This War Paint

Jane


I handed over the details of my very future to the woman sitting calmly behind reception. She took the sheets, barely glancing over them, before they were filed away with the pack of others. How was she to know the names on the dotted lines were fake? How was she to know the account details in the correct boxes were the ones to my college trust?

My small and pretty insignificant college trust, but mine nonetheless. My potential future.

It didn’t make sense, it never had. It was my father trying to pretend to himself that I would ever get out of this town. It was my false expectations, my flippant answer to what I would be doing after high school. Not many people know about my Mom but if they had then they would have known too. I’d always be here with them. When my Dad got too old and my Mom got too ill, I’d be here.

So handing over the papers was nothing but a means to an end. I could keep Fraser in the hospital for a few days while he recovered and in the process I’d only be waking up and realising what I had known all along. It seemed this boy had a way of making me recognise so many things, even when he was lying unconscious in a hospital wing.

I walked aimlessly for a single, detached collection of minutes. There was so much life going on around me. So many rushing patients, dry eyed doctors, confused children. I was shipwrecked in the middle of a hallway as this life went on everywhere I looked. There was death too though, hidden behind the closed surgery doors and the reason for the tears wetting a passerby’s cheeks.

Fraser was waiting for me in ward E3 and I had run away like the little kid I pretended to hide. He had watched me startle because I couldn’t handle the way he looked at me or the smile I was smiling. There was something on Fraser which smelt like leaving. Like leaving and never coming back. I would always be here, the ghost of a high school queen, while he soared higher in skies far greater than Florence’s.

He kept offering me little pieces of himself though, like the beautiful and terrifying dragon tattoo crawling all the way along his back. He kept giving me these secrets like I could keep them. I had nothing to give him in return but he never seemed to mind – the only person aside from my father I had ever known to never want anything back. It terrified me how good he was and how the world viewed him so wrong.

And my reaction to him was even worse. His touch would do silly things to my stomach and I couldn’t risk just giving into myself again. When I had reached out to trace my fingers over his dragon, losing all of my solid, plausible, logical thoughts. This was what I had read about love but that was impossible. I couldn’t be in love. I was only eighteen and I barely knew anything about myself, let alone the boy causing me to lose my mind.

Lost in the maze of walls and patients, I tried to find Fraser’s ward again. I’d never be ready, I’d never talk myself down, and I think I understood that then. What I was feeling was new but that didn’t mean it was a lie. I’d been getting by for so long, living out the girl everyone else wanted to see, and here was this person who didn’t ask me to play any part. My tattoo burned me as a reminder that I could be the biggest liar in the world.

It still scared me to think on how close I had come to losing him the night before. I hated that he had turned to drugs instead of another person, a so much less destructive shoulder to cry on. That was the Butch in him and I could never blame him for that. We were merely puppets sometimes and his audience had always been the violent, needy ones. It didn’t stop the flood of emotions from carrying me along down the hospital hallways. Deep down Butch was only another figment of other peoples’ imaginations and I was content with what he left behind, my Fraser.

Mine?

I swallowed a lump in my throat because that just wasn’t the case.

Then I found myself being spat out into the hospital’s main entrance, somehow finding the way we had first come in. It was loud. There were ambulance sirens everywhere and stricken patients flying by, shouting or talking or whispering to each other in a big growl of noise. I heard Fraser’s words though like he was standing at the end of the tunnel I found myself trapped in.

“You learn to deal with it. After a certain amount of time you can learn to deal with anything.”

Some things never got better, some wounds never healed. I had a great gaping one on me somewhere that I could never quite pinpoint. It was David Armstrong and that bathroom and that night. It was my mother and her illness and her forgetting. It was my father and his tired eyes and his broken back. It was my sister and her skin so pale from living in my shadow. It was Florence and how it had me in its clutches forever. It was Fraser and how he was making me fall in love with someone I would never have.

God, but when he had spoken of his Mom I had wanted to crush him to me. He didn’t know that people could be honest and kind and I had wanted so desperately to show him. His mother was cruel for leaving him and his father was cruel enough to make Fraser want to leave, so here he was, halfway between freedom and purgatory.

