The Bad Ones (5 page)

6

“No no no, this side! Get my
good side!
”

Dulcie sighed and pushed a button. The camera flash went off, which seemed to appease the girl who'd been whining. Or at least it distracted her from realizing the shutter wasn't moving.

“Thanks, Dulcie. You rock.”

Whiny girl's boyfriend fist bumped Dulcie, then the pair pranced out of the room and headed back into the dance.

The Halloween dance.

Senior year wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Maybe knowing college was on the horizon made it more exciting for some people, but Dulcie knew she wouldn't be going to college. She'd been saving up to move into her own apartment the moment she turned eighteen, but the diner paid barely enough to cover her extracurricular activities and text books, let alone to save up oodles of cash for rent. Her eighteenth birthday came and went, yet Dulcie was still living in the trailer.

Still blocking her bedroom door.

“Dulcie! Over here!”

A blonde girl was waving at her from inside the gym, and Dulcie smiled and put down the camera. No one was in line to get their picture taken, so she figured she could have a couple minutes of freedom and she headed into the dance.

Senior year wasn't all bad, either. When they'd gotten their yearbooks during the summer, she'd discovered the picture of her and Con kissing had gotten published in the “Hall of Shame” section. It was semi-tasteful, she supposed, and only showed them from the shoulders up, their lips barely touching.

At first, she'd been annoyed. She didn't want anyone seeing their kiss, it was a private moment between her and Con. She worried that when he came home, he'd be mad about the picture. Or embarrassed.

But Con never came back. Never called, e-mailed, wrote,
nothing
. Her sketchbook was overflowing with drawings, her walls were lined with them.

And no Constantine to look at them.

She got mad. Over five months had passed, and there had been no communication. She knew it wasn't him not having the time – she'd heard through school he'd been in contact with other friends. With other girls.

Meanwhile, the infamous kiss photo had given her a bit of celebrity. If Con Masters had found her attractive, well then, she
must be
attractive. And witty, and funny, and something worth looking at twice; suddenly, boys who'd never given her the time of day were chatting her up in the halls. Stealing seats next to her. Asking her on dates.

She ignored them, at first. Then, more time passed, and she got angrier at Con. Angry at herself. Angry at the town she lived in, and angry at her life. Why should she live life on the fringe? Just biding her time, trying to slip by unnoticed. Before, she'd begun to think really, she'd been waiting for Con to notice her.

Now, she realized she'd just been scared. Well. Not anymore. She hated the thought of being scared of anything, so one day, when a relatively good looking guy asked her out, she said yes.

Jared was nice enough. He played football – had played with Con, even. He was the same age as her, and was actually in a few of her art classes. He liked to laugh and he was very polite. He was also super understanding of the fact her legs seemed to be welded together at the knees.

It wasn't that Dulcie was scared of sex – she was very familiar with her own body and was perfectly comfortable giving in to her baser desires. She had a very active fantasy life. Unfortunately, though, none of those fantasies featured Jared, so she just couldn't bring herself to sleep with him.

No, all her fantasies featured a man made of shadows. A boy with a golden smile and a dark heart.

“Hey, ditch the photo room for a while – let's make fun of peoples' costumes,” her friend Anna laughed when Dulcie finally reached her side.

“Too easy. What's happening after this?” she asked, glancing around the room.

Oh yes, Dulcie even went to parties now. She felt very accomplished.

“Bryce said something is going on at the lake,” Anna started, referring to her own boyfriend. “Jared mentioned you guys might go.”

“Hey, you guys talking about me?”

Dulcie didn't get a chance to turn around before an arm slid around her waist. She felt Jared's warm lips against the side of her neck and she smiled as she leaned back into him. He was so comfortable, like an old sweater. A comfy blanket. Her grandma's house.

Not sexy at all.

“Yeah, you guys gonna go to the lake later?” Bryce piped up. Jared moved around so he was at Dulcie's side.

