Chapter 16: Roxie
The air in Fran’s hallway was thick with the scent of overpriced candles and the lingering humidity of a hundred teenagers dancing, but as I stepped onto the back porch, the October chill hit me like a splash of cold water. I needed to breathe. I needed the music to be a muffled throb through the sliding glass doors instead of a hammer against my skull.
"Following me now, Rick? I thought we established that was stalking," I said without turning around. I knew it was him. I could practically feel that restless, jagged energy of his radiating off the bricks behind me.
"Stalking is a bit strong. I prefer 'tactical repositioning,'" Ricky replied. I heard the soft clunk of his boots as he stepped out into the night, leaning against the wooden railing a few feet away from me.
I finally turned, leaning back against the siding of the house and crossing my arms. The moonlight caught the silver in my angel wings, making them shimmer. "I saw you lurking by the kitchen earlier. You looked like you were trying to telepathically set Chad’s hair on fire."
Ricky snorted, looking out at the dark trees bordering Fran’s yard. "His name is Chad?"
"Yeah."
"Of course it is. And I wasn't lurking."
"Well, what were you doing?"
"I was just marveling at how someone can talk for twenty minutes without using a single multi-syllable word. It’s a talent, really."
"He’s the varsity quarterback, Ricky. He doesn't need syllables. He has a letterman jacket and a scholarship," I retorted, though even as I said it, I felt the hollowness of the defense.
"And you’re Roxie George," he said, finally looking at me. The smudged eyeliner made his brown eyes look darker, more intense, stripped of the goofy "new kid" act. "You’re way too smart to be entertained by a guy whose greatest life achievement is a touchdown in junior varsity."
"Wow, a compliment wrapped in an insult. How very... you," I said, my heart doing that annoying fluttery thing again. I stepped closer, my boots clicking on the porch wood. "Maybe I like simple. Simple is easy. Simple doesn't drive a white van or lie about having a band called Rising Moon."
Ricky winced, but he didn't back down. "Hey, the band is real now. You heard us. We killed it tonight. Even you can’t deny that, despite your desperate need to be the Ice Queen."
"You were... alright," I lied, the word feeling ridiculous even as it left my lips.
"Alright?" Ricky stepped toward me, closing the gap until I could smell the faint scent of clove and the sweat from his performance. "People were literally screaming, Roxie. I saw you watching. You weren't bored. You were into it."
"Into it? Into what? A wannabe with a bruised toe?"
"No," he said, his voice dropping to a low, rough vibration that sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold. "You are terrified that you actually like the freak from the 'loser town.'"
"Terrified?" I gawked.
"Terrified that the 'Miss Perfect' act is cracking and I'm the one seeing what's underneath."
"You don't know anything about what's underneath," I hissed, my defensive walls slamming up. "You think because you played a few songs and moved into a house with what I'm guessing a purple room that you have me figured out? You’re just another disruption, Ricky. A messy, loud, eyeliner-wearing disruption."
"Then why are you still standing here?" he challenged, his eyes locked onto mine. "The door is right there."
"I know."
"Chad is probably in the kitchen right now wondering where his 'angel' went. Go back inside."
"I hate you," I whispered, the words losing their sting as I felt the magnetic pull between us reach a breaking point.
"I hate you more," he countered, but he was looking at my lips.
"Good."
"Great."
"You are a loser."
"I disagree."
"Well, I still hate you." I shot at him.
"I hate you too." He responded.
"We already said that."
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
"It's still true."
I didn't think. I didn't plan. I just reached out, grabbing the lapels of his denim vest, and pulled him down.
When my lips met his, it wasn't like the polite, rehearsed kisses I’d shared with guys like Chad. It was electric and messy and tasted like rebellion. It was the sound of a guitar string snapping under too much tension. For a moment, he frozen in pure shock, his breath hitching in his throat—and then he crashed back against me.
Ricky’s hands found my waist, his fingers digging into the fabric of my costume as he kissed me back with an intensity that made the rest of the world go quiet. It was everything I had been trying to suppress for two months—the anger, the confusion, the secret envy of his freedom, the terrifying attraction to his chaos. It was a collision of two people who were supposed to be opposites, finding a common language in the dark.
The heat of it was overwhelming, a wildfire that threatened to consume the carefully constructed identity I’d spent years building. And that was the problem.
The second the thought crossed my mind—what am I doing?—the panic set in.
I pulled away abruptly, my chest heaving, my lips tingling and cold in the night air. Ricky looked dazed, his hair even messier than before, his dark eyes wide and searching mine for an explanation. He reached out a hand, his fingers grazing the air where my arm had been.
"Roxie?" he breathed, his voice sounding wrecked.
I didn't answer. I couldn't. I straightened my wings, smoothing the white feathers with trembling hands. I forced my expression back into that familiar, porcelain mask of indifference, though I knew it was cracked beyond repair.
"What was that?" Ricky asked in a soft whisper.
"That was for the toe," I said, my voice shaking only slightly. "We're even now, Henderson."
Before he could say another word, before he could see the tears of frustration welling in my eyes or the way my hands were shaking, I spun on my heel and ducked back through the sliding glass doors. I plunged into the crowd, the heat, and the noise, leaving him alone in the cold October moonlight.
I didn't look back. I couldn't afford to. Because I knew if I did, I’d never be able to walk away again.