Underneath

Underneath

Kealan Patrick Burke

Amazon Edition

Copyright 2010 by Kealan Patrick Burke

No unauthorized reproduction permitted

www.kealanpatrickburke.com

* * *

"This is a joke, right?"

Dean Lovell shifted uncomfortably, his eyes moving over the girl's shoulder to the stream of students chattering and laughing as they made their way to class. Summer played at the windows; golden light lay in oblongs across the tiled floor, illuminating a haze of dust from old books and the unpolished tops of lockers. Someone whooped, another cheered, and over by Dean's locker, Freddy Kelly watched and grinned.

Dean forced his gaze back to the girl standing impatiently before him. Her eyes were blue but dark, her jaw slender but firm.

"Well?" she said.

He cleared his throat, dragged his eyes to hers and felt his stomach quiver.

Her face…

Down the hall, an authoritative voice chastised someone for using bad language. Punishment was meted out; a groan was heard. At the opposite end of the hall, heated voices rose. A body clanged against a locker; someone cursed. Laughter weaved its way through the parade.

"It's not a joke. Why would you think it was?" he said at last, aware that he was fidgeting, paring slivers of skin from his fingernails, but unable to stop.

The girl—Stephanie—seemed amused. Dean met her eyes again, willed them to stay there, willed them not to wander down to where the skin was puckered and shiny, where her cheeks were folded, striated. Damaged.

"Since I've been here, only one other guy has ever asked me out. I accepted and showed up at the Burger Joint to a bunch of screaming, pointing jocks who called me all kinds of unimaginative, infantile names before giving me a soda and ketchup shower and pushing me out the door.
That's
why."

"Oh." Dean squirmed, wished like hell he'd stood up to Freddy and not been put in this position. Defiance would have meant another long year of taunts and physical injury, but even that had to be better than this, than standing here before the ugliest girl in the school asking her out on a date he didn't want.

Then
no
, he decided, remembering the limp he'd earned last summer courtesy of Freddy's hobnailed boots. A limp and a recurring ache in his toes whenever the weather changed.
Inflammatory arthritis
, his mother claimed, always quick to diagnose awful maladies for the slightest pains. But he was too young for arthritis, he'd argued. Too young for a lot of things, but that didn't stop them from happening.

The remembered sound of Freddy's laughter brought a sigh from him.

Ask the scarred bitch out. See how far you get and I'll quit hasslin' you. Scout's honor. All you gotta do is take her out, man. Maybe see if those scars go all the way down, huh?

"So? Stephanie said, with a glance at the clock above the lockers. "Who put you up to this? Is a bet, a dare, or what?"

Dean shook his head, despite being struck by an urgent, overwhelming need to tell her the truth and spare her the hurt later and himself the embarrassment now.

That's exactly what it is
, he imagined telling her,
a bet. Fuck-face Freddy over there bet that I wouldn't ask you out. If I chicken out, he wins; I lose, many times over. The last time I lost he kicked me so hard in the balls, I cried. How's that for a laugh? Fifteen years of age and I cried like a fucking baby. So yeah, it's a bet, and now that you know, you can judge me all you want, then come around the bleachers at lunchtime and watch me get my face rearranged. Ok?

But instead he said, "I just thought it might be fun…you know…go to the movies or something. A break from study…and…I hate to go to the movies alone."

She smiled then, but it was empty of humor.

"Sounds like a half-assed reason to ask out the scarred girl. You must be desperate."

"No," he said, almost defensively, "I just…" He finished the thought with a shrug and hoped it would be enough.

"Right."

"Look, forget it then, okay," he said, annoyed at himself, annoyed at Freddy, annoyed at her for making it so goddamn difficult to avoid getting the living shit kicked out of him. He started to walk away, already bracing himself for Freddy's vicious promises, and heard her scoff in disbelief behind him.

"Wait," she said then and he stopped abreast of Freddy, who was pretending to dig the dirt from under his nails with a toothpick. As Dean turned back, he saw Freddy's toothy grin widen and 'go for it, stud," he murmured.

Stephanie was frowning at him, her arms folded around her books, keeping them clutched to her chest.

"You're serious about this?"

He nodded.

She stared.

Someone slammed a locker door. The bell rang. No one hurried.

"All right then," she said. "I'm probably the biggest sucker in the world but…all right."

For the first time, he saw a glimmer of something new in her eyes and it made his stomach lurch. He recognized the look as one he saw in the mirror every morning.

Hope.

Hope that this time things would work out right. That he would make it through the day, the week, the month, without pissing blood or lying to his parents about why his eyes were swollen from crying.

Hope that there would be no hurt this time.

Way to go, Dean
, he thought,
nothing quite like fucking up someone else's life worse than your own, huh?