“I dunno, it's so far out there, and I have practice in the morning,” he replied. Dulcie let out a sigh of relief. She went to parties, but she didn't particularly like them.

“C'mon, you gotta go! Didn't you hear who's gonna be there?” Bryce exclaimed.

“No, who?”

“Constantine fuckin' Masters!”

Gravity quadrupled for a moment and Dulcie felt like she was going to collapse. All other sound receded and all she could hear was the conversation that was happening between the boys.

“Con's in town? I heard he was like moving up the ranks in Ohio – he's gonna be starting line next year, easy. Dude is gonna go to the NFL,” Jared commented.

“Yeah, but his mom died. He came back for the funeral, got here a week ago. He called the other day, just to catch up. I mentioned the party, he said he'd try to make it.”

A week. He'd been in town a week, and had made no attempt to contact her.

Nothing. It was all in your head. Just a stupid boy, kissing an even stupider girl.

“What do you say? You wanna head up to the lake?” Jared asked, shaking her shoulders gently. She shook her head.

“No. No, I don't want to go to the lake.”

They left the dance and drove towards her home. He parked the car on the other side of a covered bridge and pulled her across the seat, pressing his lips to hers. She sighed and leaned into him. Maybe she
should
sleep with Jared. Get it over with, relieve some tension.

But as his hand fumbled around ineptly in her underwear, she could feel herself growing cold. It always started at her core and worked its way out to her extremities, till she was numb all over. The idea of having sex, of him being inside her, made her feel physically ill. So she pushed him back into his seat and surprised him with a blowjob instead.

At least someone gets a happy ending.

The town library had a courtyard behind it with several large benches, and Dulcie sat outside on one. The days were still a little warm and she wanted to soak it up while she still could, keep some of the cold in her at bay. A young woman was sitting on another bench and her three year old daughter was toddling around the area. Dulcie made faces at the little girl, making her laugh and smile. She tried to capture it all with her pencil, sketching out the child's giggling face.

“It's a good picture, but if you wanted it to be great, you'd make her cry.”

She froze up, but only for a second. Then she took a deep breath and continued sketching.

“Maybe that's not what I'm going for,” she replied. She was sitting lotus style on top of the bench, and she listened as Con Masters sat in front of her.

“I find that hard to believe.”

She glanced up at him, but he was looking at her paper, watching her pencil strokes.

“What're you doing here?” she asked, looking back down at her work.

“I was dropping off some of my mom's book collection, as a donation. Saw you sitting out here,” he explained. She nodded.

“Oh.”

Suddenly, he grabbed her sketchbook and pulled it out of her lap. At the same moment, a strong gust of wind blew through the courtyard. The little girl began to cry and her mother picked her up, cooing sweet nothings as she carried the child back inside.

“These are good,” he commented, flipping through the pages.

“Hey, you don't have any right to look at those,” Dulcie snapped, reaching for the book.

“Don't I? I told you to draw them.”

He could've slapped her and she would've been less surprised. He seemed completely at ease, leisurely turning each page, as if her reason for being outside had been to wait for him. Like an appointment. She couldn't stand the tension and she jumped up.

“It's been a long time, Con. Thank you for the camera, but that's my book, and I would like it back,” she said in the voice she usually reserved for talking to rude customers or belligerent parents.

“Oh, really?”

He closed her sketchbook and slowly stood up. She'd forgotten how tall he was, how imposing. He looked so different. He was only a year older since she'd last really looked at him. Just a nineteen year old boy, that's all. Nothing to make her nervous.

Except, he didn't seem like some nineteen year old boy. He looked like something else. Like a man. Like something
starved
. Like something she had been missing for far longer than he'd been gone.

She wasn't cold anymore. Oh no. Now she was hot all over, every inch of her. She licked her lips and watched as his eyes followed the movement.

“I'm sorry about your mother,” she suddenly blurted out. He raised an eyebrow.

“Why?”

“Because she died. I'm sorry.”

“I'm not. We weren't close.”

