The Fragile Ordinary

  “Okay, I’ve had enough.” Vicki dropped her tray down beside me in the cafeteria with a bang, drawing my gaze from Tobias and Stevie’s empty table. “No more moping over Tobias.”

  “Agreed.” Steph made a face. “All that frowning is going to give you wrinkles, Com.”

  Yes, because that was what I was most worried about in life. “What do you suggest?”

  She ignored my dry tone. “Antiwrinkle cream. I’ve already started using it.”

  “You’re weird,” I replied.

  “Forget Steph’s premature antiaging regime.” Vicki waved the subject off. “You, Comet Caldwell, are done moping after Tobias King. Don’t you think he knows you’re just sitting around waiting for him to show you a little bit of attention? That’s where all their power lies. But you have to take the power back.”

  “And how do I do that?”

  “Look, I know you’re not a party person, but word has it Tobias will be at this party some guys who used to go to school here are throwing.”

  “It’s Dean Angus,” Steph grimaced. “He’s dodgy as hell.”

  “Dodgy how?”

  Vicki shrugged. “He runs with a dodgy lot. Possibly criminals. But Tobias will be at this party. We can just show up, we don’t have to stay long. We’re just sending the message that your life doesn’t begin and end with Tobias King.”

  The angry part of me wanted to go to the party to show Tobias that very thing. Yet the concerned part of me was wondering why Tobias and Stevie were hanging around some guy who was possibly a criminal. My protectiveness toward them flared despite their ill treatment of me lately.

  “You’re right. Let’s do it.”

  THE FRAGILE ORDINARYSAMANTHA YOUNG

  15

  Bye to all those lonesome detours,

  For you are mine and I am yours.

  —CC

  This was a bad idea.

  I’d known it was a bad idea before we’d even stepped foot into the flat where the party was being held, but the feeling of trepidation I’d felt only worsened as we made our way through the crowded, narrow hall.

  Head-pounding dance music flooded from the center of the flat, the deep bass vibrating in my chest, making my heart rate speed up. The smell of cigarette smoke, stale beer and musty air surrounded me, as I took in the mix of age groups with uneasiness. There were people my age, but there were also girls a little older, perhaps eighteen onward into their early twenties, and there were men much older than that.

  As I passed an older girl eyeballing Vicki, Steph and me, she blew smoke from her rolled-up cigarette at me and I wrinkled my nose at the pungent, awful, herby smell. That lady was not smoking a normal cigarette.

  “This was a bad idea.” I turned to the girls at the opening to the living room. “Maybe we should leave.”

  “It’s just a little weed, Comet,” Steph said. “Relax.”

  I huffed and turned back to the crowded room. Searching the faces of the people milling around, drinking, smoking, talking, some snogging each other’s mouths off, I couldn’t find Tobias. This was a mistake.

  And then three people moved, revealing a sofa and coffee table in the middle of the room. Surrounded by older boys I didn’t recognize was Stevie. As if in slow motion, like some horrid scene in a movie, I watched as Stevie leaned over the coffee table with a rolled-up bit of paper, placed it against his nose and inhaled a line of white powder from the coffee table.

  “Holy crap.” I thought I heard Vicki say over the excruciatingly loud music. “Did Stevie just snort cocaine?” she yelled in my ear.

  Yes.

  My friend Stevie just did a line of cocaine in some stranger’s dodgy flat.

  Betrayal stabbed me in the gut as I watched him wipe his nose and settle back on the couch to laugh at something one of his companions said. It was then I noticed Jimmy was there, too. Where was Tobias?

  I couldn’t see him in the room...but was this why he and Stevie had stopped hanging out with me? Was Tobias in on this, too? Throwing his life away? Rage rushed through me as I spun on my friends. “Where’s Tobias?”

  “Who cares?” Steph yelled. “Let’s get out of here. This was definitely a bad idea.”

  “What happened to ‘it’s just weed’?” I snapped.

  “That was...” She gestured behind us and then pointed her hand toward the coffee table. “That’s a much longer jail sentence!”