“Jane Hathaway,” the voice came from my left where a hand was suddenly on my arm. I flinched like the introverted girl I secretly was but the grip held firm, tugging me into the warm sunshine, outside of the hospital.

It struck me that nobody should know where I was and nobody should ever find out. I was swaddled in baggy clothes with no make-up and a mess of hair but I guess it was still obvious who I was. I didn’t exactly blend into the crowd.

I turned to this stranger who wasn’t a stranger at all and found myself taking an unsure step backwards. We were in the parking lot where it was quieter and I could hear above the replay of Fraser’s voice in my head. My Dad’s car was parked somewhere out of my sight, the feel of the keys in my pocket suddenly a comfort and an escape. I could make it there if I ran in less than fifteen seconds. But he could make it too.

“You’re looking a little unwell Jane; please tell me poor Butch’s health isn’t worrying you. It’s not right for such a pretty girl to be so sad.”

I didn’t know what to make of him, standing before me in his doctor overcoat, looking so much like his son it set me past the edge. He was handsome too in the same classic way which had lost all of its glamour a while ago. That’s what happened when someone tried to put their hands on you, they started to look less like a human and more like a monster. He was just the monster’s father.

I’d met Mr Armstrong enough times to know he was like David in a lot more ways than looks. They shared the same determination and the same ruthlessness which had made them both star quarterbacks of Florence High School’s team, and made Mr Armstrong a surgeon with influence bigger than his ego and house put together. I had never minded the man before when he was just a passing face when I was hanging out with David and Lolly. I minded now, though, as he wore a smile which set my blood cold.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I blanched.

“Sweetheart,” the man sighed, looking very pleased with himself “I’m the top surgeon at this hospital; nothing gets done without my knowing about it. Your little Butch’s overdose and your little payment to the reception and your little lies to Daddy. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what’s going on.”

A sick feeling settled in my gut, a natural response to when I had been kicked down with someone’s words.

“Nothing’s going on Mr Armstrong,” I bit out.

But he knew alright – he knew a lot more than I had even begun to understand. I was cowering like a terrified child, all too aware how easily he could tell on me. The secret was up, it had barely developed but it was up. My reputation was shot, my life in Florence had turned, and my friendship with Butch would be broken. I didn’t know what would hurt more, but as the thoughts rushed through my mind it was obvious.

“You can save the bare faced lies for everyone else, Jane, they’re not going to work on me, no matter how much you flutter those pretty lashes of yours.”

I kept myself outwardly composed so he’d have no idea how terrified I was. This was all happening so quickly, crashing over me like a tidal wave. I glanced around at passersby rushing to their cars, rushing to the hospital, in too much of a rush to notice the girl suddenly so pale talking to Florence’s favourite surgeon. If they’d only taken a second they’d have seen the way my body was twisted in on itself, the picture of someone screaming out for help.

“But that’s okay. That’s fine. Nobody else has to know about this... slip up of yours. Butch can even continue to be a little thing on the side, whatever you need to spice up your life. I don’t have to tell a soul,” Mr Armstrong shot me his biggest, most charming smile.

God, but he was sneaky. He was his son’s father alright, looking out for himself, using someone else’s weaknesses against them. Of course there would be an expectation now. He didn’t even have to finish and I knew I was about to be blackmailed.

I couldn’t risk my father hearing about this, though, that was all so vital. I had to protect my family from being under the town’s scrutiny and this would thrust us all so far into the spotlight it’d burn us alive. I would do anything. Anything. Even if the thought of turning my back on the boy still up in ward E3 did horrible things to my heart.

“What do you want?” I wasn’t playing his game anymore; I was done with the false pretences.

“Jane, this isn’t about what I want at all. This is about what is best for my son.”

No. My stomach flipped. It fell so far down I could feel it in the soles of my feet. Anything but that. Anything but having to be anywhere near that monster.

I held in the coffee I had consumed earlier, willing it back down my throat, and waited for him to completely finish. He was still smiling serenely like all we were doing was discussing some fond memories or exciting future plans. He was toying with me. I was nothing but a method for this man who had no idea what his son was capable of.