“How did she die?”

“Fell down some stairs.”

“That's too bad.”

“Or was pushed.”

That made her pause for a moment. She may have been overheating, but Con had reached new levels of cold. He was approaching sub-zero temperatures.

“You think she was pushed?” Dulcie clarified. He shrugged.

“I don't really care, either way. She hated her life, she's probably glad she's dead. My father hated her, so he's probably even happier about it.”

“If you don't care, then why did you come back?” Dulcie was confused.

He smiled, then. She'd forgotten his smile, forgotten the effect it had on her. That slow grin, leisurely traveling the length of his lips. Suddenly, she was starving, too.

“I came back for this,” he said, waving her sketchbook in front of her face.

Then he turned around and walked away, taking her book with him.

*

When Constantine had come home for the funeral, he hadn't bothered with his old room. He wanted as much distance between him and his father as was possible. He stayed in an apartment over their detached garage.

After he'd left the library, he'd gone back to the apartment and stripped down before getting into bed. There was no air conditioning and the garage was heated. Combined with the warm spell that was gripping the county, it all made the small living quarters sweltering hot.

He laid naked while flipping through Dulcie's sketchbook. He'd been lying to her – the funeral really was his reason for coming home. Of course he'd thought about her, though. Not a day went by where he didn't think of Dulcie. But she made him nervous. He couldn't tell where he was when he was with her. Was he bad for her? Or was
she
bad for
him?

When he was surrounded by plastic shiny people, he had an easier time pretending he was normal, and an easier time pretending his dark thoughts didn't exist. When he thought of Dulcie, though, all the pretending stopped. He hated that, it was like a bump in the road. It caused him to stumble.

He'd had no intention of seeking her out while he was in town. School was going well for him. He wasn't going to go into the NFL, like everyone expected and wanted. No, he had other plans. He was going to get his MBA, then move far away, from everything and everyone. Dulcie could ruin his plans, could destroy his carefully built facade.

But as Con examined each page, as his eyes wandered over all the black paint and the dark lines, he knew it wouldn't be so easy anymore. He got to the picture she'd drawn the year before, in that long ago detention, and he traced his fingers over the shadowy figure.

So much darkness. Falling in love with this chick would be easy, but surviving each other … that's an entirely different story
.

“C'mon, it could be a lot of fun!”

“Yeah, Dulcie, c'mon! Have you ever been up there?”

“You could probably get some great pictures, more stuff for your creepy book.”

Dulcie rolled her eyes at the last pitch. Besides, she couldn't add anything to her “creepy book” – Con still had it. It had been a week. She was beginning to wonder if she'd ever get it back.

Do I really care?

“I don't know, you guys. I get off work at eleven, will it even be worth it?” she asked, then she bent over and wiped down the table they were all sitting around.

She was at work and the gang had come in to beg her to go to a party that night. Apparently, the football team had decided to throw some huge kegger up in the woods, near an abandoned mine shaft. A hot spot for parties because the cops could rarely be bothered to trek into the woods to shut them down. Dulcie had never been, had no interest in going, but she'd heard some pretty wild stories.

“It'll just be getting started,” Jared assured her. She grimaced. That wasn't a selling point, in her mind. That just meant everyone would be wasted by the time she got there.

“Why is this party such a big deal?” she was curious. Jared grabbed her hand.

“Cause it's in the woods, and all secluded and private. It'll be fun,” he assured her, then winked.

Her grimace got worse.

Luckily, at that moment a customer called for her. The diner was railcar style, so she moved down the narrow walkway between the counter and the tables. She took an order, cleared another table, then made her way back behind the bar. As she dumped dirty dishes in the sink, she heard the bell above the door go off. A gust of wind rolled through the restaurant, then the door closed.

“Be with you in a minute!” she called out. She dried off her hands, stuck the new ticket on the order wheel, then turned around.

