Beautifully Ruined (4 page)

I need his scent to surround me, I need—I
need
him.

I need Zephyr
…

Every memory that fills my mind makes me smile, everything thought of him and me makes me smile. Everything about the boy next door makes me happy. But I can’t do the same for him.

Not in the future.

I will ruin and destroy him. There’s nothing normal, nothing sane about me. I have nightmares, bone chilling, crippling nightmares. I am messed up, screwed up beyond repair. And he
wants to be there for me? I can’t allow that to happen—not now. I can only destroy his life.

…
and he isn’t coming.

My heart shatters again, as it does every night when my mind remembers that I have no claim to him anymore. He isn’t mine. My heart shatters into more pieces, the shards becoming smaller and jagged. They no longer fit together properly if you were to reassemble them.

Just as I lost him.

Stepping through the double doors this morning—fleeing one of Kennie’s Duke talks, I head straight for my locker at the end of the hall, my headphones happily blaring as I bounce my head to the beat of Samael’s
Valkyrie’s New Ride
. It’s a good song to wake me up. Spinning the lock on the door, I tug it open, mentally debating the books I need—
Euro, calculus…and the ones I left behind
. I have a few minutes before class starts—more like twenty if I want to be exact—so that’s enough to time to tackle a large amount of forgotten homework.

Grabbing the textbooks I left last night—I wasn’t in a Milo mood and forced Kennie to leave instead of heading to my locker like normal—I slam my locker shut, turning around and walking directly into a small body.

Alexia Cavanaugh.

It wasn’t a light hit, either. I walked into her hard because I was in that much of a hurry to barricade myself in a classroom and finish my work before class starts. Still, her body didn’t move—like a freaking brick wall. She’s so tiny but filled with muscle. Who knew?

Sighing—she’s still not my favorite person—I try to dodge around her but she blocks my path, matching my every move.

She’s told me her determination to make up the past ten years to me, determined to right her wrongs—or justify them, I’m not sure, but I don’t want to hear it. I’ve been ignoring her since winter break ended, passing her in the halls, pretending I don’t see her, but she is very persistent. She’s like that little bug that zooms by your ear incessantly; buzzing so loud it’s all you focus on, it’s all you hear and no fly swatter can kill the damn thing. Alexia wants to make every horrible thing she did to me, as if it was going to be that easy for me—to just forgive and forget the past ten years. I may not remember a lot in my life, but I remember how horrible of
a person Alexia Cavanaugh is. I remember the hell she put me through my first few years here. There isn’t much, if anything she can do to fix it.

Things started slowly. The occasional
hello
in the halls when she placed herself in my path, the random gentle wave as I passed complete with wiggling fingers or whatever, but I ignored her. Alexia would nod in my direction, smile at me, do everything she could to make herself obvious in my eyes, but I ignored her like I always had.

But it didn’t stop there.

If anything, I thought Alexia would just start slowing by, stopping by, complimenting me on my shoes—highly doubtful considering how much she badmouthed me for wearing them before—but she was growing near stalking levels. I’d find her standing outside my classes waiting for me, she’d follow me like a creeper straight from a Lonely Island music video through the hall, she’d walk by me in the library during lunch—and it was hard to ignore her when I was the
only
person in that part of the library, silently working.

It was becoming obsessive.

But today, I just want to head into my AP Euro class, sit in my seat, and finish the small pile of neglected homework. I have a chemistry lab I need to write and an English paper to finish. Things I didn’t take home because of one weird person following me. Don’t even get me started on the senior project I’ve nearly forgotten about—I have the binder to finish and more people to interview. And there’s pie! Yes, the pie I baked last night. When bored, stressed, and hungry, I bake. Like last night, I baked a banana cream pie, a delicious banana cream pie that I couldn’t fit into my backpack or eat in the library even if it did fit in my bag. I may not know how to cook but I can bake. Not to toot my own horn but my baking is a gift sent from the gods.
Toot toot
. It’s all I can think about to pull me through my day, it’s an easy distraction and it’s sitting in my fridge far, far away. But Alexia’s standing in front of me, interrupting all my thoughts of homework and pie—
sweet, delicious pie
.

