To the Steadfast (2 page)

I attempt to walk over
to where my best friend lay passed out on the floor, but he grabs my hand. My
blood pressure quickens. The hormones pulse through my veins, begging me to
slap him and jump him at the same time. Ten minutes ago, I would have jumped
him with no hesitation. The problem is, this is just a game to him. Flirting
with all of Violet’s friends. We’ve attended dozens of parties, spent hours in
the car together, and even slept in the same bed, but I’ve always been sexually
invisible to him.

Since I was fourteen,
I’d spent every waking moment trying to get Mischa Cromwell to notice me. I’d
parade around in cute little clothes and walk past his locker. For years, I
lived in the shadows of every other prettier, skinnier girl. I’d see him on the
street, at the diner, at the fair, and wish he’d look my way. He was the town
bad boy. The guy all the parents warned their daughters about. Last year, the
greatest thing happened. Violet was assigned to me for private tutoring in the
after-school program and suddenly we were best friends. I had my in, and we
stayed friends long after she stopped needing help in Algebra.

“I can’t help it you
got so hot. What happened to your...” He puts his fingers to the bridge of his
nose.

“I got contacts.” I
instinctively reach up and run my fingers across my eyebrows.

“And the…” He nods to
my chest with a look of hunger in his eyes.

I cross my hands in
front my low cut shirt and take a slow, deep breath to keep myself from
fainting.

Don’t pass out.

But he’s flirting
with you. Really flirting with you.

“I’ve obviously grown
up.”

“You sure have.” He
wiggles his tongue at me in a way that makes my insides molten hot. He grabs my
arm and pulls me onto the bed with him. As we hit the mattress, I can already
feel him hard against my thighs.

“You’re drunk, Mischa,”
I say, pretending to play hard to get. Violet being passed out in the corner is
the only thing stopping me from kissing him right here and now, just to see
what it’s like. I think with my heart, he thinks with his dick. It’s a messy
situation if you ask me. A ticking time bomb for failure.
He pushes my brown hair off my face and looks me in
the eyes.

“I’ve always admired
you, Cody.”

I push off of him into
a standing position and walk over to Violet and kick her with the edge of my
shoe.

“Violet, wake up. We’re
in Mischa’s room.”

She stirs and opens her
eyes slightly. “How did we get in here?”

“We just got home,
remember? We need to get in your room before your parents wake.”

I bend down and throw
her arm over my shoulder. She’s smaller than me by almost five inches and at
least four sizes. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and beautiful. All the things guys go
crazy for.

“Driller’s having
another party tomorrow night. You guys wanna go?” Mischa says, hopping off the
bed and sprinting across the room towards me.

“Yes!” Violet’s eyes
pop open and she smiles as if she’s been awake for hours and not recently
passed out.

“Whoa!” I cry out.

“Shhh!” She sprays my
face with the smallest bit of spit, and I wipe it away with a look of disgust.

“Say it, don’t spray
it.”

Her eyes are glassy,
but she still manages to slur out some words. “Let’s go.”

“Come on.” Mischa
sticks out his bottom lip causing the cutest dimple to show in his left cheek.
I can’t say no to that face. His eyes sparkle with amusement as if he knows
exactly what he’s doing to me.

“Mischa…I have a date
tomorrow night.”

“With who? Some little
boy? This will be more fun.”

Violet joins in with
him by placing her arms in front of her in a pleading pose. “Is it with that
jerk, Aaron? Why do you put up with him?”

With an exasperated
sigh, I drop my shoulders. “Because my dad won’t let me date unless he picks
out the guy, you know this, Violet.”

“Well, he picks
entitled assholes. Did you know that?”

Mischa spins around and
falls back on his bed. “Well, bring him along.”

“We’ll see.” There’s no
way I’m putting Aaron and Mischa in the same car. That would be weird.

Violet and I sneak back
to her bedroom, locking the door behind us. After lying down on her twin-size
mattress, I curl up next to her and close my eyes.

