Apathy by L.K. Reid

Skylar

Feelings were tricky little things, and some people never mastered the art of hiding them from others. That wasn’t the case with Mr. Broody who kept looking at me with an impassionate look on his face, perusing me as if I were an object he had a right to stare at. I felt naked under his dark, observant eyes, completely open to the world. I hated every single minute he kept looking at me.

Was this how others felt when I looked at them? It wasn’t a secret that I loved studying people more than I loved talking to them. You could learn a lot when you stopped talking and started observing how others around you behaved. You learn from those stolen little glances—their nervous ticks, the way they chew their bottom lip when they feel uncomfortable talking about something, or how they behave in the presence of those they respect or even love. I knew that it was wrong in a way, but once I started, I couldn’t stop.

The way he was looking at me right now was the same way I looked at other people. Almost bored, like me sitting here was as irrelevant as the No Trespassing sign in front of that old house at the end of the street where I lived. Unfortunately, I couldn’t look away, even as I felt Kane’s burning stare on the side of my face. I couldn’t stop looking at him, because even though he didn’t show anything on his face, his aura spoke for itself.

Some people carried darkness like children carrying their favorite blankets or toys until they were ready to part with them and embrace new things. But the thing with darkness, the thing with pain, was that once you got used to it, you didn’t want to let go. My therapist loved talking about all these steps, all these things I should be doing to break through the clouds in my mind, but what he failed to realize was that I didn’t want to break through. Every time I thought about living without that dark embrace, without the familiar burning in my chest, I would panic because I didn’t know better.

I wasn’t familiar with carefree living, where the wicked whispers coming from my mind didn’t exist. And I knew I carried it around like a blanket. I knew that the way I carried myself threw people off, and I liked it—loved it, even. But I knew why I was the way I was. I also knew things about every single person in this room, except for him, and that unnerved me.

He took a step forward, studying the walls of the crypt, his energy filling the space, but I still couldn’t get a good read on him. Normal people show at least some emotions, yet the only ones I saw from him so far were the ones from this morning, and I wouldn’t call those emotions. He was mocking Kane, and then he got pissed off. I thought since he came with Hailey, she would be a lot more interested in him, but she kept looking at Rowan, giggling at something he said.

“What’s your name?” Lauren was the first one to ask. Yes, what the fuck was his name? I was torturing myself the whole morning, trying to forget about the entire encounter before class, and I didn’t even know his name.

“Ash,” Beatrice answered instead. “His name is Ash, and he’s kinda new in town.”

Ash. His name tasted like a forbidden fruit as I played with it in my mind, rolling it over my tongue, nibbling on the three letters, but I was too afraid to say it out loud.

“Kinda?” I cocked an eyebrow at him instead, waiting for him to talk. Was this cold exterior just a projection or was he really so indifferent to the world around him? As he came closer to me, I suddenly craved another cigarette, just so I could occupy myself with anything but this mindless obsession. I loved and hated his attention, and I hated that I wanted to hear his voice. The few fleeting moments from this morning were not enough to satisfy my morbid curiosity, or to feed the monster he awoke when he stopped me from walking into the wet sign.

“I was born here,” he answered in that gravelly voice I decided to hate. “We moved away when I was six years old.”

“Really?” Kane scoffed. I was surprised he still didn’t protest over him being here, considering their conversation this morning. “What’s your last name?” I knew why he asked, we all did. Our last names held power we couldn’t even comprehend, and knowing his, Kane would know more than Ash maybe wanted him to know. I suddenly didn’t want him to tell him his last name.

I didn’t want Kane to go in that direction, because if he started behaving like our parents, our cousins, aunts, and uncles, I wasn’t sure that I would want him around anymore. And for some fucked-up reason, I still wanted him around, even if it was to just keep an eye on him.

“Why?” Ash turned to the side and looked at Kane. “Are you planning on marrying me, or is that part of the initiation to your little club?”

Lauren guffawed, scaring the ever-loving shit out of me. “Oh. My. God,” she wheezed. “Did you just ask the mighty Kane if he’s planning to marry you?”

“Was I not supposed to?” One side of his mouth lifted in what could only be described as a small smile. “No offense,” he looked at Kane, “but you’re not my type.”

“Not. His. Type.” I looked to my right side, scowling at the tears running freely down Lauren’s cheeks as she kept laughing at the idiocy coming from his mouth. “You have to sit with us, come on.”

She moved toward the edge of the bench and pulled me with her. He closed the remaining distance between us, an annoying smirk I wanted to wipe away playing on his face. I sneaked a look at Kane who was throwing daggers at Ash’s back. I had a feeling whatever game Ash was playing, wasn’t going to end well. Kane loved being called the King of Winworth High. A quarterback, a captain of the football team, coming from one of the richest families in town, he seemed to have it all. Or at least, that’s what he wanted people to think, because the truth was too hard to accept.

