This War Paint

Jane


My feet should have led me straight to class – straight to the class I was currently late for – but they weren’t exactly cooperating. In fact, my entire body felt strange, detached, as if I was moving with the strings under somebody else’s hand.

Fraser had seriously messed me up. Those intense eyes of his, the way he’d brandished his wrist up to me as if I were someone special, the secret I felt sure he was telling only me escaping his lips so boldly. And my heart did something funny when the word “dead” tumbled free. Something uncomfortable and unpleasant. Something which almost had me reaching for his hand.

I didn’t claim to be an expert on other people, or a psychologist of any sort, but it was obvious that Fraser was hurting. His secret behind the tattoo upset me in ways I knew were irrational – the idea that he was worthless unless he had someone who loved him was madness. But then, I’d never not been loved. I had no idea what it was like to be alone.

And as I’d greedily feasted on the sight of his wrist like a starving man did food, I’d wanted to ask him about the others. About his sleeves, about the tattoos overlapping and crossing each other all over his body. I had no doubt at all that there were many I hadn’t seen and most of them I had no idea the story behind. Because they were all stories really – even the flower on my hip had a story. They were stories trapped and folded up and drawn onto him like he was a piece of art. Nobody in our town thought of him as anything close to a piece of art.

It had been almost an instinct to walk over to him after I’d seen him, all giddy smiles. I’d been concerned after I’d left him on the corner of that rich part of town, something in me nagging that he probably wasn’t going to be sleeping under any of their roofs. Our town wasn’t renowned for its kindness unless you were a select few and kindness towards Butch was, in itself, a sin.

I needed time to compose myself again. Something about Fraser had shattered my mask into pieces, its multi coloured shards falling all around me like a cloud. I didn’t even bother reaching out to catch them, as if the fact that my charade had crumbled right in front of him didn’t matter. All it took was one little secret and I was hooked and sunk in one line.

My disobedient feet took me to a deserted bathroom, past stalls with scribbled out swear words and mirrors with make-up stains covering almost even inch. I didn’t even want to glance in those mirrors. I didn’t want to see the shiny eyes or scared expression. I knew I was scared and heartbroken for a boy I barely knew – it made no sense.

And I didn’t want to think about it anymore.

I slumped down onto a toilet lid and squeezed my eyes tight shut, trying to forget the picture of Fraser offering up his tattoo as if it were a gift, his eyes vulnerable and happy. As if I was going to be the one to fix him. Hell, I could barely fix myself.

“It seems to me,” his voice shattered whatever calm I had made for myself in the small cubicle “that we keep meeting in bathrooms.”

My blood ran cold in my veins, seemingly blocking every pathway to my brain so my head ached with a familiar horror. He’d said meeting but I thought trapping, that was what he had done to me that night and that was what he was doing to me now. Of course, I had no choice but to go out there but I delayed it by pulling my legs up around me and onto the toilet seat. My arms wound around them. I tried to make myself as small and inconspicuous as possible.

“Sweetheart, really, are you hiding from me now?”

I was but I wasn’t going to tell him that. I wasn’t going to tell him anything, he had lost that right.

“I already know you’re in here. I already know that you were just talking to Butch outside before coming into this bathroom.”

Fraser’s other name rolled around in David’s mouth like a curse. For some reason, a small smile curled at the corners of my mouth, liking that he hated the boy so badly. Loving the fact that he had seen us. It should have warned him off, warned him to keep his mouth shut and hands to himself, but David didn’t have an understanding bone in his body.

“What were you talking about Jane? Were you telling him your pathetic life story? Telling him how I’m more of a man than that punk will ever be?”

I didn’t say a thing, didn’t move a muscle. David was so wrong that it felt pathetic to justify myself. There was no point in facing him especially when he was working himself into such a frenzy, as he was now. I knew what he was like in a frenzy – both drunk and sober.

“Come on baby,” his hard knuckles were knocking on the only closed door in the bathroom, on the stall I was sitting in. “Don’t treat me like this.”

“Stay away from me David.” My voice came out squeaky, scared, because I hadn’t practised hiding this much fear. If he wanted to he could bust through the flimsy lock like it was nothing. He wasn’t huge but he was strong enough. “This is a girl’s bathroom.”

“We’ve shared a lot more than a bathroom before baby.”

