Brutal Boy by Selena
seven
Harper Apple
He’s going to kill me.
That’s all I can think as the current pulls us along, keeping us from sinking to the bottom of the muddy banks. I pushed him with both hands, but managed to grab onto the bridge immediately. Everything was going better than I could have hoped—for about half a second. I thought if he fell, the others would run down to get him, and by the time he swam to shore, changed, and got back in the car, I’d be long gone.
Of course I prepared for the possibility that I’d fall, too. That he’d yank me off the ledge, or that I’d swipe for the railing but lose my balance before I got it. The water’s not rushing and churning, but it’s moving at a good rate, and I knew that even if I fell, he’d have hit the water and been swept along at least far enough so I didn’t fall on him and kill one of us.
But no. He’s the one who’s going to kill us. He didn’t just grab me and pull me off, then kick his way through the air like a normal person falling might. No self-preservation instinct made him try to hit the water advantageously. Instead, he wrapped his arms around me and held on like a fucking barnacle, pinning my arms. We didn’t hit the water well, but I managed to get a good breath before sinking through the frigid surface, and thank fuck for that.
Otherwise, I’d be dead already instead of struggling as hard as I can against his iron grip. The water is like frozen taffy. I can barely kick out in it, and any contact I make with his shins is blunted by the water. We’re pulled along below the surface, twisted by the current until I can’t tell up from down. And I can’t fucking breathe.
My lungs ache. My whole body aches from the cold, much colder than I expected. My head throbs.
And then, although he must have bigger lungs and is an athlete who should be able to hold his breath until I’m dead and then probably swim up to the surface, I feel him release his air. His arms pulse tight around me for one second, like he’s giving me a final embrace, before loosening at last.
I don’t waste a second. I grab him and kick as hard as I can, using my other arm to stroke at the water. I move with the current, letting it carry me and do most of the work, letting the air in my lungs lift me to show me which way is up. I’m almost choking on the lack of oxygen. My chest feels like an elephant is standing on it. My head throbs, blackness eating into the edges of my consciousness as I kick and paddle frantically with one hand, not sure I’ll make the surface in time. The deadweight of Royal threatens to pull me back down, to the river’s hungry bottom.
I want to drop him, but I know I’ll never find him if I let him go. The current will take him, and when I dive back under, he’ll be gone. Just when I think I’ll have to take a breath of water, my head breaks the surface. I suck in a breath, relief making me nearly sob as instinct takes over. Then I’m pulled under again, almost before I can get my mouth closed. I kick hard, breaking through again. This time, I don’t fight and flail like a panicked animal.
I force myself to let my body rest low in the water, to take a slow breath, to only kick my legs to keep from sinking under again. I focus on nothing but breathing the air I so badly need. After I’ve taken several deep breaths, I’m calm enough to think straight, and I aim for the closer bank, put my face into the water, and swim hard with the current. It seems to take forever, like I’m not moving toward the bank at all but only downstream. I’m sure it’s too late for Royal, that I should just drop him and let him join his sister as another casualty of the river.
But I can’t seem to unclench my fingers from the shoulder of his shirt, where I grabbed him before I started up. At last, I’m close enough to touch the bottom with my toes, but I still can’t get out of the water. The current pulls me along when I try to stand. Frustration and panic claw at me, and I start swimming again.
A voice cuts through my singular focus, and I jerk my head in that direction. Duke and Baron are running along the side, waving to me and calling. When I put my feet down again, I’m able to at least stand without being knocked over. The moment I stop moving, Duke charges into the water. His face is etched with fear as he wades out, reaching a hand toward me when he’s still halfway there, as if wanting alone can close the distance between us.
For some reason, a vision of Mabel Darling fills my head. Is this how Royal pulled her out, the reason he didn’t want to admit it? Duke isn’t pulling me out because of any loyalty or feeling. He’s doing it because he’s a fucking human being, and that’s something Royal would never want to admit to. It would damage his reputation to admit he’s just like the rest of us, not some vengeful god perched on a throne above it all.
