Brightly Burning Bridges by Ivy Wild
10 Years Ago…
Music poured out of my house from the nearby window and I rolled my eyes. If I ever found out who decided to blast DJ Tiesto through the whole home stereo system, I’d knock the loser on his ass. This wasn’t a European rave. It was fucking Potomac, Maryland. A swanky ass suburb outside of Washington, D.C. where all the parents had too much money and too little time on their hands.
Chief among them was my absentee father. I’d been told countless times that Percy Jenkins was one hell of a businessman. Apparently, what he lacked in terms of parenting skills he made up for in business acumen.
No, it wasn’t fair to say he lacked parenting skills. I hadn’t been around him enough to make an accurate assessment on that front.
“The fuck you doing up here?” a deep baritone asked, opening the patio door behind me, letting the tunes of Tiesto wash over me like a red tide. I turned to see my friend Garrett, complete with a girl on each arm, making his way towards me.
“King and I were just getting some fresh air,” I said, referring to the German Shepherd laying at my feet. Upon hearing his name the dog, and my only true friend in the world, perked up. He bounded over to Garrett to make his greeting and both girls squealed in terror before running off to the side.
Garrett couldn’t have cared less about them. Instead, he leaned down to pat the dog, completely ignoring their whines. I rolled my eyes at the entire sight. My mother was in the hospital—again. And my father was away on business—again. I’d stayed with mom until they’d kicked me out for the night and that’s when I texted Garrett about throwing something at my house.
I couldn’t stand the silence, but I hated the noise. As with most things in my life, I lived in the in-between.
Garrett definitely didn’t live in Potomac or attend our high-class high school. He lived on the other side of the water in Anacostia and that’s why I liked him. He wasn’t fake like the two girls pretending to be scared of a dog for attention.
“You’re missing one hell of a party,” Garrett said, standing back up to his full height. His tall frame rivaled mine and women flocked to him for the opposite reasons they flocked to me. Whereas I was lithe, blond and generally aloof, Garrett was built, dark and as friendly as they came—until he wasn’t. But that wasn’t the point.
“Come here, baby,” Garrett said, holding a tattooed arm out to one of the girls. “He’s friendly.”
The lanky blonde wearing a slinky blue dress that matched the music made her way over to him gingerly and King began to growl at her. She squealed and I laughed as I turned back around to look back out at the sunset, before taking another drag on my blunt (courtesy of Garrett). “He’s not too fond of plastic,” I chuckled.
Garrett, smooth as ever, just used it as an excuse to hug the girl tighter. It was a damn shame because the closer he got to other girls, the further he got from the one he really wanted and he was the only one who couldn’t see that. But I wasn’t his fucking fairy Godmother.
“You’re so mean,” the blonde shouted and Garrett laughed.
Her friend must have had a thing for being mistreated, because she made her way over to me. I looked her up and down as she leaned against the balcony railing and put her hand out, silently asking for a drag. I narrowed my eyes at her, but handed it to her nonetheless. She had long brown hair—or at least it looked like she did. My guess was she was sporting extensions. Her fake hair matched the rest of her and as she handed me back my joint, I decided I didn’t like her at all.
“Geesh, get a room, you two,” the brunette said, referring to Garrett who currently had her blonde friend pressed against the brick siding of the house.
I took another puff of my joint and she just had to open her mouth again. “So what’s your deal?”
I rolled my eyes. “What’s my deal?” I repeated her question with ire in my voice.
“Yeah, what’s your deal?” she said with an attitude, like her question was the most important question of the century. She probably thought it was.
“Don’t follow, sweetheart,” I said, tapping some ash into the ashtray.
“You throw these huge parties but you never participate. So, what’s your deal?”
I scoffed. Did this girl really think I was just going to spill my soul to her? This was the sort of entitled attitude I hated and I was constantly surrounded by it. Sure, I’d been accused of much worse. And maybe I acted as pretentious as the rest of them to save face, but deep down I knew real from fake.
“If you’re looking for me to bare my deepest darkest feelings to you, you’re barking up the wrong tree, sweetheart. Try sinking your claws into someone else. I’m not interested,” I said, snuffing out my joint and standing up to stretch. The balcony had suddenly become extremely stuffy.
