Page 8
The sound of the stadium is deafening, every eye on the golden boy and the queen who’s fallen from grace, going head-to-head in the middle of the pitch. I stay near the mouth of the tunnel, my hands buried in my pockets, hood up and eyes down. Nothing to see here. Yet in the moments when I don’t feel a heated gaze on me, I glance up from beneath my hood and also marvel at the spectacle we’re all here to see.
Everest has all of the makings to be a pro athlete. The talent, the tenacity, the drive, and the ego. Powering his thick thighs into action, he crosses the pitch without his cleats leaving a single mark in the turf. The midday sun kisses his sandy blond hair, sweeping back from the sharp angles of his face.
Eight-year-old me with a pathetic crush could never have anticipated that face would become so defined, so stunningly handsome, I still blush when I see him. What I wouldn’t give to shout from the rooftops that he’s mine. Those lips are mine, those eyes are only meant for me, but I gave up on wishful thinking a long time ago. I gave up on believing we were soulmates when the reality is that we latched onto one another out of desperation. We needed an escape from the cruelty of Nicholas Calloway.
Maybe that’s why I took an active step back when Everest began falling for Meg. Rather than claiming my territory like a feral dog, I gave Everest the space to explore in the hopes that, when he’s sated his curiosity, he’d still choose me. Again, no use in wishful thinking.
Taking a victory lap around the pitch, Everest beams with brutal confidence. It’s a mask he’s perfected, a ruse that the media laps up. My heart compresses whenever I see that smile, knowing that he’s dying inside but is keeping up the act for me. He’s always sacrificing for me.
Quickly remembering myself, I skid back into the shadows as Everest nears. If he senses my presence, he doesn’t slow. Passing by, his grin painfully wide by the time he returns to Meg’s side. Her eyes are blazing with anger, humiliation hanging over her head like a storm cloud. It was much easier to think of her as a whiny brat before I spent months sitting across from her in therapy circles. Now, I hate that a sliver of me resonates with the haunted emptiness behind her hatred.
I inhale a thread of smoke tainting the smell of sweat and sun-warmed grass. My lungs constrict. For the briefest second, I’d forgotten what I’d done. The entire reason I’m here. It’s not strong enough for anyone to notice yet, so I slip from my hiding spot and take a back route through vacant hallways until I’m at the entrance of another tunnel, one which will give me a clear vantage point to see this through. Causing chaos is one of the few things I’m good at, so I might as well appreciate my own handywork.
The fire alarm shrieks a moment later, tearing through my eardrums with the same effect as a pistol being fired at the beginning of a race. Students scramble for safety before they’ve even realised where the danger is, but I know where to look. Plumes of smoke begin to stream from the entrance way I was recently standing in, tendrils of black reaching for the nearest victim.
That’s when the screaming starts, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to the ripple of pleasure that rolls through my spine. Run, little piggies. Run whilst the big bad wolf taints your precious lives with smoke and devastation.
People shove and trip down bleacher steps, grabbing for phones and backpacks. Everest’s right-hand men use their muscled-jock bodies to direct the crowd toward the main exits, hollering over the noise rather efficiently. I’m sure they’ll get a nice pat on the head from Daddy later, and I hope to get a nice pat somewhere else.
Smirking, rather pleased with myself, I start to retreat when my gaze snags on Meg still standing in the middle of the pitch. Everest is hanging back, his eyes fixed on the side of her face. My eyes narrow at her expression, confused by the mixture of longing and determination. She’s staring at the fumes, unnerved as they near, and suddenly her feet are moving. My mouth parts, my brain not quite computing the sight as she is willingly engulfed by the smoke. That is, until Everest spurs into action, shouting her name as those powerful legs carry him directly into the path of danger.
At first, I’m sure I must be wrong. My brain must have snapped beneath the pressure of being Everest’s dirty little secret and is showing me the worst possible outcome. I have been known to allow my art to bleed into real life, and maybe I figured this would be an ironically poetic painting. But no, as I blink, the scene before me is the same. Everest vanishes into the smoke, forgetting who he is and everything that comes with his last name, to run directly into a fire for the girl he can’t seem to let go.
My heart disintegrates into the same ash that is polluting the air. I don’t care what Nicholas will say, if there’s a single hair on Everest’s head that is singed, I’ll never forgive myself.
For a few seconds, I can’t move. That’s the part I will hate myself for later, maybe forever. The frozen beat where instinct should have taken over but instead, fear pins me to the concrete. Bodies surge around me, no one looking where they’re going. Someone slams into my shoulder, others cry into their phones as they race for every exit that is deemed safe.
I simply stay there, watching the entrance hall vomit smoke and saying a silent prayer that Everest will emerge. He’ll walk out with her in his arms, pining himself as the hero. Yeah, that’s a narrative we can spin, but seconds turn into minutes, and as the stadium empties in violent waves, he doesn’t appear. Meg doesn’t either. The alarm keeps screaming, smoke keeps spreading, the crowd thins out.
It isn’t supposed to happen like this. Everest needed a distraction, something that couldn’t be pinned back onto him. Something simple to divert the crowd’s attention from the way he was dominating Meg on the pitch, all for the sake of saving the tattered ruins of her reputation. That reputation means nothing if they both end up dead. I move as soon as the last cluster clears from the stadium.
