Ivy

(x) early july

          AS OF LATE, Aaron felt like he'd fallen between the cracks, into a bottomless pit. A black hole. From the outside, it was difficult to discern as such. But the signs were there if you knew what you were looking for.

2:11pm on a Wednesday. School had ended last week, but he couldn't tell the difference. The people he called his friends still swarmed him, like flies to sun-ripened roadkill; it was like he'd never left. It seemed as though the less attention he paid to them, the more they came crawling. He had to play the game, especially now, stepping onto the driveway to his house under a searing white sun to find one of them - Kit West, ringleader - on his doorstep.

What was known but went unnoticed at Hawthorne Academy was that every student had something in common: money. It didn't matter if you were smart or good-hearted or dirt - everyone had it, thus, no one desired it. In more ways than one, it was a shame, because sometimes, having means led to desiring other things. Worse things. But what could impressionable young men who had everything possibly want?

Aaron's innocence, in Kit West and the others' case.

Kit preyed on him with a calculating care and precision that was unsettling, and his tainted reputation at school could only so much money fix. By contrast, Aaron's repute was not so scratched, and so the role of delivery boy was forced upon him. The other boys had two strikes; Aaron had only one, leaving him with less to lose.

I'm messed up because of them. Cut me some slack, Kit had said in the dimness of the boys' locker room five weeks ago. It'd be temporary; just to destress, you know?

Would it? Aaron had asked. He'd stayed silent until then. Be temporary? (And what about the others, what's their excuse? he'd wanted to add.)

I can handle myself, okay? This isn't going to become some... problem. He looked up at his friend from where he sat, and Aaron saw it all in that split second, written on Kit's face  - the helplessness for his suicidal, anxiety-crippled brother, the rage at his alcoholic mother, the reassurance that Aaron would always have his back. Besides, if it does, I know you'd stop me before it got any worse.

He had already lost Ivy. He hadn't heard from her in months, so he figured she'd forgotten about him, or was scared off after seeing how he'd changed. He didn't blame her.

If he didn't oblige to this, he feared he would kill the only person left that mattered to him, no matter how wrong it was.

Do this for me, at least until the end of summer. Please.

Presently, Aaron told him to wait outside. He fetched the enclosed pouch of white powder from under the loose floorboard in his bedroom.

"You know this means a lot," Kit said, taking it and offering a grateful smile, as if that were enough to take away the hurt. Aaron couldn't bear to look at him. He remained half hidden behind his front door.

"You should go."

The other boy's smile wavered. He smoothed himself back out in a feigned lighthearted sigh that looked like nothing, yet was nothing short of tragic if you were Aaron Montclair. "Thanks, bud. See you."

Aaron was killing him either way.

7:27pm later that day. No amount of music could drown out the shouted, hateful words leaving his parents' mouths from downstairs. Alistair threatening to leave. Marie daring him to. Glass smashing.

To think Hawthorne was the only hell. No one warned him there could be more than one.

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