This War Paint

Butch


Talking to Jane was a bit like taking your first drag of a cigarette after going cold turkey for a few months. It was intense, and overpowering, and left you desperate for just a little bit more. Now that I had been close enough to touch her and her eyes had acknowledged me as only ones so clear can, I needed to feel it all over again.

I had been high and disorientated but I could remember how she had offered out her arm to me. And the expectant look on her face as she’d done so, the kind of expression she only uses when she’s about to help someone out. To her, it didn’t seem to matter that I was possibly everything that she wasn’t and everything that she should stay away from. My heart quickened with just recalling the moment I slipped my arm into hers, the way our skin so different in tones was meshed together, and how I’d had to fight off the urge to spin her into me and kiss her with everything I had.

Oh God, I almost fucking melted when she said my name.

Those rose red lips of hers drove me insane in ways I thought only silly girls could go mad. Silly girls like Mandy who always wanted more from me, silly girls who allowed me into more than just their bedrooms. I was the same, if not worse than them, because I had fallen in love with someone who would never have me. At least they got what they wanted for a night, I couldn’t have Jane for even a few seconds.

But she’d been with me, walking by my side under Florence’s hot sun. That first drag of her was enough for a while, and then comes the sudden, gripping want for it again and again. I was almost scared of seeing her because if this is what it did to me when I was high then it would kill me being sober.

It was hard to sleep that night. I listened to the radio softly and sat in the reclined driver’s seat, wishing so hard that she didn’t hate me or despise me. I couldn’t take it if she did. The whole world could want me dead and I wouldn’t bat an eyelid. Jane Hathaway could kill me by just saying those three words.

“I hate you.”

I tasted them on my tongue and was instantly attacked by memories I didn’t want anymore. I had said those words last to the one man I was supposed to rely upon and love unconditionally, and I would say them again to him. I meant them too. I was consumed by two opposite emotions, unhealthily devoured by them. I hated my father. And I loved Jane Hathaway. There was no middle ground, only the casualties which lay in between.

With thoughts of him, my hand subconsciously ran to my left side, tracing a burning line down my chest. One word echoed in my head as if he were right there beside me, screaming it into my ear, only he had left me with so much worse than an echo.

But I didn’t want to remember anymore.

I closed my eyes, switched off the radio and finally fell asleep. My car lay down the middle of a dark alley wedged amid the rich side of Florence where I had last watched Jane leave me. She didn’t know about my car, or if she did she hadn’t said anything. I was ashamed for the first time of my sleeping arrangements, and wanted to leave her believing that I was staying somewhere with a proper roof and beds. My pride didn’t want to take that fall in front of her.

The next morning I drove to school with a stupid smile on my face. I caught myself in the mirror and should have been disgusted, and worried, because the smile wouldn’t budge no matter how I tried to remove it. Only she could make me this fucking dopey. It was a love-sick smile. And I found that I didn’t much care that it was there.

I made it in on time, and sat in my chair surrounded by classmates who kept throwing me bizarre glances. They probably assumed I was high, judging by the fact that I was sitting there with that smile. It must have been quite a shock for some. And the fact that Butch didn’t said anything inappropriate for the whole hour of class must have blown their minds. It would have shocked me too but my mind was somewhere else, sitting elsewhere in the school surrounded by her red red hair and bright blue eyes.

“Man, you really need to snap out of this,” Max said, waving a hand in front of my face.

I swallowed my scowl – trying to keep my good mood from dissipating – and swatted his hand away. I was happy. Wasn’t I allowed to be happy? Of course not, I was Butch, I shouldn’t ever be happy; I shouldn’t eve be allowed to be happy.

“Whatever,” I shrugged my broad shoulders as the bell rang.

She was out in the hallway, floating along on some breeze of faint perfume. I wondered exactly what her cheek would feel like cupped in my large hand, how smooth it would be in contrast to my callous fingers. I almost reached out just to see but I didn’t have the courage and she wasn’t that close to me yet. We were walking in opposite directions, my eyes burning into her, begging her to look up and see me.

I was struck with sudden, paralysing fear then that maybe she didn’t want to see me. That she was disgusted that she’d been with me, with a drugged-up me, and wanted to forget the whole experience. She could ignore me. Or confront me. Or tell everyone what a joke I was. I could handle the latter two, I could kiss her if she confronted me and I could take the snarky comments which would follow her confessions. I couldn’t however, handle her ignoring me. I had to see her eyes. I had to see them look at me.

Students milled around us, never touching me in case they sparked off my violent side, never touching her as if they couldn’t penetrate her aura. We were both untouchable. And yet I wanted to test that, push the boundaries, reach out and grab her around her wasp-thin waist.

Red ringlets framed her porcelain face. Tight jeans and a tee-shirt adorned her body showing off nothing and yet everything at the same time. I was still silently begging for her to look up and notice me but her eyes were solidly focused on the floor. On her feet. Watching the magical process her legs made when putting one foot in front of the other. Fuck, any process her legs made was magical.

