This War Paint

Butch


David Armstrong was the biggest prick in all of Florence, possibly all of America. He was one of the most popular guys in our school, he played basketball and football and soccer and was good at all three of them, he didn’t understand the concept of being decent to other people and he took advantage of the school’s adoration to pick up girls and avoid run-ins with the law. Run-ins which were, more often than not, then pointed in my direction.

And it wasn’t just the school that worshiped him. Inevitably the small-minded town followed suit and loved him as completely as if he were a saint. Which he wasn’t. He was far from a saint.

Yet that wasn’t what made David Armstrong the biggest prick of all, there were plenty of others who were similar to him. What got my blood boiling and had my fists tensing was his announcement to the entire student body over intercom on Monday morning.

The principle, being swept up in David’s fan club, had allowed him to make the morning announcements ever since the beginning of term. Nobody seemed to take the stupid remarks he made as offensive even though they degraded half of the people sitting listening to him. Most of them were subtly directed at me (“would be safe to say that tattoos displayed will not be tolerated, guess that means you’re screwed huh Butch? Good luck finding sleeves long enough to cover the arms dragging on the floor behind you”) which I just had to shrug off. There was never an opening with David who kept jockeys at his side the entire day, and Max was normally there telling me to cool it. He was a sneaky bugger that David Armstrong – I’d give him that – because he knew if it ever came down to a fight I would smash his face in with just a few blows.

But he went too far on that Monday morning and I was mad enough to march right out of class and pummel the kid into a pulp. His words rung around my head like someone had shattered them into my brain and I winced every time I heard them.

“So on a little side note from the recycling news, there’s something I’d like to inform the school of. A few weeks ago at Hillary’s party, if you weren’t there then you’re obviously not worth much, there was a little disturbance in the bathroom which led to Jane Hathaway and I having sex. That’s right Florence High; David Armstrong deflowered your little sweetheart.”

It felt like he was just addressing me, it felt like David had knocked the wind out of me before beating me senseless. Actually it was ten times worse than that because bruises and scars would fade but the stabbing pain plummeting through my chest wasn’t going anywhere.

Jane Hathaway and David Armstrong? She would choose someone like that to give her virginity to? The guy was a snake, a modern day monster, a player who counted the broken hearts he’d obliterated on a tally in the boy’s bathroom.

Max’s hand clapped down on my shoulder, the motion making me realise I was completely tensed. But I didn’t want to calm down, his hand seemingly weightless against my skin. There was no reason to calm down. Jane Hathaway had given up her innocence and I didn’t know what was worse. That it had been to David or that it hadn’t been to me.

Of course, that was wishful, stupid, weak thinking. She didn’t even know my name so why would she sleep with me? And I never got the butterflies out of my stomach enough to talk to her, never toned down my shaking hands enough to reach out and touch her. Knowing it was too late for a part of her made me wish for my car. For the scratchy blanket where I could hide for a while with it pulled over my head.

But I held my stiff position in my chair and tried to lessen the veins bulging up my neck. I was sure if I didn’t then I’d suffer some stroke or heart attack, and I couldn’t kill David Armstrong if I was already dead.

“You alright man?” Max attempted to whisper from the chair beside me. Of course though, he managed to practically yell it and draw the sharp attention of the teacher at the front. I bowed my head down to play the role of intrigued student as best I could and prayed that she didn’t shout. Because then I’d blow. I was a volcano about to erupt and I prayed for it not to be unleashed on Mrs Carcone. If I had one more suspension I could kiss my scholarship goodbye.

After her piercing eyes resumed their journey around her prey’s faces, I slumped back into my chair. “Peachy keen,” I murmured sarcastically. Max knew I was in love with Jane. If Baby, his girlfriend, had given her virginity to another guy he wouldn’t even have to ask that. He’d fucking feel it!

Through some miracle, I managed to get through the morning without releasing my fist into anybody’s face. I even made my counselling session with Mrs Davis – call me Amber, Fraser – and bluffed my way right through it. I was doing fine, I was just fine sleeping in my car, everything was so fucking fine. What wasn’t so fine was catching a glimpse of Jane as I made my way out of Mrs Davis’ office.

Of course I wasn’t mad at her. She’d no doubt been drunk or duped into it or even been forced. I wouldn’t have put it passed the dick. She was still my beauty queen.

But her eyes weren’t perfectly lined today. There was black makeup staining her cheeks which were blotchy and colourless at the same time. Her clothes, which had no doubt been perfect when she put them on, were crinkled and skewed. A bottom lip was caught in between her teeth in what I dearly hoped for David’s sake wasn’t an attempt to restrain tears.

