Chapter Six.

CHAPTER SIX

↠ Etienne

"Chaos needs no allies, for it dwells like a poison in every one of us."

― Steven Erikson, Midnight Tides

RIDGEWAY had once been a Manor that had belonged to an absurdly wealthy family with a very long and very British surname.

There were, of course, claims that people had died in that house and that their spirits were still around to haunt it. There was, of course, no evidence to back those claims up.

Because the foundation of the building had been built to suit the every need of the namely residents that had occupied it some many decades ago, there were loads of tiny rooms that had once served very specific purposes, like the Gun Room or the Plate Safe. Because of their incredibly limited space, the school could not give them much use other than for storage purposes.

There were several of those scattered around the building, often storing only cardboard boxes and cleaning supplies. They were a very popular spot for couples who had as equally bad impulse control as they had judgement.

I was in what they called the Broom Closet, up in the second story. Unfortunately for me, the Irish Mr Ronan was imparting piano lessons to a group of very heavy-handed kids in the room next door, and I was finding it greatly uncomfortable to have sex while a poor rendition of Beethoven was being played in the background.

I also never thought I would ever get to hear Moonlight Sonata and the sound of Molly Laurent's strained moans filling the air at the same time, but I guess there's a first for everything.

During my pubescent years, I existed entirely based on other people's perceptions of me. Molly Laurent was a nine out of ten according to some stupid list that had been made the year prior. At Ridgeway, there was only one ten, three nines, and a handful of eights. I was personally never attracted to Molly, but for some reason, I believed it necessary to have sex with her inside of a dirty utility closet. There would have been something seriously wrong with me if I didn't.

She was pretty enough and I thought myself capable of being attracted to her for all of five minutes. But the same wave of revulsion I always felt after having sex with a girl, regardless of how pretty she was, arrived to throw me off my feet. I'd once been told I looked like I wanted to vomit after I'd finished, and so I was eager to get out of that cramped little space, for both her sake and my own. I can't imagine it would have been flattering for her to have the guy she'd just had sex with look utterly repulsed right after, and I didn't want to have a reputation for being weird like that.

I fixed my uniform a little too quickly and it made Molly look at me with a puzzled expression because it seemed like I was desperate to get away from her. In reality, I very much was, but I was not supposed to show that. I was supposed to be calm and collected and maybe even proud of myself. But instead, it felt like I was the most disgusting human being to ever roam the earth, which was odd because teenage boys are not supposed to feel like that after they've had sex with a generically pretty girl.

"Will you be going to Timmy's party?" she asked while rearranging the shirt I had pulled up to sneak my hand under. I wasn't directly looking at her and yet I could feel how desperate she was for my attention.

Everyone had been talking about Timmy's party as of late and, for some reason that was frankly beyond me, the mere mention of it was starting to vex me. It was cause for an eye roll and an unnecessarily exasperated sigh. "Not sure," I replied pointedly.

"You should go. You can pick me up. Maybe we could grab something to eat before we get there."

"You know I don't usually do dates, Molly," I informed her with an air of disinterest that I could never get rid of, mentally cursing her for removing my shirt which I now had to button up with unsteady hands.

"Who said I wanted you to take me out on a date?"

I remember the laughter that spilled from my lips right there and then, which was an arguably cruel thing to do.

It was a well-known fact that Molly liked me. It was one of those things that were never meant to be kept a secret.

There was a thick bitterness attached to her words as she continued to fix her blouse in a more aggressive manner. "I just want to grab a bite and have a drink. Don't flatter yourself."

"So you would say no? If I tell you that I'll pick you up at nine and I show up at your place with some stupid fucking flowers and a bottle of wine and I tell you that you're the most beautiful woman in the entire fucking world. And then I take you to Lorenzo's for dinner even though it's overpriced as shit because I want to do something nice for you. I think you deserve only the best. I'll pay for everything and I'll be kissing you all over the entire time because I can't get enough of you. And then we'll have sex in the back of my car before we finally head over to Timmy's party, drunk and happy and in love, would you say no?"

She struggled to find her words, to find coherence in the turmoil of unfastened thoughts that galloped through her mind. I had the decency to pity her as I stepped away, feeling bad that she had to be a casualty of the bleakness that expanded in my chest. "It's never gonna happen, but would you really say no?"

A multitude of emotions flashed through her eyes before she eventually shoved me away with a level of forcefulness that I frankly deserved. "You're such a fucking prick, Etienne," she muttered, visibly hurt, as she walked past me and out the door.

I ignored the nagging feeling in the back of my head that told me I was doing everything wrong and hurried out. I had very little faith that I was going to be able to get away with my mid-class escapade seeing as everything in that place whined when disturbed, no matter how gently it was being treated. And sure enough, it was Maggie Olsen, my former history teacher and James' mum, who found us, and after being handed two weeks of detention I moved on to commit my next offence as if it were part of my routine.