“Joey,” Alexia says, her tiny hands reaching out to block my way around her. With every step she makes—mirroring my own, her heels
click-clack
in front of me as she blocks my path. I can’t make it around her without shoving her to the ground like a rabid animal, and that’s frowned upon in school settings. I should know by now.

I roll my hazel eyes and grudgingly look to her, glancing up and down her tiny frame because my eyes won’t land. So I study her instead. Her dyed hair perfectly coiffed, perfectly curled and styled about her head, her shirt perfectly smooth against her flat stomach as if it’s been ironed to her, her skirt short enough to make guys look and the teachers barely concerned without doing anything—she’s the girl everyone loves to hate. Even her friends.

You know what they say,
keep your enemies close but your enemies closer
. High school was built upon that. Especially teenage girls.

It’s weird to look at her, to look directly at her harsh and beautiful features, after all that happened over the years. It’s weird to see those deep blue eyes, that cocky all-knowing smile she shines upon the world when she mocks someone. It’s weird to stand in the middle of this hall and try to talk to her like nothing happened, as if her boyfriend didn’t attack me just a few weeks ago. As if what he did didn’t unleash the most horrible demon from its chamber into my life.

“What do you want, Alexia?” I ask with a sigh, rolling my eyes again just for good measure. What better way to tell her that her presence irks me?
Just think of pie
, I force myself
. Just think of pie. Don’t think about hitting her—don’t think about it because you will actually hit her. For all she’s done to you, you
will
hit her and you
will
leave a lovely bruise that will only make you giddy with power until you hit her again. Think of the pie!
That’s all I see when I look at her, what Ryder told me. His smug grin—split lips telling the only story playing through my mind the past few weeks.

There was this bet about you and I decided to take it
. These words float through me as I look to her, hating her every time Ryder’s voice enters my mind, replaying the night on a loop in my memory.
Alexia’s always hated you. I don’t know why, but she was willing to pay money to see you destroyed
. She wanted me destroyed, whatever that means to her.
And I was more than happy to oblige, baby
.

Destroyed.

I was ruined the moment I stepped into her class in third grade. I was this fragile, broken little girl terrified in the shadow. I was further ruined with every hateful thing she did to me. With every try she made to break me more. With every hateful word spoken in my direction, spoken about me, with every rumor spread about me through her lips, I felt the hatred coursing through her, radiating from her in thick, damaging waves.

Because she didn’t care.

Because I was nothing but a plaything, an insignificant speck sadly caught in her radar. And nothing made her happier than to watch me suffer.

And I suffered.

Every damn day I suffered and she didn’t know she wasn’t making it worse. She was just a continuation of the hell that was my life.

She didn’t know what I’d been through—she didn’t care. I was nothing but an easy target.

And Alexia took some demented delight in that.

Alexia shuffles nervously on her feet, fidgeting with her perfectly manicured hands—tapping her white tipped nails together. The little
click, click, click
ringing through the halls, letting my mind focus on the sound. “I just wanted to see how you were doing.” She sounds so small, so insignificant—she is to me. Her eyes widen when she looks at me, seeking something, tucking a blonde curl behind her ear.

Rolling my eyes, because I cannot hit her and it’s officially become habit to do it in her presence, I say, “I’m fine.” Looking over her shoulder, I stare up the empty hallway at the beige double doors closed on an available exit, waiting for someone, anyone, to pass through. No one comes. So, Plan B. “I was heading to class. I have homework to finish, so…”

“Oh.” She steps back, her eyes going everywhere. “Well, have fun and all that.” I trail, giving her the smallest kindness I can offer.

“Thanks?” I question, nearly concerned with the conversation we’re having.

She turns to walk away, heading wherever it is she goes in the mornings, before she turns back, facing me with something clouding her eyes. Something unrecognizable clouding those night eyes of hers.
I almost had my chance to run away
. “I also wanted you to know I haven’t spoken to him.”
Ah, this is about him
. “Not since that night, Joey.”

Her eyes slowly lift to mine, seeking something within me.
Pity? Acceptance? Understanding?
I won’t give it to her. This isn’t my mess to clean.