She moved around the counter with her order pad in hand, but when she looked up, she didn't seen any new patrons at any of the tables. She scanned the small space once, then began looking over the people at the counter, wondering if maybe the new arrival had simply stepped in and then stepped back outside.

No such luck. She spotted him on her second glance around. He'd slid into the booth next to Jared, his arm stretched out along the back of the seat. He looked so at ease, laughing at whatever silly story Anna was telling. So normal, sitting amongst normal people.

There is nothing normal about Constantine.

“What are you doing here?” she blurted out as soon as she walked up to the table. Con turned his smile on her, but she was better prepared for it this time around and it didn't quite knock the breath out of her.

“Came in for a cup of coffee, saw these guys. I forgot you worked here, Dulcie,” he lied. She could tell. She could just
feel
the lie, like a cold snake wrapped around his words. He'd known exactly where she'd be, exactly where she worked.

“Well, I do. Did you want something?” she asked. Her voice was loud and flat, and she watched as Jared winced.

“Jeez, babe, what's got you all riled up?”

Con's smile got bigger.

“That's right, I heard you two were going out. How long has it been now?”

Now it was Dulcie's turn to wince.

“Eh, like two months?” Jared estimated. Dulcie nodded.

“Yeah, almost,” she agreed. The way Con was sitting, Jared couldn't see his face, but Dulcie was only about a foot away from him. She could see the knowing gleam in his eye. The malice.

Could see he knew Jared was nothing more than a placeholder.

“How
cute.
”

“So!” Anna's high voice cut through the growing tension. “We've been trying to convince Dulcie to go to the mine party tonight.”

“Yeah, tell her how fun they are,” Bryce added. Con's eyebrows went up.

“Never been to a party at the mines?” he asked, though she was sure he already knew the answer.

“Never sounded like very much fun,” she replied.

“Remember the one last year, Con? After homecoming? Man, it was epic,” Jared chuckled.

“They are pretty '
epic
',” Con agreed with a sigh. “Sounds like a good time. Maybe I'll check it out.”

“See, Dulcie? If Masters is gonna be there, it's gonna be epic,” Bryce assured her.

If another person says epic, I'm going to scream.

“I don't know, it's gonna be so late, and I -” she began to make excuses.

“Of course, if you're
scared
, don't go. It's dark up there. Dangerous. Wouldn't want you running off, getting lost.”

He'd said it to ruffle her feathers, and it worked. She stared down the length of her nose at him, like he was a bug she wanted to squash. She wasn't scared of anything, least of all some stupid party in the woods. And definitely not Con Masters.

No, I'm not scared of him. I'm
terrified
.

“I'll go. But it better be pretty fucking epic.”

He smiled again.

“Oh, it will be.”

*

His smile unnerved her more than just about anything. Con had picked up on that a long time ago, and he almost laughed when she turned and hurried away the moment he showed some teeth. She went back behind the counter and pretended to be busy with washing cups.

“You really gonna go tonight?”

Con turned back to the table. He'd almost forgotten he and Dulcie weren't alone. Bryce, a third string player he'd barely spent any time with, was smiling eagerly at him. A blonde thing sat at his side, a girl Con didn't recognize at all.

It was Jared who'd spoken to him. Jared had played on the team with him, was varsity, but they'd never been close. Hadn't really been in the same circles. They'd been to a couple parties together, and of course a lot of stays at away games, but that was the extent of their friendship.

“Yeah, why not. For old times' sake,” Con replied. The couple laughed and turned to chatter excitably about the upcoming night. Jared smiled and clapped him on the back.

“That's awesome. I gotta ask, though … this isn't weird, is it?”

“What?” Con was confused.

“This … y'know. Dulcie and me. Dulcie and you. You two had a thing, right?” Jared asked.

Con had to stop himself from replying with “
there is no 'Dulcie and you', so why would it be weird?
”

“No,” he cleared his throat, stopping the other words from coming out. “Not weird. It was just one kiss, one night. Dulcie and I were never '
a thing
'.”

No, we were almost
everything
.