"You're a fucking dumbass, Cyrus." Maggie let a lone tear fall down the flawless skin of her cheek. "But I can see why she loved that about you."
What had she meant by that? Was that a yes, or had it been a no? Maggie stared into my eyes as though there had been a universe inside them. What had she been looking at? Had I said something stupid to the woman I had, essentially, just proposed to? In that stiff moment of silence, Maggie finally began to smile, even if just slightly. Maybe this all had been the real thing, or so I had thought for a quick second.
"You're a freshman, Cyrus. I'm a nineteen year old girl who has lost everything." She shook her head. "Yet, you chase and chase and chase. You just don't stop. I think this was what Kylie fell in love with, and honestly, I think it's what I fell in love with."
"What are you trying to say?" I let go of her, expecting the worst. "This isn't about age, or your sister. I asked you one thing; are you leaving as my girlfriend or as my wife?"
"Cyrus, I'm not going to marry you. It's as stupid as it is immature." Maggie slipped her shirt on. "We're both too young to run off and get married, but I will leave with you - if you'll have me."
A Week Later
A week had roared by since Maggie had agreed to leave with me. We were finally going to leave this dump and be happy. As much as that moment in the dressing room had brought us closer, it had also done something odd to our relationship. What, exactly, I could not put into words. It was something above physicality, yet below mentally - something right in between - a closeness of sorts, one that I had never quite felt before.
"Dakota Springs seems like a pretty nice place." Maggie set the pamphlet down. "How did you find it?"
"I asked Google. Gave me that." I adored Maggie from across the room as I used my ID to line up the cocaine on the table. "Want some, babe?"
Maggie's hips rocked from side to side, as she made her way from the bed to couch I had been sitting on. Her shirt had ever so slight lifted up on one side, somehow accentuating her model-esque curves. Further down had shown her bare legs as she had been strutting around in nothing but a slim fitting shirt and a pair of dark blue panties. Maggie had been quite the definition of flawless, from her body to her skin to those penetrative blue eyes. I had no idea why Maggie had wasted her time with me, when she could have been doing bigger and better. Maybe she had just been yet another thing I had ruined.
Sitting down on my knee, Maggie let her right arm attach itself to my neck and gave a crooked smile. "If I know you like I think I do, then you're going to do something pretty brutal to her, right?"
"Who?" I asked, lighting the cigarette that had been pursed in between my lips.
"That little blonde whore in the dressing room." Maggie took my cigarette from me, softly dragging her fingernail down the side of my neck. "Don't think that I've forgotten about that."
Just as the line of cocaine had been siphoned in and through my nostril, I lifted my head again, shaking it just a touch. "Oh? What did you have in mind?"
Maggie passed my cigarette back to me and began to run her tongue down my ear, biting down softly just as she reached my pierced earlobe. Her right hand began to comb through my hair, seeming as though she had been trying to separate every strand attached to my scalp. Her teeth slightly lifted from ear, just enough for her to speak into it.
"Ruin her." Maggie sensually whispered, her warm breath sent a freezing shiver down my spine. "You know...play your little games with the stupid slut. I never want to see her smile again."
I had been taken aback by the sharpness in which Maggie had spoken. The vehemency in her voice at that moment was something I had never quite heard from her before. Had Maggie just lost her temper, or had she really meant what she said? A sense of bitterness had loomed in her voice, a sense of a bitter anguish - one that had not been easily rid of.
Maggie shook her head, getting off of my knee. "Just forget about what I said, Cyrus. Nevermind."
Reaching out, I grabbed her forearm and pulled her back down into my grasp. I had held Maggie tightly, unwilling to let her go out of playfulness as I had tried my best to cheer her up - at least in the best way I knew how. However, that hadn't worked. It seemed to have made things worse for her, as the sound of her sadness had begun to break through her voice.
"Cyrus. Do you love me or do you love the idea of me?" Maggie asked, seeming as though she had been questioning the status of our relationship after the earlier events of that previous week. "That love you had with Kylie, even I could tell it was real. I never should have gotten in the way. What I am, what you are, what we are is a result of the person we killed..."
A moist droplet hit my wrist as Maggie trailed off.
"Do you love me because I am a part of Kylie, because I look like her?" Maggie asked me. "Am I enough for you, can I live up to what she left behind?"
"...This is our punishment." I responded in turn after a brief moment of thought, moving my hand down so it could meet with hers. "What does it matter if you are enough or not, who cares if you can't live up what standard she set? The fact of the matter is simple, Maggie...