“Cody?”

I can’t open my eyes.
Sleep is so close. “Huh?”

“Do you wanna sleep
with my brother?”

I’m not sure what to
tell her. She knows I’ve had a little bit of a crush on him since middle
school, but she doesn’t know the extent.

“Why do you ask?”

“You two were flirting
back there.”

“I thought you were
asleep,” I accuse. “Why? Would you be mad?”

She doesn’t answer
right away. “Not really, but it
would
be weird.”

She’s lying, I can
tell. I decide to ease her mind. “Don’t worry. I’m not about to become another
notch on his bedpost. I don’t know why everyone thinks he’s so hot.” Lies, all
lies. I know exactly why all the girls love him.

“I know, right?” She
makes a gagging noise.

“He’s average.” Maybe
I’m trying to convince myself more than convince her. Whatever the reason, it
doesn’t matter. And with those last words, I roll over and try and savor the
one solid hour of sleep I’ll probably get.

As expected, I’m
awoken a
few hours later by
Tom
Sawyer
blasting through the speakers of Violet’s father’s record player. I
hold a cotton pillow over my head, but it does little to block the bass
vibrating the walls of the small house.

“I hate your parents,”
I mumble. Longing for the comfort of my own bed and room, I roll off the mattress.

 Violet doesn’t
stir. She’s used to sleeping over the music. I creep down the hallway, careful
not to run into Violet’s mother. The entire house reeks of pot, which means
both parents are up. I sneak through the hallway but check the living room
before I walk past. There’s a stranger in there with Violet’s dad, who’s
weighing something out on a digital scale. When I’m certain no one is looking,
I hurry past, careful not to trip on the mounds of clothes and empty beer
bottles that litter the floor. I’m almost in the safety of the bathroom when
Violet’s mother steps out of her bedroom across the hallway.

“Cody! Don’t you think
that it’s about time? I always swore it would be, but I don’t know where to
go.”

My mouth opens slightly,
unsure of what to say, so I smile and nod. Violet’s mother is slightly
schizophrenic. I’ve caught her talking nonsense to herself on more than one
occasion. I still can’t get used to being in the same room with her. It’s
uncomfortable not knowing if she’s talking to herself or me.

Once I’m in the
bathroom, I pull off my clothes and start the shower. Only dressed in my bra
and undies, I grab  my toothbrush from one of the drawers and squeeze a bit of
toothpaste on it.

Mid-brush, the bathroom
door flies open and Mischa comes barreling in with only a pair of boxers on.

“Get out, I gotta
piss,” he grumbles.

I should move, but I’m
in such a state of shock at Mischa opening the door I could have sworn I
locked, I can’t.

“Whatever.” He lifts
the toilet seat and as the sound of him peeing fills the room, I quickly spit
out the toothpaste and rinse my mouth out. I want to peek. I should peek, but I
don’t.
Chicken shit.
I throw my shirt back on.

“How did you open that
door?” I ask, straightening out my clothes.

“There’s only one
bathroom in this house. Better believe I can get past that lock whenever I feel
like it. Though I figured Violet was in the shower. Sorry, but it was an
emergency.”

I cross my hands in
front of my chest. “You’re a boy. Go pee outside.”

“Yeah right, and give
everyone in town a free view of the goods?”

“Get out!” I point to
the door.

“Yes, ma’am.” He gives
a friendly salute, but his eyes still travel over my curves.

“Now!”

He slips out the door,
and I relock it behind him. Afraid someone else might be able to sneak in, I
jump into the shower with my underwear still on. It’s hard to wash with the
fabric covering me, but somehow I manage to clean the necessary parts. I step
out, and with the towel around me, shimmy out of my bra and panties. Safely
back in Violet’s room, I get dressed.

“Did you know your
brother can get into the bathroom while it’s locked?” I pull on a clean bra.

