Star-Crossed (2 page)

“She'll be my most prized conquest,” he said. “That is, only after you.”

Marius chuckled, reaching out and touching my cheek with two delicate fingers.

“Well, there's no having me. I have no interest in your games.”

He nodded, lowering his gaze along with a heavy hand. He turned, sighing, and motioned towards the door.

“You can leave me alone now.”

Marius plunked himself back down on the bed, stretching his limbs and closing his eyes. His journal, which he picked up and immediately dropped, landed on his chest and rested beneath folded hands like a Bible. I envisioned him staying like that forever, his body perfectly frozen and preserved, like death was nothing but a gentle frost on his long, fair figure. He still wore his shoes; his shirt was still buttoned; his chest rose and fell with a gentle rhythm. I left quietly, closing the door and spending the rest of the day cooped up in my room, trying on various gowns; many of which were never removed from their plastic sheaths. There were those for formal affairs, low-key occasions, conservative events.

Eventually I settled on a dark green gown that contrasted startlingly with my pale complexion. My hair, appearing maybe a shade too dark, cascaded over the curve of my shoulders and hung well past my waist. Standing in front of my full-length mirror, the back of the gown still unzipped, I tried to feign a look sincere happiness. I tried to make myself believe that I was more than just a pretty face; almond-shaped eyes the color of ink, a full mouth. More than just a statue covered in designer clothes. Somewhere in my broken-down body, there was something living.

I had a soul, too.

There was no subtlety in the way Marius entered my bedroom. He swung open the door, and in the mirror's reflection I watched him walk towards me. My breath hitched when his hands fell on my upper-arms, the warmth a surprising sharp.

“You look nice,” he said casually. I looked him up and down, my focus still on the mirror. He wore a black two-piece suit and white shirt that was unbuttoned only at the collar. No tie, though his shoes were heavily polished. He kept his hair traditionally mussed-up, his eyes looking almost silver in the dim room. “I like your dress.”

His hands were hot as they traced along the outline of my frame, his fingers skimming down my back until they finally rested on the zipper. I watched his throat move in a slow swallow. He zipped up the back of my gown with a hard tug; the silk of his tie brushing against bare skin. In my mind, the thought of his lips grazing against the nape of my neck was inevitable. His warm breath instinctive; cinnamon and clove and emitting heat on the spots that step-brothers shouldn't touch.

“Well, I'm so excited I can hardly stand it,” he said. “Let's go, then.”

At the thought of screwing the brains out of Piper Whitman, he should have been. But his tone was flat, utterly monotone. His blue eyes wavered in the dark room, searching for some kind of hidden expression on my face; my lips, parted slightly, were silent.

We slipped down the balcony steps and straight through the garden, walking like creatures from some Grimm fairy tale past the fountains and fleshy-leaved bushes that stood ominous, like dark walls shielding monsters. One-eyed Cyclops and three-headed beasts, snarling behind the towering man-crafted structure.

When Marius held open the gate, the sounds of iron scraping against stone made us both flinch. His eyes were on the pathway; his chin lowered in such a way that shadows pressed over the hollows of his cheeks, making him look deathly sorrowful. He looked at me, then to the ground, then back again.

“Are you cold?” he asked, and for a half-second, I thought that he would give me his suit jacket. But I shook my head, and he nodded, and we set off by foot to the masquerade that I could only envision unfolding as perfectly elaborate and lavish as any other event held by the Headmaster's daughter. Golden plates carrying masks and thin-stemmed glasses of sparkling something. Giggles rising lightly amidst music pumping like the pulse of vital organs; a sound-system with some Italian name I would undoubtedly butcher if spoken.

“It smells like burning candles,” Marius remarked. “Like real air. Open air. Country air.”

Marius' tongue touched his upper lip just slightly as he walked. We decided to forgo the car, as Piper lived just a few blocks North. With our contrasting heights permitting Marius a solid several inches in leg length, he carried his footsteps with an even six or seven paces ahead of my own; walking ahead of me with his hands swaying at his sides, his eyes surveying everything with that same, ever-absorbing curiosity that nestled within the cavities of his chest like a tumor, spreading from vein to fingertip. His hands reached out to touch the brick-siding of buildings, his feet instinctively stepping over cracks in the pavement. From the sidewalks, smoke billowed and polluted the air. The country-smell now overthrown by something sicker, strictly city. We bought coffees from the shop around the corner, sipping on burnt caramel and espresso as Marius only turned to look back at me once, his eyes holding the delight of potential conquest. There was something deeper in it, although right then I didn't know what that could possibly be.