  “I’m not leaving!” I shook my head. Not until I found Tobias so he, Stevie and I could get out of there.

  Steph looked at me like I was crazy.

  Vicki scowled at me. “I’m not leaving without you!”

  “Then you’re not leaving yet either!”

  Steph raised her hands in the air. “Idiots! My parents catch me here and I’m dead! Sorry, I’m out!” She pushed her way back through the gathering crowds in the hallway.

  “You should go after her!”

  Vicki shook her head. “Not leaving without you!”

  Sighing, I spun back around to do another search of the room. Definitely no Tobias. When I looked back at Vicki she was pulling her jacket closed over the V-neck sweater she was wearing, staring warily across the room. Following her gaze I saw a man who might be in his thirties leering at her. I hated the idea of Vicki being in this hellhole just for me. “Go wait outside,” I said loudly. “If I’m not out in fifteen minutes, come find me.”

  “Comet—”

  “Go!” I shooed her. “I’ll be fine.”

  Reluctantly my friend left, shooting one last wary look at the leering creeper.

  I pushed my way back into the hallway but this time I turned left into the small kitchen. It was crowded, too. I stood on tiptoes and ducked down low, attempting to see past bodies to the people sitting at the small breakfast table.

  Not Tobias.

  Feeling overwhelmingly warm in my jacket, the same tailcoat hem one that Tobias had said he liked so much, I tried to open the buttons on it and realized I was trembling like crazy. Forcing back tears that would be of absolutely no use, I leaned against the wall by the kitchen door and closed my eyes.

  I think I was in shock.

  Why would Stevie take cocaine? Cocaine! My God. I gritted my teeth in outrage. And my goodness, if I discovered that Tobias was doing drugs, too, I was going to tear him limb from limb!

  I just want tae disappear. Forget everything. Ye ever want tae just disappear, Comet?

  Fresh tears stung my nose and I shuddered, holding them back. Oh, Stevie, there are better ways to disappear.

  Feeling hollow, I opened my eyes and jerked back against the wall. An unfamiliar guy was standing in front of me, smiling quizzically.

  He was just a little taller than me with dark eyes and close-shaven hair. There was a wiry hardness about his build that reminded me of Stevie. He was dressed similarly, too, in a sports T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms. My study of him made him smile, revealing crooked teeth that gave him a friendly snarl.

  He might have been cute if I didn’t feel so alone, shocked and intimidated by this entire place.

  “Dean,” he said loudly, holding out his free hand. He held a bottle of beer in his other.

  Realizing this was Dean Angus and thus it was his party, and frightened of bringing trouble on myself, I decided the best thing to do was shake his hand politely. “Comet.”

  “Sorry?” He leaned in, turning his ear toward me so he could hear.

  “Comet.”

  He shook his head and grinned at me. “I didn’t get that.”

  And he probably never would with this dance racket thudding through the entire building. “Corrine!” I lied on a shout.

  Dean nodded. “Nice to meet you. Who are you here with?”

  Lie, Comet, lie. “Iain,” I said confidently, hoping there were so many people here Dean would think n
othing of it.

  I was right. He just nodded again. “Where do you work, then?”

  “I’m still at school.”

  “College?”

  Damn my height. I shook my head and his brows furrowed. “High school? What age?”

  “Sixteen,” I answered honestly, hoping that would send him on his way.

  To my distaste he smirked and stepped closer, completely invading my personal space. The smell of aftershave was almost obliterated by the stale smell of beer on his breath. “Let’s go into my bedroom.”

  That was it? That was how fast these things happened? Really? He just expected me to go into his bedroom...and to what? Have sex with him? I shuddered at the thought.

  “I better find my friends.” I moved to the side, hoping to slip away, but he grabbed my arm and I felt his hot breath on my ear.

