Chapter Text
April 1993 - Las Vegas, Nevada
Judging by how the cooling night air brushed against his raw skin and the position of the moon in the sky, Spencer estimated it was around ten o’clock at night. The floodlights around the football field had turned off automatically about two hours ago, and the cicada's song from the surrounding bushes was reaching its crescendo as he shivered alone in the dark.
He’d been tied to the football post for seven hours. His tears had run out around the 4-hour mark, and with his hands restrained by ropes behind him, he’d had no choice but to let them dry on his cheeks, leaving the skin beneath tight with every minor movement of his face. The night was clear, and if he’d been wearing his glasses he could have tracked the constellations as they shined above him, but he hadn’t even been granted that mercy, his glasses lying useless in the grass a few feet away where Bobby Moore had thrown them.
No one had come looking for him.
No one had saved him.
A sudden gust blew across the field, scattering litter over the grass and making his whole body shiver. How could he have been so stupid? Girls like Alexa Lisbon didn’t want to meet up with boys like him. Sure, he was smart, but that hardly cancelled out the fact he was 12 years old. He still hadn’t grown into his gangly limbs or grown a patch of hair on his face, his voice hadn’t dropped and his glasses took up half his face. And now, he would forever be known as the stupid kid who spent the whole night naked and alone on the football field.
He gave another experimental tug at his binds, hissing as the coarse rope rubbed his already tender and broken skin. It was no use. His mom had to be half out of her mind by now wondering where he was. He let out a small whimper at the thought, at the truly pathetic state of himself. There was no way this could possibly get any worse-
The metal gate by the bleachers clanged shut and Spencer froze. He’d been there for hours, and despite the wind, the gat hadn’t made a sound. That could only mean one thing…someone else was there.
With the dark and his naturally poor vision, he couldn’t see who it was — maybe a groundsman come to pick up the litter, or maybe his mom had called the police to find him. He squinted in the dark to try and discern anything about the stranger, but he couldn’t see any more than a shadow as it moved at the edge of the field, and even then it was only from the guiding orange glow of what had to be a cigarette. His stomach sunk at the thought that it might not be an adult at all, but one of Bobby’s friends coming back to check if he’d managed to get away. Any thought of crying out died in his throat at the possibility, so he simply stood helpless and watched as whoever it was flicked their cigarette onto the grass. If it was a student, he couldn’t imagine it was a popular one. The football field was revered; it was holy ground to be tended to and protected, ready for the pounding feet of kings. It wasn't somewhere you tossed away your trash.
There was a single light still on, flickering slightly above the door to the field house, and as the shadow drew closer to it, he could make out more of their stature, short, but bulky, with thin legs and —
Spencer’s chest tightened. It definitely wasn’t an adult. The stranger was a girl, her pale hair fluttering in the gentle breeze, and as she leaned against the wall of the fieldhouse he realised that she was looking directly at him. He held his breath, praying to anyone who might be listening that, impossible as it was, the girl hadn’t spotted him, that she’d just write it off as a trick of the light. But tonight really wasn’t his night.
The girl pushed off the wall and started towards him. He clenched his eyes shut; maybe if he didn’t see her approach, she would just leave him be. But as her heavy footfalls drew closer, he found himself squirming against his bonds, trying to free himself in time to get away, to run before she found him there as helpless and exposed as a newborn.
“Holy shit,” the girl breathed, and whatever warmth he had left seeped out the soles of his feet. He knew that voice—everyone in their senior class did. Marissa Myers, the girl who traded in secrets and smoke, who walked the halls of the high school as untouchable as a hurricane, who saw through even the sweetest of smiles to the dirt underneath. She was the most ruthless and unliked girl in their year, an outsider in all the ways she could be, always skulking around fire escapes or sitting as far off on the school grounds as she could without it being considered truancy. Spencer had never spoken to her before, but he’d heard the rumours, had seen the way she could reduce a cheerleader to tears with only a few quick words. Of all the people who could have found him, why did it have to be her?
Something heavy thumped to the floor and then there was a rustle of fabric that made his blood roar in his ears. She’s getting a camera , he thought. She’s going to take pictures and this will haunt me for the rest of my life.
