Carnage

“I could have been a doctor, you know,” she said, smiling.

“Yeah, what happened?”

“I met a boy. Long story short, now I’m in this bathroom with you.”

--

She was sixteen when they met. He was handsome, of course, with his short black hair and piercing blue eyes. But behind that, she could feel something malevolent. Each smile, each tenderly whispered sweet nothing, carried behind it manipulation. Whatever he was, he hid it very, very carefully. She was drawn to him, but knew he wouldn't return the interest, and pretended to feel nothing.
That lasted six weeks.

Technically, they didn't go to the same school. He went to the private boy's school a few miles from her public high school, but he hung out on the boundaries all the time. She had never said two words to him, but somehow, knew most of his story. Or at least, she thought she did.

They officially met on a Friday. She had missed the bus, spending way too long at her locker to organize her books. Though she didn't care how messy her locker was either way, her days had gotten mixed up, and she thought she had some time to kill before heading to the library to tutor. Twenty minutes had flown by before she remembered that it was Friday and that she had a bus to catch, and by that time, it was already gone.
She wandered about the parking lot for a bit, waiting to hear back from her parents, but not wanting to get locked inside the school again. She had a penchant for being quiet, and it had gotten her locked inside on more than one occasion. Her principal had once joked that he ought to give her a key.

She took a seat on her regular "bench", a buried piece of an old tennis court that stuck out between the parking lot and the woods. It would be hours before someone could come and get her.

"Do you want a ride?" he asked, sneaking up on her from the woods. She hadn't even heard him, and jumped when he talked, sending her stuff flying. Luckily, it was just notebooks, which he helped her pick up.

"Um, no, thanks," she sputtered, taking the notebooks from his hands. "I live a little bit far away."
He gave her a wink, and picked up her backpack.
"Get in the car."

She said nothing on the fifteen minute journey, just listened as he talked about his school. He said his name was "Nick", and that he had transferred to the private school after being kicked out. The schedule he described sounded like hell, but his school got out at least forty minutes before hers did. He took to her instantly, liking how quiet she was. She wasn't sure about him, but something in the way that he talked made her want him to talk about her like that. She craved his approval, and she had only really known him for twenty minutes.
From then on, they were joined at the hip.

He was friends with everybody, and by extension, so was she. In less than a week, her high school stock had grown exponentially. Everyone knew her name, Plain Jane Jones.

The more time she spent with him, the stronger her feeling grew. He never showed it directly, but there was something burning behind his pupils. He was not a good person, no matter how hard he pretended. By the end of the year, she couldn't tell if he believed his own charade or not.

By her seventeenth birthday, he had told her that he loved her. Not romantically, of course, but figuratively. That he would do anything for her. That he hoped she would do anything for him in return. That he would never feel the same way about another girl as he did about her. She didn't believe him, but it was nice to hear the words. And as much as she didn't want to admit it, it made her easily manipulated. She, oddly, would have given anything for him to mean it.

"I love you, you know," he said one night beneath her window. It was easily 3 AM, and her parents were sleeping only one room over.
"I'm not going anywhere with you, I have to be up in three hours for school."
"And I have to be up in two, so hurry up."
"Nick-"
"I'd do it for you. I need you."
She'd climbed out her window as quietly as possible, and didn't even protest when he drove her two towns over to a random warehouse. He introduced her to a group of men, suspiciously standing in a circle, and she watched silently as he traded a bag from the trunk of his car for a bag from the backseat of theirs. He called him his "associates", which was a fancy word for either drug buyer or drug supplier. She never really knew.

It was November when she finally stopped giving into him. Her grades had started to slip, and her parents, who had previously not noticed her either, were beginning to pay attention. She redoubled her school efforts, earning her a new lab partner in Chemistry. His name was Ethan.

Sometimes, right before she goes to sleep, she can still hear the cracking of his neck.

"Nick" was jealous. It was in his nature, wanting to hold onto the things he felt were sincere since he didn't have an honest bone in his body. She used to like that, the selfish way he held onto her, like he didn't want anyone else to have what he had. Sometimes she felt it was the closest thing to love he knew how to give. But, the more time she spent with Ethan, the worse he got, calling her, following her, threatening her, until one day, he just stopped. He stopped calling her, stopped showing up at her house, stopped waiting to give her rides home after school. He left her alone. By the third day of her freedom, she was uneasy. She had numerous bruises hidden by makeup and harshly learned lessons reflected in the scars on her body from his jealousy, but he had never left her alone before.

In June, she was dragged from her bedroom by her hair. Her parents had gone on vacation, and none of the neighbors heard her screams as she was thrown into the car and bound and blindfolded. She kicked and screamed for most of the journey, pausing only to spit her own blood out of her mouth from the numerous times they had tried to shut her up. There were two of them, and one driving. Three associates in total. They were in an abandoned parking lot when the car stopped, and she was thrown on the asphalt. She could feel the movement behind her, and knew instantly what was going to happen.

"Nick" lifted her up by her tied arms, taking off her blindfold, and threw her to the nearest associate. Tommy, she thought his name was. The three of them took turns beating the shit out of Ethan.
"Nick stop! Stop it! Leave him alone!" she shouted repeatedly, as her voice went from high pitched to hoarse in a matter of minutes. Tommy shook her to get her to stop, eventually punching her in the ribs and kidneys to make her shut up. She feebly made as much noise as she dared.

"Nick" went in for one last kick as Ethan lay motionless on the ground. It was a precise kick to the head, and Ethan's neck snapped with no further effort. She dropped to her knees, unable to stand anymore as his lifeless eyes looked up at her. It was all her fault.

He cut her bonds together with a knife, and left her in that parking lot with Ethan's body and a shovel. She buried him between two spaces, digging as far down as she could before dumping his body. She still doesn't know why she did it, face dirty with blood, dirt, and tears, covering up his mess, burying a friend. She supposed she would do anything for him too. The official story is that Ethan had run away, since he'd been abused at home. They never even looked.

His real name was Tony. He had told her months afterwards, when he gave her away. She had somehow become his property over those two years, his to sell at will. He made her a donation, a goodwill gesture to a friend from the UK, a young brunette boy who sold drugs at underground raves.

She changed her name.