She stretches her hands
over her head, still half asleep. “Yeah, he does that sometimes. Sorry. Did he
see anything he wasn’t supposed to?”

“Well, he caught me in
my underwear.”

“Want me to beat him
up?”

Not wanting to make a
big deal out of it, I shake my head. “It’s okay.”

She snickers and sits
up in bed. Her Golden Retriever, who is lying on the floor, perks up and jumps
into her lap. “Is that right, Domino? You don’t like Mischa either, do you?”

Domino is almost as big
as Violet, and he responds by knocking her back on the bed with his big paws.

“Did you have fun last
night?” she asks.

“I suppose for you,” I
mumble. I throw on a maxi dress from a pile of clothes on Violet’s floor and
pull my wet, brown hair into a bun on top of my head.

She spent the entire
night making out with some random guy, and despite my brief make out session
with bow-tie guy, I spent most of the night watching over her to make sure she
didn’t get raped by some random guy.

“I’ll drop by after
dinner. See you later.” I ruffle up Domino’s fur and blow Violet an air kiss
before making my way out into her living room.

“Leaving so soon,
Cody?” her dad asks. He’s hunched over the coffee table that’s covered in empty
sandwich bags. I can only imagine what he’s gonna fill them with.

“Yup, my parents just
called.”

He motions toward the
chair so, in the interest of not being rude, I sit for a minute. He talks a bit
more about something I don’t care about. I pretend to be interested, but
instead my thoughts keep drifting toward how much Mischa and his father look
alike. Same tall build, long hair, beautiful eyes, but Crumb has not aged well.
Drinking, drugs, and stress will do that to you. His eyes are that same clear
sea green as Mischa’s. It’s no secret that Crumb broke a few hearts in his
time, and Mischa is well on his way to breaking his father’s record.

“Here’s some new
product. Why don’t you try it and let me know what you think?” He hands me a
baggie of marijuana.

“Thanks,” I say with a
wide grin. Best thing about being friends with a Cromwell.

As the bag is
transferred to my hand, a pounding shakes the house as a bunch of men in black
outfits and large guns stream in through the front and back doors. Crumb
scrambles to grab his drugs from the coffee table while I fall to the ground in
a panic. I squeeze my eyes shut, scared that if I open them I might see someone
get shot.

Bang!

Pop!

I whimper as a gun go
off so close that my ears begin a deafening ring. Gathering all the bravery in
me, I open my eyes, expecting to see a bloodied mess. One of the cops points a
rifle at my head and begins yelling something incoherent. I’ve never had a gun
pointed at me, but the fear is enough to almost make me piss my pants. I can’t
understand him through the ringing in my ears and the look on his face tells me
he’s livid.

“I don’t live here!” I
scream repeatedly. “I don’t live here!”

 I try to get up, but
first scramble for my keys which have been knocked from my hand somewhere in
the scuffle. The cop answers by swinging the gun across my temple, and a flash
of light explodes across my vision before I hit the ground. It isn’t long
before the pain kicks in, radiating throughout my forehead.

“Don’t fucking touch
her! She’s a kid!” Strong arms, which I immediately recognize as Mischa’s, wrap
around my waist and pull me from the ground.

“Let me see, baby.” He
forces me to look at him as he examines my throbbing head. Blood trickles down
into my eye, which he wipes away with the sleeve of his shirt. I don’t move,
scared it will make the pain worse. The cops had to raid the Cromwell house
while I was there. If I had left a few minutes earlier, this wouldn’t have
happened.

“I’m so sorry, Cody. My
stupid, messed up family. I’m so sorry.” His green eyes are full of remorse as
he turns back to the cop and starts yelling. I can faintly hear the cop
fighting back with him, but my head hurts too much to stand. I reach out to tug
on Mischa’s pant leg, but he ignores me. Leaning against the wall, I watch as
the scene unfolds. Past the cops, past the living room, all I see is the blood
soaked kitchen floor.