13. Hotaru
“Head in the match, or you’re going to lose,” Nate yells to me from the side of the ring.
Coach has already told me “to squeeze,” “to break my opponent,” and most recently, “to stop stalling.” It’s the first time in the four weeks of official training and the two weeks of tournaments that Coach has done anything besides cheer for me.
I am stalling.
With a stranger’s armpit bracketing my jaw, I crank my neck to look up into the bleachers yet again. Just as I have for the last thirty minutes, Arlo’s signature spot is empty.
It’s devoid of his reassuring presence for the first time since I hit the mats nine weeks ago. I knew he’d show before we started warming up. Then I knew he’d show when the first match started. When his spot remained barren, I knew he’d magically appear the moment I stepped to my starting line, where my opponent anxiously waited at his across from me.
For the last seven weeks, we’ve been inseparable. Even after his confession and my total fucking freak-out about it, we’ve been on the next level. Not physically, of course, but mentally and emotionally, we are linked.
We exchange entire conversations through a single facial expression. We’ve even started using simple signs to communicate in the hallways, during spur-of-the-moment footy games in the quad, and in the great hall for meals.
“Move, Kido!” Coach puts his face on the mat between Arlo’s spot and me. “Now!”
I’m so pissed that he’s in my way that I key into my opponent. With a slide of my shoulders and a flip of my hips, I mount him. Foot hooked around his ankle, I grab his wrist and bring his chest to the mat. I cradle and pop him, then hold him with all my might.
The anxiety swarming through my veins like stinging bees makes me weak.
He slips out, earning a point.
Damn!
“Again,” Nate yells.
I’m already moving.
He should know by now that I don’t fuck around. When my mind’s in it, I get shit done in a timely manner. I can get both of us off in the showers in less than a minute.
All it takes is a command for him to squeeze his dick, to shuttle his hand up and down the long shaft. Then a few sentences of dirty talk. By the time I order him to come, he’s already begging to finish.
I jam my opponent up again. The irritation of Nate’s constant cheering fuels my hold. All my teammates cheer, but none of them have choked on my cock. So his attention puts me on edge. Not because of the cock-in-the-mouth thing. No. I couldn’t care less about that.
It’s the whole be-my-boyfriend bullshit he tried to pull last week.
Boys and girls, I can do.
Relationships, I do not.
My blunt explanation of that fact and withholding of any favors or even orders beyond leave me the fuck alone should have taken care of his overzealous nature.
A whistle blows.
The ref calls win by fall. Match number six for me. Sixth win too. The crowd goes wild. I raise one hand to the crowd and use the opportunity to look up at Arlo’s spot.
He’s still not there.
Coach smacks my shoulder, then throws an arm around my neck. “Just trying to make it interesting?”
“I feel sick, Coach.” I let my shoulders and head hang, looking like I lost the bout. With Arlo absent, I feel like I did.
“Sick?” He loosens his hold. “Sick, how?” He puts the back of his hand on my forehead. “No fever. I don’t think.”
“Weak.” I pull the ear guards from my head. “Like I might puke.”
It’s not a lie. I’m fucking sick with worry. All I can think is that Arlo has gone to handle his uncle…without me. There’s no other explanation.
“Uhhh.” He grabs his receding hairline, but he’s already tugged it all out. Then he looks left to right, up and down. “You’re done with matches for today. Go hit the showers. See how you feel.”
“Can I go to my dorm? I don’t want to be sick in the locker room.”
“Yeah.” He pushes me toward the bench. “Go. You owe me laps when you're feeling better.”
“Sure, Coach.”
I hustle for my bag.
Nate steps into my path.
“Out of my way.” I meet his gaze head-on. Shoulders back. Head up.
He reels as though I slapped him. The smile slides off his face. He complies with a stilted step.
I think about telling him I’m sick, to soften the blow, but the last thing I want is for him to show up at my room. If Arlo is gone, I’m going after him. The last thing I need is for Nate to show up and figure out I’m gone all weekend.
The thing is, I decided the morning after Arlo’s and my blowup that we’ll be each other’s alibis. Not that we’ll need them.
Arlo has the extermination planned to the last detail.
I do too.
I grab my bag, toss my ear guards inside, and head for the exit.
Little does Arlo know, while he slept in my bed, I hacked his uncle’s life. I know every shitty investment the piece of human garbage has made to piss away money. I know the layout of the market where he shops. I know when he shops. Once every two weeks on Wednesday evenings. I know the place where he hires his cars.
I know that he has a beater car of his own, and I know the brakes were changed on it a month ago.
In his prep to dump Arlo’s fucking body is my most morbid guess.
Asshole. Piece of shit. Motherfucker.
From the stories Arlo has told me over the past several weeks, I even figured out where the well is and how to get there.
I know how long it takes to get to the house from the boarding school and back. I know how long it takes to get to the well. I know how many houses the car will pass to get there. I know who lives in those houses and what their daily routines are based on their internet and credit card usage.
I know the weather forecast and I know when Arlo is planning to go.
At least, I thought I knew.
If he lied and left me here, I’m going to have a heart attack on my way to that piece of shit’s house.
As soon as I’m out of the loud gym, I pull the strap of my bag over my head and across my body, and then run like my and Arlo’s lives depend on it.
It usually takes me eight minutes to walk from the gym to our room. I get there in three. A couple of guys give me funny looks. I don’t care. My heart is pumping in my throat and I’m dripping sweat on the fancy fucking floor. I have my key out of my bag before I’ve rounded the final landing.
