Chapter 2 #2
I’ve watched it all like the worst sister in the world.
I’ve watched him like the worst sister in the world.
I’ve watched him, craved him, loved him in secret.
I’d been the witch long enough. I had to do the right thing and get my toxic presence out of their lives.
Before they got married.
Right that very second.
And that’s why I stole that money and I was running away.
But I got caught and now, I’m stuck here.
Until another opportunity arises.
When it does, I’ll take it. I’ll steal again and I’ll run again.
I’m not a thief but there are worse crimes than stealing money.
There’s no way that I’m staying close to them any longer. And I’m definitely not attending their wedding.
Not at all.
Because aside from the fact that their wedding should be full of people whose hearts are pure, there’s this other thing, this other urge in me.
A very strong urge.
A dangerous urge.
I got it the moment I heard the word ‘ring.’ I got it the moment it dawned on me that he was going to be hers.
Irrevocably hers.
Forever and ever.
It’s an urge to burn down all my inhibitions of eight years and say: choose me.
Choose me, Arrow.
Pick me.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking the night I was running away. I was thinking about how badly I wanted to say those words to him.
How badly I wanted him for myself.
How badly I wanted my sister’s boyfriend – soon to be fiancé – for myself.
And God, he’s coming back now and he’s injured.
All I can think about is seeing him in the flesh. Making sure that he’s really okay and if I somehow get to do that, if I somehow get to see him again, who’s to say I wouldn’t act on that urge of mine?
Who’s to say I wouldn’t try to ruin their relationship?
I’m already in love with my sister’s boyfriend. I’m already so corrupt and despicable. I’m already so hopelessly in love.
Who’s to say I wouldn’t take it one step further and try to steal him away from her?
So I need to stay away from him.
I need to control myself like I’ve done for the past eight years.
Which is why tonight, I’m breaking a big, huge rule of St. Mary’s.
Because the alternative is that I sit in my dorm room and cook up scenarios about how to steal my sister’s boyfriend.
This rule that I’m breaking though will definitely banish all my privileges.
But even the thought of that can’t deter me – or Callie, Poe and Wyn – from doing what we’re doing.
Sneaking out to a bar to go dancing.
It’s a whole process, too.
You have to go to bed, wearing what you will for going out, so when the time comes to actually sneak out, you don’t go around hunting for clothes and waking up your roommate.
Then you have to stack all your pillows under the blanket so even if your roommate does wake up at some point while you’re away, she can see your dark silhouette and suspect nothing.
After that, you tiptoe out of the room at a specified time and slowly, carefully walk down the darkened hallway so as to not alert the 24/7 warden, who sits all the way in the front at reception with her TV going.
If someone does intercept you, you say you’re going to the bathroom. Hence you can’t wear anything too flashy so the lie looks convincing.
Once you’ve reached the end of your hallway, you take a left, and you come upon a heavy metal door with a red EXIT sign on it. That’s where all your friends will be waiting for you.
That’s where Poe, who’s done this a million times in the past because she’s been here since her sophomore year, will jiggle the latch in a precise manner that will get the door open.
And Callie who’s also done this a million times before because like Poe she’s been here since sophomore year will usher me out into the night.
Then Wyn, who’s been here since her junior year, will carefully wedge a rock between the door and doorjamb so we can get back in easily.
Then, we’ll run and fly through the massive expanse of green grounds that surround the campus to get to a very special spot on the brick fence. This spot has dents and gaps, big enough that we can rest our feet in and scale the wall to get to the other side.
And so, ten minutes after we’ve broken out of our dorm building, we’re making our way through the woods, in the middle of which our reform school sits, to get to the highway.
Poe has already arranged for a cab through her phone when we were in the third-floor bathroom.
How did she pay for it though, the cab I mean? She also has a secret credit card that she stole before coming to St. Mary’s, and if she uses it in a very limited capacity, charges sort of go unnoticed. Or at least they have so far.
And how are we going to get into a bar even though we’re underage? That’s Callie’s department. She says that the bartender at this particular bar is a friend and he’ll let us in as long as all we do is dancing and no drinking.
I don’t care about that.
I don’t want to drink. I don’t want to dance either.
I’m not sneaking out for any of that.
I’m sneaking out because my heart is witchy and I have dangerous urges.
The bar that we’re at is called Ballad of the Bards.
I’ve heard of it, actually. It’s a bar famous for its love songs. Meaning they don’t play the regular, dancing music. They play the music of the bards, the poets. The songs of sad love and misery.
I’ve always wanted to go here. It’s at the border of the town of St. Mary’s and another town called Bardstown. And since I was sorta happy to know that we were coming here, I even let them put lipstick on me, on the way over.
“Every girl deserves a little lip lovin’,” said Poe, while painting my lips with Teenage Decay, which is a dark coral color.
It reminds me of the sun.
It reminds me of him.
With that on my lips, I feel like he’s close.
He might as well be. The press conference was a couple of days ago. We, at St. Mary’s School for Troubled Teenagers, move slower than the rest of the world.
Maybe he’s already back.
Maybe he’s in town right now.
And maybe…
Okay, stop thinking about him.
Stop.
But I don’t think that’s possible.
At all.
Because as soon as we enter the bar and glance around the industrial-looking space with low-hanging light bulbs, rough brick walls and metal beams, I catch sight of something.