We're both scum, we deserve each other."
--
Standing at the corner of an alley, I had stood in wait for two things. School and a buyer. The latter, however, had been running late. Finally, I heard a gassed, chubby teen running up to me with money in his hand. He had wanted an ounce of the good stuff, and I hadn't been one to say no to that kind of money, or money at all - so I had let it slide.
"Hey, Fatty. Maybe you should buy some Ice Cream, it'll give you some energy for exercise." I snickered. "That's three-hundred dollars."
"Funny." he gave me something of a stark, sarcastic expression as we traded merchandise.
I smiled, putting the money into my wallet as I headed toward the school with one thought on my mind. More specifically, I had one person on my mind. Someone who, to say the least, needed to be taught a lesson in the art of talking behind someone's back. I had needed to give something of a little talk to Cassidy. Just a little talk, was all.
Minutes had passed in silence before I reached the school door. Instead of entering, however, I had figured that it would have been easier to spot Cassidy entering the school than it would have been to try and find her in the chaos that was the Cafeteria. Turned out, I had been right.
"Hey. Forgetting something?" I asked, nodding at her purse. "Lets go somewhere a little more private, shall we?"
__
In the darkness of the unused classroom, Cassidy stood in front of me - barely lit from a small light in the corner of the room. From what I had been able to see, she had a questioning expression, possibly wondering why I had brought her so far out of the way - so far away from other human life. Why had I brought her to the room, for the money she had still owed me? Hardly.
It was about much more than just money. It was revenge. I was going to fulfill Maggie's desire to break Cassidy. Wide open.
"Coke?" I asked, smiling at her as I poured some on a nearby desk. "No charge. Just some fun before class."
"I've never done it." Maggie quizzically stared at the white powder, looking as though she had been about to run away. Amazingly, it seemed she had been able to read the atmosphere. "I don't think I should, either."
"You do it, or I tell your mom about our little adventure at the mall the other day." I grinned. "I'm just lookin' for someone to party with for a bit. You know what I mean?"
Cassidy sighed, shaking her head. She knew she had been somewhat pushed into a corner, as almost everyone knew that her mom was a something of a stickler for school and the attendance of it. Cassidy, put simply, had been her pride and joy - her constant example of a perfect student with perfect grades. Me? I had been her mothers constant example of what a person shouldn't be.
Outstretching my arm, I held out what was essentially a cut piece of a plastic straw. This had been its only use, to have some nose candy while on the go, and it had served me well. Cassidy had quite confidently taken it from me, as though what she had been about to do wasn't anything major - that it hadn't been nothing more than snorting lined up baby powder.
Oh, how little she had known.
Just as Cassidy had snorted the line, she instantly flew up and fell backwards into another desk. "What is this? This doesn't feel right...Cyrus..."
There had been a new, wicked drug on the market and some goof had thought it been a good idea to mix it with cocaine. It had been a downer mixed with a upper. Rumor had said that "Bleek" had been created by some natives on the nearby reservation, where it spread like wildfire for one reason - the hallucinations. They seemed real, or so I had heard from a fair number of the buyers. I wasn't planning on touching the shit with a ten foot pole.
"Yeah, I bet. That shit hits like a truck." I sneered, as though everything had been normal. "You okay? Why don't you sit down?"
Heeding my advice, Cassidy had pulled out a chair and sat - resting her head on the desk that now sat in front of her. From her actually snorting the drugs on the desk to sitting down, everything had gone to plan and the hardest part had been out of the way. This drug, while quite the upper, was also a downer. Had it hit her hard enough to do what I thought it would do?
I had pulled out my phone and turned on the camera, hoping it would catch everything about to happen. Pressing record, I began. "Cassidy. How do you feel about your friends?"
"The..y f-fake." she slightly lifted her head, just as detached as I had expected her to be with such a heavy dosage.
"Your mom?"
"Anno..y..ing." Cassidy slurred, slightly wobbling. "I want to ha...fun. Not Hom..work."
Had I known that this had been illegal? Of course. Had I had a good enough reason for this? I hadn't. What I had known was that I needed to prove to Maggie just how much I loved her. Had I been playing the obsessed boyfriend role, and for that matter, had I cared? Maggie had been nearly the only thing I had left in my life. I would have done a lot for her, just like the miserable troll I was.
A little servant troll bowing to his queen.