The truth was right there, begging to be freed, but it wasn’t the right time. Mr Armstrong wasn’t someone who would listen to ugly truths about his beloved son, he would much rather feed the world beautiful lies. I would be just another beautiful lie, suffocated by the imprint of his hands on my skin and the desire I had for another boy entirely.

“It would be nice for the town to get the impression that you two are dating, or at least are good friends again. I’ve heard about the slap you thought would look good on my boy’s cheek, no doubt everyone has by now. You’re not doing yourself or David any favours with this childish behaviour so I suggest you rectify it.”

“Childish behaviour?” I couldn’t help but wheeze out “your son started on Fraser!”

“That’s not how others remember it, my dear.”

My skin crawled with his affectionate purr and it was suddenly so imperative that I get to my father’s car. I knew what an Armstrong was capable of. And here was another, blackmailing me into being with the one I feared the most.

“You stay away from me and from Fraser,” I pushed the unspoken, unneeded threat at this respectable looking man. He knew I had nothing left to fight with but he bowed his head to the ground anyway, hiding the smirk I could so clearly see crawling up his face.

“And you stay close to David, yes?”

I snarled, something I didn’t even know I was capable of doing, knowing I was completely cornered.

“Fine, but I’m not dating the guy and if he gets out of line I’m not above slapping his other cheek.”

“Sweetheart, you need to understand who you’re dealing with here. This is the big leagues now, you’re playing with the grownups, and if you break this little agreement of ours I’m not above ruining you and your family. Completely.”

I flinched. Threatening me was one thing but threatening my family was quite another. I lived to protect and help them even if lately I’d been doing an awful job. Lately someone new had had my protective tendencies flexing, had my fake facade stretching.

“Fine,” I spat out, resigned to defeat this time.

Mr Armstrong smiled serenely and took a small step back towards the hospital. “It’d be lovely to see you around our house again Jane, come for dinner sometime this week with David. Janice would simply love to have you.”

I didn’t respond because I was too consumed with my broken pride and twisting nerves. There was no question in his voice, though. He was an Armstrong after all, they never asked for anything. They got everything they wanted, even if that was a human being, a Jane Hathaway whose stomach turned at the thought of being touched by them.

He was gone by the time I looked up from my feet, and by then I was already in front of my father’s car. My whole body was screaming up a storm. It ached from holding itself so stiff last night, determined not to give in and brush a hand against a sleeping Fraser. It still remembered just how wonderful giving in to those urges had been that morning. It was torn up with the knowledge of what I’d have to inevitably do.

Just another secret for me to keep, piling up on the mound of others I’d stuffed down somewhere in my back pockets. They were so close to overflowing.

I hated David and his father and I hated myself for allowing myself to become such an easy target. Whatever had happened to the invincible girl I had moulded was lost. Here I stood, in her place, a collection of mistakes made and a million more I still couldn’t stop.

“Hey.”

The soft voice had me jumping around, poised to lash out. I was so sure it was Mr Armstrong back to remind me yet again that my secrets weren’t just mine anymore and his son would be the one reaping their rewards. But it wasn’t like that at all, in the space I was certain would hold the middle aged surgeon was my Fraser, just as big and twice as soft.

“Hey hey,” he cooed, eyeing where my hands had been just seconds before, ready to plough right into him. I’d never been violent but, my God, I was being pushed to the edge of my sanity. And here was Fraser. Here was this boy who was both pushing me further and pulling me safely back. “Are you alright?”

No.

“What the hell are you doing out here Fraser?” I demanded instead of telling him the truth.

“I snuck out of the ward and found some extra clothes on the back of an abandoned wheelchair. There’s no way I’m staying in that death trap another minute. Plus... you were taking your time, I got worried you weren’t coming back,” he trailed off like he wasn’t 200lbs of muscle and the most he had to be afraid of was me leaving.

“I...” I looked around me at the parking lot. It looked like I was leaving; I could have easily left already. The keys were in my balled up fist and with just one click I could disappear onto the highway.

“I was sorting some things out, sorry for taking so long,” I managed. “I promise I was coming back.”

He smiled and shrugged. There was no way I could tell him about Mr Armstrong because that would mean explaining just why I hated David so much. And I certainly couldn’t tell him about what I had been sorting out – his medical bills. If I knew anything about Fraser it was that he would hate the thought of someone else helping him out, especially me. I’d keep that to myself.