He turned back around, continuing onward towards the visible dwelling that even from a distance stood out like a crystal ornament hanging on the branch of a Christmas tree, swimming in a sea of wooden crosses. It practically glittered, the woven lights of the manicured trees that lined the winding pathway like trapped fireflies.

I stopped only briefly, watching Marius as he just kept going; the cars continuing to hiss by with their headlights unmercifully glaring. Around him, the lights from the buildings and billboards cast a glow that made his figure look nearly like a shadow; like any human trait belonging to Marius had been washed away and replaced with a black statue. He walked slowly, with a careful swagger and swaying hips. From behind, he wasn't really Marius anymore, and even then his name or any identifying qualities had no weight on the simple act of walking. Everyone walks the same, moving in the same motion.

One final car sped by, honking its horn and snapping me out of the moment. Marius turned, his brow creasing.

“Are you coming?” he called.

I choked, nodding, and ran head-first towards the utopic light.

TWO

I should say before anything else that I've never believed in love at first sight. But when I first saw him, something stirred inside of me. Immediate, utterly insufferable. Completely incalculable.

It was something in his eyes.

The entire event felt entirely cinematic. When the two French-style doors opened, I was welcomed with a rush of music and an unmistakable scent of sweat and pheromones. A vast, sprawling current of stark-black marble on which couples danced in their evening finery. Silk ties and diamond chokers covering skeletal throats. Chandeliers hung, blossoming crystals dangling and casting beams of darting light on the bodies and masked faces that transformed everyone into strangers.

I looked around, combing my fingers through my hair and ignoring the persistent throbbing of my already aching feet. Marius spotted a tray of masks, selecting the pale blue piece that resembled something out a Janus Tragedy. The sparkling finish only succeeding in making his eyes appear even brighter than the ones he was naturally graced with. I opted for a golden, Venetian-style mask; embellished with black crystals that hung from below like teardrops. The slits left just enough room to broadcast my eyes, leaving me feeling slightly less deceptive.

“We're swimming in a sea of the
nouveau-riche
tonight, it seems,” Marius muttered, tracing a finger over a loose lock of hair. He tilted his head towards the palatial, vaulted ceiling where above spread a mural of angels circling the midnight sky. “I'll find you later.”

“But Marius-” I said, stumbling on my words as he began to walk away. “I don't want to be left alone.”

“Oh, Kaitlyn,” he laughed. “Find someone to dance with. Have some
fun
, won't you? You've spent all of the holiday stuck up in your room. You should enjoy tonight. Here...”

From a silver platter, he handed me a long-stemmed glass of something bubbling and red; maraschino cherries and ice clinked against rose-colored glass.

“Now go. I have business to attend to,” he said, skimming fingers over the mask that covered only half of a sullen mouth. “I'll hunt you down later.”

I watched him take a few steps before calling out:

“Marius,” I said, pausing. “Marius, be careful.”

He paused mid-step, and I expected him to say something in return. But he didn't, only continuing into the pool of taffeta and silk, a mesh of mixing classes and names both
nouveau
and centuries old. There were those who had come into wealth stemming back from the days of banned alcohol and speak-easys. Old, crooning radio stations.

I looked around at the girls, half-smiling with their eyes hidden beneath glitter and jewels; their arms hung around necks with an almost unsettling desperation. The boys, in return, leaned in and planted kisses on their jaws and cheeks and mouths. There would be a lot of bodies coming together tonight – long-time lovers and foreign, nameless fucking alike.

Some things, in truth, never change.

I watched, still able to spy Marius as he made his way into the crowd; the clusters dividing like Moses parting the Red Sea. He walked slowly up the wide staircase; at the very top, leaning over the balcony and gazing below at the dancing phantoms, was Piper. Her mask was a fan of white feathers; and she wore a black lace dress, which I found darkly fitting given Marius and his intentions. A mourning gown to compliment her mournful gaze. Her hair, each strand pinned tight against her head, was freshly bleached blonde; contrasting with her button-brown eyes and plum-stained lips that were stretched in a forced smile. She watched from above like she had no interest in the affairs that her father had unquestionably arranged. Like she too resented her place on the pedestal that came along with being thrown into the world of crass and beautiful, unworldly Manhattan Debutantes.