He kept his eyes closed and waited for the click of the shutter, but it never came. Instead, Spencer jumped as something soft, but warm was placed around his shoulders. His eyes flew open and in the dark, he could just about make out the shape of Marissa standing before him, hands raised in faux surrender as if she were looking at a wounded animal lying in a ditch.
“Woah, cool it. I’m not gonna hurt you,” she said, not unkindly. His knees were trembling now, almost knocking against one another as Marissa chanced a step closer. “It's Spencer, right? I’m just going to untie, that's it.”
He didn’t respond, could barely breathe as she moved around him, dropping to her knees in the dirt and fumbling for his bound hands. When she finally found the ropes, she gave an experimental tug and he hissed as they rubbed against his tender skin, tears stinging his eyes.
“I’m gonna have to cut it,” she said. He wondered just how she planned to do that, but a soft click cut the night, and then vibrations shivered up his arms as she began sawing through the rope with what he assumed was a switchblade of some kind. He hadn’t realised how tight he’d been pulling against the restraints until they finally gave and he stumbled forward a step, recovering quickly enough to clutch the clothing she’d draped over him in a futile attempt to protect his modesty. Something in the back of his mind told him to run; he was young, but he was already taller than Marissa was, he could probably make it to the gate before she even realised he was leaving. But he didn’t. Instead, he readjusted what he realised was a large shirt better suited for a grown man than a teenage girl around his shoulders, holding it tightly closed as Marissa stood again.
“Come on,” she said, lifting her bag back onto her shoulder and walking off towards the field house.
Spencer blinked after her, not entirely sure what was happening. The rational part of his brain told him that this was Marissa Myers , the resident outlaw at their school, hated by students and teachers alike. But the other part of his brain, the more dangerous and curious side decided to follow. If she wanted to embarrass or hurt him, she could have. But she didn't, she'd cut him lose and iven him something to cover himself, so instead, he scrambled in the grass for his glasses, shoving them back onto his face before half running to catch up with her.
“Where are we going?” he asked, throat raw and hoarse from hours without a drop of water.
“Getting you some clothes,” she said without looking at him, reaching for the handle of the field house door and giving it a quick jiggle. When it didn’t give, she blew out an inconvenienced breath and dropped to a knee, reaching into her hair and removing the two slides that held some of the washed-out pink strands from her face. She slid both into the lock and turned to press her ear against the door.
“What are—”
“Shh. I need to hear.”
Spencer shuffled his bare feet in the grass as she fiddled with the lock. The light above them flickered weakly, casting shadows across the sharp angles of Marissa’s pale face. Or perhaps that was just the dark makeup she had smudged across her eyes, making them look sunken and near skeletal. Honestly, she looked terrifying, more so than any cheerleader or popular girl in their class. And yet, she was the one who had helped him, who had stopped him from being discovered in the early hours of the morning by some confused groundsman. Marissa Myers had saved him. What he didn’t understand was why .
Something clicked and when Marissa twisted the handle again, it gave, the door swung inwards on its creaky hinges. She didn’t look to see if he was following before sauntering into the building, leaving him gaping after her. The lights inside gave a couple of weak flickers before coming alive, and when he stepped in after her, he had to blink a couple of times to adjust to the sudden brightness.
Spencer made a point of not taking part in gym class if he could help it—He'd been forging doctor's notes for weeks and so far his other grades were impeccable enough that the principal hadn't called him up on it—so he’d never actually seen the inside of this particular locker room, but it looked mostly how he’d expected. Lockers lined two of the cracked-tile walls, each one covered in the same flaking red paint and allocated with the corresponding number of each player’s jersey. Two wooden benches were set in the middle of the floor next to a drain which was a disgusting shade of brown that seemed to seep across the surrounding tiles like an infection. They’d likely been white once, but now resembled decaying teeth, yellow in some places, black in others.
Marissa was making her way along the line of lockers, rattling the paddocks on them to see if any were open. When she found one, she didn’t hesitate to dig around inside. “You can put these on,” she said, holding out a small bundle of clothes towards him with a pair of sneakers sitting on top. He took them without argument. “And this is for your skin.” She tucked a half-empty bottle of aloe vera into one of the sneakers. “Pasty thing like you must crisp like a potato.”
