One Small Thing(22)

Disappointment crushes me. He didn’t come. I had so much to say to him and he didn’t come!

“Argghhhhh!” I quietly scream, hands fisted at my sides. Angrily, I kick at the grass. Fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck my parents. Fuck the school. Fuck everything.

“You come off a little spoiled sometimes, you know?” a voice near the tree says.

I spin toward the sound and see a dark form peel away from the shadows.

“Chase?”

“Yeah. It’s me.”

He steps forward into a pool of moonlight. My breath catches. He looks like a fallen angel, glowing from the night’s light.

“You’re late,” I manage to say.

“That’s my line,” he replies grimly. “Have you gone to the doctor? Is there one you can go to?”

Shame tightens my throat. “Oh. I...” I swallow hard. “I lied about that. I’m sorry. I really am, but it was the only way to get you here.”

“Right.” He looks away, showing off his perfect jawline. The stubble sparkles where the moonlight touches it. Then he says, “I take that back. You’re a lot spoiled.”

He starts to leave.

I panic and grab his arm. “Please, wait. We need to talk.”

“About what?” He shrugs me off. “What happened at the party? We both know that was a mistake. If I knew...” He trails off. He clears his throat and continues, “If I knew you were Elizabeth Jones, I would’ve never touched you.”

My heart squeezes tight. “Why? Why does that matter?”

He cocks his head. “Did you hate your sister or something?”

His words strike me in the gut. I stumble back, blinking back hot tears. “I didn’t hate her. Why would you even say that?”

“Because if the guy who killed my sister was standing in front of me, I wouldn’t be looking at him like I wanted to rip his clothes off.”

I gasp in shock. “I...don’t want to do that.”

“Yeah, you do.” He rakes me from head to toe in one cool, dismissive gaze. “You think you’re the first chick who’s thrown herself at me since I got out? I spent three weeks in Springfield after my release, stayed with my uncle because my dad wants nothing to do with me, and trust me, all the girls I grew up with were suddenly all over me. Now I’m the bad boy everybody wants to tame.”

His dad wants nothing to do with him? Is that why he had to move to Darling and live with his mom? I want to ask him so many questions, but he’s not done.

“Grow up, Beth. In the real world, bad boys are actually bad. They aren’t heroes. It’s not dope to hook up with them. Your home life problems aren’t solved with my dick. Bad boys do bad shit and eventually drag everyone around them into the same hell pit. Go home to your bed and forget about me. I’ll be doing the same about you.”

With that, he turns and disappears into the night, his black-hoodie-clad form swallowed up by the dark.





10

On Thursday morning, a mere five minutes into AP Calc, Chase gets a new nickname. Troy Kendall, the football player from Dvo?ák’s Music History, calls it out as he’s passing back a worksheet Mrs. Russell produced.

“Don’t cut yourself, Williams,” Troy says as he passes the papers behind him. “Manson over here might get turned on by the scent of blood.” Troy smirks at his own joke and exchanges a hearty high-five with another jock.

Half the room gasps. The other half laughs. Manson, as in Charles, the serial killer, Manson. What an awful joke. I can’t help but look at Chase to see how he’s taking it. Then I realize everyone’s staring at him, waiting for him to react. I wince in sympathy. I know just how uncomfortable it is to be the center of everyone’s attention, except I was the focus of pity while he’s the subject of scorn.

It’s a lot worse for him.

Our eyes meet and I swear I see a hurt betrayal in them. A whole lotta et tu, Brute is swimming in those blue eyes of his. But what does he want me to do? Stand up and defend him in front of the entire class? Last night he told me to grow up. He told me to mind my own business, so that’s what I’m going to do.

I break the eye contact and spin toward the front and fixate on Mrs. Russell instead. Her back is turned to the classroom. Either she’s intentionally tuning us out or she didn’t hear Troy’s comment.

“Manson’s the perfect name for him,” Scarlett says next to me.

“Manson was a serial killer,” I mumble.

“Yeah, and I bet Charlie’s had more than one road rage incident.”

“It wasn’t road rage,” I say, feeling suddenly tired. Why am I even bothering to explain Chase’s actions away? He made it perfectly clear that he wanted nothing to do with me.

“I can’t wait to tell Jeff,” Scar continues as if I hadn’t even spoken. Maybe I hadn’t. Maybe it was all in my head.

With Mrs. Russell not paying attention to us, everyone else is talking, too.

“You got a basement over in Grove Heights,” Troy says loudly. “Maybe stashing a few bodies down there?”

“He used to live in Lincoln before his mom married Mayor Stanton,” volunteers a girl in the back. “I read it in the paper.”

“Someone should go dig up his old backyard.”