Dance With the Devil

I didn’t really know what my emotions were doing quite at the moment. I was supposed to hate Axel, and yet here I was in his arms. He was supposed to hate me but yet he had just spilled his heart out to me about a girl he used to love more than life itself, and how she had completely destroyed him. I didn’t want to, but I felt bad for him. I had no idea he was the way he was because of a girl. I thought he was an ass just to be an ass.

We didn’t talk as he carried me back, my knee still throbbing from the pain. I had lost track of time though as we wandered, and I didn’t even know how long we had been walking when we emerged from the forest and the world of suburbia greeted me once again. Holly’s house was still blasting music, though not nearly as loudly as before, and more lights were on now. There were few people still in the backyard, either drinking or making out. Every time I came to a party like this, it gave me even more incentive to see the reasoning behind the stereotypes that teenagers get.

Axel still didn’t say anything when we got back inside, he seemed to just stand around and look for someone to drop me off onto. And when I saw that, I got a little mad. I started to squirm in his arms and I tried to get down. He looked down at me with a shocked expression.

“What are you doing?” I glanced back up at him briefly while trying to get down.

“What does it look like? Look you brought me back to the party, that’s all you were supposed to do. I’ll be fine on my own from here.” He didn’t say anything, but he let me down. It hurt to stand, but I didn’t want him to know that. I just put all my weight on my uninjured leg. Though I was too worried to try and walk, I didn’t want to fall.

“Well, what exactly are you going to do now?” He asked me, a little sarcastically. I looked around the room for Aubrey, for anyone really to help me other than Axel, but I found no one. I looked back at him.

“I don’t know. Go home I guess.” He crossed his arms, and lifted up one eyebrow.

“And how exactly do you propose to do that?”

“I’ll get Aubrey to drive me home.” He chuckled and uncrossed his arms. He pointed over to a girl on the couch, who looked like she was completely passed out. My face dropped immensely. I sighed to myself. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Ah but I’m afraid there is no kidding going on here.” I looked back at him, who was still looking at Aubrey on the couch. “After she got off the phone with you, and after she talked to me, I saw her talking to some other girl who was trying to convince her to do shots. I guess she did them.” I looked back over at her. She looked so helpless, and I hated seeing her look that way. When I spoke, I was more speaking to myself than anyone else.

“But she doesn’t drink.”

“When you're around.” I looked back at him, a movement that subconsciously moved the rest of my body, and with that a jolt of paint shot to my knee in the slight movement. I winced, though trying to hide it.

“What do you mean?”

“After you first ran off, she was really worried. She tried to call you multiple times, but she got no answer, so she started to get even more concerned. She was talking to me, and told me some stuff that you don’t know about her.” Pain shot through my leg again, it was killing me to stand. I grimaced as I tried to resituate my stance. I could feel Axel staring at me as I moved myself around. “Here.” He picked me up again without so much as a warning, and began to carry me over to an empty couch. He set me down sitting right side up, so my knee could be bent. He sat beside me, close enough so I could hear him over the people and music. “She was really worried, and really working herself up. So she went and got a beer. Now, I was in the same boat as you, I didn’t think she drank either, so I asked her if she did. And she told me that she does, but only when you're not around. She knows how your mom drinks and she doesn’t want to disappoint you.” I looked at Aubrey. I didn’t really know what to feel. She was my best friend and she had been hiding something like that from me, though I guess with good reason. Still, I hated the thought of my best friend, one of the only people I was absolutely certain I loved, to end up like my mother. I looked away from her, though I didn’t look back at Axel either. I sighed a sigh so small, I hardly even knew I did it.

It was quiet for a moment, though not in retrospect. There was still music playing and people were yelling and screaming. The party was actually very lively, though it all seemed to be passing me in a blur. I didn’t look at Axel, I was scanning the room and watching the other people, but I could feel his eyes on me. When I turned my head the slightest to see if he was looking, his gaze was elsewhere. Maybe it wasn’t his eyes I had felt. I mean, I may have been a main attraction for all I knew at this point. I did suddenly run off into the forest for hours, and then I had to be carried back in. Maybe people talked about me in my absence. It wouldn’t surprise me. There were a lot of people from my school here, and though I didn’t exactly have many enemies at school, I didn’t have a lot of friends either. I figured most people just looked at me as that weird girl. And beside myself, sometimes I type casted myself right into that exact role.

“So,” Axel said suddenly. I turned my head fully towards him to let him know I had heard him. “Speaking of drinking, guess who I chatted with.” My suspicions rose, as did the wall I so carefully place around myself whenever the subject of Nick comes up. And then I was suddenly slightly mad at Axel. I had told him to keep Nick away from me, not talk to him about me.

“What did he say?” I didn’t bother playing his little game. He looked at me; his green eyes a piercing emerald in the light. They were so pretty it hurt.

“He who?” He said with a devilish smile. My expression remained unphased. Maybe his eyes were so green because he was actually a snake. I furrowed my brows at him.

“Axel.” I said in a loud, deep stern voice, like a mother would give when their child got in trouble. He chuckled slightly.

“You’re not intimidating. I hope you know that.” Unfortunately I did know, although I always tried to be. “You just sound like an angry mouse. And no one is scared of a mouse, angry or not.” I debated in my head for a few seconds whether or not I should tell him that elephants were scared of mice, but I figured that would make my tone seem too casual. I wanted to know about Nick more than I wanted Axel to know his facts about elephants.