Stepping back, I ask her, “Why are you telling me this?” I could be halfway through my essay right about now. Hell, I could be halfway through future homework with how long this exchange is taking.

“He’s tried,” she continues, ignoring my question, stepping toward me, her heel clicks against the linoleum. “He’s tried to apologize. He blames the alcohol but that’s…” she trails, taking a deep breath. “That’s just how he is, that’s really how he is. He’s not
nice
.” She shakes her head, composing her thoughts. “He may have been sweet to you and all but it was a lie. Something he used to make his goal.”
The goal you created for him, Alexia
. “He’s not the greatest person.”

I shrug my shoulders, not in the mood to hear any of this right now. “Then why date him?” I never really saw the appeal of Ryder Harrison when he tried to take me out. I turned him down; I tried to turn him down repeatedly but he was a rash that wouldn’t disappear. He only got itchier and itchier.

Alexia looks away, her eyes focusing on something over my shoulders. “You were with the only acceptable guy in this school. The only catch, really.” She shrugs her shoulders.
Thanks for the obvious, Alexia. I knew that
. “Zephyr, he really is one of a kind.”

But how does he play into this? Is it because of his and my friendship that she’s hated me all these years? Is it because of him that I was treated like shit, had rumor spread about me, things done to me? All because of Zephyr? But she dated him. Alexia had him all to herself for two years. She’s the one who let him go.

I look to her, watching her pull her hand through her hair disrupting the curls, separating them. “Why’d you break up with him?” I ask. The one question that always intrigued me but I never asked. I remember her being so happy with Zephyr. I remember the smug smile she gave me when she turned my way, her arm slung through his, her fingers laced with his.

I should ask him why he dated her to begin with. But it’s his life, his choices to make, even if some of them are questionable. I just remember the day he walked into my room last year, our sophomore year, telling me she broke up with him.

“It’s over,” he told me, his brown eyes clouded with sadness. My best friend was breaking before me. Swinging my bare legs from the bed, I rush to his side, wrapping my arms around him as he wraps his arms around me, returning the tight embrace.

“I’m sorry, Zeph,” I tell him, rubbing my hand up his back. “She’s an idiot.” Something I’ve said about Alexia since I met her, something I’ve said plenty of times to my friends, but I’ve never said to Zephyr since she attached herself to his hip.

I never understood what he saw in her. Alexia’s a stuck up bitch with a superiority complex and her own minions. But she’s always had her sights set on Zephyr. She finally got her chance starting in eighth grade; she finally sunk her claws into my best friend, rubbing it in my face whenever she could.

Thanks for the salt in the wound, bitch
.

“I guess,” he replies, tightening his grip around my body.

He was happy. He was smiling and happy, and I was happy for him. As much as I hated, literally despised his girlfriend, I was happy for him, I was happy that Alexia made him happy. But now she’s broken his heart, now I’m no longer happy.

The memory is so fresh, so vibrant, it’s as if I’m reliving it, standing before the girl I wanted to punch back then. The girl I knew to be the problem.

Alexia shakes her head. “I didn’t,” she tells me. The words shocking me. That’s not what he said. I remember. I remember that he… he never told me that. He let me assume she broke up with him. He let me believe a lie. The truth sounds weird leaving her lips, like a lie not meant for her to tell. “He broke up with me,” she says quietly. “I always saw it coming. I
knew
it was coming. I was surprised it lasted so long, to be honest.” She steps closer to me, her designer handbag dangling from her hands. “There was just something about you he loved. I could see it in his eyes.” She slowly shakes her head. “He never looked at me the way he looked at you. You were his world. Always have been. I knew that when we were dating but I refused to believe it. I didn’t
want
to believe it.” She didn’t want to settle with the fact that someone thought I was better than she was. Alexia couldn’t handle being second best…to me.

I really don’t get what he sees in you.
It makes sense now. Those words.
It’s kind of obvious if you pay attention
. Alexia never meant Ryder. She meant Zephyr. Now that I think about it, Zephyr has always been there for me, even when he was dating someone else. I was always his top priority. He never cared about breaking plans, postponing dates, or even leaving them while
on
a date with his girlfriend-of-the-week. I was what mattered.