saturday?” I say with a breezy laugh, pretending like her look of confusion isn’t a terrifying thing to behold.

  “Are you bleeding?” she asks, standing up from the couch at the same time that Mama Jane comes in, her face pinched.

  “Did you get in an accident, Karma?” she asks as I turn to look at her and she spots the blood on my forehead. “Oh my god, are you alright?” Jane comes forward, cupping my face in her hands as I struggle to swallow past a sudden tightness in my throat.

  “I told you yesterday that something happened to Little Bee,” I say, and Jane’s eyes narrow with worry. She flicks a glance in Cathy’s direction.

  “Call the doctor,” Jane says, but I brush her off, stepping back and crossing my arms over my chest. Google today’s date, Karma, my mind urges, but I won’t. I refuse.

  “I don’t need a doctor; it’s just a little bump,” I argue. “Can I just chill in my room please?”

  The moms exchange a long, worried look.

  “Do you have any other injuries?” Jane asks, but I’m already shaking my head.

  “Look, I’m fine. It’s nothing. I can even leave my door open if that’ll make you happy.” I tap my foot and raise my brows, trying to give off the impression that I’m okay. I’m not, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll smoke some weed on the back porch, take a nap, and everything will be … well, not okay. Things will never be okay again, now that the video is making its rounds on the internet, but they could be better. Things will be better.

  “If you leave the door open …” Jane hedges, but I highly doubt she’s going to leave me alone for long. More than likely, she’ll call the doctor—there’s only one in Devil Springs—and see if she’s making house calls today.

  I head down the hall, breathing a sigh of relief once I’m back in my room.

  My parents, despite being 420-friendly, will freak if they find out I smoke weed—they think I should wait until my brain is done developing—so I make sure to always smoke out the window to help hide the smell. I grab one of the joints I have tucked in my desk drawer and open my bedroom window, hopping up to sit on the sill as I light up.

  Of course, from here I can see the mural on the inside wall of the carport.

  The mural … that isn’t there at all.

  My hands shake as I hold the lighter to the end of the joint, remembering the can of red spray paint and Katie’s silent tears. They painted over it, I tell myself, because that’s the only logical explanation. But then my eyes flick over to the perfect square of canvas on my easel, the one that’s still fully intact, despite my fit with the X-Acto knife.

  Logic.

  I have to hold onto logic.

  A group of teens—one of them wearing a Devil Springs High sweatshirt—passes by, wearing masks and laughing.

  “We’re already late; I say we ditch today, hit the party early,” one of them says to the others. I can’t hear their responses because they’re walking too fast, but that does nothing to melt the ice forming in my belly. My eyes stray back to my bed, to my phone lying innocuously on the comforter.

  If there’s nothing wrong, why can’t you just pick it up and look at it? I ask myself, taking a drag on the joint and then perching it carefully on the edge of my glass ashtray. Carefully, as if it’s a venomous snake about to strike, I approach the silent rectangle of my phone.

  “This is stupid,” I murmur after a moment, snatching it up and pulling up Google.

  What is today’s date? I type, my stomach clenching before I hit enter.

  When yesterday’s date—Devils’ Day—pops up, I start to feel woozy again, like I did at the gas station earlier.

  “What the fuck?” I whisper, hands shaking as I try typing in my name, then Calix’s, along with Crescent Prep, just like I did last night.

  There are no videos. No sex tapes. Not even a mention of a sex tape. Frantically, I start checking the social media accounts of the Knight Crew. Some of them—like Calix’s—are private, but in typical Raz fashion, he posts every aspect of his life for the world to see.

  And yet … he doesn’t mention the video. Neither does Sonja.

  I throw my phone down on the bed and step back, like it really has bitten me, infected me, poisoned me.

  It’s the weed, I try to tell myself this time, even though I know two drags on a joint does not a high person make. Sliding into the seat at my desk, I open my laptop and perform the same searches, the same social media sweeps, just to see if maybe the Knight Crew really did fuck with my phone.

  The results are the same.

