This War Paint

Butch


No way. No fucking way was this happening. I had not just gotten out of that truck, I had not just seen Jane leave my side, I had not just watched her choose him over me.

My heart was constricting and burning within my chest like I had taken a lighter right to it. This was worse than overdosing, so much worse, because there I was somehow in control. I’d been the one with the needles and the joints; here I was left with nothing but a strange girl under my arm and the anger pounding in my skull.

If I was anyone but Butch ploughing through the school snorting steam from his nostrils, then I probably would have cried. If I was Fraser back in his car tucked away in a spot of Florence nobody touched, I would definitely have broken. But Butch dealt with these things in a different way. He fought and he fucked and, with my detention still lingering over my head, my only option was clear. The girl who had found her way to my side was my only option.

She was talking about something, it could have been about the Hippocratic Oath or her newest manicure, I didn’t care enough to listen. I needed to get the image of Jane out of my head. She’d been in there for too long but, right now, she just felt like the beginning of a migraine.

It was her face as she’d shaken her pretty little head. It was realising the girl I had kissed, the girl I was stark raving mad in love with, had picked my worst enemy instead of me. Because that moment she had made her choice. And no matter how earth shattering our kiss had been, it obviously didn’t compare to the safety and comfort David could give her. I could never offer her comfort or safety, not when I was so unstable. Not like this. Certainly not as Butch.

There was an empty classroom to my left which I aimed for. We made it, passed the shiny floors of the hallway, under the shadowed door. I barely kept my head above water but, all of a sudden, with the door slamming behind my heavy foot, it didn’t matter. I didn’t give a shit.

The girl whimpered as my hard hands moved up her waist to hover over her breasts. My breath was ragged and hot against her hairline, sweeping tendrils of black hair back over her shoulder. I closed my eyes quickly, not wanting to see the colour of her hair or the angles in her face or the way she wasn’t anything like Jane.

“Butch,” she moaned, leaning up to try to catch my lips with hers.

I allowed them to meet, dipping down so the little thing didn’t have to injure herself stretching too far. She kissed like all the others I had taken into empty classrooms, she tasted like desperation and need and fear. I sucked in all of her emotions, meeting them with my own, forcing my eyes open. I couldn’t pretend she was anyone but who she was – Mandy, the girl with a boyfriend, the one who had told me Jane would never love me back. How ironic. Here she was moments after that fact had been slapped right in my face. Here she was to make it all better.

“Please, baby,” she whispered, arms curling around my neck so I was hoisted further down. I knew exactly what she wanted and I knew that was exactly what I needed. Some hot lithe body riling underneath mine, making me feel strong and powerful, invincible. I didn’t want to feel like Fraser anymore.

I moved us over to the teacher’s desk, trailing a line of fire with my breath and mouth down her pale neck. I nipped lightly there, sensing how easy it would be to purple the skin, leave my mark like it was my territory. Her boyfriend would sure love that. Mandy was too caught up in grinding against me to notice, though, she was too far gone in the sensations of being wedged between the hard planes of my body and the desk to protest.

This was the moment I knew I should be straining against the zipper of my jeans, itching for her to pull them down and release up both. I should have been painfully hard. I should have been turned on to the point of insanity. But all I could think of was Jane kissing David in front of me. All my brain could process was the fact that he was out there somewhere, at this very second, with his grimy hands all over her.

Fuck that, I snarled. No way was I going to stand by and let him have her like that. It didn’t matter to me that she had made her choice because I had made mine long ago, and she was it. She was my decision. She was mine.

I yanked myself free from Mandy’s clutches, not even caring enough to feel bad about the way her top had hitched to the right, exposing too much skin. She couldn’t turn me on, she never really had, it was all just a forced arousal. It’d only been to thoughts of Jane’s hair sweeping over my bare chest, her creamy skin rubbing up against mine, her bright blue eyes devouring me whole. This girl before me was just a sorry replacement who would cheat on her boyfriend without a hint of regret.

“What the hell are you doing?”