Miss Entitled smirked and slinked over to me. Jeez, this girl really did like being mistreated, because she was begging for more of it. I idly wondered if she had the same sorts of daddy-issues as I did. Her hand moved up my chest before wrapping around my neck. “Oh, come on,” she murmured. “Don’t be like that. I just wanted to get to know you, that’s all.”
The sickeningly sweet scent of her perfume filled my nostrils as she tried to wrap her body around mine. My cock twitched with mild interest, as if trying to convince my brain that this girl might be good for a “fuck and forget” situation.
“Don’t you want to get to know one another?” she whispered against my ear before biting it teasingly. My fingers twisted in her long brown locks and I pulled her head back. She gasped and a smile lit up her eyes. Oh yeah, this girl had daddy issues.
“Trust me, sweetheart. I’m the last person you want to get to know,” I breathed out, my lips ghosting against hers. I felt her body shiver against mine and for a split second, I thought about giving into my baser instincts. This girl was asking for it and I wasn’t opposed to giving it to her.
Just as I was about to move back in, something moving in one of the nearby windows caught my eye. No one was supposed to be wandering through the upstairs part of the house. Garrett was the only one allowed upstairs and he knew to keep the staircase blocked off from partygoers when we threw these sorts of events.
“The fuck?” I said, nearly dropping the girl in my arms and heading towards the patio door.
“Hey!” she nearly screamed at me as she tried to regain her balance. I didn’t respond. Instead, I turned to Garrett, who still had her friend pressed up against the side of the house, this time with her dress pushed up to her waist, which only meant one thing.
“If you’re fucking her, go ahead and finish but don’t let her wander off,” I said, cocking my head to the brunette behind me without taking my eyes off the shadowy figure behind the upstairs window to my left. My blood boiled as I realized that was my mother’s library.
Garrett grunted his response, confirming my suspicions that he was balls deep in the girl and I blew past them and back inside the manor. I almost ran through the corridor to get to the library. The door was ajar, confirming what I’d seen earlier. Someone definitely had broken my one fucking rule and they were gonna pay.
I pushed the door open slowly, fully expecting to see a pair of horny teenagers defacing my mother’s library. Except, that’s not what I saw at all. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing actually.
It was a girl, yes. But for a moment, my mind couldn’t tell if I was seeing a ghost or an angel. Her hair was as white as the overdone crown molding above her and her pale skin almost glowed against the backdrop of the setting sun. She had one of my mother’s books in her delicate hands and she was smiling slightly as she turned a page carefully.
She must have finally realized she wasn’t alone because she looked up and the smile on her pale pink lips faded into a look of panic.
“Who are you?” I asked. I wasn’t angry anymore. More curious now. Which was odd. This girl had broken into my house, into my mother’s fucking library and was touching her things and yet, for some reason, I didn’t mind. I just wanted to know more about her.
“I, uh.” Her soft voice stumbled over her words as she gently closed the book and hugged it to her form. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered.
I smirked, my interest in this girl growing by the minute. “What’s your name?” I asked, taking a step closer to her. She looked to be my age, maybe only slightly younger. She backed up by one step to keep the same amount of distance between us.
“I’m sorry,” she said in that timid voice of hers again.
“Your name is ‘I’m sorry?’” I asked, teasing her because she was making it just too damn easy.
She shook her head and clutched the book tighter, backing up another step to match my advances.
I took another step towards her. “What are you doing in my mother’s library?”
She tried to avoid my eyes, but she couldn’t. The moment we locked gazes I almost dropped the act, but I was too practiced by now. Her eyes were a stunning pale lavender. I’d never seen eyes like hers before.
“I, uh,” she hesitated, looking down at the floor. “I just wanted to escape the noise.”
I stopped, suddenly unsure about whether I wanted to continue to mess with this girl. Pointing out the imaginary demons of others helped keep my own real ones quiet. But, this girl seemed like hers were real too. She seemed like me.
The silence stretched between us and suddenly she was moving forward. She tried to slide past me but I wasn’t letting her go that easily. The subtle scent of vanilla and lilac surrounded me and I tried to convince myself I wanted her to stay because she was still holding onto one of my mother’s books, but I didn’t know if that was true.