“Where’s Royal?” Duke calls, his hand finally connecting with mine. I’ve never felt relief like I do the moment his impossibly strong hand grips mine, not even when I caught my breath. I was too scared then. Now, I just about pass out with the force of relief. I’m so caught in the moment that my grip on Royal’s shirt relaxes and I have to jerk my hand from Duke’s and grab for Royal again, this time getting his hand.
“I’ve got him,” I say.
And then I burst into tears like a fucking baby.
Everything happens around me after that, and I know I should jump into action and help, but I can’t seem to put myself back in the moment. I was completely absorbed in every moment in the river, but when they pull me out, it’s like a part of me was left in the water.
I’m used to giving myself over to the moment in a fight. I relish the way it turns my brain off, and I don’t have to think about anything but the goal, the win, the light at the end of the tunnel vision that takes me over in those moments. And even though the practice in honing my ability probably saved me today, I can’t seem to snap back to reality when it’s over.
Instead, I sit on the bank while Duke and Baron roll Royal on his face and try to bang the water out of his lungs. Then Baron starts mouth-to-mouth, and Duke comes over and wraps Baron’s jacket around me. It’s damp from the drizzle still falling, but when he wraps his arms around me and pulls me into his lap, he’s warm and strong, and I’m so relieved that for just one fucking moment in my life, someone else is taking over, that I don’t have to be strong, that I can fall apart and my world won’t fall apart with me.
“You did alright, Apple,” he says, pressing his warm lips to my forehead. I’m so cold I can hardly feel it.
“I pushed him,” I choke out, too tired to care what he’s going to do to me for that confession. If he throws me back in the river, I’ll give up the way Royal did and just let it have me.
“I know,” he says quietly. “We saw.”
“I didn’t know—” I start, but a shiver wracks my body so hard it chokes the words off.
“I know,” Duke says again, and instead of throwing me back in the water, he holds me tighter. “My brother’s a complicated beast.”
“He didn’t even try,” I say, wiping the annoying tears from my eyes. They refuse to stop, even when I’m done with them, when I want to say this to Duke, when I want to make him see that I didn’t mean to fucking kill his brother.
“You have to understand,” Duke says quietly. “Royal’s not suicidal. He’s not going to jump off the bridge. But if someone pushes him…”
“He’s not going to try to save himself,” I say, another sob wracking my body.
Duke kisses my forehead again, squeezing me against his chest and letting my tears soak his shirt above the waterline left from when he waded in to get us. “He just doesn’t really care if he dies.”
As if in answer, Royal starts choking. Baron drags him over, rolling his massive form like the giant it is. Royal staggers onto a hands and knees position and vomits a torrent of brown water, as if he was still in the river, too. Or maybe the river is always a part of him, one that never really leaves no matter how much of it he spews back up, no matter how much his body wants to rid him of it.
“Why?” I whisper. “What happened to him?”
“You don’t get it, Harp,” Duke says, his voice quiet, for only me to hear. “We lost our sister, but Royal, he lost his twin.”
Baron is speaking to Royal in the same low tone a few feet away, two private conversations happening so close but separated by years and miles that can’t be crossed. Royal’s still on his knees, but he lowers himself to his elbows, pressing his forehead to the muddy gravel on the riverbank, his breathing ragged as a sob. And I think in that moment that Duke is wrong about him. He’s lost something more than a sister, more than even a twin. He lost his soul.
“Fuck,” he grinds out, his hands balled into fists. He punches the wet earth with the bottom of his clenched fist. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” He punctuates each word with another blow, until he’s churned up mud from the gravel, until his skin is cut and bleeding, his red blood soaking into the red-brown dirt of the bank.
“Listen, whether he likes it or not, you saved my brother’s life today,” Duke says. “But never pull this shit again, Harper. You can’t push my brother. Just… Stop pushing him, okay?”
I know he’s talking about more than pushing him off the bridge. I nod and wipe my cheeks.
“Good,” Duke says. “Our job is to help him live, whatever that means at any given time. Remember that. It’s your job now, too.”
