Brutal Precious

  “Then we must make do with what little time we have.”

  “Isis –” I feel his hand on my wrist, jerking me back. I whirl around and plant my feet and clear my throat.

  “I know that kiss was nice,” I say. “And we kissed a lot for two people who met each other next to a shirtless guy throwing up on some petunias, and you’re a really nice guy and you look sort of Welsh which is always a good thing, ladies love kilts, not me specifically but most ‘ladies’, in air quotes, denoting roughly seventy percent of women aged eighteen to thirty-eight, and I know you think you like me as a person, and that you want to date me and that we’d get along well but here’s me, overturning your hopes and dreams; I don’t wanna date anyone. Or that’s not true, actually, the butthead I want to date just doesn’t want to date me. So. So I was just trying to get over him. And I was using your lips to get over him like a terrible person in a movie would, a villain, but I’ve always been the villain or the dragon and I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m a dragon and I burn stuff down and I’m sorry.”

  Kieran’s dark eyes well with shock, and his grip goes limp. I tear away and leave another person I hurt behind, and I’m sorry for it but I’m not going to beat myself up for it. I hate walking around with black eyes on my heart all the time.

  I march away so hard I don’t even notice when Diana passes me. She squeals, backtracks, and catches up with me.

  “Isis! There you are! We’ve been looking everywhere for yo-”

  “Not now, moon goddess, I have boys to confront.”

  Diana laughs, and slows. “What about the county fair tonight? You said you wanted to go –”

  “I’ll be there!” I shout, and push through the door to the boy’s dorm. I take the stairs two at a time and knock hard on his door. There’s three seconds of silence, and then it opens. Jack looks like he’s taken a casual jog through a meat grinder , if said meat grinder ground only the souls of good-looking boys.

  “Hello,” I say crisply. “I want you to help me kill Will Cavanaugh.”

  Jack’s ice-cold eyes crack a little with surprise as I say Nameless’ full name out loud for the first time in four years. I suddenly remember my priorities.

  “Oh, but actually we can put that off for a while. First, I want you to come with me to the county fair tonight, and if your new girlfriend Hemorrhoid doesn’t want you to, she can go explode in a spleen for all I care.”

  I expect him to refuse or get angry, but his eyes crinkle on the outside - the Jack-version of a smile.

  “Alright.”

  “I’m driving.”

  “Alright.”

  “Meet me by Warrick Building at nine.”

  He nods, and opens his mouth to say more, but I quickly pivot and walk away. I can’t have any more words with him – not until I’ve practiced what I want to say. Six hours and a flurry of closet raiding is all that stands between me and figuring that out. Yvette watches with the casual interest of a hurricane observer as I chuck socks and pants and shirts over my shoulder.

  “Where were you, though, seriously?” She asks finally. “Diana and I thought –”

  “I was talking to a nice lady,” I say. “And she helped me figure some stuff out. Contrary to popular belief, strangers are nice to divulge your desperately nasty secrets to.”

  I hold up the pink blouse, and Yvette makes a cooing noise.

  “Oooh, that one.”

  The Isis of a day ago would have wrinkled her nose and thrown it aside. I pick it up and pull off my shirt, replacing it with the blouse. It’s cool and airy on my skin, the ruffles flickering with my every move. Yvette helps me pick out jean shorts, and lends me an old, ratty army surplus jacket that looks balls rad and is perfect for the cool fall weather. Yvette pulls my hair back from my neck, and puts it in a ponytail for me.

  “You look way hotter like this,” She says.

  “I just want people to look at me and think ‘I want to give her a million cash dollars’.”

  “Why are you so obsessed with money?”

  “Because with it you can buy stuff and also things.”

  Yvette laughs and shakes her head. “I want to give you maybe a ten. And a dime. A single dime.”

  I hold out my hand expectantly and she rifles in her wallet for a single dime. I tuck it in my bra for good luck.

