Beneath The Skin(183)

I look at my own fist to find a tiny bloody spot where I must’ve nicked a knuckle on his glasses.

There it is.

I glare at him. “I wonder what Dessie’s dad would think about your predatory appetite years ago. His eighteen-year-old daughter back then, with his twenty-nine-year-old … whatever the fuck you are.” I crouch down. He cringes away, terrified. With his hands shielding his face, I can’t tell if he’s pleading for me not to kill him, begging for his life in a whiny, sniveling voice, or not saying a word at all. “Thanks for teaching me so much about lighting. You really fucking lit up my eyes to what a lowlife prick you are, and how much better of a man Dessie deserves.”

The way his broken glasses sit askew on his face, his cheek turning redder by the second, I could almost laugh at him.

Until I remember some fifteen-year-old kid from Yellow Mills High on the floor of a locker room, cowering in the exact same way, pushing himself as far away from the dangerous, fist-happy Clayton as he could.

Every trace of bloodlust is gone in an instant.

I leave Kellen whimpering—or trembling in silence, or crying, whatever he’s doing—and I shove through the door of the lighting booth and descend the stairs to the lobby.

I haven’t been this hot about anything in a long time. I feel my peripheral view vibrating with anger and my teeth are starting to ache.

I just punched Kellen in the face. Twice.

I broke his glasses.

My career is fucking over.

I hardly notice Chloe and Victoria sitting in the lobby when I pass by, but when I do, I’m only met with their glares.

I can’t even be bothered with either of them. I need to see Dessie and I need to explain what I’ve done. Fuck, it’s her opening week, I remind myself all over again. Why am I so good at fucking things up?

Do I tell Dr. Thwaite, or let the fucker do it first?

I push out of the building, furious. I don’t know if I’m more angry at myself, or at Kellen for being a prick, or at Dr. Thwaite for pushing him on me. Who is to blame here? The chemist for not knowing what volatile chemicals he was pouring into the same flask? The flask for containing said chemicals as they mixed and erupted? The chemicals themselves for being so damn volatile, despite it being in their nature to explode upon mixing?

Fuck if I know.

The sky is grey and heavy. Halfway to Dessie’s dorm, droplets of rain begin to kiss my hair. I suck the drop of blood off my knuckle, feeling the sting of regret already. I shouldn’t have punched him. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, double-fuck.

I’ve ruined everything.

That power-tripping prick is going to go straight to Thwaite and have me removed from the program for my assault. He’s going to press charges, hiring his big fancy lawyers with his big-shot money, and rape every last cent out of my bank account, which took me years and years of sweat and tears to earn. It’ll all be his, in some sickening turn of irony that began and ended with my fist.

I end up cheek-to-wood when I reach Dessie’s, feeling the vibrations of my own knocks as my face presses against the door.

The door opens, nearly spilling me inside, and I find Dessie’s alarmed eyes staring back.

I see her stiff shoulders. I see her tensed jaw and lips, the tightness of her fingers squeezing the doorknob, and her taut forehead.

Something’s wrong with her, too.

“Are you okay?” I ask her first.

After a moment of indecision, she sighs and falls into my chest, wrapping her arms around me and vibrating with deep breaths that match my own. My clothes are a little damp from the light rain that caught me outside, but she doesn’t seem to care. We stand there in the doorway for countless minutes just holding each other, saying nothing.

Whatever’s bothering her stays inside her, and what’s bothering me stays inside my clenched fists and strained eyes.

After some time, she pulls away and draws me into her room. The door stays open behind me as we lower onto her bed. The windowpane fills with little droplets and streaks of rain. The room is dim and cold, the coldness made worse by the feel of the air conditioning against my rain-speckled clothes.

Dessie faces me and starts to spill her worries in broken signs and words. The gist seems to be that Chloe’s heart was broken, apparently, and Victoria and her are saying awful things about me now, for whatever reason. Added to that, she’s about to perform this Friday to her first-ever audience since her time in Italy, and she’s having a mental breakdown—or something to that effect.

I have my arm around her the whole time, and I can’t help but feel comforted by holding her body against mine, no matter the shit that just went down before I took flight from the theater or the turmoil that’s making a mess of my stomach.