I don’t say anything, but I think the same thing I thought on that bridge when Royal told me I was his toy. I didn’t sign up for this shit. I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want the attention. I don’t want the responsibility. I don’t want the danger.
But in truth, I did sign up for this. I did ask for it.
Not by blowing Mr. Behr in the back of his car or having them catch us. Not by having a video of the incident released. Not even by going to Willow Heights.
I signed up for it when I agreed to Mr. D’s conditions. I asked for it when I pursued the boys, when I tried to get in with them. I put myself in the middle of it. I wanted their attention, even knowing it came with a danger I wasn’t prepared for.
So I nod, and Baron says we need to get Royal somewhere warm. Duke stands and pulls Baron’s jacket tight around me, and my eyes fall to a ring on his left hand. It’s a clunky thing, smaller than a class ring and simpler but big enough to catch my eye. Big enough for me to read the clearly embossed D in the center of it.
Again I wonder who I’m actually working for. Maybe it’s not a creepy old dude. Baron is supposedly a genius hacker, after all. I have zero doubts that he’s the one who hacked into Dixie’s blog and put that video up, whether he did it of his own accord or at Royal’s direction.
But thinking he’s Mr. D is stupid. Why would he want me to spy on him?
I push the thought away and start back to the car with the others. My legs are shaking, my teeth chattering, my whole body quaking with cold. Though Royal keeps shoving Baron away when he tries to help and telling him he’s fine, he throws up again halfway back to the car, and he has to stop and rest three times, leaning over with his hands on his knees, just breathing.
When we finally reach the car, I’m so exhausted I don’t think I could take another step if I tried. I slide into the back seat. Royal doesn’t protest when Baron takes the keys and opens the back door. He drags himself onto the back seat, looking as drained as I feel. Baron turns on the car and blasts the heat, and Duke turns around in the passenger seat to look at us.
“There’s a blanket back there if you need it,” he says, seeing me quaking in my seat. I’m clumsy from cold, but I manage to get on my knees and reach behind the back seat to grab a gold and black fleece blanket with the WHPA Knights logo. I wrap it around myself and slide back down on the seat, casting a guilty glance at Royal. He’s slumped against the far side of the seat, his forehead resting on the glass.
“You know if you want to get warm, you should get naked,” Duke says, flashing his grin at me. But I know there’s a real boy under the dirty mouth and the laughter, even if I only got to see him for five minutes when he thought his brother was dying.
“Funny guy,” I mutter.
“He’s right,” Baron chimes in. “That’s survival 101. Both of you should toss your clothes and get under the blanket.”
“Not happening,” I say, glaring at him.
“Then at least cuddle up to share body heat,” Baron says, shifting into gear. He pulls the car onto the road, and I’m grateful their attention has turned away from us.
“Want some of this?” I ask Royal, pulling the blanket from under me so I can put it over us both, if he scoots closer.
He doesn’t move. I wonder what’s going on in his head right now. Is he pissed that I pulled him out of the river? Did he want to die back there? Or just pissed I pushed him?
He sure as hell didn’t make an effort to live.
My throat tightens, and I scoot across the seat, knowing he’s not going to do it. That he’ll never reach out. He’ll never give me anything at all. He’s locked up tight in his head, in his empty heart, and he couldn’t give me what I need even if he wanted to. Still, I’m not a monster. I may have done things to survive that not everyone understands or agrees with, but I’m still a girl, still human. I cover Royal with the blanket, and when he still doesn’t move, I move closer, until our bodies are pressed together on the seat. I wrap my arms around him and lay my head on his chest, still clad in the shirt I used to pull him out of the depths of the river.
He doesn’t move. If it weren’t for the heavy thud of his heartbeat against my cheek, I might think he was dead. His skin is cold under the wet clothes, and for a second, I consider unbuttoning his shirt, but that seems creepy, so I only squeeze myself against him, waiting for the warmth to build between our two cold bodies. The car moves through the grey, soggy evening, past the good side of town, down the wet streets glimmering with the reflection of traffic lights in the business section, and then over the tracks.