I didn't necessarily enjoy being a horrible person or getting in trouble. I wasn't proud of it. But I thought everyone had a role to play in the uninspiring lives of Ridgeway adolescents, and this was mine.

We were out having a smoke by James' vehicle when Lucile Reed's brand new car was brought to my attention. Parked amongst many others, nearly indistinguishable but easy to recognise since she had boasted about it that very same morning, shortly after making yet another round of ill-intended comments towards Cassie in the hopes of making the rest of us laugh. It had been difficult to watch for various reasons. Lucile Reed was a pitiful woman, and I knew her comments had made Cassie ask the earth to swallow her whole.

I took a drag from my cigarette and watched that stupid car, feeling a rage inside of me grow and expand. I was overcome by an unimaginable amount of self-hatred every time someone humiliated Cassie and I failed to speak up.

I nodded in the direction of the shiny red vehicle, a Toyota of a model I could not presently name. "Is that Lucile's new car?"

James took a long drag from his cigarette, his gaze following mine. "Nice, innit?"

Too nice for a woman as vile as Lucile Reed. "Can I smash a window in?"

"Why are you asking us for permission?" James asked, the corners of his mouth lifting into a knowing smirk just as River responded with a firm, "No."

I pushed myself off of James' car and discarded the cigarette. "No one's gonna know it was us."

"You," River clarified. "No one's gonna know it was you."

River was the very needed voice of reason in our friend group, the beautiful neutrality in a chaotic array of personalities. But he could be corrupted on occasion, under the pretext of mostly harmless mischief. He was our friend, after all.

"Don't be like that, Riv," James humorously said, opening the trunk of his car to produce a baseball bat. I checked to see if there was anyone around. There wasn't. "You know that if anyone deserves this, it's our dear Lucile."

The outside of the school was loaded with security cameras that did not work. We knew because we'd committed many an unfathomable act in there and were yet to get caught for it.

...

"I know I'm asking for too much," River said, taking long strides ahead of us some moments later that same morning. We were making our way down the school's main corridor after having to make a quick exit from the parking lot due to Lucile Reed's car alarm going off after getting its passenger window smashed. "But can you three think a little?"

"Is this really the right time to go around offending our intellectual capabilities?"

"It always is," River muttered under his breath, directing an innocent smile to Mr Evan Lewis as we passed him by.

By the time I had made it to my last year at Ridgeway the place had become a sort of satirical skit that saw the same old routine being played on a loop. It had lost all of its enchantment and comedic qualities by now. No one was laughing.

Kids obsessed with board games that starred mythical creatures could no longer be considered the odd ones out when they'd become such an ordinary sight. The conventionally pretty girls had become less captivating. Maggie Olsen would always be scolding any student who was not complying with the many rules on how to properly sport the school's uniform, which meant that her son, with his loosened tie and his un-tucked shirt, was often on the receiving end of a handful of her reprimands. James would shrug it off as he continued to be in search of Ellie Davies, the resident redhead and River's fellow member of the general trivia quiz team.

"Ellie, my angel face," he would say every time she came around.

"Sod off," she would reply.

James would either whistle or laugh or sigh, before looking at us and assuring us that, "She'll come around."

This time he whistled and River studied him with a bewildered look that contorted his features. "I don't know how you still like her after all these years. She finds you unbearable. And rightfully so."

"I love her."

I groaned. "Oh, shut the fuck up." Off in the distance, I could see Erin McGee, the resident teacher's pet, rushing to notify Lucile Reed of the state of her car. I started walking faster. "We can't get caught for this. I've got two weeks of detention already. One for the graffiti incident and two for doing Molly Laurent up in the broom closet."

River gave me a dissatisfied look. "Term literally just started, you imbecile."

"Molly Laurent, though? You deserve more than that just for riding her," said Peter, who would never in a hundred years be able to pull someone by the likes of Molly Laurent but enjoyed belittling pretty girls like her to compensate for the size of his penis.

It was James' turn to groan now. "Shut up, Peter."

No one had ever informed Peter of how unsightly his appearance was. He was the shortest and leanest out of the four. And something about the mechanics of his body reminded me of a weasel. Maybe it was because he moved like one. The closest thing he had ever gotten to receiving a comment as ill-intended as the ones he commonly handed out was when he'd felt daring enough to have public sex with a sickly-looking girl on the living room sofa at some unexceptional party being hosted by equally unexceptional people, and she'd asked if he had put it in yet one minute after he had started. It was a glorious moment that I like to go back to every time I'm given the chance.

The boys and I wanted to like Peter. We wanted it to be like the old days when we were eleven or twelve, and we were all able to understand each other because we were not yet the complex people we were growing up to be. But there came a point where we could no longer understand him, understand why he was always so angry, and why his attitude had become so rotten.