  “Mom …” I call out, not caring which of them responds to me. Of course, they’re both hovering nearby, so they appear within seconds. I turn to look at them, trying not to give into the fear I’m feeling inside. “I think I need to go to the hospital.”

  This too shall pass, I murmur, over and over again as I sit in the backseat of my mothers’ Taurus. Yeah, the same Taurus I drove off the edge of Highway 62. After telling my moms the full story, they bypassed our local doctor and drove me straight to the ER.

  Everything seems fine, they said. I don’t have a concussion, they said.

  “Just because the CT scan doesn’t show anything doesn’t mean you don’t have a brain injury of some kind,” Mama Jane says, frowning hard. Sometimes I forget that she used to be a family medicine doctor. I wasn’t born until after she’d left her career. It’s one of the reasons her family doesn’t speak to her anymore. But just one of the reasons. Mama Cathy, and in turn, me and my sisters, are some of the other reasons. “I want you to go to sleep as soon as we get home.”

  “If you really think I have a concussion, isn’t it best if I stay up?” I ask, but even though it’s only early afternoon, I’m fucking exhausted. All I want to do is sleep. Because, according to my parents, to the whole world, today is September 25th, Devils’ Day. Although … it can’t be because it was Devils’ Day yesterday, right?

  Goddamn it, I just want to go to bed. When I wake up, I’ll figure this all out.

  “That’s a myth,” Jane says as Cathy looks over her shoulder, brows pinched with worry. “As long as you’re awake and you can hold a conversation, sleep is actually best for concussive patients.” We pull into the driveway beside the mural that, apparently, never existed in the first place?

  That must’ve been one hell of a dream last night.

  I don’t think very hard about this morning, about how I passed out and hit the pavement and then … woke up and started all over again.

  Instead, I head inside and change into some pj’s. My moms bring me soup and warm milk, like I’m five years old again, and leave the door cracked with promises to check in on me every hour or so. As soon as they’re gone, I finish my joint, let the munchies help me clean up every last bite of food, and then curl up in bed.

  There is no video, I tell myself with a relieved sigh. As weirded out as I am about the intensity of last night’s dream, I feel better. I never fought with Luke or pepper sprayed the Knight Crew or ruined my little sisters’ mural.

  I’m still smiling when I finally drift off to sleep.

  I am most definitely not smiling when I wake up again.

  There’s blood all over my steering wheel.

  I wake up with a start, my heart pounding, a scream lodged in my throat. No! No, this is a fucking nightmare!

  This time, I don’t wait for Calix to tear my car door open. I open it so fast and so hard that I hit him with it. He grunts and grabs onto it, but I’m already climbing out. I’m already running. I
make it as far as the grassy patch on the edge of the parking lot before I collapse and throw up.

  “Are you fucking insane?!” Calix growls, breathing hard as he catches up to me.

  “Stop saying that!” I scream, turning to look at him while my head swims with fear and I choke on a sense of dread and foreboding. This isn’t happening to me, it’s not. This isn’t real. I figure I must’ve taken some psychedelics at the Devils’ Day Party and now I’m tripping hard. How else could I be reliving the same day over and over again?

  “Stop saying what?” Calix snaps back as the older woman in the yellow shirt jogs over to us, phone clutched in her hand.

  “Are you okay?” she asks, and I have to bite back the urge to scream. “Should I call the police?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Calix replies, and I cut him off before he can continue. If I hear another line repeated, I might very well go insane.

  “Please leave us alone,” I say, looking back at the lady with what I hope is a fairly sane expression. I don’t feel sane. Not even close. In fact, I’m considering driving three counties over and checking myself into a mental health facility.

  “We’re classmates; I won’t be pressing charges,” Calix says anyway, and I begin to sob. The woman moves away, still watching us, like she always does. “Good god, Trailer Park, what the fuck is wrong with you?” he asks, but there’s something strange in his voice, an edge of … well, it can’t be concern, but something I’ve never heard before.

  Except for that one time.

  I choke on a sob, burying my face in my hands.