Spencer hung his head to hide the flush rising up his neck as he shuffled towards the adjoining shower room. He tried not to gag at the state of it; thin curling hairs stuck to the walls and even a discarded condom lying in the drain. He didn't look long enough to see if it had been used. Giving it as wide a berth as he could, he headed for the furthest corner from the doorway and set the clothes on the bench. It wasn’t that he thought Marissa would be watching him dress, but the thought of her so nearby while he stripped down made his stomach churn. He hung her shirt which he now saw was a blue and brown plaid and pulled on the clothes. The shorts were far too big on him, hanging awkwardly on his narrow hips even with the drawstrings pulled as tight as they’d go. The t-shirt was better, clearly meant for a slimmer player, but it still hung too far past his waist to look normal. He tried tucking it in to see if it would make him look less pathetic, but the bunched fabric around his waist made it look like he was wearing a diaper, so he decided against it. The sneakers, miraculously, did fit, and for the first time, Spencer believed his mother’s assurance that one day the rest of his body would catch up to his feet. He slipped the bottle of aloe vera into the shorts pocket, not wanting to spend any more time in the field house than he had to, before grabbing Marissa’s shirt and stepping back out into the main room.
Marissa was sitting up on one of the sinks when he came out, one fishnet-clad leg bent so she could rest her boot on the adjacent sink. She didn’t look up, so he took the moment to actually look at her. She wasn’t any taller than any of the other girls, but she was definitely skinnier, and he wondered just what it was that made everyone so afraid of her. She’d tucked her shirt into the waistband of her ratty jeans and he eyed the flaking symbol on the front, a wobbly yellow smiley face with crosses for eyes. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen it before, and was going to ask, but then Marissa shifted slightly, her sharp collarbone jutting out from the loose neckline making him pause. It wasn't the fact that the mere sight of a girl's collarbone was enough to make him pause, but the skin stretched across it was the sickly yellow of an old bruise and seemed to spread from partway up her neck down past where her shirt covered it. He was trying to follow the line and shape of it to determine what on earth could have caused it when he realised her shirt was so worn it was almost seethrough. His face flushed at the briefest glimpse of black lace and his eyes darted upwards only to find Marissa watching him in the reflection of the mirror.
“Little young to be perving, arent you?” she asked, one thin eyebrow raised.
“No-what-no! I was-I just-”
“I’m fucking with you,” she said waving him off with a ringed hand. He noticed then there were bruises along her arm too, as well as tiny nicks and cuts like she’d just crawled out of a bramble bush. “You want one?”
Spencer blinked. He’d been so focused on the tapestry of her skin that he hadn’t noticed she was holding out a pack of cigarettes towards him, her own one already stuck between her lips.
He swallowed. “According to statistics, five million Americans under the age of 18 will die due to tobacco-related illnesses.”
“I desire the things that will destroy me in the end,” she replied and Spencer’s mind spun like a Rolodex.
“Sylvia Plath,” he said after a second.
“You know your literature.” She smiled just enough to show teeth and he was unnervingly reminded of a cat showing its fangs as it faced down a mouse. “Future reference, you can just say no.”
“Right—sorry. No. No thank you.”
Marissa shrugged as if it made no difference to her and slipped the packet back into her shorts pocket and flicked open her lighter, taking two long inhales before she said, “Okay, how about this one? ‘To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.’”
“Oscar Wilde,” he blurted without missing a beat.
Marissa grinned. “Colour me impressed. He’s one of my favourites. Now,” she said, swinging her leg down and hopping off the sink. “Do you want to tell me who did it?”
Spencer swallowed. He was hoping she wouldn’t bring it up, but then he supposed it wasn’t every day you found a naked pre-teen tied to a football post. Of course, she was curious. Still, he shook his head.