  I practice what I want to say in my head, over and over and over and under, through all the possible loopholes of conversation I create counter-arguments, quips, and the finest of snarks, but they all drain out of my ears when I see Jack waiting for me near the parking lot. He leans against a peach tree, hair combed but still somehow messy, with dark jeans and a red flannel shirt on. His legs are so long, his shoulders so broad, his face proud and fine like a lion’s. It hits me just then - he’s getting older. I’m getting older. Time isn’t waiting. I spent four years of my time mourning over someone who was never worth it to begin with.

  But this boy. This stupid, wonderful boy just might be worth it.

  “It’s not a lumberjack carnival,” I say as I approach. He looks at his shirt, then speaks without turning around.

  “I just like flannel.”

  “You and the entire hipster populace of Seattle,” I say. Jack smirks, and follows me to the car. We drive in utter silence, but a not-weird silence, until the carnival tents and the tip of a neon-highlighted roller coaster come into view.

  “I’ve got the tickets,” I say as I pull into the parking lot and we get out. “So you get the honorable privilege of buying me all the food I want.”

  “All the food you want? Woman, you want the rough equivalent of a third-world country’s monthly intake.”

  “Does that make me fat or evil?”

  “Both,” He offers, and takes the ticket book I hand him. He pauses under the archway into the carnival, the late-dusk sun making every tree black and every cloud vermillion. The lights on the ferris wheel and roller coaster and pharaoh boat beckon, the smell of greasy popcorn and hot dogs mixing with the dry, crisp smell of autumn leaves.

  “The last time I came to one of these was with Sophia,” He finally says. My heart turns into a ton of lead and lands like a weight on a cartoon character’s head, except the character’s head is my solar plexus.

  “Shit. L-Let’s go,” I say quickly. “We don’t have to do this. I didn’t mean to –”

  Jack’s warm fingers encircle my wrist, and he holds me there. It isn’t a rough grip, like Kieran’s. It’s loose. I could rip away if I wanted to, but I don’t want to.

  “I want to,” Jack says, voice soft but steely as he meets my eyes. “I want to go to this, with you.”

  I melt a little around the edges, but I remember who I am and stick my tongue out and skip under the arch, leading the way.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  I make him buy me a sundae, and a corn dog, and a slurpee. My tongue is blue and it hurts with all the pure sugary goodness of an exploding Peeps factory, and Jack says I’ll die and I tell him my willpower is stronger than diabetes, and he laughs at me but then I laugh at him when we go on the pharaoh and he looks like he’s going to shit himself the higher we get. I put my arms up and whoop when we reach the apex, our stomachs lifting out from our abdomens, and he swears brilliantly and throws his arm over my chest as a mock-seatbelt even though I don’t even need it because I already have the big black one over my lap.

  “You’re scared of heights!” I breathlessly exclaim as we get off. Jack wobbles a little and grips the edge of a nearby trashcan.

  “I am not scared!” He snaps, green around the cheeks. “I have a perfectly valid wariness of being suspended fifty feet above the ground in a wildly swinging pendulum.”

  “Physics protects us,” I pat his back, rubbing it sympathetically. “The only way we would’ve died is if the center axel went loose. Or if we all weighed four hundred pounds.”

  I pick up a cotton candy from a stand and look at him expectantly to pay. He grumbles, fishing a five
from his wallet.

  “The way you’re going, you’ll be at four hundred in no time.”

  “And I’ll be as equally sexy as I am now,” I sniff haughtily and bite off a chunk of floss. Jack’s smirk returns, and he leans in so close to my face for a second I think he’ll kiss me and everything slows around us, the lights blinking in half-time and people’s voices low and distorted, but he takes a bite of the floss and pulls away with it and time catches up. I decide to punish him and start towards the roller coaster. Jack gives a massive groan, but follows dutifully.

  After he’s stopped almost-hurling into yet another trash can, I take pity on him and wander towards the games alley. Goldfishing, water balloon tossing, shooting ranges, this place has it all. Jack strides after me.

  “Hey, slow down,” he says.

  “Your request has been carefully considered by the board of Me, and denied.”

  “You really should’ve brought Kieran here,” he presses.

  “Why? Don’t like carnivals?”

  “No, he’s just –” Jack furrows his brow. “Aren’t you and him…?”

