Page 9 of Apathy
Feelings were tricky little things, and some people never mastered the art of hiding them from others. That wasn’t the case with Mr. Broody who kept looking at me with an impassionate look on his face, perusing me as if I were an object he had a right to stare at. I felt naked under his dark, observant eyes, completely open to the world. I hated every single minute he kept looking at me.
Was this how others felt when I looked at them? It wasn’t a secret that I loved studying people more than I loved talking to them. You could learn a lot when you stopped talking and started observing how others around you behaved. You learn from those stolen little glances—their nervous ticks, the way they chew their bottom lip when they feel uncomfortable talking about something, or how they behave in the presence of those they respect or even love. I knew that it was wrong in a way, but once I started, I couldn’t stop.
The way he was looking at me right now was the same way I looked at other people. Almost bored, like me sitting here was as irrelevant as theNo Trespassingsign in front of that old house at the end of the street where I lived. Unfortunately, I couldn’t look away, even as I felt Kane’s burning stare on the side of my face. I couldn’t stop looking at him, because even though he didn’t show anything on his face, his aura spoke for itself.
Some people carried darkness like children carrying their favorite blankets or toys until they were ready to part with them and embrace new things. But the thing with darkness, the thing with pain, was that once you got used to it, you didn’t want to let go. My therapist loved talking about all these steps, all these things I should be doing to break through the clouds in my mind, but what he failed to realize was that I didn’t want to break through. Every time I thought about living without that dark embrace, without the familiar burning in my chest, I would panic because I didn’t know better.
I wasn’t familiar with carefree living, where the wicked whispers coming from my mind didn’t exist. And I knew I carried it around like a blanket. I knew that the way I carried myself threw people off, and I liked it—loved it, even. But I knew why I was the way I was. I also knew things about every single person in this room, except for him, and that unnerved me.
He took a step forward, studying the walls of the crypt, his energy filling the space, but I still couldn’t get a good read on him. Normal people show at least some emotions, yet the only ones I saw from him so far were the ones from this morning, and I wouldn’t call those emotions. He was mocking Kane, and then he got pissed off. I thought since he came with Hailey, she would be a lot more interested in him, but she kept looking at Rowan, giggling at something he said.
“What’s your name?” Lauren was the first one to ask. Yes, what the fuck was his name? I was torturing myself the whole morning, trying to forget about the entire encounter before class, and I didn’t even know his name.
“Ash,” Beatrice answered instead. “His name is Ash, and he’s kinda new in town.”
Ash. His name tasted like a forbidden fruit as I played with it in my mind, rolling it over my tongue, nibbling on the three letters, but I was too afraid to say it out loud.
“Kinda?” I cocked an eyebrow at him instead, waiting for him to talk. Was this cold exterior just a projection or was he really so indifferent to the world around him? As he came closer to me, I suddenly craved another cigarette, just so I could occupy myself with anything but this mindless obsession. I loved and hated his attention, and I hated that I wanted to hear his voice. The few fleeting moments from this morning were not enough to satisfy my morbid curiosity, or to feed the monster he awoke when he stopped me from walking into the wet sign.
“I was born here,” he answered in that gravelly voice I decided to hate. “We moved away when I was six years old.”
“Really?” Kane scoffed. I was surprised he still didn’t protest over him being here, considering their conversation this morning. “What’s your last name?” I knew why he asked, we all did. Our last names held power we couldn’t even comprehend, and knowing his, Kane would know more than Ash maybe wanted him to know. I suddenly didn’t want him to tell him his last name.
I didn’t want Kane to go in that direction, because if he started behaving like our parents, our cousins, aunts, and uncles, I wasn’t sure that I would want him around anymore. And for some fucked-up reason, I still wanted him around, even if it was to just keep an eye on him.
“Why?” Ash turned to the side and looked at Kane. “Are you planning on marrying me, or is that part of the initiation to your little club?”
Lauren guffawed, scaring the ever-loving shit out of me. “Oh. My. God,” she wheezed. “Did you just ask the mighty Kane if he’s planning to marry you?”
“Was I not supposed to?” One side of his mouth lifted in what could only be described as a small smile. “No offense,” he looked at Kane, “but you’re not my type.”
“Not. His. Type.” I looked to my right side, scowling at the tears running freely down Lauren’s cheeks as she kept laughing at the idiocy coming from his mouth. “You have to sit with us, come on.”
She moved toward the edge of the bench and pulled me with her. He closed the remaining distance between us, an annoying smirk I wanted to wipe away playing on his face. I sneaked a look at Kane who was throwing daggers at Ash’s back. I had a feeling whatever game Ash was playing, wasn’t going to end well. Kane loved being called the King of Winworth High. A quarterback, a captain of the football team, coming from one of the richest families in town, he seemed to have it all. Or at least, that’s what he wanted people to think, because the truth was too hard to accept.
The same scent I was trying to forget, filtered through my nose as he sat on my left side, intoxicating me, captivating me once again—cedar pine, cigarettes, even rain. I tried making myself smaller, almost invisible, but it was almost impossible to do with Lauren all but pushing me into him, and his shoulder touching mine. I thought I imagined that zap that happened when I touched him, but as his arm brushed against mine, the same miniature shock traveled through my body, eliciting shivers in its wake.
I looked at Beatrice who was dragging her hand over Kane’s chest, trying to draw his attention, but his eyes were on the three of us, or, well, on the two of us. When the first chords of “Amphetamine”by MNQN filled the crypt, it felt as if the tension started slowly dissipating, and as Lauren pulled out a see-through bottle filled with pills, the grip of anxiety finally started leaving my body.
“What do you have there, Sugar Tits?” I smirked at her, ignoring the broody energy next to me.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She grinned, but we both knew she was going to tell me as well as share.
“Yo,” Rowan yelled. “How many should I roll?” He held a small bag of weed, while Hailey pulled out a little box from her backpack, which I knew had all the things needed to roll that weed into a joint.
“Skylar, no,” Kane started, and I cut a look at him.
“Seriously, Kane?” The audacity. “Count me in, Ro,” I said while I kept looking at Kane.
“Sweet. Ash?”
“I’m in too,” Ash retorted as I turned to him, breaking the silent battle I was waging against a pissed-off Kane.
Instead of feeling cold with the freezing temperature inside the crypt, I was burning inside, and it was all Ash’s fault. The moment my eyes landed on a tiny scar on his chin, I wanted to know how he got it. My eyes roamed over the rest of his face, from the high cheekbones to his full lower lip with a piercing looped on the left side. It’s been such a long time since I felt like this. Like one small touch from him would send a blazing inferno through my body, and I wouldn’t mind.
My mind was waging a war with the rest of me. I was curious by nature, and the fact that he wasn’t showing any emotions was drawing me in more than anything I had ever felt. There was something inside of me, pushing me to find out everything about him, but there was also a part warning me that poison always comes wrapped in a shiny package.
And this guy, the way he looked at me, the way he dismissed Kane, he kept luring me in and he didn’t even know it. It didn’t take a genius to know that I was completely and utterly bored with most of the things in my life. Nothing piqued my attention anymore. People, parties, studying, love, hate, none of it mattered to me. Copious amounts of drugs, of alcohol, of trying to forget who I was and what was happening around me—none of it worked in shutting out the voices in my head.