“Would you just tell me what the damn boy said?” He shook his head at me slightly.

“You are absolutely no fun at all. You know that?” He took a deep breath like he had a lot to say, or like he was mentally preparing himself to say it. Either way I tried to brace myself for his words. “Well, a lot of it is stuff you already know. That he feels stupid for being stupid, that he’s sorry, that he misses you and wants you back and all that other lovey-dovey shit. But, he’s now come to terms with the fact that you guys are broken up, and that even though he wants to be with you, he understands if you don’t feel the same way.” Part of me wondered if this was actually what Nick felt, or if it was just the beer talking. I’ve had my share of experience with drunken conversations, and a lot of them leave me disappointed when the person actually sobers up.

“How do I know these aren’t just his drunken words?” Axel shrugged his shoulders.

“Drunk words are sober thoughts.” I remember that slogan being written on some alcohol awareness poster in the health room last year. We get the same talk every year it seems like, the ones on alcohol and tobacco, though slowly working up to weed and cocaine and all those other drugs that are much more fun to learn about. I scowled at Axel, though it wasn’t really meant for him. “Oh,” Axel said as he reached his hand into his pocket, digging for something, then finally pulling out a very small item and holding it out to me. “He wanted me to give this back to you. He said you’d know what it meant.” I stared at the item in Axel’s hand, and I felt all the air in my lungs disappear as if the sight of the item had literally knocked my lungs dry. It was a small purple Tortex guitar pick. I stared at it, and my mind traveled back in time.

There were thousands of screaming people around us; Nick and I were at a You Me At Six concert, and we were basically front row expect for one or two people in front of us. We had been dating about a year at this point, and this was the first concert we had ever been to together. It was during the last song in the set, and I remember turning to Nick and trying to speak over the music. I had to get close to his ear for him to hear me.

“I’ve always wanted to catch one of the guitar picks. When they throw them at the end, I want to try and get on this time.”

“Me too, I’ve wanted one ever since my first concert.”

“Well then, I guess we’ll just have to see who gets it.” He smiled at me, but it was so loud that there was no sense in him saying anything back, so he didn’t, and we just kept listening to the music and singing along, and all the things that people do at concerts. Though when the song ended, and the band members said their thank yous and goodnights, without fail, the guitarist threw his pick out into the crowd. I jumped and reached for it, but I'm not that tall, and it slipped my grasp by just a little bit. I thought that some other lucky person in the crowd got it, and my face dropped a little. But it wasn’t the worst thing ever; I figured I’d just try at the next show I went to. I looked at Nick with sad eyes, who was smiling right at me, and I looked at him with a suspicious smirk.

“What are you so smiley about?” He didn’t say a word, he just simply held out his hand to me, which in it held the purple Tortex guitar pick that the guitarist had just thrown out into the sea of people, who were now pushing and shoving around us to get over to the merchandise tables and the exists, but Nick and I stayed exactly where we were.

“Well, aren’t you a lucky little boy?” I said with a slight laugh and a smile. However his hand didn’t move.

“Luck has nothing to do with it. I caught it because I knew you wanted it. So here, it’s for you.” I smiled so genuinely at him, the most genuine smile I had given in a long time.

“But you’ve always wanted one.”

“Yeah, but I’ve also always wanted an amazing girlfriend like you, which I’ve already got. So taking this would really just be greedy. Please Kar, take it. I want you to have it.” I stared at the pick in his hand; it had a scratch on the side of it. I placed my hand on the pick, and looked at him in the eyes.

“You can keep it, as long as you keep my heart.” And with that I pushed the pick and his hand back towards him. He didn’t argue with me. He just smiled and then hugged me.

“Karlee?” I looked up at Axel for the first time since looking at the pick. “Are you going to take the damn thing? You’ve been staring at it for like five minutes.” I looked at the pick again. He offered it to me just the same way that Nick had. It’s such a small little thing, a meaningless item in someone else’s eyes, just a simple guitar pick. But to me it meant everything that me and Nick had ever shared together, and now he was giving it back to me. I thought we were already broken up, I was almost positive of it. But the second that I saw that pick, that’s when it became real. That’s when everything inside of me told me that Nick and I were no longer together, and I felt like I was having an allergic reaction to the sight of that pick. My eyes started to water slightly, though I wasn’t completely crying. I reached into Axel’s hand and grabbed the pick, and simply staring at it. It didn’t mean anything, but then it meant everything at the same time. “Karlee?” I heard Axel but I didn’t bother to speak. I didn’t know if I could at the moment. “Are you alright?” I looked up at Axel nearly as soon as the last word left his lips. It was such an innocent question, something any mere stranger could ask you at any given moment on any given day. But from Axel it was a rarity, and from Axel to me, was something I’d never would have imagined. I sniffled, and put the pick in my pocket without looking at it again. I wiped a small tear away from under my eye.

“Can you take me home, please?” I didn’t really know why I added the ‘please’ to the end of my sentence. It wasn’t like me to use manners when I spoke with Axel. I pulled my car keys out of my bag and dangled them in front of Axel.

“Yeah, sure.” He grabbed my keys, and then began to help me up.