“Well then, looks like we have nothing left to talk about,” she said, retrieving her canvas bag from where she’d dumped it on the floor. It was covered in an array of badges and patches like the one on her shirt and he didn’t recognise a single one. He looked back to her face and found her waiting with a hand extended towards him. For a heart-stopping moment, he thought she meant for him to take it, but then he realised he was wringing her shirt in his hands and she was just asking for it back. He handed it to her without a word, trying and failing not to stare at her arms. Her skin was so pale every flaw stood out, from the blue branches of her veins down to the white lines of old scars. “See you around, Kid,” she said with a cloud of smoke and turned for the door.
Without the shirt, Spencer went to wring his wrist, wincing as his fingertips brushed the ragged skin there. Marissa had just reached for the handle when he suddenly said, “Harper Hillman found me in the library.”
Her face was strangely smug as she turned back to him like she was watching him just starting a book that she already knew the ending to. She walked towards and then past him, dumping her bag down on the bench and taking a seat before gesturing for him to continue.
“I—I followed her to the back of the field house and—”
“Found the football team waiting,” she said with a sigh of grey. “Yeah, sorry to say you’re not the first to fall for that one. Admittedly they never take it this far but…” she trailed off, brows furrowing. “Hey, you’re a smart kid. How’d she get you to follow her in the first place?”
Spencer was certainly his already flushed face rose another couple of degrees and tried not to meet Marissa’s calculating gaze. He wished he hadn’t said anything, had just let her step out into the night and leave him to make his way home. Still, she had saved him. He supposed the least he could do was tell her what from. “She—Harper, she said Alexa wanted…”
“Alexa Lisbon?” Marissa gaped. “Of all the girls in school—hell, all the girls in Nevada—you like Alexa Lisbon?”
“She’s the prettiest girl in school,” he shrugged, but the words felt rehearsed. He wasn’t even sure if he found Alexa pretty, wasn’t even sure what it meant for a girl to be pretty beyond the scientific classifications of beauty and what the poets in his mother’s books told him, and he imagined beauty standards had changed somewhat since the 15th century anyway.
Marissa snorted derisively and his stomach sank. Of course, she’d find it hilarious, everyone on the football and cheerleading team had. "God, you could do so much better,” she said and this time it was his turn to gape.
“Me?”
She chuckled, patting the spot on the bench beside her. “Sure, Alexa’s pretty, but that only gets you so far, Kid.” Curiosity getting the better of him as it often did, Spencer sat, trying to leave enough space between them that he wasn’t breathing in any of her smoke. The air in the field house was stagnant, though, and he wrinkled his nose as he caught a whiff of the burning tobacco anyway. “Alexa Lisbon is a spoilt bimbo who spends her free time sneaking around with the guy who cleans her pool.”
His brow furrowed. “Sneaking around?”
“Yeah, like—shit, I forgot. You’re what, eleven?”
“Twelve.”
“My mistake,” she scoffed, but there was no real bite in it. “Well, they’re—how do I put this delicately—bumping uglies? Making the beast with two backs?” She sighed at his vacant expression. “They’re having sex, Kid.”
His eyes widened and all he managed was a quiet little, “Oh,” before the realisation of it really sunk in and he felt like a stupid kid all over again. Why would a girl like Alexa, choose scrawny little him when she could be with a boy who spent all day tanning in the sun and flexing his labour-toned muscles? It made a little too much sense for his comfort. Still, there was one thing Marissa had said that didn't quite fit in his mind, so he asked, “How does that make her a bimbo?”
Marissa shrugged. “It doesn’t. Paying someone to write her potentially award-winning essay, however.” She let the words hang in the air between them, a small smirk tugging her lips as she watched Spencer put the pieces together. “You can imagine how bad it would look if someone found out about that.” She flicked her finished cigarette towards the ground and he watched as it sparked with each bounce before landing with a quiet hiss in the drain.
Not just any senior was given the opportunity to submit an application for the State Essay Competition. It was intended to highlight the best of the best students each school had to offer, and the only reason Spencer had been omitted from that list (despite his English teacher's assurance he was capable) was his age. Winning that competition not only looked good on college transcripts, but it could be the final tipping point into an Ivy League school. He’d read Alexa’s essay (twice) in the school paper when they announced it had been accepted and he’d been astounded by her prose, her meticulous use of metaphor and how she’d painted the perfect picture of a small-town girl with big world dreams. He was almost certain she would win, or at the very least catch the eyes of admissions offices across the country. To insinuate that someone else had written it, and worse—that she’d paid them to do so. A rumour like that could…
Spencer’s brow furrowed and he looked up at Marissa’s pale face. “How do you know that?”
