But that would never happen. I'd sunk that ship so far down they might as well have started calling it the Titanic. Burn and Fitz would be enough. They had to be.
I never expected Fitz to be a good teacher, but he was. Despite the fact he slept through all of the class, he knew everything we'd covered, top to bottom. His teaching was easy to understand, and he even managed to make it fun. I couldn't keep myself from smiling and laughing at the history jokes he'd make. The hardest part of it all was remembering to play stupid - to not immediately give him the right answer. He drew stick figures to represent all the royalty I had to memorize, and I called them ugly. He then drew a stick figure of himself, which he claimed was his most beautiful work yet. We got sidetracked, and he drew Burn - huge and sleepy-eyed - and then Wolf, with his perpetually angry face and sharp eyebrows.
"And this is you," Fitz announced. He drew a stick figure with the long ponytail I usually wore and an armful of books.
"That's way too many books!" I protested. "I look like I'm about to fall over!"
"No, no, that's Wolf," He corrected. "Trying to push you over with telekinesis."
"Ah, so that's the Blackthorn secret. You're all supernatural telekinetics."
"And vampires," He said. "Huge, godly, vegetarian vampires who sparkle in the sunlight constantly."
"Just like a disco ball."
"That's us; three massive disco balls," He agreed. "With great hair and no modesty."
I laughed, but it was cut off by my phone buzzing. Dad. I made a motion for Fitz to wait as I walked away and picked up.
"Hey, Dad! Is everything okay?"
"Why do you always ask that?" He sighed. "Just a 'hello' would be fine."
My throat squeezed. "Right. Sorry. Hello. Any plans for dinner yet? I could stop and pick us up some pad thai or something if you don't feel like cooking."
"I can cook, Beatrix." His voice got cross. "I'm capable of cooking, alright?"
It was happening. That spiral where nothing I could say would help was just beginning. If I let it go on too long, he'd get more and more irritated, until he snapped. And then, after he snapped, he'd feel so terrible about it he wouldn't get out of bed for days. I had to cut it off here, at the head.
"Okay!" I forced my voice to be cheery. "That's great! I'm just at the library, but I'll head home now."
Dad quieted, and then; "What are you doing there? Reading?"
"Studying. With a -" I looked over at Fitz, who waved a few fingers at me and smiled with all his freckles. " - a classmate."
"Oh, that's good. Are you two friends?"
"I'm not sure - it's still too early to tell."
"It shouldn't be too hard to figure out, Bee. It's so easy to make friends at your age."
I swallowed the urge to correct him. I didn't want to start an argument.
"Yeah. Well, I'll be home soon, okay?"
"Okay. Drive safe."
He hung up, and so did I. I stared at the blank screen of the phone for a moment, resting my arms on the glass rail of the balcony. Today had clearly been a bad day for him. Part of me wanted to go home as soon as I could, to make sure he was alright. The other part of me, the selfish part, didn't want to go home at all.
But there was no choice. I had to. What I wanted didn’t matter – I had to make sure Dad ate. He wouldn’t do it if it was just him, alone at the house. I walked back over to Fitz.
“Thanks for the session, teach. But I’ve gotta go.”
“So soon?” He lamented. “We were just about to get to the juicy bits – beheadings.”
“Sorry,” I packed my things up. “But I really do have to go. Let’s – let’s do this again. I had fun.”
“Surprisingly, I did too.” He tilted his head. “Weird. I thought I stopped that nonsense when I was twelve.”
“Right when you hit puberty, huh?” I joked.
“Oh you know it. I got zitty, hormonal – I transformed into a gross teenage boy who has no fun ever.”
I laughed, and started to walk away.
“Hey! Scholarshipper!” He called. I turned.
“I have a name.”
“Right. Bee,” He corrected. “Kristin told me you’re going to Riley’s party. That true?”
“Yup.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“No shouting in the library!” The librarian hissed up at him. Fitz pressed his hands together as if begging for an apology, and I shook my head and left.
Chapter 9
If I knew what I knew now about what was going to happen at Riley's party that night, I never would've gone. Just thinking about it while I'm writing makes me want to build a time machine, travel back, and lock myself in a closet for the night. Just that one night. It changed everything, and lately I can't help but think it was for the worst.
But I'm getting off-topic, pen-and-paper. You can't understand what I haven't told you. So let's start over.
An hour before the party, I made sure Dad had something to eat. I ate a bit, but my stomach was too nervous to keep a lot down, so I distracted myself by rifling through my closet. Again, all I really had was that one sundress, but it was way too fancy for a house party. Right? Right. Crap, who was I kidding - I'd never been to a party in my life. There was obviously going to be booze, and probably definitely rich-kid drugs, and a host of other debaucheries.
I held up a Wonder Woman t-shirt to my chest in the mirror and breathed out.
"You're only going to see what the Blackthorn brothers are doing," I told myself. "Everything else doesn't matter. No drinking, no dancing, no nothing. We keep an eye on them, and we pretend to drink. No pressure."
I looked at the clock as its dreaded hands inched nearer to nine. My voice got higher.
"No pressure. Oh god, no pressure at all."
The knock on my door scared me. I crammed most of the clothes I’d brought out into the closet quickly and cleared my throat.
“Come in.”
Mom peeked around the door, all smiles. Someone was behind her, too.
“Hi, sweetie!”
“Oh, hey! You’re home early.”