“No we haven’t,” I narrowed my eyes at the door “you’re telling everyone a whole bunch of lies.”

“I was your best friend for years and years baby, whether you like it or not we’ve shared a lot over the years. Who else knows about your crappy home life? Or how you’re broke as fuck and barely surviving on the doll? Or that your poor mother is losing her mind.”

That was all it took for me to get up, unlock the door and plough right into David Armstrong, my ex best friend. Because we had been best friends for over five years and I’d thought we’d had a bond which ran deeper than anything. I was wrong though, for him the bond didn’t even make it past lust.

“Don’t you ever talk about her! You hear me David, you don’t have the fucking right to talk about her! After what you did you should be staying away from me, or begging for my forgiveness, or turning yourself into the police,” I hissed with as much menace as my thin body could take.

I was so furious. I thought I’d explode. I forgot about his danger and how much stronger he was to poke his chest fiercely and tell him exactly how I felt. Nobody spoke about my mother with anything but awe in their voice and nobody was going to say she was losing her mind. She was sick! David was the one out of his mind.

“Oh, so now you’re going to cry rape?” he scoffed and caught hold of my hand in one colossal one of his own.

I choked and gasped and sobbed all at the same time in some feral noise. It was his words – how he was even trying to manipulate me now – and it was his touch burning into me like all those nights ago.

“Get off,” I half shrieked “you don’t touch me!”

“All of these commands Jane. Tsk tsk, you should know by now that I don’t listen to what others tell me to do.” And there was the flash in his eyes. The one I hadn’t seen for five years until he’d locked us in that bathroom and wedged me up into a corner. “I’m a fucking God here baby, you should understand where I’m coming from, you’re the Goddess. And The God and Goddess belong together, right? It’s only natural,” he leered. “I’m just doing what is right.”

“I said don’t touch me David!” I tried shoving him away but his grip on my hand crept up my arm to my shoulder so I could barely move.

I was so weak! I caught sight of my struggling body in the grimy mirrors and felt myself burn with shame. I couldn’t win this fight, and this time I wasn’t going to get so lucky.

“David, please,” I forced myself to meet his eyes, and hated how glazed over they were. There was no sign of the best friend I’d had for years in there, only the animal David had become in his sick, twisted head.

“Come on baby, you know you’ll enjoy this as much as I will.”

“No!” I choked again and thrashed as he brought both arms around my waist, muscles as tough as bark.

And then there was the bathroom door opening and some girls’ shoes scuffing against the ceramic floors. And I was saved. And I was moving my face to turn to her and ask her to help me when she disappeared behind David’s eyes.

He smashed his lips onto mine with such force that my teeth scraped against my gums painfully. There was blood in my mouth but he didn’t care, cupping a hand around the back of my head so I couldn’t move away. I went to bite his tongue but he was too quick, anticipating my moves before even I had.

The girl coughed uncomfortably from beside us, forcing David to let me go. She didn’t even know it but she had saved me. I didn’t recognise her but I was ready to fling myself on her and pledge my eternal thankfulness. Of course, my first priority was to get as far away as possible from David. Just the thought of him being so close sent me into paralysing shivers. Just the thought of what had almost happened made my stomach turn.

“You know this is a girls’ bathroom, right?” she questioned David uncertainly.

He shrugged, a big calm grin spread across his tanned face.

“Blame my girlfriend here, I can barely stay away from her,” he shot me a look that had me cowering away.

I wanted him to go. I wanted his touch off my skin and for me to never have to see him again. How was I supposed to forget if he was here, doing the same thing again, with only some random girl saving me this time. How was I supposed to pretend it never happened?

“See you later baby,” he cooed before finally leaving.

But I knew he’d come looking for me again. Or that he’d spread something else equally as heinous. Or that he’d make it impossible for me to move on from what he’d almost done.

“Are you alright?” the girl asked me softly.

I could tell she knew what was really going on, just by the pitying look in her eyes I knew. And that made me burn just as much as my being weak had. Nobody could know about it, nobody would understand and not many would believe me. David was their golden boy and, while I was their golden girl, I wasn’t sure that I would automatically trump him.

I was so scared and so wrecked and so sickened. My stomach felt hollow as if I’d just thrown the entire thing right up and out of my throat. This was my chance to at least try to save myself from David, probably my first and only chance.

“I’m fine,” I smiled at the girl in a way I knew would reassure her “perfect.”