Love & Other Curses, 1985 | bxb | ONC 2024

CHAPTER 1 - The Pretty Boy

Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.

~ Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.

Two months later...

Adam tipped the metallic urn upside down and watched his mother's ashes fly away in a stiff breeze, a fitting tribute, considering she had never been one to stick around. Saying goodbye was a formality; they had said so a thousand times before, always under pretenses and broken promises—but not this time.

He stood a little taller after dropping the empty urn into the choppy water, making Sofia feel even shorter as she watched the boy all in black jump from rock to rock in quick, powerful strides, metal chains clinking on his boots until he reached the parking lot above the reservoir.

"What happened to the urn?" his social worker asked, struggling to keep her curly brown hair and emotions out of her face. The middle-aged woman marveled at how the boy she had taken on as a toddler now towered over her, with nothing to his name but the clothes on his back and a book she wished she'd never give him.

Adam shrugged. "I didn't need it anymore."

He opened the passenger door of the compact Ford Fiesta and folded himself into the front seat without another word, all six feet four inches of him. He was as tall as the car was long. Despite the cramped quarters, a chill that had nothing to do with the late summer storm stiffened his spine. Adam looked down at his arms but refused to touch them, to feel the narrow, raised ridges of skin hidden under his black arm sleeves—scars that begged for company. Somewhere in the growing abyss darkening his mind, the Monster groaned.

Sofia opened the door and sat with a heavy heart. Her lost boy looked so handsome and strong and burdened by a shitty life. "Adam?"

She nudged him when he didn't respond.

"Huh?"

"Do you want to talk?"

"No."

Seventeen years old, a graduate of fourteen foster homes, and utterly alone in the world, he had nothing to discuss. He had accepted his fate: no matter how deeply he loved, he was cursed never to be loved or to destroy those who tried. Turning away from Sofia, he stared out the window.

That's when he noticed two teenage girls looking for trouble staring back. The brunette in white and black tank tops and skin-tight purple leggings half smiled before puckering her lips in unabashed shame as she crossed her shapely legs.

Madonna's latest hit, Like a Virgin, played in Adam's head as the eager girls acted out a familiar scene. The blonde hid behind her friend, poking out her head for a wistful glance at the bodacious bad boy.

"Can we go?" Adam asked.

He had adopted a gothic look to keep people away without realizing the brooding persona enhanced his natural beauty. Beauty that couldn't be hidden as if cursed by Adonis himself. His dark moods seemed purposed to cast shadows across his face to accentuate the sharp lines of his jaw and cheekbones, the perfect canvas for a heavy touch of black eyeliner and an intense sphere of blue eyeshadow. The edgy combination, unwittingly, made his eyes sparkle like sapphires. Adam didn't care about being beautiful.

He just was.

Long before the boy grew into his tall and chiseled frame, Adam had been viewed as an object of envy or lust, sometimes both. Sex was easy. He never had to go looking for a good fuck. If he kept his muscular arms covered, they came to him.

Adam found comfort in the rhythmic sound of rain pelting the windshield and closed his eyes for the long ride while Sofia stewed over how to tell him what she'd done. Besides a few big cities dotting the map, Massachusetts comprised over three hundred towns Adam had never seen. Most suburbs hid under the canopy of a never-ending forest, including Northborough, a sleepy community neither knew existed a day ago.