“Jane,” he closed the distance between us in just one stride of his lean legs. I didn’t have the energy or breath to find it funny how the trousers he’d taken weren’t quite long enough or the shirt’s buttons barely made it up his chest.

“Yes Fraser?” I sighed, my eyes connecting with his, my head tilting ever-so-slightly back.

“I haven’t yet had the chance to thank you.”

My back pressed lightly onto the car before I added more pressure against it, leaning away from his looming figure. I knew the look plastered all over his beautiful face and for once it didn’t frighten me. It was too lovely on him, nothing like the lust hidden smirk of David I had thought all men wore before they closed in. Nothing like that at all.

“I think you’ve already thanked me,” I murmured.

“Not enough.”

“Fraser, you don’t...”

He shushed me quickly and looped his large arms around my waist. I stumbled into him, already finding how perfectly my hands circled around to his back, nestled under his strong grip. In a tumbling breath, I was firmly locked to him, my height suddenly feeling insignificant compared to his. He smelt of something implacable, untraceable, but perfect all the same.

All of my confessions died right there. How could I tell someone who fit against me like this that I was about to betray them? David Armstrong and Fraser Swank were sworn enemies, like something out of movies and comic books and stuff of fiction. I knew whatever move I made would have to be away from Fraser and towards David, no matter how much I wanted to do the opposite. No matter how much I wanted to stay there in his arms just breathing him in for the rest of my life.

“I wish this was different, Jane,” he murmured breathily into my hair.

I held him tighter, squeezing my eyes shut, scared that this was his goodbye. He had to stay with me for a little bit longer, until I figured out why my heart was palpitating so madly within my chest, or at least until I admitted why to myself.

“I wish that I could save you from whatever you won’t tell me about and I wish you had never seen me that way,” his arms shifted around me “you deserve so much more than me.”

“Hey,” I pulled away, instantly hating myself for letting go. “I think you’re a good person – you’ve shown me that you can be a good person. And I don’t ever want to hear you say that I don’t deserve you, we’re friends Fraser, and friends never have to worry about deserving each other,” I rested a hand onto his chest if only to steady myself from the horrifying waves of emotion flooring me.

Bad idea. My fingertips subconsciously traced his thick muscle beneath the cotton shirt. Desire was upon me, quite abruptly, as my eyes trailed down his face, following the sharp nose and black eyes and strong jaw. I wanted to kiss him on his pink tinged lips. I wanted to kiss him so much.

“We should go before someone recognises us,” he said into our thick silence.

I slumped back onto the car once again, only this time it was from defeat and disappointment. Of course he didn’t want me to kiss him. I was being foolish. David had the experienced girls, he had the pretty girls, he had the unique girls. After them I was nothing but an in-between.

His words stung in a way I didn’t know words could sting. Despite everything I wanted to take his hand and show the whole world what my naive little heart yearned for, even if Fraser didn’t feel the same way. That would mean Mr Armstrong telling my family where I had been, what I had done, what I had given up, and I was smart enough to keep my heart in check.

“Am I really about to indulge your prison break?” I cocked my head to a side “you should be resting.”

“I can rest anywhere. I’m a pro at resting. Please, Jane, I really want to get out of here.”

He took my hand from his chest carefully, caging it in his own so our arms fell connected to our sides. With his pleading expression and the warmth soaking through my body from his closeness I could only ever say yes.

He pulled me carefully into the car and strapped me in like I was a child, or the one recovering from a major overdose. As he circled around to the other side, I realised I had been placed in the passenger’s seat. I wasn’t even surprised – this was who Fraser was, what he did – he was in control like the macho man he always tried to exude. Strangely enough, I was content to let him be, for now.

Just before he set us in motion, I leaned across the gearstick and pecked his cheek. It was all I could do to stop from doing something worse and all I had to do to stop myself from going insane. It was my unsaid apology for what was to come, my secret confession to what kept me so caged in. I peeked across at him and felt my cheeks blossom. The grin on his face erased all the doubt I had about him returning my feelings.

Fraser liked me too, and that would just make what I was about to do so much harder.