The same scent I was trying to forget, filtered through my nose as he sat on my left side, intoxicating me, captivating me once again—cedar pine, cigarettes, even rain. I tried making myself smaller, almost invisible, but it was almost impossible to do with Lauren all but pushing me into him, and his shoulder touching mine. I thought I imagined that zap that happened when I touched him, but as his arm brushed against mine, the same miniature shock traveled through my body, eliciting shivers in its wake.

I looked at Beatrice who was dragging her hand over Kane’s chest, trying to draw his attention, but his eyes were on the three of us, or, well, on the two of us. When the first chords of “Amphetamine”by MNQN filled the crypt, it felt as if the tension started slowly dissipating, and as Lauren pulled out a see-through bottle filled with pills, the grip of anxiety finally started leaving my body.

“What do you have there, Sugar Tits?” I smirked at her, ignoring the broody energy next to me.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She grinned, but we both knew she was going to tell me as well as share.

“Yo,” Rowan yelled. “How many should I roll?” He held a small bag of weed, while Hailey pulled out a little box from her backpack, which I knew had all the things needed to roll that weed into a joint.

“Skylar, no,” Kane started, and I cut a look at him.

“Seriously, Kane?” The audacity. “Count me in, Ro,” I said while I kept looking at Kane.

“Sweet. Ash?”

“I’m in too,” Ash retorted as I turned to him, breaking the silent battle I was waging against a pissed-off Kane.

Instead of feeling cold with the freezing temperature inside the crypt, I was burning inside, and it was all Ash’s fault. The moment my eyes landed on a tiny scar on his chin, I wanted to know how he got it. My eyes roamed over the rest of his face, from the high cheekbones to his full lower lip with a piercing looped on the left side. It’s been such a long time since I felt like this. Like one small touch from him would send a blazing inferno through my body, and I wouldn’t mind.

My mind was waging a war with the rest of me. I was curious by nature, and the fact that he wasn’t showing any emotions was drawing me in more than anything I had ever felt. There was something inside of me, pushing me to find out everything about him, but there was also a part warning me that poison always comes wrapped in a shiny package.

And this guy, the way he looked at me, the way he dismissed Kane, he kept luring me in and he didn’t even know it. It didn’t take a genius to know that I was completely and utterly bored with most of the things in my life. Nothing piqued my attention anymore. People, parties, studying, love, hate, none of it mattered to me. Copious amounts of drugs, of alcohol, of trying to forget who I was and what was happening around me—none of it worked in shutting out the voices in my head.

Yet, one look at him this morning, one touch, and that’s all it took to drown out the whispers in the dark, and the heavy Winworth’s air that kept suffocating me for years. Mischief and promise of danger, that’s what laid hidden in the depths of his cobalt eyes, and like a sailor succumbing to a siren’s song at the sea, I was drowning in the hurricane disguised as a high school boy.

“Is there something on my face?” he murmured, and I noticed how close our faces were. If I lifted my head a little bit higher, I could press my lips to his. Maybe I would be able to draw out some kind of reaction with that? My fingers trembled from the need to touch him. My teeth tingled because I wanted to sink them into his bottom lip, to pull that piercing, and to cover him with everything forbidden I carried with me.

But I couldn’t.

“No.” I shrugged, putting some space between us. “I always wanted to get my lip pierced but didn’t have a chance. It’s fascinating.”

“Really?” He smirked at me, knowing full well that I was lying. But instead of calling me out on it, something flashed in his eyes, and he turned away from me, looking at the rest of the room.

The moment his eyes weren’t on my face, I felt like I could breathe again. What was it with him that piqued my attention so much? It couldn’t only be the whole devil-may-care attitude because there were other people in our school, in our town, that behaved in a very similar way.

Was it the fact that he didn’t really care about what Kane thought, or what anybody else had to say? I’d known him for a couple of hours, but I could already see that he wasn’t somebody who would bend for social norms, and I respected that.

“So, Ash,” Danny started, as the smell of weed trickled through my nostrils, and I looked at Rowan who held the blunt between his lips, looking at us. “Where did you guys move from? Oh, wait. Shit. I just realized that we didn’t really introduce ourselves.”

Leave it to Danny to behave like a welcoming party. Beatrice snorted, and Hailey rolled her eyes, because this is what Danny did. Every single party of his, he had to behave like the fairy godmother, involving the strangers in a conversation. Hailey collected strays, but Danny… Danny kept them.

“I’m Danny.” He pointed at himself. “That’s Rowan, my twin brother.” He looked at Rowan, whose hands were now on Hailey’s shoulders. “You already know Skylar.” The bastard smirked. “Lauren, our favorite troublemaker.” She lifted her right hand, showing him her middle finger, and I started laughing because he wasn’t exactly wrong.