My fucking hands shake as I struggle to put the metal tip into the lock.
The first time I’ve had trouble getting into a hole.
Fuck!
I’ve thought about leaving Arlo behind and going to deal with his uncle on my own. But I would never take that retribution away from him. No matter how much I want to protect him, he deserves to stop his uncle. Cold and dead.
“Please, be here,” I whisper and throw open the door.
Our room is empty like a tomb. Void of life.
“Arlo?” I slam the door and notice the bathroom door is closed. Closed for the first time in months unless one of us is using it.
My bag and keys drop without much thought.
I hurry to the door, grab the handle, and twist. It doesn’t budge. While my heart plummets.
“Arlo?” My fist beats the door like I’m trying to knock it down. I’m not. Not yet, anyway. “Arlo?”
I hear something. Not words, but a shuffle through the door. A shuffle of what I don’t know.
“Arlo?” I yell quickly, then shut my damn mouth to listen.
It’s almost impossible to hear over the roaring of my heartbeat. It sounds like the deafening ocean waves my mother used to listen to in order to sleep.
My fist lifts to pound again.
“Stop,” Arlo barks. His voice is thinner and more desperate than I’ve ever heard it. Like he’s hanging on by the tips of his fingers.
I do as I’m told. I stop everything. Breathing. Speaking. Blinking.
If only my brain would stop. It rattles along too fast to compute much. Calculating my joy that Arlo is here and my dread at the broken notes of his voice.
“Just leave me alone.”
No part of me wants to leave Arlo alone. It’s what his life is, except for the horrors of his uncle and me. Alone. If I push him too hard, I could lose him. And, if I’m being honest, I’m alone too. He is all I have.
I can’t bear to lose him, which is why I punch the heavy wood between us.
“Fuck that. Open the door.”
I try the handle again. The same nothing happens.
There’s only silence from the other side.
His lack of retort is worse than him telling me to get wrecked.
I drop into a plank and lower my chest to the cold wooden floor. There’s a tiny gap between the threshold and the heavy wood of the door. It takes a minute for my eye to adjust to the narrow slit. When it does, all the blood in my body drains to my toes. The floor feels warm, and my body is ice.
Red, the color that should only be inside the body, is smeared on the tiles. It’s a vivid stop sign against the white backdrop.
“Open the door!” I jump up and throw myself against the barrier. It rattles but doesn’t give. My effort is uncoordinated and frantic. My veins vibrate with dread.
Has his uncle come back and hurt him?
Has he gone to complete his mission?
Is that his uncle’s blood?
Is that his?
The hammer of my fist goes to work on the door. “Open up! Now!”
I yank on the handle repeatedly, waiting for it to engage and grant me access. It doesn’t. My muscles feel like they’re so taut they’ll snap.
“Think. Think, dammit,” I mumble to myself. Don’t care about that either. If I end up rocking and speaking to myself in the corner of a mental institution about this, so be it. I plow my fingers through my damp hair and pull, willing my fucking brain to engage.
The door is solid wood with a metal frame. I could probably break the lock with a mule kick. It’ll make a ton of noise, but noise brings people, and I don’t want anyone else in here. There’s no way I’d get to him then.
I eye the lock. Too bad I’m not a criminal deviant. If my sins weren’t of the flesh, maybe I’d know how to pick a fucking lock.
As I glare at the hunk of metal, it hits me like a hoof to the face. The keyhole looks a lot like the keyhole to my dorm door.
I launch myself at my bag, toss it out of the way, and grab the shining gold key. Scrambling back is hard. I slip and lose traction on my knees and elbows both slick with sweat. Pressing the toes of my wrestling shoes to the floor, I push hard and grab the handle like it’s a gold medal.
To my complete amazement, the key fits in the hole. I turn it, and the lock snicks. I wrench the door open, and I…I have to hold the doorframe to keep myself upright.
Arlo sits on the floor. His bare shoulders are propped against the far wall. The naked lengths of his legs are sprawled wide. His hands hang loose on the floor.
The edge of a razor blade glints in his open palm.
Only the steady rise and fall of his chest and the occasional blink of his eyes keep me from calling for an ambulance. That, and I know he wouldn’t want anyone to see the graveyard of scars that mar his skin.
They are everywhere, in every shape and pattern, from his shoulders to his hips and lower. I’m certain the black of his boxers keep more from my sight.
I can’t marinade in my renewed hatred and blood lust for his uncle. Not right now. We have more pressing matters to deal with. Like the stripes of fresh cuts that seep crimson onto the floor.
These shallow gashes taint the unblemished skin of his upper thighs. Left and right.
His lashes are clumped with tears, while the whites of his eyes are bloodshot, much like they were on the first day I met him. Snot slowly drips from his upper lip onto his chest. A chest that jerks every now and then in an autonomic reflex from fervent crying.
Everything inside me demands that I run to him, pull him into my arms, and hold him until the new wounds become scars, until the pain dwindles, until his uncle becomes worm food. Instead, I banish the screams rapping on my lungs, begging for freedom. I straighten my spine and walk to the hand with the blade.
When he doesn’t even blink at my presence, I know I have to get his attention. Fast. And keep it. Forever.
I crouch low, grab the cold and bloody metal, and then snatch it away.
With my free hand, I wrench down my singlet and lift the edge of the blade to my belly.
“If you hurt yourself, I hurt myself.” I plunge the sharp point into my skin.