  “You hate me so much,” I murmur, not caring what he thinks of me. “Why don’t you just kill me now and put me out of my misery?”

  Calix goes disturbingly still, like we’re both in a play together, but I’m not saying my parts right.

  “Is this a Devils’ Day prank?” he asks, sounding annoyed, rather than pissed off. “Because I’m not in the mood.”

  “A Devils’ Day prank,” I quip with a dry laugh, dashing the tears from my face and rising to my feet. I throw him a look of pure hatred. I hate him. I hate him. I fucking hate him. “I wish. Just … get the hell away from me, Calix.”

  I start walking down the sidewalk, not caring what happens to my car. He can have it towed for all I give a shit. If I wake up tomorrow and that’s the worst of my problems, I’ll jump for fucking joy and compose a ditty to sing the rest of the day. The Knight Crew can hang me by my shoelaces from the loblolly pines near the courtyard and I’ll thank them for the privilege.

  After about half a block, I realize that Calix is following me.

  “What do you want?” I snap, turning to face him without an ounce of fear or trepidation. The Knight Crew and their bullying means nothing to me right now. Nothing. Not when I’m losing my goddamn mind.

  “You just hit my car,” he says, scowling at me, dressed in his academy uniform. I hate how handsome he looks in the royal purple jacket, how well it complements his raven-dark hair and obsidian eyes. They glitter with anger as he takes me in from head to toe, a muscle in his jaw ticking with frustration. “Do you really think I’m going to let you walk away?” He reaches out and uses the knuckle of one finger to swipe some blood from my forehead. Despite everything, my heart stutters and I feel a bit of emotion rise up in me, emotion that I thought I’d wiped away after last year’s Devils’ Day party. “Do you have a head injury or something? The press is all over this one-percent, rich versus poor crap. If something happens to you, I might actually serve time for it—even though you were the one that chose to rev your engine and hit my fucking car.”

  “You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you?” I snap back, unfettered by my usual inhibitions. Don’t piss the Knight Crew off; don’t draw their attention anymore than necessary. But who cares? If I’m going to be locked away, my mind trapped in a never-ending cycle of crazy, then I might as well be bold. “I said I’m fine. Leave me alone, Calix.”

  I start to walk again, but he reaches out to grab my arm, his fingers tight against the purple of my own blazer. I look back at him, meeting his dark eyes with my gray ones.

  “You’re not going anywhere until we sort out this crash; I’m calling an ambulance.” He pulls his phone from his pocket, and I knock it away, sending it flying into the road. A passing car runs right over it, and his teeth clench so tight I wouldn’t be surprised if one were to snap off. That insouciant air of privilege is fading around the edges, like a mask with a crack down the middle. Fitting, considering it’s Devils’ Day. Again.

  “Calix, if you don’t let go of me, I’m going to start screaming, and I won’t stop until there’s a crowd hauling you off of me.” His grip tightens and some of his usual haughtiness floods his expression.

  “Go for it,” he challenges, yanking me toward him hard enough that our fronts bump together. I look up at him and for the briefest of seconds, I can remember what it was like last year when he came to my house looking for me. When he invited me to the party. Took me to the spring and the treehouse. When he confessed.

  My cheeks heat and I glance away.

  I guess I’m not so beyond caring that I want to scream and draw a bunch of attention to myself. Calix releases me, and I grip my wrist to my chest, as if his touch has left some sort of permanent mark on my flesh.

  “Karma,” he starts, and the tone in his voice catches me off-guard, like he’s about to say something he may very well regret.

  “What the fuck happened?” Raz shouts, jogging up to us with Barron on his heels. “Why is Trailer Park’s car shoved up the ass of yours?” He sneers at me, red eyes darkening with hate. “Little bitch thought she’d get the first Devils’ Day trick on us, huh?”

  It’s not quite the same script, but close enough that I feel my ears begin to ring. Calix steps back from me, like he’s just realized I’m the ugly, weird, poor girl he’s never liked. One he hates so much that he was willing to spend hours fucking her just to prove a point, just for a joke.