Where Lauren went, trouble followed. She was a magnet for mini disasters, and trust me, I should know because I was usually the one accompanying her when all of them happened.

“I love you too, babe.” Danny smiled at her. “Hailey, our favorite cheerleader, who supports the Winworth Crows with passion—both on and off the field.”

“Well, I’m not the only one on my knees, Danny,” Hailey retorted, as Rowan placed a blunt between her lips.

“At least I know what I’m doing when I’m on my knees, Hales,” Danny mocked, earning a glare from Rowan.

“Cut it out, dude.”

God, we were a mess. Every single one of us. I had no idea how we ever ended up hanging out together, considering that conversations like this one took place between us, most of the time.

“There’s nothing wrong with being on your knees,” Ash suddenly interjected. “Besides,” he spread his legs, his knee touching mine, and placed his hands on his knees looking at Danny, “it’s none of our business if she wants to be on her knees or on her back, or on her feet.”

“Why, thank you.” Hailey smiled at him, but Rowan… instead of glaring at his brother, he directed his gaze at Ash, whose face I could no longer see from this position.

Danny cleared his throat, finally realizing what an idiot he was. “Right.” His eyes landed on Kane who didn’t say another word after asking Ash for his last name. But he kept his eyes plastered on the two of us until I noticed what he was looking at. Half of my body was plastered to Ash since Lauren kept pushing me into him. Not that the bench had enough room for us to move around, but the darkening of Kane’s eyes started worrying me.

I would have to talk to him about all this nonsense he’s been spewing around, and this caveman-like behavior, as if we were together.

“You know Kane, our Golden Boy,” Danny continued with the introductions, despite the chilling energy in the room.

“We’ve met,” Ash responded. They sure fucking did.

“And Beatrice, Kane’s girl.”

I wanted to fucking laugh, because while Beatrice would give her left kidney for Kane to even look at her, he didn’t want her. At least, not anymore. Not after what she did.

“Sky,” Lauren nudged me, pulling my attention to her. “Do you have water or you wanna take these dry?” I looked down, seeing five green and yellow capsules laid in her hand.

“Where did you get those?” You remember when I said that Lauren attracted danger like a magnet? This was what I was talking about. Out of all of us, she was the only one that dared to go to the East Side to score drugs, weed, and other things I didn’t want to know about right now.

My parents weren’t the only ones that didn’t give a shit about their kids, but unlike me, Lauren wanted hers to care. She wanted them to see her, to talk to her, to acknowledge her, not just give her money so that she would keep her mouth shut. You danced on the fine line of safety and danger, and going to the East Side was a sure way to make them notice her—if she was ever caught there, of course.

But over time, I had a feeling it developed into something else, and while she didn’t want to talk about the person that managed to get her drugs, I knew there was more to the story than she was willing to share.

“My grandma came the other day.” She laughed. “The doctor prescribed her Tramadol for the back pain, but you know her. She doesn’t want to take anything that isn’t plant-based, so she asked me to get rid of these.” She wiggled her eyebrows, looking all comical, and I would’ve laughed if my attention didn’t revert back to those five pills and the feeling they were going to give me.

She brought Tramadol once before, and the feeling of nothingness that came with it was exactly what I needed then. It was what I needed now.

“So, like a good granddaughter, I’m about to get rid of them.”

“How many?” I looked at her. “Is it only one pack?”

“Nah, babe, I have three.” She pulled the three boxes from her bag, wiggling them in front of me.

Perfect.

I turned to Ash, only to realize that he was looking at me already. “Do you have any water with you?”

“You can take them without water. They’re capsules, you won’t taste anything.”

“I know that, smartass. But if I’m swallowing five pills at once, I would rather have some water with me.”

“Skylar!” Kane’s voice boomed through the crypt. I looked at him, annoyed, since I knew the lecture that was about to come. “Do not take those pills.”

Hypocrite. Motherfucking hypocrite.

When he kept drowning in sorrow and despair, chugging two, three, and four bottles of Jack Daniels, all the while snorting cocaine up his nose, I never said anything. Maybe I should’ve. Maybe I should stop this madness we had going on here. He was no one to tell me what to do.

“Fuck off, Kane.”

“I have vodka,” Hailey chirped. “Here.” She pulled the see-through bottle from her backpack and walked toward me, extending it to my waiting arm.

“Thank you.” It was even better than water.

“Are you trying to kill yourself?” Kane asked. He was really starting to get on my fucking nerves.

“If I am, you’ll be the first one to know, babe.”