  “No. He’s fine, as a friend. But no. Too straight forward. Cute, but boring. And in the long run, being boring is a huge no-no. Along with, you know, being a serial killer, but boring is like, number two - number one point fiveish.”

  I can feel Jack staring at my face, and it makes some deep part of me squirm uncomfortably, so I pick up a shooting gallery rifle and aim it at his forehead. He looks appropriately terrified.

  “Wrong way,” He deadpans.

  “No, no, this is the right way,” I insist.

  “Ma’am, please, the targets are behind you,” The high-school guy running the booth says nervously. I turn and eye him, then the sign, then the huge stuffed panda that’s a prize for all five targets. It’s perfect. It’s Mrs. Muffin but huge. Mr. Muffin. I want him.

  “Give me some of the bullets you’re sweating,” I say to the booth guy. The guy chokes and airs out his dark armpits.

  “Excuse me, ma’am?”

  “Six shots isn’t enough,” I clarify. “Gimme more.”

  “Six shots is plenty,” Jack steps in, handing the guy some tickets and taking the rifle from me. “Watch and learn.”

  “Oh, this’ll be good, and by good I mean hilarious,” I lean against the booth and watch him position, narrowing one eye. He pulls the trigger, the shot sailing cleanly into the bull’s-eye of the first target and exploding in pink paint. Jack turns to me quirks a brow in an ‘I told you so’ way, and I scoff.

  “So what? You’ve practiced a little with some squirt guns. Big whoop.”

  Jack moves on to the next, and lands that, and the third and fourth, each taking just one shot and each perfectly in the center. The booth guy whistles and squints a lot, like he thinks it’s a hallucination, and Jack looks at me before the fifth target.

  “Spy school’s been good to you,” I admit. “Or you’re actually a serial killer.”

  “I have talent for hurting things,” Jack perches the rifle on his cocked hip, and it’s so insufferably arrogant I want to shove him into the ball pit next to us and slash or furiously make out with him. “But we always knew that, didn’t we?”

  He laughs, and it’s despairing and his eyes are a little cold, and I regret ever bringing up the killer comment, but before I can apologize he positions and aces the fifth target. The booth guy offers him the prizes, and he debates for a half-second before settling on the giant panda. Jack turns and hands it to me and my eyes bug out.

  “What are you –”

  “I saw you drooling over it. It’s yours.”

  “Nay,” I shove it back in his hands. “Give it to Hemorrhoid. She’s your girlfriend.”

  “We were never really dating,” He puts it on my head, the legs flopping into my eyes. “And I told her yesterday I didn’t want to see her anymore.”

  I quash the bolt of thrill that runs through my veins and assume an appropriately lofty expression.

  “Tsk tsk. It’s almost like you use these women and throw them away like tissues.”

  “Historically, most women have used me,” He says darkly. I hug the panda to my chest and try not to dwell on the pain in his voice. He always hid it so well, but now I can hear it clearly. We really are getting old.

  “You ever think about that?” I ask, trotting along the games alley in an attempt to keep us moving, keep us light. “That escorting maybe affected you more than you want to admit?”

  “I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again, it meant nothing to me, I felt nothing –”

  “You felt used,” I interrupt. “You were reluctant, no matter how much you insist it was a mutual business arrangement. And reluctance is not consent. It’s reluctance.”

  He’s quiet. I point at the ferris wheel and smile back at him.

  “C’mon. It’s slow, and if you don’t look down it’s almost like you aren’t suspended a million miles in the air.”

  The ferris compartment sways and Jack looks a little queasy, but the lights of the carnival below are too beautiful for even him to ignore. We watch the arcs of pink and green and spots of blue and white flicker on and off as we ascend, the music getting fainter. Our knees are almost touching.

  “How is your arm?” Jack asks. I look down at the bandaid and shrug.

  “I won’t turn into a zombie, so. That’s one good thing.”

  “I was worried,” He says tentatively. “Not that I have the right to be worried about you any longer. But I was very concerned and I couldn’t help it. I’m glad to see it’s doing well – that you’re doing well.”

  “Am I doing well?” I laugh. “I can’t tell anymore.”

  “You look better,” He says. “Something in your face isn’t so dark, anymore.”