“Wait,” I said, reaching out for her arm. She jerked away from me quite suddenly, trying to avoid my touch and lost her balance. I watched as she went tumbling into a side table, knocking down a vase of dying carnations in the process. The vase shattered against the porcelain floor, glass shards flying everywhere.
I watched her lavender eyes look around her in horror, still hugging the book tightly to her chest. I ran my hands through my blond locks in frustration. My eyes met hers and I could see the panic written clear on her face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I took a deep breath and calmed myself down. Of the things in the room that my mother actually cared about, I knew she would have preferred the book to be protected over the vase. Even still . . . A smile crept across my lips, but I pushed it back down.
“Do you know how much that vase cost?” I asked her, my tone demanding.
She shook her head as she started to stand, her eyes fixated on the door and her escape.
“Don’t even think about leaving,” I drawled. “This is going to have to be made right.”
She shook her head, still clutching the damn book. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any way to pay for it.”
“Likely story,” I scoffed. If she was at this party, that meant she went to King’s Academy. Which meant she came from money.
She shook her head fervently. “My mother and I just moved into the neighborhood. She’s a live-in caretaker.”
The words fell out of her mouth in a rushed sentence. It was the most I’d heard her talk all night.
“Well, then you’ll have to figure out a different way to pay me back.”
Her features turned sour and she leered at me. “You’re a pig.” Her words were soft but full of venom.
I threw up my hands and chuckled. “Not like that, sweetheart.” I had to give it to this girl, though. Any other girl at our school probably would have jumped at the opportunity, dignity be damned. “You seem like a good student.” I raised my eyebrow at her and she nodded shyly. “Good. Because I think I’d rather spend my time enjoying my senior year than doing homework. I’ll count every homework assignment as $100 towards your debt.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “And how much is this vase supposedly worth?” Her attitude was starting to shift and I could see a bit of fire in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. Little did she know, I loved a challenge.
I pretended to consider the broken pieces of glass on the floor. “A genuine Baccarat crystal vase?” I tapped a finger to my lips and looked between her and the broken vase. “Fifty thousand dollars,” I finally said.
She pursed her lips. “Fucking rich people,” I heard her mutter and my eyes widened in genuine shock.
“What was that?”
Her demeanor shifted and she shook her head, returning to her former, timid self. “Nothing. Fine, but papers are worth a grand.”
I smiled. “Five hundred.”
She shook her head, her pure white hair moving back and forth. “No way. I’m the real deal.”
I smirked as I ran my tongue across my teeth. “I bet you are, sweetheart. Fine, a cool grand for papers. And until it’s paid off, you’re all mine.”
“And my name’s not ‘sweetheart.’ It’s Skyler.”
But before I could respond, a hushed voice calling her name echoed from the hallway. Skyler’s eyes widened, indicating she recognized it. She blew past me, the glass of the vase crunching against her sneakers.
“Oh my gosh, Skyler, where have you been? If Silas catches us up here, he’s going to—” The words died on Elyse’s lips as I leaned against the doorframe of the library.
“Silas is going to do what?” I smirked, crossing my arms.
“Fuck,” Elyse cursed with a roll of her eyes. “Look, Silas, my parents forced me to bring her with me when I told them I was going out.” Elyse lived a few houses down the street from me and was as awful as they came. And this was coming from me and it wasn’t just because we’d hooked up a few times before I got bored of her. If a rumor started up in the school, you could guarantee it originated with Elyse. She was untouchable in so many ways, but so was I. We had a mutual respect for one another as a result and mostly stayed out of each other’s way.
“It’s fine,” I said, waving her off. “We were just talking.”
Elyse narrowed her eyes at me and I scowled at her. “Whatever,” she said with a huff. “Come on Skyler, let’s go.”
I held my hand out and Skyler looked at it before fixing her lavender eyes on me for the last time that evening. She pushed the book she’d been holding the entire evening forward and into my hands before turning on her heel and bounding away, her silvery hair catching the last rays of sun through the hallway windows.
I ignored the look of disdain that Elyse shot me before she followed Skyler down the hallway. I was too interested in the book I was holding to be bothered with her nonsense.
The Sirens of Titanby Kurt Vonnegut.
My favorite book. And it was almost as interesting as a girl named Skyler.