“I make it my business to know things,” she said coyly, and then, far softer she added, “Look, Kid, what they did to you, it sucks. But that’s high school. Sometimes the only way people can feel good about themselves is by making others feel shitty.” Something in her voice gave him pause, and he found himself watching her a little closer as she focused her attention on her bitten nails. She didn’t strike him as a girl who gave up parts of herself easily, and he had a feeling she wouldn’t take well to being pressed by a twelve-year-old boy in someone else's stolen clothes, so it surprised him when she uttered, “People likes us are always going to be the butt of their jokes.”
“People like us?”
“People who think differently, who don’t share their shallow priorities.” She chuckled dryly. “Hell, you’re the smartest kid in the school and your balls haven’t even dropped. You get all the teacher’s attention because you’re brilliant. Fact is, you’re making the other kids look bad and they don’t like it.”
His stomach felt leaden, ready to drop right out of his borrowed shoes as he let her words sink in. All of this torment, embarrassment and ridicule, it was all just because he was smart? He couldn’t think of a more unsubstantial reason for targeting someone the way they had taken to him.
“I can’t help it,” he said softly, toying with the long ends of the short's drawstrings, tying and untying them to give his hands something to do.
“Never said you could. Or that you should, for that matter.”
That was a small comfort, he supposed, to know she didn’t think any less of him for being smart, or for being dumb enough to fall for Harper’s trick in the first place. Her words came back to him then and he looked back at her again. “How are you different?” He knew before he asked that he shouldn't have, but sometimes his mouth moved faster than his mind.
Marissa ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it back from her face. Some of the smaller strands near her temples had frizzed and bounced back into place and it occurred to him that maybe her natural hair was more than just blonde but curly and fluffy as a cloud. He wondered for a moment why she would feel the need to straighten it, but found himself already knowing the answer. She sighed and said, “Because one day they decided I was. You know, I used to be a lot like you, always looking over my shoulder, terrified I’d get shoved into a locker or beaten up at recess. Shit was exhausting.” Of everything she’d said, this was what he found the hardest to believe. In his brief time in high school, he hadn’t seen anyone pick on Marissa, in fact, other students seemed to actively avoid her. The worst she seemed to get was the odd glare or whisper behind hands as she passed in the hall.
“How did you get them to stop?”
“I learned a very useful lesson, and they don’t teach it in any classrooms.”
“What lesson?”
“You don’t get upset,” she said, and he felt his breath catch at the viscous glint in her eyes. “You get even.”
Even? Nothing about this was even, Spencer wasn’t even the same age as his bullies. Sure, he had a superior intellect, but what good were book smarts when it came to understanding the rifts and social economics of a public high school?
“You good?” she asked catching his queasy expression, and even though there was no malice to her words, he couldn’t help but hear the edge beneath them, a blade she kept close should she ever need it.
Spencer shook his head. “I—I can’t do that. I can’t blackmail people.”
“Who said anything about blackmail?”
Were all girls this cryptic? So good at lying and putting up a facade? Did everyone in the world harbour so many secrets? It was making his head spin. “Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Use your imagination, Kid. Make yourself someone they don’t want to mess with. Make yourself untouchable.”
“I don’t want any trouble.” He just wanted to learn. It was all he’d ever wanted to do. The rest was all confetti in his mind.
Marissa just shrugged. “Then you’re always going to be disappointed.”
“‘If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.'” The quote had slipped from his mouth as easily as a breath, and the smile it drew from Marissa made his chest constrict like she’d reached right through his ribcage and grabbed a hold of his heart.
“You really do know your shit,” she said, shaking her head. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her cigarettes once more, pulling one out and sticking it behind her ear. She didn’t offer one to him this time, and he was grateful. “Well, I’ve got places to be,” she said, standing and stretching like a cat. “You need walking home or something?”