  I look out the window. I burn to tell him, too, but it’s not the right time. Telling him what happened would bring Nameless into the ferris wheel with us, and right now I just want it to be me and him, and no one else.

  “If you squint, the carnival kind of looks like a galaxy from up here,” I say. “Minus the cryogeysers.”

  Jack smirks. “Oh, I don’t know, the ice cream carts get pretty cold.”

  If this were a movie, the ferris wheel would get stuck or something, or fireworks would go off, but it just pauses at the apex, a short pause, and Jack’s looking at my face again and my stomach feels like it’s shriveling and growing all at once and I should say something, this is the moment I should say something, every movie ever has told me so, but the moment passes, and the ferris wheel starts going down but I can’t let anything get in my way anymore, especially not a giant LED hamster wheel –

  “Isis, you’re talking out –”

  “I love you,” I blurt. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for saying it, but I love you. And you don’t have to…you don’t have to do anything, or say anything, I mean, I could just drive you home right after this if you never want to talk to me again, I’d understand, because girls saying I love you is something you get a lot and you hate it, I bet, but I realized a lot of things lately and the biggest thing is that I probably love you, I’m not sure, but I think so, and it’s not very romantic or confident to not be sure, but I barely even know what love is, I just sort of learned a bit of the definition, but I know that what I feel for you fits that tiny bit, and I want to learn more, and I think you would help me learn, but also I just love you, no weird creepy learning involved, I just love you, you stupid idiot, so if you could just – if you could just love me back, that would be really great, but if you can’t, I mean, I understand, it’s hard, and also I’m hard and not your type and it would be too much work for a broken person, so maybe instead you could just pretend to love me, and not work so hard, and I could be a nice distraction for you, or you could use me for…I don’t know, sex, or keeping your mind off things or getting less broken maybe, and I wouldn’t mind, as long as you pretended –”

  Jack leans in and this time, it’s a kiss, and it d
oesn’t sear my soul or make me woozy like the books say but I can taste him and smell him and he’s kissing me, me of all girls, and when he pulls away he’s smiling the sort of kind smile I only ever saw him give Sophia, except now it’s on me, all golden and sweet and genuine as he rests his forehead on mine, and that smile is better than fireworks.

  “Moron. There would be no pretending,” He says. “Because I love you, too.”

  I freeze, trembling, not daring to believe it.

  “D-Do…do you mean that?” I whisper. “Do you really really mean that? Because…because I don’t want to get my hopes up again – I just – I couldn’t take it if they were smashed again, you know? It hurt.”

  I laugh, on the verge of tears, and Jack cups my face in his hands, ice eyes locked on mine, clear and bright.

  “I love you,” he says. “Ever since that night in the sea room, I’ve wanted to love you. I’ve wanted to take all the hurt away, to hold you and protect you and make you laugh, and smile, and show you what love is. I’ve wanted to show you for so long that you are worthy of being loved, for exactly who you are. And I tried to deny that, I tried to convince myself…that I wasn’t good enough, that I would do nothing but hurt you. And I have. And I’m sorry. I was afraid. I was afraid of loving someone as delicate and beautiful and unique as you. I knew I only had one chance, and I was terrified I would make a mess of it and you’d only become sadder, and more convinced you were unlovable. I was afraid of my own shortcomings, and because of that I hurt you.”

  I sniff, and Jack thumbs away an escaping tear.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “I love you, and I’m so sorry.”

  I grip the flannel of his collar, and kiss him again and again, and he runs his hands up and down my spine and cups my cheek gently and I’ve never wanted anything more than for this moment to never stop, but I do want it to stop, because I want more, more than this, I am hungry and empty and I want to be full and the ferris wheel attendant opens our door when we hit the ground and I pull Jack out and away, laughing, letting the wind dry the happy tears in my eyes as we half-run, half-stumble back to the car, stopping to kiss against a darts booth and a doughnut stand, the smell of sugar and sweat in our hair, and in the darkness of the parking lot I try to unlock the door as he kisses my neck and I elbow him to stop and he laughs and gets in the passenger side, and the entire ride back to the dorms he tickles the inside of my palm with his fingers.