Though they must know where I live, since one of them delivered my bike, I wasn’t with them that time. Now, I see the small, decrepit houses the way they must see them. They look depressing and hopeless. When we turn onto Mill Street, a car sits on the side of the road outside Zephyr’s house, two wheels up on cinderblocks, the windows down despite the rain. In another driveway, a trash bag is taped over the window of a car, and kids’ bikes and toys are strewn across the brown lawn.
Baron pulls up alongside the curb in front of my house. Though I’ve never been ashamed of my neighborhood, and I actually like Blue and Olive more than most people, the little plastic kiddie pool full of sand and faded plastic chairs in Blue’s yard look as trashy as anyone else’s when seen through the eyes of a stranger. Blue stands on her porch in the growing darkness, her porch light burned out, smoking a cigarette. An old, rusty coffee can sits on the steps, waiting for her cigarette butts and adding to the junk.
No wonder these boys, these fucking princes of Faulkner, call me trailer trash. That’s exactly what I am.
I’m stiff with self-consciousness as I pry myself from under the steamy blanket spread over myself and Royal.
“Shit,” I mutter, sliding across the seat to make a quick escape. “I got your seats wet.”
Somehow, until this moment, I didn’t take the time to marvel at or even notice that the seats are soft as butter and the interior smells like new leather, that the car moves so smoothly and silently that I could hear Royal’s heartbeat all the way home. I’ve been in Royal’s racing car, but this one… Damn. I know zero about cars, but this is a really fucking nice car.
“Trust me, a little river water is the cleanest thing that back seat’s ever seen,” Duke says, turning around to flash me a grin.
I try not to think about that as I climb out of the car. I wave to Blue and hurry up the walkway and inside my house. I should check in with Mr. D, as is our Friday arrangement, but Mom is home and I don’t want to use the computer in the living room. Since my laptop is at school, as is my bike, I can’t use that, either. I can’t even use the OnlyWords app on my phone, since it’s also at school.
I’m honestly relieved I have an excuse not to text him. Today was too fucking long, and I just want to crawl in bed and pile blankets over myself and not think about any of it—Colt lying on the road in the rain until someone happened by and found him; the easy fun we had together and how much it cost us both; the helpless hate I feel for Royal Dolce and the infuriating attraction that goes along with it; the way his tortured soul calls to mine and the way mine answers whether I want to admit it or not.
I want to be above it all, to not care what anyone thinks about me, to not care that I’m poor and that people call me a whore and that everyone has seen me sucking a teacher’s dick. Sometimes, I pull it off, and usually, I can fake it until I make it to the blissful land of not giving a fuck. But the Dolce boys get under my skin. They make me ashamed of who I am, and at the same time, make me think that I can be someone else. They pull me under their spell and make me want to change, to be better, to be good enough for them. Implied in that desire is the sneaky way they make me feel like I’m not good enough already.
The more I learn about the Dolces, the less I think I know them, the less I have figured out. What scares me most is that the more I get to know them, the less I know myself. I definitely never thought I was the kind of girl who could care about a boy who treats me the way Royal does. But even if he doesn’t care if he lives—maybe because he doesn’t care—I do.
*
A Mother’s Love
What were you thinking?
Are you just trying to scare me
After everything this family has been through
Haven’t I suffered enough?
Is this some kind of cry for attention
Because I’ve tried
If you bothered to pick up the phone
Call me back once in a while
But you shut me out
Do you know how that makes me feel?
Do you?
And now this
Do you expect me to drop everything?
There’s an opening this week
Maria Giancursio has a piece in the gallery
One art class and suddenly she fancies herself an artist
Can you imagine?
Or did your father put you up to this?
So typical
He thinks I’ll jump on a plane every time he snaps his fingers
You tell your father
I can’t come running every time you swallow a little water
I did that at the Cape one summer
And look at me
It’s the Valenti blood
You’re tough
Just like me.
It’ll happen again
I know how you boys are
So reckless
Just like him.