I turned to Lauren and grabbed the five capsules from her hand. I placed them in my mouth, keeping my eyes plastered on the idiot who kept trying to destroy the entire mood, uncapped the lid on the bottle and placed it to my lips, chugging a hefty amount.

I could feel the capsules sliding down my throat, followed by the burning sensation caused by the clear liquid.

“Atta girl!” Lauren shouted, as the rest of the group started laughing. All but two, but I only cared about one of them at the moment.

Ash’s eyes were plastered on the side of my face, calling me, urging me to look at him, and I did. I turned toward him and smiled as I wiped my mouth on the sleeve of my shirt. “You want some?” I pushed the bottle of vodka toward him, expecting him to refuse.

But he didn’t.

He took the bottle, his long fingers grazing mine, and guzzled a hefty amount. His throat worked as he swallowed, and as he removed the bottle from his lips, I wanted to replace it. I wanted to climb into his lap and learn all of his secrets.

Self-destruction came in many forms. Mine was in the form of guys who would no doubt break my heart, and the drugs that could numb my whole body.

He put the lid back on and placed the bottle on the floor, not once moving his eyes from mine.

“Fuck this shit.” Kane suddenly stood up and started walking toward the exit. “I’m out of here.”

“Kane!” Beatrice screeched and ran after him, while the rest of us stared at the empty doorway.

Hailey started laughing, moving toward the pillar where Kane and Beatrice had been sitting. “That escalated quickly.”

“Don’t start, Hailey,” Rowan warned.

“What?” She crossed her legs, smiling at him. “He’s been behaving like an idiot. What the fuck is that shit?”

They kept arguing, going back and forth over Kane’s behavior, but I zoned them out, picking up the bottle Ash placed on the floor, ready to take another sip.

“Is he your boyfriend?” The voice on my left halted me. “Kane,” Ash clarified when I started gawking at him.

“Oh, hell no.” I laughed.

“Are you sure he knows that?”

God, his voice felt like silk over my skin, caressing every inch. As the capsules I swallowed started working, when the drowsiness and numbness started settling in, I knew I was close to succumbing to what I wanted to do.

“Not my problem if he doesn’t. I was very clear about the things I wanted and things I didn’t want.”

“And what do you want, Skylar?” He leaned closer just as Lauren stood up, leaving me alone with him. I could feel his breath on my cheek. I could feel the energy zapping between us, but I didn’t want to relent that easily.

I leaned into him, reaching his ear. “Everything,” I answered and slowly pulled away, putting some distance between us. “And nothing.”

While his face remained free of emotions, his eyes told the story I wanted to read. There was a torment there, a promise of sweet, wicked things he could do to me, but my body wasn’t my own, and I didn’t want to pull him into my mess.

I was fascinated by this tug but was also terrified of it. If I let this happen, he would find out, and I couldn’t have that. Kane was safe because Kane didn’t have this effect on me.

I didn’t want to fight for Kane, because in reality, he was never anything more than a friend I fucked when both of us were bored. Yeah, Kane obviously developed something, or at least he thought he felt something for me, but whatever he felt wasn’t enough to keep me close to him.

Because I didn’t want him.

I knew Kane for most of my life, and yet in one day, Ash managed to do what neither Kane nor any of the other guys I fucked ever did. He fascinated me.

But it couldn’t happen.

Before he could say another word, Lauren’s voice pierced through the air. I turned around, seeing her standing next to Danny, smoking a joint, looking happy.

“Did you guys hear what happened yesterday?”

The blood in my veins froze because my yesterday was the stuff of nightmares. My mind understood that she wasn’t talking about that. How could she when she didn’t know about it? But my body still remembered his hands on me, branding my skin, leaving invisible marks that could be felt even when he wasn’t around.

“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell us.” Rowan chuckled.

“Yeah, yeah, go and suck a dick, Ro.”

Danny wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, smiling at the interaction she had with his brother. I wondered if Lauren saw how much Danny wanted her. Was she blind or was she trying not to see?

“They found a body next to that road leading to Emercroft Lake.”

“No fucking way.” Hailey’s surprised voice filled the space. “Seriously?”

“Yep.” Lauren nodded as she leaned onto Danny. “Apparently, it was some chick. Just started university.”

“Do they know who it is?” Danny asked.

“I have no idea. I overheard two of our maids talking about it. It’s just so sad, you know?”

Yeah, it was sad. Dying was not something people could comprehend as positive, but I knew that there were worse things than death.

There were worse fates, and I just hoped that none of my friends ever found out about them.

I moved further away from Ash, putting more distance between us, until I was close to the edge of the bench. His midnight blue eyes narrowed at me, realizing what I’ve been doing.

“I don’t bite, much.”

Maybe he didn’t, but I knew someone that did more than that. And those marks… Those marks are not the kind I would like to see on Ash’s skin.