"Okay," he said, with a smile he hoped looked more genuine than it felt. "I'll call you. Maybe Friday? Your number's in the book?"

"Yes," she said. "But Friday's no good. I have work."

She worked the ticket booth at the Drive-In on Harwood Road. Dean saw her there almost every weekend. Saw her there and laughed with his friends about the irony of having a freak working in the one place where everyone would see her. Secretly he'd felt bad about mocking her, but after a while the jokes died down and so did the acidic regret.

Now, as she walked away, her strawberry blonde hair catching the sunlight, he realized how shapely her body was. Had he never seen her face, he might have thought she was a goddess, but the angry red and pink blotches on her cheek spoiled it, dragging one eye down and the corner of her mouth up. This defect was all that kept her from being one of those girls every guy wanted in the back seat of his car.

"I gotta admit, you got balls, shithead," Freddy said behind him and Dean turned, feeling that familiar loosening of his bowels he got whenever the jock was close. Such encounters invariably left him with some kind of injury, but this time he hoped Fred would stick to his word.

"Y-yeah," he said, with a sheepish grin.

Freddy barked a laugh. "Give her one for me, eh Bro? And be sure to let me know how that 'ol burnt skin of hers tastes."

As he passed, he mock-punched Dean and chuckled, and though Dean chuckled right along with it, he almost wet his pants in relief that the blow hadn't been a real one.

* * *

The sun was burning high and bright. There was no breeze, the leaves on the walnut trees like cupped green hands holding slivers of light to cast viridescent shadows on the lawns around the school. Dean sat with his best friend, Les, on the wall of the circular fountain, facing the steps to the main door of the sandstone building, from which a legion of flustered looking students poured. The fountain edge was warm, the water low and filled with detritus of nature and man. The bronze statue of the school's founder stared with verdigris eyes at the blue sky hung like a thin veil above the building.

"You've got to be kidding me," Les said, erupting into laughter. "Stephanie Watts? Aw Jesus…"

Dean frowned. His hopes that Les would understand had been dashed, and he quickly realized he should have known better; Les couldn't be serious at a funeral.

"Well, it's worth it, isn't it? I mean…if it keeps that asshole off my back?"

Les poked his glasses and shook his head. "You're such a moron, Dean."

"Why am I?"

"You honestly think he'd let you off the hook that easy? No way, dude. He just wants to humiliate you, wants to see you hook up with Scarface. Then, when you become the joke of the whole school, he'll look twice as good when he kicks your ass up to your shoulders. Trust me—I know these things."

Before Dean had moved from Phoenix to Harperville, Les had been Freddy's punching bag. The day Dean had showed up, he'd bumped into Freddy hard enough to make the guy drop his cigarette. Les's days of torment were over; Dean earned the label "Fresh Meat." It had been that simple; whatever part of the bullying mind controlled obsession, Dean's clumsiness had triggered it.

"What's worse," Les continued, "is that not only will this not keep that jerk off your back, but now you've put yourself in a position where you have to
date
Stephanie Watts, and for a girl who's probably desperate, God knows what she'll expect you to do for her."

"What do you mean?"

Les sighed. "Put yourself in her shoes. Imagine you'd never been with someone.
Ever
. And then some guy asks you out. Wouldn't you be eager to get as much as you could from him just in case you're never that lucky again?"

Dean grimaced, waved away a fly. "I never thought of it that way."

"I don't think you gave this much thought at all, hombre."

"So what do I do?"

"What can you do?"

"I could tell her I can't make it."

"She'll just pick another night."

"I could just
not
call her. That'd give her the hint, wouldn't it?"

"Maybe, but I get the feeling once you give a girl like that the slightest hint of interest, she'll dog you to follow through on it."

Dean ran a hand over his face. "Shit."

"Yeah." Les put a hand on his shoulder. "But who knows? Maybe all that pent-up lust'll mean she's a great lay."

"Christ, Les, lay off, will ya? If I go through with this, it's just gonna be a movie, nothing more."

"If you say so," Les said, and laughed.

* * *

"Who are you calling?" Dean's mother stood in the doorway, arms folded over her apron. A knowing smile creased her face, the smell of freshly baked pies wafting around her, making Dean's stomach growl. The clock in the hall ticked loudly, too slow to match the racing of Dean's heart.

"Well? Who is she?"

Dean groaned. In the few days since he'd asked Stephanie out it seemed the world was bracing itself for the punch line to one big joke, with him at the ass end of it. More than once, he'd approached the phone with the intention of calling the girl and telling her the truth and to hell with whatever she thought of his cruelty. But he'd chickened out. Trembling finger poised to dial, he would remember the flare of hope he'd seen in her eyes and hang up, angry at himself for not being made of tougher stuff, for being weak. It was that weakness, both mental and physical, that bound him to his obligations, no matter how misguided, and made him a constant target for the fists of life.