Page 3 of When Darkness Calls

I huffed a laugh. “A vampire-witch pirate, I guess. I don’t know. This was the first thing I found that passed Liz’s ‘sexy test’, but I’m so uncomfortable. That should’ve been a big neon sign that wearing it was going to be a mistake. But she wouldn’t budge, the stubborn ass,” I grumbled, mostly to myself.

“Dani…What happened?” He says slowly.

“When we showed up, everything seemed fine. We got in easily, grabbed a few drinks, and danced a little. It was fine. Then I went off to find some snacks,” I trailed off again. My face burned in shame and embarrassment. I can’t bring myself to look at him.

“I really don’t want to talk about it, Grays. Can we just drop it please? I just want to go home.”

“Spill. It.” The air inside the car was sucked out. Anger and frustration rolled off him in waves.

“I, uh, I found a table in the kitchen with, like, brownies, cupcakes, and cookies and what not. So, I grabbed a red velvet cupcake, ya know, ‘cause they’re my favorite. And a group of people in the kitchen watched me eat. You know how uncomfortable that makes me.” My voice comes out in a hushed breath.

“They were whispering and giggling. I looked up and saw them staring. I thought maybe we weren’t really supposed to eat anything, maybe it was someone’s birthday, or something, and we were supposed to wait.”

My stomach coils with nerves reliving how it felt to be so scrutinized. Grayson doesn’t speak and I can feel the heat of his eyes on me waiting for me to finish telling him, but I don’t want to. I don’t want him to know the things that were said to me, the way people often treat me just for fucking existing in this world as I am. But he’s waiting, and I know him enough to know he won’t let this go.

“A girl made a comment about how I didn’t ‘need anything’ from that table…That I should make sure to ‘leave enough left for everyone else.’”

“Are you serious?” Grayson’s voice cut through my rambled retelling of the night.

I nodded, picking at the paint on my nails.

His warm hand lands on my shoulder and I cringe. I really can’t face him. Not now, as he can feel the stickiness coating my skin, and especially not after what I’m about to say.

I lean away from his touch. His hand falls but stays near me.

“Dani…”

“That’s not all. I—…If I tell you everything, you have to promise me you won’t do anything stupid?”

“Why do I have to—”

My head jerks in his direction. “Because I know what happened your senior year at the homecoming football game, Grayson. That’s why.” Memories of that night flood my mind. The gash across his brow, the split in his lip, the darkened bruise around his eye, but mostly the satisfied look on his face.

Dark confusion filters across his face. “The fight? With Mitchell Robinson? What does that have to do with this? I didn’t just beat the shit out of the guy for fun, Dee Dee. He was being—”

“A sleazy, perverted asshole?”

The darkness sets in deeper. The calm slate blue of his eyes is molten. But he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to.

“Promise me you won’t do something stupid, Grays. Promise me we will leave after I tell you and then we will never speak of this again.” I’m surprised by how strong my voice is when in reality I just want to curl in a ball and hide for the next year.

He takes a sharp, deep breath in, exhaling slowly, and gives me a curt nod.

“When that girl walked away after saying that, I was so embarrassed. People don’t really say things like that to my face anymore. It hasn’t happened since middle school, and it was like being sucked right back to being twelve-years-old. Now it’s usually just strange looks, whispers, or backhanded compliments. It was jarring. I went to throw the cupcake away, but then a guy from her friend group spoke up.”

“Hang on, sweetheart.”

I turned around to see your typical “Chad” step through the group of onlookers.

“Yes?” My voice was quiet, shaky. I wanted to hide and never show my face again. All the people just stood there and watched.

“You got a little something…” The guy motioned to the corner of his mouth. Heat seared into the skin of my cheeks.

“Let me,” he muttered, wiping his thumb across the icing and sucking it into his mouth.

“Uh, thank you,” I said, shocked, nervous.

“Don’t listen to her. The food’s there for people to eat.”