A baseball cap.
It’s too dark in here to tell the color of it.
But I don’t need the light in order to do that. I know what color it is.
It’s gray.
Like all the other things in his life – his workout sneakers, his soccer cleats, his sweaters, his sweatpants.
His t-shirts.
Yeah, he has a bunch of gray t-shirts.
In fact, I’m wearing one now, under my chunky sweater, his t-shirt that I stole.
It was a long time ago, back when he’d just moved to California for college. I went into his room and snooped and well, snitched a couple of his t-shirts that he’d left behind.
Anyway, the point is that he likes gray.
And that he’s taken to wearing a baseball cap ever since he went pro, so as to have a bit of privacy in these parts where they worship soccer more than any other sport, and hence him.
So I know that baseball cap.
I know.
The bar is super crowded though, jam-packed with bodies and saturated with the smell of liquor and foggy smoke. So it’s not as if I can see very clearly.
But my witchy heart tells me that it’s him.
Even though it’s impossible that it could be him.
Because he should be at home, with Sarah. I’m assuming she’s back too since Arrow is here.
Sarah is always where Arrow is; they’re inseparable.
Besides, bars are not his scene anyway. Anything that interferes with his practice and training is a definite no-no. Which means he very rarely drinks and never stays out partying.
But I have to see.
I have to confirm.
Callie is introducing us all to her friend who let us in, Will the bartender, but I murmur a distracted excuse and leave them. I’ll explain everything later. Like, in five minutes when I’m back after confirming that it’s really not him.
And then, I’m standing there.
I’m standing at a place – in the middle of the bar – where I have a clear view of the baseball cap and the one who’s wearing it.
He’s tucked away in a corner, the owner of the cap, partially hidden behind a bricked pillar.
Although tucked away is a misleading description.
He’s too big and tall to be tucked away anywhere, much less in a makeshift corner of a bar.
In reality, he’s bursting out of there, that nook, his shoulders specifically.
His shoulders.
My heart leaps at the sight of those shoulders. They are broad but not overly massive. They’re sleek, and even through the layers of clothes they appear sculpted and muscular.
Like his.
But that’s not the thing that gets me, no.
Not the shoulders that could only belong to him or the baseball cap that hides the good view of his face, it’s the layers of clothing that he has on.
One layer specifically.
A vintage leather jacket.
It’s black. Well, it’s so old now that it’s weathered and gray.
I love it.
I love how dashing it makes him look. How handsome. I love the vibe it gives off, dangerous and daredevil-ish.
And he wears it all the time when he rides his motorcycle.
Yeah, he has a motorcycle.
Despite all the ways that he is so careful and disciplined because of his sport, he rides a Ducati.
Or at least, he used to.
Back when he still lived in St. Mary’s.
When he left it all behind after leaving for California though, I was devastated. I bet Sarah told him to. She never liked his bike and his jacket.
I cried for the Ducati he left in the garage, covered up with a white sheet. I cried for his vintage leather jacket that I never really knew what he did with. It wasn’t in his closet – I checked.
So seeing it now, it hits me like a storm.
No, not like a storm.
The sight of that leather jacket explodes in my stomach and sends warmth rushing through my veins.
Warmth and coziness.
It’s him.
It’s my Arrow.
God, he’s here.
Here.
I press a hand on my stomach as a breath escapes me and my lips tug up into a smile.
But my smile doesn’t reach fruition.
My lips stop midway when I realize something.
I realize that his face is dipped.
It’s dipped toward someone. A girl whose back is facing me.
For a second I think it’s Sarah.
It has to be. Who else would it be, honestly?
But it’s not her.
The girl Arrow is looking at isn’t Sarah.
Because Sarah doesn’t have blonde hair. Her hair is dark like mine. Only my hair is curly – wild and savage – and hers is straight and shiny. But we at least have the exact same shade.
And neither is Sarah that short.
I am that short, as short as the girl Arrow is looking at.
So short that his tall body has to bend in a little. Like it would if he were to look at me from that close a distance.
This girl is not Sarah.
This girl is someone else and when that someone else reaches up her bare arm and flutters her delicate-looking fingers over his square jaw, a jaw that is shadowed due to the low light in that nook of his and under the rim of his baseball cap, I freeze.
Then she goes ahead and moves her fingers back and forth on his jaw.
And… and I don’t know what to do with myself.
All I know is that even though it’s dark and all I can really see is the outline of their bodies, I know that she’s scratching the invisible-to-me stubble on his face.
Which makes him smirk.
The smirk that I’ve been watching from afar for eight years now. The smirk that makes me go all breathless even when it’s not directed at me.
Because his smirks and smiles are for Sarah.
So why’s he giving it to someone else?
Someone who’s clearly not my sister.
The love of his life.
The girl tries to touch it, that smirk. She tries to touch his smirking lips with her thumb, but Arrow grabs her wrist at the last second.
He stops her, leaving her thumb hovering at the edge.
But she isn’t deterred.
She goes on her tiptoes, presses her body against his and murmurs something close to his lips.
As shocking as that is, it’s even more shocking when Arrow says something back, and whatever he says makes the girl stretch her body further.
A second later, she’s touching him with her lips.
And he’s letting her.
A second later, my sister’s boyfriend, the guy I’ve been in love with, is kissing her.
A random girl in a bar.
A girl who’s not my sister.