Then she saw me.

We locked eyes, the rest of the school, the rest of the world, falling away behind her blue eyes. I was spellbound and rooted to the spot as if a thousand volt shock had just run its course through my veins. I was so in love with the girl that I was surprised I didn’t keel over with it having been consumed totally by the emotion.

“Fraser,” she flashed her teeth in a smile “it’s nice to see you lucid.”

I was grinning too – that stupid smile from earlier – and fiddling with my hands like a little boy. She closed the distance between us in the hallway by crossing directly over to me, other students stopping in their tracks to either watch or in order to avoid colliding with her lean body. Despite Armstrong’s vicious rumour she was still their sweetheart. The only person who could destroy that would be Jane herself.

“Hey,” I said, suddenly husky.

She just smiled again, eyes darting around the curious faces and cringing. She hated the attention on us. Was she ashamed? I tried to read her but she had her poker face applied within seconds. Giving nothing away behind polite smile.

“How are you feeling from yesterday?” she asked quietly.

We were both standing immobile next to a colourful range of lockers as passersby took long glances on their way to class. I should have been on my way to see Mrs Davis the councillor but she could wait. Heck, everyone could wait for Jane.

“Better thanks, still embarrassed that you saw me like that though.”

She shrugged “its fine, I deal with crazy people every day.”

I searched for the humour but found none, only a straight face and curved lips. She was pushing me away. Of course she was pushing me away. She had a reputation to uphold and I was nothing but a troubled druggie who slept in his car every night. She was everything and I was nothing. She was probably on her way to some advance college class while I was on my way to see a paid professional who got me to try to talk my problems out. As if they could ever just be talked out.

The halls were thinning, students retreating into classrooms. I was losing her right before my eyes and it killed me. I had to do something, say something, fucking move my body! But I was stuck fast, sinking faster.

“You see this?” I shoved my arm towards her, wrist up, as a reflex. This is what I always reverted to if conversations were going slow. This was my safeguard.

I watched her clear eyes move to the patch of skin I was holding up for her just above my wrist. On it was the number 23 carved out with black tattoo ink. One of my favourites for the simple reason that nobody else knew what it meant – not even Mariah as she’d engraved it into me three years ago. Jane could know, though, anything to keep her here with me.

She was devouring it, devouring my entire sleeve of tattoos. Her hand fiddled with the bottom of her shirt as if nervous but I knew the real reason. The tattoo of her own lingering just below that cotton fabric was dying to be seen and shared too. Tattoos always wanted to be seen, it was why I walked around in tank tops for most of the year.

“Twenty three,” she said slowly, trying to wrap her pretty little head around it.

I grinned normally for the first time all day. She was adorable when trying so hard to working something out. This was impossible though. This was a secret.

“Why twenty three? Is that the amount of weights you lift in the gym every day?” she asked innocently with a flash of a smirk working up her lips. She was mocking me, poking fun at both my tattoos and the muscle lying just beneath them. Sheer happiness rocketed through me because Jane Hathaway was joking around with me.

I laughed loudly just because I couldn’t control anything around Jane. She cracked that poker face with a laugh too, filling me up with even more happiness until I thought I’d explode with it all. Only she did this to me – made me a crazy, laughing fool.

“Actually it’s my perfect age. Twenty three years old. By that age I want to either be married to the love of my life living far, far away from Florence or dead,” I told her with a plaguing smile.

“Dead?” she raised her perfect eyebrows.

“It’s the perfect age to die I think. Old enough to have enjoyed the world and young enough to still leave a big impact. Only the good die young, right?”

Her eyes locked firmly with mine as if she was trying to silently communicate something. Probably something eloquent. Or something helpful. Or maybe something like ‘I love you; marry me right now so you won’t even have to consider dying at twenty three’. Or perhaps it was just a long, lingering look.

“That’s pretty deep.”

It was my turn to shrug “it does happen on occasion, when I’m off the drugs.”

We shared another glance before she cast her eyes around, taking in the deserted hallway and how we were both late.

“I’ll see you later Fraser, I really need to get to lesson.”

I nodded and watched her break away from me, floating down the hallway, taking her sweet perfume scent with her. My heart shuddered within my chest as I too set off. Mrs Davis was obviously going to notice the goofy expression on my face even if she was a bit dim, and definitely not cut out to be a psychiatrist. I couldn’t help it though, I already missed her.

That all broke, however, when a familiar boy walked by me, shoving his shoulder into mine. Our bodies briefly cajoled together, just long enough for us to stare deathly glares which could have rendered any other human being beyond terrified. Fucking David Armstrong and his stupid sneering face. I would have punched him if I wasn’t so drugged up on Jane. I would have killed him if I wasn’t thinking about how my arrest would prevent me from seeing Jane.

Fuck it, one day I would kill him.

And with that charming thought, I entered my councillor’s office to beat her off with vague answers and annoyed glances. I still missed Jane but David had buried that under a whole heap of hatred.