There’s nothing noble in the way I run, nothing heroic to be noted. My legs stumble, my lungs already tight before I even reach the entrance. Heat puffs against my face as I yank my sleeve over my mouth and step into the smoke. The corridor is barely visible, lights flashing red across the gray haze. The alarm presses into either side of my skull, drowning out my ability to overthink. That’s the only saving grace here.
Crouching low, I creep forward, hunting for signs of life. Beneath the alarm, I pick up on a scrape somewhere ahead. Then a dull thud, maybe Everest’s voice, maybe Meg’s. The smoke steals everything, turning the straight hallway into a maze of staggered steps, turning the walls into looming shadow, turning every breath into a punishing burn.
“Everest!” I try to shout, but it comes out ragged, instantly swallowed by the smoke. My eyes burn, tears streaming down my face as my vision wavers. The smoky backdrop falls away, suppressed memories beginning to surface. Things I don’t want to remember, but the dizziness consuming my mind draws them forward anyway. So much for life flashing before my eyes, it’s my past that haunts me as my lungs are starved of oxygen.
Calloway Manor forms around the edges of my vision, punctuated by the image of me at thirteen being dragged by the collar into Nicholas’ office. Me at sixteen, holding my black eye on the bathroom floor. The day Everest left for Hollowbrook. A shudder rolls through me, causing one of my legs to give out beneath me. My knee slams into concrete hard, a bolt of pain ricocheting through my thigh. I clench my teeth against the shock of pain pressing me back into my memories, bringing them back to life.
I’ve never told Everest how bad it got that year I had to spend without him, the year that Nicholas tried to ‘fix me’. How Nicholas ordered his staff pin me to a dining room chair while he broke each one of my fingers. The agony had nothing on the isolation that followed. A lover cut off from communicating with his only connection to the outside world, an artist who can’t paint. Counselor Stevens used the term psychological trauma more than once.
But I survived. I made it through. I taught myself to hold a paint brush again, and then painted over my damage. And I did not do all of that to lose Everest now. Half crawling over a discarded glove, a dropped water bottle, I push forward, one hand dragging along the wall until I see them.
On the ground near the far side of the corridor and half-hidden in smoke, I edge close enough for the crawling heat to coat my body. The fire is raging, creeping close enough for my body to instinctively recoil back before my mind can tell it not to. My fingers brush through Everest’s dirty blond hair, ignoring how he’s sprawled partly over Meg with one hand twisted in her shirt. Even unconscious, he’s trying to keep her with him. She’s clutching onto his jersey just as tightly, holding a phone to her chest as she wheezes weakly.
“Fuck,” I hiss through my teeth, keeping the sleeve clamped over my nose and mouth. Everest’s head twitches slightly, seeming to seek out my touch as I stroke his cheek. His eyes are half-lidded and unfocused, his mouth moving around words that have no sound and even though I know exactly what he’s trying to tell me, in one last act of defiance, I ignore it to grab him first.
Hooking my arms beneath his shoulders, I pull. He’s heavier than I expect, all dead weight, muscle and sweat. My back screams in protest but I don’t let up, I drag him away from the hottest part of the corridor. Meg’s fingers remain locked in his shirt, shifting with us until her limp body jerks and gives out. Whether at the loss of contact or simply from pain, Everest makes a horrible sound, half-cough, half-groan, and it spurs me on to drag him quicker. Once we’re at a safe enough distance from the encroaching flames, my conscience catches up and I set Everest aside.
“Don’t say I don’t have a heart,” I mutter to no one in particular, going back to grip Meg beneath the arms and tug her towards Everest’s side. The world slows into hauled inches. Hands around singed fabric. Shoes scraping against tile. Lungs refusing to take in air. Everest’s shoulder hits my thigh. Meg’s hair drags over the floor. At some point, I stop tracking who is being pulled further than the other. It doesn’t matter anymore, as long as everyone gets out. As long as I’m not responsible for killing my lover or his crush. Since when did life become so complicated?
The exit becomes visible in waves, glimpses of light streaming in and out until the first punch of fresh air hits my face. I collapse backward through the open archway, hitting the grass with Everest half across my legs and Meg sprawled beside us. For a moment, I do nothing but suck air into my ruined throat, coughing hard enough for my vision to black out at the edges. The sky above is obscenely blue, searing through my retinas. For a single beat, I allow myself to lie still, oddly comfortable between the two of them, before I know I have to move. I can’t be caught here.
My hands shake as I check Everest over one last time, my fingers hovering near his face, his chest, his pulse. He’s breathing, although it’s shallower than I’d like. My own heart constricts. I can’t even imagine a reality where Everest doesn’t exist. Meg coughs, a wet sound that snaps me back to the present.
Staggering to my feet and almost falling a few times, I attempt to put distance between Everest and me. His face is streaked with soot, the bruise at his throat dark against skin that’s flushed from heat and smoke. In contrast, Meg almost appears peaceful, her lips parted around tiny, damaged breaths, her fingers locked around the phone clutched against her chest. Sirens ring in the distance, the announcement of cops, firefighters, and ambulances nearing. Time to go.
I leave, but I don’t go far. Smoke clings to my hair, my hoodie, the raw lining of my throat. My hands are black, and there is a tear in my sleeve I don’t remember earning. But it’s the least I deserve for the damage I’ve caused.