Piper was a pure-blooded pedigree, born into the lavish lifestyle with a golden spoon in her mouth and a coveted spot at the very top of the Trinity Prep totem. She carried herself with an effortless grace; conservative with her uniform save for her socks, which she wore only to the ankles. On the street, whenever I had seen her in the shops or on the sidewalks, she had maintained a vintage look about her – complete with Saddle-style shoes and lace blouses. Many of these items purchased, naturally, from one of my father's stores. Stores that I avoided; filled with the artificial champagne-colored lights and blown-up photographs of myself. Black-and-white, and so airbrushed that my body looked like nothing but milk-colored skin painted over bone.

Sometimes, when we locked eyes, she'd smile and lower her art-house-darling sunglasses so that I could see the question in her eyes; like most everyone, she had knocked into my blunt, cynical stare like something fit for the pages of a Salinger novel. But most of the time, just like everyone else, she met my partially-embarrassed lowered gaze with the subtlest scoff. Her voice a hoarse, sultry lullaby.

“
If you hate this place, darling, why don't you just leave?”

Oh, if were only so simple. Which maybe, all things considered, it could be; I was just being stubborn, selfish. Too absorbed in the expectations that rested on my own shoulders. A purchased spot at the prestigious Yale University; the inevitable claim to a staggering empire. Where my place on the registrar's list and secured fate gave my father something to breathe easy about.

As for me, I resented it. But given that I was left with no purse to fill when my time at Trinity Prep ended – just the material things and finery that I was surrounded with at home – the situation felt almost locked in place. My father didn't believe in gifting me any sort of Trust Fund, with his opinion being that once he passed away, I'd have both a respectable education, an impressive business, and his vast fortune; inherited and solely mine. Shouldn't that be enough?

I suppose staying and accepting my fate of attending Yale would be better than cast out, penniless and alone to start over. Even if I craved normalcy, I didn't crave poverty. That's the difference. There's the rub. The worst of it all was that I regarded my father's mortality like a ticking clock; the gradual falling of each grain of sand was an individual eternity.

Looking back, I was simply stupid.

With her torso pressed against the railing, Piper's hair fell like a white blanket over bird-like bones. Fair skin, like snow stirred in a moon-pot. When she spotted Marius, her face lit up and she threw her arms around him. He leaned in, whispering something into her ear, and her expression darkened. Not anger, or rage, but something hesitant and full of an unquenched longing. Marius had been following her for months, careful to let her believe that everything leading up to this very moment was all her choosing. She had no idea that Marius was nothing but a snake – albeit a brilliant one. He had the capability of breaking hearts and never needing to answer for himself. The fault that these girls suffocated in during the erupting aftermath, rested somewhere between the bedroom and themselves.

I took a sip of the drink, sweet with grenadine, and left the scene after Marius and Piper disappeared down an upstairs hallway. Looking around, everyone seemed so entrenched in their own little orbs, all clustered in corners of the vast room while their smiles were lit up from the whiskey hidden away in flasks and the chandelier's glow. Someone was playing the grand piano; a drizzling of notes floated above our heads like moths. Each of the rooms was full, straining at the seams while couples danced and laughed and touched each other’s arms and faces and masks. Everyone was unrecognizable, and there was something both eerie and liberating about the whole affair.

I plucked one of the cherries from my glass, popping it into my mouth and sucking on it like a piece of candy, which it practically was. With the music turned down and someone in the background yelling for the masked-pianist to continue playing, all I could hear was the piano sounds as I drifted out of the ballroom in search of a quieter space. In such a place as this, calling the staggering structure a house would be an insult. It was a mansion. A large, intimidating palace. And I needed to get away from the glossy eyes and rattling laughter.

“It's not good to be so solitary,” the maids would always say. “You'll get lonely.”