I shot her a look, stopping her before she had the chance to extend her claws, making the fear I had felt in her kiss ooze out of her every pore. I knew Mandy well enough to know when she didn’t get what she wanted, she lashed out. I didn’t give a flying fuck, though. She could spew all the ugliness she wanted, I had bigger and better things to do, like saving Jane Hathaway from the disgusting arms of David Armstrong.

“I’m out of here. This was a mistake.” While pivoting on my heel, I threw a glance back at her, conjuring up the appropriate facial expression. “I’m sorry.”

With an infuriated scream, she shouldered past me, her shirt still out of place. There she lingered in front of the classroom’s door, still closed, a barrier between us and the rest of the school.

“Whatever Butch, you’re not sorry for anything. I’m the one who’s fucking sorry for letting you in my head again despite knowing you’re head over heels in love with some slut,” Mandy hissed out, sounding and looking like a cornered cat.

“She’s not some slut,” I snarled, smacking a hand against the closed door, just inches from her head. I watched her flinch and felt my insides shrivel up on themselves. I would never hurt Mandy; I would never hurt any woman. I was Butch some of the time, sure, but I was never my father, never a wife-beating asshole.

“Look, I’m so-.”

“Stop fucking apologising! Why bother? You’re always going to be this loser who threatens girls and beats guys up and sleeps in his car. You’re nothing, Butch.”

She didn’t bother sparing me anything more than a disgusted, dismissive wave of her small hand, wrist bending as if her tiny strength could ever push me away. I was rigid. I was stood there, gulping down her words and feeling them spread like poison. God, but she was right. Butch was nothing, just a figment of somebody’s imagination because they didn’t want to see Fraser anymore. I wasn’t him anymore, though, being here with Mandy proved that. Butch would have been balls deep already but Fraser could barely stand the sight of the girl.

She left me with nothing but her words and a painful twist in my gut. That was fine. I had left her with so much worse before, hickeys and ripped clothing and dirty sheets. And, somehow, a broken heart.

I waited in the empty classroom, staring out at the throngs of students who couldn’t see me in the shadows of the doorway. I looked at them blandly, barely being able to pick out a familiar face, feeling their animosity even when I was hidden. Hell, the sooner I could get out of this town, the better. It didn’t take a genius to understand that Mandy’s parting words were shared by almost everyone in a ten mile radius, believing that the most I’d amount to is a criminal record and a few kids dotted around various houses.

Shouldering the weight once again, I stepped out just as the school bell rang. It was time to put Butch to rest completely because I didn’t want to be the person she had just described. I wanted so much more than a criminal conviction and kids with different mothers. I didn’t care what the town still thought of me, they could all go straight to Hell, but I cared what Jane thought and what I believed about myself. I’d been full of self-loathing for too long.

“Max,” I caught my best friend by the arm just before we entered our homeroom. He stopped with me, our bulky bodies temporarily blocking the flow of curious onlookers before we shuffled to the side.

Some best friend I had been. Here he was, this boy who’d been by my side since we were little kids, and I hadn’t told him about a Godamn thing that had happened over the past few days. I’d been so close to death, taken an overdose, lost my job, and had moved into a proper place to stay. Oh, and kissed Jane Hathaway.

“I’ve got a load to tell you,” I started, making sure he knew this was important from the focused look hold on his arm. “Skip homeroom with me quick?”

“What’s on your mind man?”

“Just...” I trailed off as I caught David Armstrong’s eye amid the mass of students jostling at our elbows. His smug smile was almost too much, my grip on Max tightening until he yelped in pain and pulled at my wrist.

“Seriously Fraser, what’s the matter?”

Jane was staring at me from where she was half hidden behind David, eyes big and blue and pleading with me to do something. She’d never ask for help but the way she looked at me as David’s arm tightened around her shoulders was enough. I already knew I was never going to give up on her, not after our kiss, not after she had stayed with me in the hospital. I loved her so much it hurt that she wasn’t with me, giving up was never even an option.

“I have a plan, Max, and I need your help in carrying it out.”