Spencer shook his head and stood as well. Even with the thick sole of her boots giving her a little lift, he was almost the same height as her, six-year age difference be damned. “I’ll be okay.”
“You sure? It’s—” she turned to the clock on the wall, “gone eleven. Won’t your parents be worried?”
His stomach dropped. Of course, his mother would be worried, horrified even, that he’d been gone for so long without a word. But he didn’t tell Marissa that. Instead, he found himself saying, “It’s just my mom,” and to Marissa’s answering raised eyebrow he added, “my dad left.”
“Know the feeling,” she nodded, her mouth working slightly but she didn’t elaborate. She didn’t need to. Spencer knew the look on her face, knew it like he knew his own reflection. Confusion. Sadness. Anger. The look of a child who couldn’t understand why they weren’t enough. He opened his mouth to say–what, exactly? That he understood? What good was that? There was nothing he could offer this girl who had been forged of far stronger stuff than he was, who had been his saviour during the worse night of his life. In the end, she saved him the hassle. “Are you going to be okay?” she asked.
And because she really sounded like she meant it when she asked, he made a point to mean it when he replied, “I think so.”
She smiled at him, and this time there was no edge to it, no darkness lurking beneath the gesture. It was just a girl smiling at a boy she’d helped. His face warmed and he blamed it on the amount of second-hand smoke he’d no doubt inhaled while he was with her in such a poorly ventilated room. He knew from reading that when exposed to nicotine, an individual would experience a “kick” as the chemical stimulated the adrenal glands and released adrenaline. He also knew that the adrenaline would then stimulate the body and release glucose as well as increase heart rate, breathing activity and blood pressure. He also knew the statistics on how much nicotine was derived from inhaling second-hand smoke, but he was willing to overlook those if it gave him a more logical excuse for his clammy palms and tight chest. It was just a chemical reaction, nothing more. It definitely wasn’t because of the way Marissa Myers looked when she smiled.
“I should go,” he said, gesturing to the door. She nodded and spread her arms as if stewarding him towards the emergency exit of an aeroplane. That he made it to the door without tripping over his own feet was a miracle.
He’d just grabbed the handle when Marissa called after out, “Hey, Kid. Which is Bobby’s jersey number, again?” There was a curious tilt to her head as she surveyed the wall of lockers before her.
“Seventeen,” he replied on instinct. He could recite the entire team by position and number if he wanted. “Why?”
“No reason,” she said, but her smirk betrayed her. Somehow he didn’t think he’d find it any more comforting if he knew what she was up to, so was content for once with his blissful ignorance. “You should go. Don’t want your mom to worry.” She didn’t look to see if he followed her advice, just headed for the locker marked seventeen and tried the padlock. When it didn’t give, she began rummaging in her pockets, no doubt for the hair grips she’d used on the door earlier, by which point Spencer decided it was best to make himself scarce.
He spent the entirety of the walk home trying not to think about Marissa; what she’d said, what she’d suggested, the bruises on her arms and the accusations on her lips. So instead, he thought about the allegedly plagiarised essay, the one bearing Alexa’s name if not her words. The topic of the essay had been identity, who the writer was and what they believed made them that way. It was a yellow brick road for the author to pave their way to a brighter future. He’d had no reason to suspect it wasn’t Alexa’s, a small-town girl who wanted to inspire the world with her ideas. But then he thought of how the essay had made him feel, the almost mournful acceptance that came from wanting that which you knew you could never achieve, the dreams she thought were unavailable to her, the idea that failure was simply an inevitability.
He thought he’d gotten a look into the mind of the prettiest girl in school, that he’d seen beneath her perfect mask, even for a moment. It was why he’d wanted to meet with her so badly, to speak to her and understand the way her mind worked. There was a quote at the end of the essay he’d recognised as well, a subtle nod to her inspirations.
Is there no way out of the mind?
Spencer stopped dead at the end of his drive. Sylvia Plath. The pieces tumbled into place and as he walked up to his front door, he couldn’t keep the smile from his face. There certainly was more to the author of that essay than met the eye, he only hoped he’d have the chance to see it.