Death by Desire

I woke up with a killer headache and glanced at the clock on my bedside table. 5 fucking a.m….oh God.

Dragging myself to the bathroom, I stumbled into the shower where I stood for an hour, lost in the warm wáter and heat. It was torture to step out but I quickly dressed, throwing on jeans, a long sleeved thermal, my leather jacket, and boots.

I hastily applied my makeup, grabbed all my stuff, and Orion’s leather jacket, and then headed out. My grandmother stopped me in the foyer.

“Where are you going in such a rush?” she asked.

I held up my copy of Beowulf. “I have an English test today and I need to clarify some things with my teacher beforehand.” I said.

Her eyes flitted to Orion’s jacket. “And the jacket? Who’s is it? Did you have someone spend the night? I will not have you continue to to act this way young lady. You’re behavior is intolerable and if you think I’m going to stand for it one more moment you’d bet-“ I cut her off.

“Are you crazy?? NO! No one spent the night!! Jesus, do you really not trust the way you raised me?? Do you really think I’d disrespect you in such a way!?! It belongs to Orion Fiamma. He was kind enough to lend it to me after he accompanied me to the cemetery yesterday afternoon when I went to visit my parents.”

She visibly relaxed at the mention of Orion’s name. “Orion Fiamma?” she asked with a smile on her lips. I nodded, thankful for once of his golden-boy status. “Well then, I suppose that’s fine then. Have a good day at school.” She reached out to give me her customary hug, a hug that was stiff and unnatural but one she never failed in bestowing upon me, and then turned to go into her study.

I left, silently thank God for Orion’s good social standing. When I got to school, the feeling in the air was visibly tenser, all eyes were on me once more but in a way that made me apprehensive, not admired. The whispers that followed me through the parking lot and towards the entrance of the school had me on edge.

Victoria spotted me just as I was walking up the steps of the entrance and the look on her face did it. “What the hell is going on?” I asked. She bit her perfectly glossed bottom lip, her eyes wide and full of fear and a flash of anger.

That anger, I only saw when she was in a defensive mood.

“Victoria, tell me. What. The HELL. Is Going. On???” I bit off each word carefully, controlling an anger I wasn’t even sure was justifiable.

“It’s…oh god, you’ll just have to see for yourself.” She said, and took me by the arm and into the school.

I was immediately called out by the Vice Principal, an intimidating Russian woman just as cold and emotionless as the Principal herself, Orion’s mother.

“Ms. Rose, a word?”

I shot a panicked look at Victoria who shrugged apologetically. “Yes Mrs. Petrov?” I choked out. She raised an eyebrow.

“Do you think me to be a fool? Explain yourself at once.”

I glanced at Victoria, who stepped forward. “Mrs. Petrov, Iris has only just gotten here. She hasn’t seen…I mean, she didn’t do anything. It’s someones idea of a joke.” I shook my head, trying to make sense of everything. “I haven’t seen what? What’s going on?”

Mrs. Petrov snorted, as if she didn’t believe Victoria. “A joke? I see nothing funny about this…joke.”

Victoria took my arm again and led me down the hall, Mrs. Petrov following close behind, no doubt to make sure we weren’t running off.

“There” Victoria said, stopping just outside the back entrance of the school and pointing to the center of the football field. A bubble of angry heat began to work its way up from the pit of my stomach, slowly spreading through my body.

Someone had spraypainted “Vote for Iris- The TRUE Snow Queen” across the length of the field in silver paint, covered the goalposts in sparkling snowflakes and icy blue tinsel, and spread fake snow all around the track.

Vandalism of any kind was not allowed at school and this definitely counted as vandalism.

“Well?” Mrs. Petrov said. I turned to her, trying to control the tremors that threatened to rip me apart. “Mrs. Petrov, I swear, I had absolutely nothing to do with this. I would never….”

She cut me off. ‘Clean it up. All of it.” I nodded, still trying to control myself. “Of course.” She crossed her arms and sighed. “Were it not for my ability to truly see the sincerity of students, I would not believe you. However, Mrs. Fiamma will be notified of this…crime…and action will be taken to find out who did this.”

She turned to leave and once she was gone I spun around, anger blazing in my eyes. “When did you see this?” I asked Victoria. She shrugged and bit her lip again. “I came in early to school, maybe around 6:30, to finish up some homework, and here it was. By the time you got here, everyone was talking about it.”

I could feel another headache coming on and I closed my eyes against it. “help me?” I muttered and she nodded, moving forward so that we could begin the cleanup that never should have happened….

It was nearly 5:00 in the afternoon when we finished. Both Victoria and I had been excused from classes for the day so that we could complete the task. The hardest thing had been removing the paint from the fake grass, because, though the paint was washable, it was such a large area and the closer we came to being finished, the more it seemed there was still work to be done.

I slumped against a goalpost and closed my eyes, exhausted.

“Want to get some coffee?” Victoria murmured. “I’m buying.”

I lingered on my answer. Coffee was probably not the best thing for me right now…what I really needed was to sleep and just forget everything, but I still had so much studying to do and my mind was too busy with all its thoughts so sleeping was just wishful thinking…

”Let’s go” I said. I dragged myself up and towards my car and followed Victoria back to her house where we changed cars so that we ended up both in hers and then headed towards Starbucks.

“I have an idea who did it” Victoria said after we had our coffees and were seated at a table in the corner of the place. My hands curled into tight fists involuntarily and I took a deep breath to calm myself.

“And youre only just telling me this now because…..?” I asked.

She took a sip of her drink and was quiet for a moment. “I figured it’d be better when we were done cleaning up, because if I told you, you’d go and do something stupid, and get in more trouble.”

I nodded. It made sense, and we both knew it.

“So who’s to blame?” I asked.

She glanced over her shoulder towards the door.

“Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear”.

Pippa and Orion had just walked in.

A nauseous taste grew in my mouth and everything in my line of vision grew fuzzy, watery. This was just too much.

I stood halfway up and Victoria stopped me. “Don’t. It won’t solve anything and right now, youre not in the best shape for a fight. “

She was right, and I knew it, and so I sat back down and tried to focus on my breathing, my nerves. Unfortunately, Orion glanced in our direction at just that moment and our eyes met for the briefest of seconds. I bit my tongue to keep from saying everything that was tearing through my mind right now

-asshole, liar, traitor,to name a few-

because I knew it was unjustified. He and I had no commitment to each other.

Pippa was his friend first, and they had a history, it made sense that theyd reconcile quickly and things would go back to the way they were. Pippa turned and her eyes met mine as well; she lifted her hand and gave me a little wave, smirking, taunting me, and I knew exactly what she was thinking. “I win, bitch.”

It took all I had not to go over to her and rip her head off, and so I lifted my chin and eyed her with a cold, detached look that said

“Fuck you, you piece of trash whore. You don’t win shit, but if that’s what makes you happy, go ahead. I’m everything you want to be and what you’ll never amount to. And if you want to fuck with me, I’ll fuck with you right back. Just remember, you started it”

“Do you want to go?” Victoria asked. I took a sip of my coffee and a smile crept across my lips. Leaving would be like consenting to defeat. “No. I’m fine right here”.