All in all she was a mess. And it broke my heart and washed away all my anger.

Her body, which was normally tall and straight, seemed small. Vulnerable. Before I could even think, even compute a logical thought or any thought for that matter, I had closed the distance between us.

The halls were empty due to the fact that my counselling session conflicted with a lesson (buying me a scot-free route out of Math every Monday) and so nobody else witnessed my actions. Nobody but Jane who had moved her head upwards to take me in. Around her my 6,4 ft stature felt relatively normal and I didn’t have to stoop.

“Are you okay?” I asked, finally recognising the way her eyes held a spark of fear in them. Of course I had scared her. I was Butch the condemned, thick with muscle and tattoo. I took a small step backwards to put distance there again. If she wanted to run then she had more than enough room.

Obviously taken by surprise, Jane just blinked rapidly while staring at me. If it’d been anyone else I would have found it uncomfortable or worrying. In fact, if it’d been anyone else I would have just ignored them and hurried outside to smoke a cigarette.

“What?” she breathed.

I had to fight the urge to shut my eyes and relish the way her hot breathe tickled my neck. This was the first time I’d ever spoken to her and I wanted more than anything to just grab her, whisk her away with me. What kind of a man was I? Definitely not the bad-boy of the town who got suspended and wore tattoos all over his skin. I was more the bumbling, stuttering, nervous geek who daren’t raise his hand in class for fear of actually speaking.

“Are you alright?” I repeated because I couldn’t back out now.

She shifted her body slightly “oh, yeah. I’m totally fine.”

Fine. There it was again. There was no more sincerity behind that word when she spoke it than when I had told Mrs Davis it just minutes earlier. They were both great big lies.

Not that I could just call her out. She thought I was a total stranger, heck I was a total stranger! She didn’t know that to me the name Jane Hathaway was almost like a prayer, said so many times, thought so much, that the two words may as well have been burned into my brain.

And just thinking about that made me feel like a dirty stalker.

I backed away and gave her my best smile, hoping that she wouldn’t see right through me. Because then I’d have to abandon my fantasies of her, and they were what I had kept with me for so long that they felt more than natural. Totally normal.

“It’s Fraser, right?” she asked softly.

From this close proximity I could see just how blue her eyes were, how silver specks were scattered against her irises, how they were frozen on my face. I had never imagined that I would feel uncomfortable staring into them but their purity had me awkwardly aware of how mine were as dark as coal and shallow as puddles. Nothing about me was particularly extraordinary from what I could tell. Save the art I had inflicted upon myself.

It wasn’t until I blinked that her question sunk into my brain and I all but panicked. She had already known my name? Did that mean she knew me, thought of me, fantasised about me? Of course it could just have been that I’d attended a few of her classes over the years and the register hadn’t yet clocked that my mainstream was no longer Fraser.

“I know most people call you Butch but I think you look more like a Fraser,” she smiled for the first time. And I thought my heart would fail with the rate it was speeding within my chest. “You don’t mind if I call you that, do you?”

Hell, Jane Hathaway could call me whatever she damn well wanted as long as she’d be around enough to talk to me.

“Fraser’s good,” I managed a smile of my own, hiding the huge beam pushing forwards, making my cheeks ache with restraining it.

Jane nodded smoothly and ran a pale hand through the mass of red running down her back. I couldn’t help myself as I closed the gap between us again with a tiny footstep, anything to be just that bit closer. She either ignored this or didn’t notice.

“See you round then,” this girl nodded and then turned herself into the doorway I’d just left. She was going to visit Mrs Davis. That made me frown and want to punch David Armstrong even more, knowing he was the reason she’d been a mess and needed to see a councelor. If he didn’t watch his back he’d be the one in serious need of a councelor!

I pulled out a cigarette, my mind in a flimsy daze, desperately trying to relive the feel of her just inches from me. Jane Hathaway was by far the most beautiful creature I’d ever set eyes upon but it wasn’t just her beauty. Loads of girls are pretty yet only she is Florence’s sweetheart, the one I’m stupidly in love with. She’s indescribable. She’s wonderful. She gave up her virginity to a jerk but I’d make damn sure she’d give her everything else to me.

I took a long drag from the stick in my fingers just as the sunshine found my figure. I was so determined in that moment that I felt as if I could move boulders, shift the very earth beneath my sneakers. I promised myself two things then. One, that I’d have Jane before the summer was at an end. Two, that David Armstrong would have to be fed through a tube and shit in a pan after I was through with him.