  “Stay. Find them later.” His hand left my arm to settle on my hip, and he squeezed, making me jump back against the wall. The dipshit didn’t even give me a moment to breathe, pressing his body up against mine to whisper in my ear, “I’ve been eyeing yer legs since ye walked in.” His hand was back on my hip again, “Please tell me ye’ve not got a boyfri—”

  Suddenly he was stumbling back from me, his beer splashing over his T-shirt.

  My eyes flew to the reason and relief crashed over me.

  Tobias.

  He glowered down at Dean, looking ready to...well, kill him.

  “What the fuck?” Dean threw the bottle in the corner and stood up to Tobias, not even caring that Tobias had at least four inches and many pounds of muscle on him. “Ye playing at, King?”

  “You leave her alone.” Tobias stepped in front of me, blocking me from Dean’s gaze.

  “This is my place. I’ll talk to who I want. Take who I want. Don’t see yer name written on her.”

  “She’s sixteen.”

  “And?”

  “She’s walking out of here without you hassling her, Dean.”

  I peered around Dean to see his face had darkened with fury. He stepped into Tobias, shoulders thrown back, his chest puffed out and his fists clenched, ready for a fight. “Do ye realize who yer talking to, wee boy? I’m not just some pissy wee wanker at yer high school ye can boss around because yer a big guy. Ye mess with me and I can end ye, right.”

  There was something about the malicious gleam in his eyes, the air of invincibility he gave off, that made me believe him. What the hell had I walked into? What were Stevie and Tobias involved in?

  Nausea swam over me, and I clutched Tobias’s shoulder to stop myself from vomiting my anxiety all over Dean’s peeling linoleum floor.

  Tobias tensed. “Just let her go, Dean,” he said more softly now.

  Dean shook his head. “I’m king here, not you. Ye want her, ye get the fuck out of here with her...and I swear, Tobias, if I ever see yer ugly face around me again, I’ll give you a kicking in ye won’t wake up from. Understood?”

  To my disbelief, Tobias hesitated.

  But only for a second.

  He gave a short, jerky nod, turned around and, without looking at me, gripped my biceps in his arm and forcefully led me out of the flat.

  “What about Stevie?” I yelled over the music.

  Tobias ignored me.

  “Tobias!”

  “He doesn’t want to leave. Come on!”

  “You don’t need to drag me! I’m coming willingly!”

  Yet Tobias didn’t let me go. Even when we met Vicki halfway down the stairs and she let out a huge exhale of relief, he didn’t let go.

  “I thought I was going to have to call the police or something,” Vicki chattered nervously as we all hurried down the graffiti-covered stairwell. “What happened in there?”

  “I...” actually don’t really know. “Tobias?”

  He didn’t say anything. Not until we were outside and he finally let me go. “What the hell, Comet?”

  I flinched under the force of his anger. “What?”

  “What were you doing here?”

  “It was my fault.” Vicki grabbed my hand in support. “I heard about the party and dragged her here.”

  “You didn’t drag me here.” I shook my head, not willing to let her take the blame. “I came because I heard you’d be here. Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?” My own anger overwhelmed me now that we were safe from the clutches of Dean. “Because you and Stevie are taking drugs? Cocaine, Tobias!”

  “Jesus Christ, keep your voice down,” he hissed, glancing around the darkened streets. There were a number of streetlights out in this neighborhood. I had to wonder what kind of place it was if none of the neighbors would complain about the awful noise coming from Dean’s flat.

  Or maybe...they were just afraid of him.

  “What is Dean involved in? What are you involved in?”

  “I’m not taking drugs,” he said forcefully. “Now let’s go. I’ll walk you both home.”

  “Tobias.”

  “Comet, move!”

  I glared at him but began to stride forward. “You’re not the boss of me, Tobias King.”

  “Now you get sassy? Shit,” he muttered, his long legs eating up the ground ahead of us.

  Vicki clung to me as we hurried to keep up with him. “Thank you.” I gripped her hand tightly. “For staying.”

  She gave me a small, sad smile. “I know things have been weird between us until recently but I still love you.”

  “I love you, too. I’m sorry. About everything.”

  “Me, too.”

