“Poor thing,” one of the girls coos, looking over his shaved hair, the split lip he’d been sporting since yesterday morning when one of the guys had backhanded him for getting in his way.
The girls found him hiding out in the bathroom, sitting in the dry tub while they came in laughing, talking about something that had happened the previous weekend. He’d tried to slip out unnoticed, but they’d called for him to wait, started fussing over him.
“What happened to your face?” Asks the other girl, going so far as to brush his jaw with her cool fingers, little gold rings stacked on her forefinger. Their voices are soft, their faces so pretty and concerned. Concerned for him. His heart pitter-patters, an empty place in his chest filled with longing.
“I’m… it’s nothing.” He can think of nothing else to say. He shouldn’t upset them. “I’m fine.”
“We should borrow you sometime.” One of the girls says, glancing to her friend. “Take you to our house. See how you like it when a bunch of girls get to play with you instead.”
He can’t quite imagine how that would go, but the thought of a dozen girls like these two, with their soft hands and clear voices all giving him attention… he has to glance away, at the spot where the floor meets the tub. It needs to be washed… he needs to make sure everything’s up to standard, he’s been bad about that the past few days…
The girl isn’t deterred by his meekness, in fact it just makes her bolder. She takes his hand in her smaller one, drags a shell-pink nail across his palm. “It’d be fun, I promise.”
The door swings open, carrying the thudding bass of music and loud voices from downstairs. Z2 jumps at the sight of Cam, tugging his hand sharply away from the girl’s. Too late. Cam’s eyes drop and he sees it. His eyes meet Z2’s for the briefest moment, but it’s enough to make Z2 want to begin explaining himself, to beg even. Cam smiles at the girls.
“Party’s downstairs, ladies.”
The one who’d held his hand rolls her eyes. “We’ve been gone five seconds, Cameron.”
Cam shrugs good-naturedly. If Z2 didn’t know better, he’d seem goofy and charming.
“What for, to hang out with him?” He jabs a thumb in Z2’s direction.
“To piss, Cam.” Drawls the other girl. She leans over the sink close to the mirror, lifts one eyelid and pokes at a black speck of makeup that’s ended up in her eye. “And yes, in front of him.” She blinks rapidly, having removed the offending object. “Alright, ready? You coming, BoxBoy?”
Z2 pales, watches Cam’s smile falter.
“I’ll bring him.” Cam says nonchalantly, putting a hand on the back of Z2’s neck. “We’ll be right down.”
The girls file out. “Whatever.”
Z2 is alone now with Cameron, which he always tries so carefully to avoid. He dares a glance up just in time for Cam to spin him and slam him hard against the wall. Plaster cracks behind his shoulder blade, a fine mist sprinkling the ground. The wind is nearly knocked from him, and before he can recover Cam slaps him hard across the cheek with his open hand, catching his busted lip so it splits open again. Z2 yelps and squeezes his eyes shut, instinctively sucking his bottom lip and tasting copper.
“You know Amber, huh?” Cam hisses.
“N-no!” Z sputters. “Who?”
Cam mocks him in a high-pitched voice. “Who? Amber. The chick whose hand you were holding while you were oogling her tits, you little shit. Don’t play dumb with me.”
Z2 gapes at him, cringing at how close Cam has their faces pressed, the weight of his forearm across his chest like an iron bar, pinning him to the wall. “I wasn’t— I don’t—”
“Should I let you be the weird bait into getting Emily in on it it too? Huh? You want my sloppy seconds?”
He angles his elbow up, pressing his forearm against Z2’s throat. It pushes on his windpipe, making him choke and squirm. The familiar fear he associates with Cameron, with any of the guys blunt force.
Cam scoffs, pulling a face of disgust and letting him go. Z2’s legs are wobbly. He sinks down against the wall, pulling more particles of plaster with him.
“Yeah, right. You wouldn’t know what to do with one of em’, let alone two.”
Z2 holds his throat and coughs. Cam checks his hair in the mirror, tilts his head from side to side. “Come downstairs. Class needs its clown. Village is missing its idiot. You get it.”
As he walks by, he leans down so he can slap Z on the cheek three times in quick succession, a gesture that could be brotherly if it weren’t so rough, if Z weren’t on the cold linoleum holding his throat, his lip bleeding.
He’s just glad it wasn’t a swift kick instead.