  “Leave me alone,” I whisper, wishing they’d all go away, so I could have a moment to think.

  “Go away?” Raz echoes with a laugh as Barron sucks on his stupid lollipop, watching me with those dual-colored eyes of his. “You’ve got to be kidding. You think you get to pull this shit and just walk away? I don’t fucking think so.”

  “Back off of her,” Barron warns, glancing over at the busy shopping center on our right. “People are watching.”

  A long, tired sigh escapes me, and all three boys look at me strangely, like I’m not acting the way I’m supposed to.

  “I’ll suck your dick tonight to pay for the damage,” I deadpan, stopping Calix before he can feed me the next line in the story. His eyes widen, almost imperceptibly, before he’s scowling again. Raz just starts laughing, like a braying donkey, and doesn’t stop.

  “You think I want your filthy mouth on my dick?” Calix snaps, but there’s something about the way he says the word filthy that makes me wonder. It’s almost a caress, coming out of that menace of a mouth.

  “You didn’t seem to mind last year,” I snap back as Barron studies me with an intensity that reminds me of the way he draws, like I’m a subject he just has to capture in charcoal. I’ve seen his art; he’s good. But he lacks passion in his work. It’s as empty and cold as his voice or that unnerving stare from his brown and blue eyes.

  “Aw, are you still salty about all of that?” Raz taunts, pushing his bangs back from his forehead with a smirk. “Did you get your heart broken last year?”

  “Since you’ve inconvenienced all of us,” Barron interrupts, his voice like a cool fog on the morning of a funeral. It’s … almost depthless, but also cold. Sad. Indifferent. There’s something about it that’s always scared but simultaneously fascinated me. “Maybe you can meet us at the party and suck us all off?”

  “Oh, this I like,” Raz says as I stand there with ice in my belly and fear in my heart. What’s happening? Why is this happening? And how can I ma
ke it stop? “I might not like you much, but I never turn down a BJ.”

  “And you have all the diseases to show for it,” I blurt before I can stop myself. Raz’s face darkens up, and he spins on me, grabbing me by the shoulders and yanking me close. The way his red eyes search my face, I can tell he hates me about as much as I hate Calix. Maybe more.

  “The more I think about it, the more I like this idea. Meet us at the party tonight and we’ll work something out.” He releases me, and I stumble a few steps, but I’m not afraid of the challenge in his eyes, the darkness in Calix’s, or the unnerving stare from Barron.

  I won’t be going to the party tonight regardless.

  “Fine.”

  They all look at me like I’m somewhat of a disappointment, like this is not how I’m supposed to act or how things are supposed to go. There’s no challenge here, and if there’s no challenge, there’s no fun.

  “When did you get so goddamn boring?” Raz quips with a dramatic roll of his eyes. “Come on, let’s leave the bitch to whatever emo bullshit is plaguing her. Maybe she can write a sad poem about it and read it in front of the class?”

  Raz turns and starts off down the sidewalk. After a long moment, Calix peels away and follows after him.

  Barron waits for a beat longer, watching me, almost like he’s committing me to memory.

  This too shall pass, I tell myself, but maybe that isn’t true. Maybe some things don’t pass? Maybe this is punishment for all the mistakes I made in life, reparations for all the people I hurt? Maybe I really did drive my car off the road that night and this is purgatory?

  Or hell.

  More than likely, it’s hell.

  “See you at the party,” Barron says, and then he turns and leaves me to stand alone on the sidewalk.

  “You did what?!” Luke crows as I stand in front of her, trying my best to maintain some sort of calm. But it’s hard, I’ll admit. All I want to do is go home and sleep, but I’m terrified to close my eyes again. The last few times I did, I woke up at the gas station. So today, I’m going to do my best to go through the motions without hurting anyone I love, and see what happens. Maybe that’s all I need to do? “I can see the headline now: three hundred thousand-dollar Aston Martin crushed by shitty yellow VW bug with eyelashes. What a glorious start to Devils’ Day!”