  Tobias threw us an exasperated look over his shoulder, and we kept quiet the rest of the long walk home. When I tried to ask questions he ignored them until I was wound so tight with worry and anger I thought I might just explode.

  Vicki led us to her house from Main Street. She hugged me before going inside and said, “Come around mine tomorrow. Please?”

  I nodded. “Definitely.” We had a lot to talk about. A lot to put right in our friendship. Despite the horrendousness of our evening, something positive had come of it. It could lead to Vicki and I being closer than ever.

  Once she was safely inside, Tobias fell into step with me while we walked toward my house. Too angry to speak, I stewed in silence.

  As we approached the esplanade, Tobias touched my elbow and drew me to a stop. I stared up at him, a million questions in my eyes. Yet instead of answering any of them, he did the one thing I didn’t expect. He lifted a hand and pressed his cold fingers to my cheek, brushing the tips across my cheekbone. That light, tender touch and the stirring emotion in his gaze sent a shiver down my spine.

  “Tobias?”

  He blinked and dropped his hand, shoving it back in the pocket of his jacket. “You scared me tonight, Comet.”

  Disbelief cascaded over me. “I did? Me? I scared you? Tobias, I saw Stevie snort a line of cocaine! And when I tried to find you, I was accosted by some idiot who threatened to kill you and made it sound like he could actually do it!”

  “He probably could.” He scrubbed a hand over his hair and bit out a curse.

  “What is going on? Please, tell me.”

  He studied me a moment and eventually sighed. “Can we go back to yours?”

  Like Kyle and Carrie would even notice. “Of course.”

  By the time we got to the house and I let us into my bedroom, I was a jittering wreck. Massive waves of nervous energy were emanating from Tobias, making me worse. He was rarely nervous about anything. Once inside my room, I waited impatiently as Tobias slumped down on my bed, elbows on knees, head in hands.

  I shrugged out of my jacket and unwound my scarf. Still waiting.

  “Comet,” he huffed, not looking up. “Sit down, okay, you’re making me nervous.”

  “You’re making me nervous.” I sat on the armchair across from him.
“You and Stevie didn’t kill someone, did you? Did Dean dispose of the body for you and now he’s blackmailing you?”

  Tobias’s broad shoulders shook and he lifted his head to stare at me with amusement tinged with sadness. “You’ve got to stop reading so many books.”

  “Never.”

  He smiled at me, his look so tender that I squirmed with the need to shoot across the room and throw my arms around him. Instead I met his gaze and asked directly, “What happened back there?”

  “I just chose you over Stevie,” he said.

  I swear my eyebrows must have hit my hairline at this pronouncement. “What?”

  “Stevie and some of the guys have been hanging around Dean more and more. Dean is a dealer. And he’s part of something bigger—we’re talking an adult-sized, criminal gang who deal drugs and steal cars for a living. Dean deals cocaine to kids. Blair Lochrie High School is one of his grounds. He sells to quite a few kids there.”

  At our high school?

  Class A drugs at our high school?

  “Bloody hell,” I whispered. “Where have I been?”

  “Where I prefer you—safe with your nose stuck in a book.”

  “Tobias... Stevie?”

  Hearing the worry in my voice, he winced. “I tried, Com. I tried to keep him out of it, but he’s so messed up and I couldn’t stop him. I hung around to make sure he was okay.”

  “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?” God, please let that be why he was avoiding me.

  “Yes.” A million apologies swirled in his gorgeous eyes. “I didn’t mean for Stevie to find out about you, because I didn’t want you anywhere near the stuff he was getting involved in. But then you two got along, so well I thought you might...have feelings for each other, so I told him that he either stopped hanging around Dean or he stopped hanging around you. He agreed keeping you out of that stuff, away from the boys, was better for you. So we stopped coming around as much and then stopped coming around at all. Tonight was his initiation into Dean’s crew. It was supposed to be both our initiations, I guess, because Dean was sending Stevie to some other party with drugs, and I was following Stevie as backup. Now I’m not.”