"Will you be going to Timmy's party on Thursday?" Peter asked, just to keep reminding us that he was there.

"All those parties are more of the same," River complained. "Surely there's something better to do."

There wasn't.

"I have more fun with Ivy and my gran than I do at those parties now," James added.

"Didn't you and Ivy buy magic mushrooms from the man next door to your gran?" I asked because I'd never gotten to hear the end of that story.

"Yeah, but we got scammed. They were just regular mushrooms I think."

All four of us were fairly popular back in the day. It was nothing to brag about outside of school, but it had certainly facilitated things. James was the star of the football team, only he did not care for the sport in the slightest. All of his accolades had been achieved solely due to his competitive nature. River was one of those special cases in which he was popular because he was smart. No one else in the general trivia quiz team had a life outside of the general trivia quiz team. Peter was popular by association and because he was an outrageously aggravating person, which commanded attention. I was known for being reckless about the wrong things.

During class, Oliver Hopkins pointed at an orangutan and said it favoured Cassie.

"Your mum's got like three teeth, Oliver. I don't know how you've got the audacity..."

Everyone laughed at Ivy's comment. Now Oliver's mum was the subject of everyone's taunting. Cassie's name was no longer brought up. I had the perfect excuse to crumple a piece of paper and toss it at Oliver's head while insulting both him and his mother. It was phenomenal.

"Do you think I'm pretty?" Cassie asked me later that afternoon as we lay in the comfort of her bed.

The setting sun was casting uneven shapes all over our upper bodies, but that was the only source of light we were choosing to work with. Sophie no longer lived in the apartment and her absence was definitely felt but we were yet to decide whether that was a good thing or not. A song was playing on the opposite side of the room and I would be lying if I said I recognised either voice or melody.

"I think you're the prettiest girl in the entire world."

I did. Whether she genuinely was could be up for debate. But I did not know how to look at her without involving my feelings, which invited gentleness into my perspective. And so in my eyes, she possessed a delicacy that no one else did. I did not know whether I found her attractive, but I knew that I thoroughly enjoyed looking at her. If anything, because of the feeling of warmth she gave to me.

But the thing is, I could actually tell she looked rough during those days. Staying clean had come with a lot of tribulations that I had not foreseen. Her appetite was completely gone and she was having trouble sleeping. I knew because I'd watched her toss and turn in her bed at night on more than one occasion. Naturally, it was taking a toll on her appearance.

But I still felt like it was the most obvious thing in the world that she was by far the most beautiful girl to ever exist. Yet at the same time, I knew other people would not agree. I knew if I were to ever say that to the boys at Ridgeway they would laugh in my face.

But it didn't matter to me, because it was my truth.

She rolled her eyes and looked up at the ceiling again. "Now you don't have to lie like that. A simple you're decent will do."

"I'm not lying," I laughed.

"Well, at least you don't think I look like an orangutan," she whispered.

We laughed and I felt eternally grateful that she was alive. I reached for her hand and felt her pulse. You're here. You almost left me three months ago but you're here.

Then she turned her head to look at me, and although there was nothing unusual about this moment, even though we'd been here a thousand times before, the sight of her continued to knock the wind right out of me as if it was the very first time my eyes were graced by her beauty. In the absence of oxygen, there was a warmth that was as gentle as the feeling it left. It did not hit me at once. I was not overcome by it. It travelled through me slowly, making sure there was no place left untouched.

It was in the proximity, in the clarity behind her clouded eyes that I would lose and find myself each and every time. It was through her that I was able to reach the highest peak on planet Earth in just a single second, in only the blink of an eye.

I knew only of two things in the voyage of my life. I knew of desolateness and I knew of her.

She sat up and looked at me with evidently faked excitement. One that didn't reach her eyes. Her smile, too, was very strained. But I don't think she knew that. I think she genuinely believed she was being as convincing as could be. "So, are you ready for your date with Mary?" she asked, her voice a little too airy.

I pulled a face and sank back into her bed. "I don't think I want to go anymore."

After letting her eyes study me with careful attention to detail, she leaned toward me and rested her chin on my chest. Her eyes were clouded but I could not really decipher with what. "You told me she was nice," she said softly. "That you really enjoyed spending time with her."

Did you want me to stay, Cassie? Did you want me to swallow back my words from that day many nights ago? Because I would. I would in a heartbeat.

"Well, I changed my mind. I just had a lot of fun with her that one time."

"You were beaming when you came back from the park. You said you could totally see yourself being in a relationship with her."

"Was I drunk? I must have been drunk to say that. Besides, I told you I was going to pick you up from the support group meeting."

I told you a thousand times that I would choose you over anyone in this world. I said it flagrantly and shamelessly and without a shadow of a doubt. But you would never believe me.

She smiled a sad smile. She wanted me to stay but she was a little sadistic and enjoyed the pain of watching me leave. "Go and have fun."