"What about Cyrus?" I asked, simply, trying to keep her focused. "How do you feel about him?"
"He cuteeth. But hesth always with o-othe..r girls." she staggered and slurred, barely able to speak a full sentence. "L-like him.."
Had I given her too much? She had been nothing more than a drunk rag-doll at that moment. Her hazy eyes looked into mine, scared and lost, unknowing of what to do - yet not a word of her own will could come from her mouth. No words, no screams - trapped with only myself, the worst person she could have had been alone with at that moment. Something I had felt from a her distant eyes.
"Thish...isn't right." her head nearly pulled itself back down onto the desk.
"Oh? So, it's okay to talk shit about a completely innocent person behind their back?" I growled, pulling her head back by her hair. "Aren't you quite the hypocrite?"
I had been so bent on the words that I had hissed out like venom, that I hadn't quite realized she had sobered up, just enough to talk coherently. Her eyes widened, as though she seen a twist in a mystery movie - that twist being me. Had she realized what she had done, or had that been her brain, her instincts telling her to be scared of the man in front of her?
"Cyr..us. Let go. Please." she nearly pleaded.
Letting go, I had been shocked at myself. What had I done to a woman? Had I just broken the age old rule of never putting a hand on a woman, again? As a child, that had been something that was burnt into me. Not only had it been a rule, it had been a way of life for me. No matter how much a girl had pissed me off, I would have never hurt them physically. Yet, I had done just that for the second time in my life.
Though, only slightly, right?
Cassidy, who had regained some of her sobriety, looked at the camera. She had known what was on there, and had no way to defend herself from it being released into the public.
"S-Stop filming...Don't you have enough already?" Cassidy shied away, still fairly high, though now able to speak.
"I dunno. Do I? What about my dead ex-girlfriend's sister? Does she have enough of your shit talking?" I answered her question with another question. "Well?"
"How was I supposed to know that you were in a girls dressing room with your girlfriend?" Cassidy looked away from the camera. "That's just fucking weird to begin with. Don't you know how many laws you're breaking?"
Stopping the recording, I set my phone down and sighed softly as I leaned against the desk. Why had I even done this to someone I had known since elementary school? While Cassidy and I had never been good friends, we had always been acquaintances. When it came down to things between us, she had always taken rotten end of the stick. Why? I hadn't known, and didn't really care.
Why had I been questioning myself? Hadn't I set my mind on doing this for Maggie, to show just how much I had loved her? Was I wrong for doing this? Was my reason for doing this wrong? Had I been wrong for dating Maggie? What had driven me to date Maggie in the first place? Where had the idea of my love for her come from? Had this all been a lie?
"Cyrus. Are you okay?" I looked up to see Cassidy eye to eye with me. Her glassy green eyes had caught me for a single moment, just a single moment. "You look like your dog just died."
Brushing my hair over the back of my head, I sighed again. How had I been supposed to answer that when I hadn't even known the answer myself? Where had this lack of belief come from? Why had it just appeared now? I ran my hand over my face and looked at Cassidy, who had yet to move from the spot she had been standing in before. Was she the reason?
"Have you ever wondered?" I looked up, questioning everything I had known to be the truth, to be real. "Have you thought about ever being able to go back and change something, even if it would end up hurting you?"
"Not really." Cassidy shook her head, carrying a nearly worried expression. "I can't say I have. I mean, there is stuff I wish I could change, or I wish I could say differently. But not like you're talking about."
"It's the same idea..." I replied, clearing my throat. "Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had never met Kylie, if I had never started dating her. Would she have still died because of someone else? Would I still have turned out like the dumpster fire that I am right now? Where would she be, where would I be? Would the same things have happened with other people?"
"I'm not good at talking about stuff like this..." Cassidy spoke as she took my left hand and placed it on the upper part of her chest - her heart beating rapidly, like a hoof to a racetrack. "Like I said, I've wondered what would have happened if I could change things I said. You're one of those things."
Cassidy moved forward as my hand stayed glued to her chest. "In middle school, we almost did it. Remember? I ended up saying no and running away. It has never been the same between us since then. What would our relationship be like now if I had let it happen back then? I still wonder, and I still regret not doing anything. I still regret letting that awkwardness be our barrier..."
Cassidy had taken the hand that been so seemingly glued to her chest and began to move it downwards ever so slowly, until my index finger had touched the button of her jeans.
"I won't tell anyone."767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwg4eU7gYX4