I told them that there was a difference between being lonely and being alone. Alone was a word that I could have very well written, keeping the definition tucked in my pocket to pull out and skim over quickly when the moment was appropriate. When that sharp, barbed-wire pain gripped my chest. The moments when I looked at doting boyfriends on the sidewalks, holding a lover's hand. Coffee shop talks; laughter over pastries and hidden jokes.

Alone. Not lonely. Just alone. But you can't feel sorry for the things that you ask for.

I'm not sure how far I had walked before the music had completely faded. All I know was that when I saw him, I was standing in the center of a narrow hallway with crimson walls on which heavy, hanging portraits were hung. Piper's face was immortalized in oil paint, giving her an eerie, luminous appearance. I lifted my mask quickly to take a better look, sliding it back down only when I heard the sound of a voice that seemed to be talking to me.

I turned, and that's when I saw him. Really saw him. He wore his mask so that it rested across his eyes in a simple black strip of Fleur de Lis printed cloth. When I finally fixed my sights on him, my initial thought was that I was in the presence of someone who had just walked off the set of some striking, pop-punk music video. There was an elegant mess to him; his midnight-colored hair was long, tousled and swept back lazily. His eyes wide and curious and so brown that they themselves were almost black.

Through the fabric, all I could see were two onyx-colored irises. He wore a burgundy-colored shirt layered with a black pinstripe suit. He wore no tie, opting to keep his collar unbuttoned. And if I hadn't been so startled by him, I would have asked if he was planning on attending a masquerade or a funeral.

Either way, it was deafeningly sexy.

When he finally parted his lips, I bit down on the cherry that was still in my mouth; the sweet syrup coated my tongue. When he spoke, I swallowed.

“I think you're a bit lost,” he said, his voice dropping a decibel so that the sound was nearly hushed. “The party is that way.”

He pointed in the direction of distant sounds, but in that present place every single noise that was not his voice or breath had been entirely muted.

I could choose to say that I immediately caught his accent. British. But instead of the typical, gushing reaction that most girls would give a man who opened his mouth and expelled simple words that sounded like the foreign cry of angels, I turned back to the painting and forced myself to lock into Piper's liquid stare.

“I'm not lost,” I answered after half a beat. “I know exactly where I am.”

Resisting through clenched teeth, I set my glass down on the rug. My fingers were wet with cold condensation.

“Why are you standing in the hallway?” I asked.

The strange man shrugged.

“I needed to escape for a moment. I just...” he paused. “I needed some air.”

That's when I chose to look at him again, and he did indeed look like he was in need of some air. Not surprising, given that the sardine-packed nature of these events could make even the strongest pair of lungs gasp for oxygen. I wondered if I looked the same; if my hair was just as matted or my mascara running beneath the mask that hid what he couldn't see.

I wondered what his eyes looked like.

“Me too,” I said. “I mean, I needed some air, too.”

The man nodded, scratching his head and moving just slightly closer. We looked at each other, my head craning to meet his covered gaze due to his ridiculous stature. The top of my head, if I were to be gracious, just brushed against his shoulder. He leaned down like he wanted to really memorize my face, and I envisioned him pressing my back against the wall, his entire torso against mine, and kissing me so gently that it would barely be considered a kiss at all.

“You're British,” I choked out, immediately hating myself. But it was the only comment that I thought would take the heat from his eyes. Blatant stupidity has a way of turning people off in an immediate, fast-acting kind of way.

It worked. He straightened up, clearing his throat before speaking again.

“You're American,” he grinned. “And very observant.”

“No, I'm just an idiot. I'm sorry.”

I sighed heavily, and the man was quiet for a few seconds before starting to lightly chuckle. He was laughing at me.

“What's your name?” he asked after an unknown period. I looked up at him, still wearing the mask that only covered his eyes but still covered so much, and contemplated dropping mine.

“Kaitlyn,” I said. “What about you?”

“Will,” he replied. “My name's Will.”

We shook hands. A proper greeting. He seemed hesitant to say what came next.

“I'll be teaching Classic Literature this semester at Trinity,” he added. “And managing the theater production.”

Will beamed, obviously and understandably proud. Instructor positions at my coveted academy did not come easily, and I could only assume that William Tennant must have had a list of impressive accolades - or connections.

“Between you and me, I am
most
excited about getting back on stage. It's been awhile.”