The Beautiful Ones

5- How Do You Feel About Castration?

Alice

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Tell me!”

“No.”

I groaned and sat down in Lance’s desk chair since he was sitting up in his bed. When I returned to Zoey’s house after school, we’d hung out in her room for a while before she talked me into finding out what Lance knows about Saturday night, although I was sure it wasn’t what Zoey thought it was.

“Why won’t you tell me?” I whined.

“Why do you want to know so bad?” Lance questioned.

“Because it could be something really embarrassing.” I told him with a plea in my voice. “Please, you were going to tell me yesterday, remember?”

“Yes, but I’ve changed my mind.” He shrugged. “And I leave in a little over a week, so once I’m gone, you’ll forget about this all. You’re completely overreacting.” He was planned to leave at the end of August to go overseas. Lance joined the Army a while back and he already went through the training and everything. I think he said that it was a short trip- or whatever they call army things- but he should be gone for six months, that’s what he told me. I think that joining the army was his way of getting away from his parents and all of the fame. He’s not like my brother who soaks up all of the fame and the desperately social-climbing sluts and he’s not like his older sister, Margaret, who clings to every bit of attention that’s directed towards her.  Lance is better than all of that and his head is screwed on tightly, but the press is suffocating, I know the feeling. That’s why, even though he’s never admitted to it, he joined the Army. It was really the only way away from all of this.

“Lance, please just tell me.” I begged weakly.

“What are you going to do if I don’t?” He smirked teasingly.

I glared at his beautiful face. “How do you feel about castration?”

His eyes widened a little, but then they were back to their normal size as if what I’d just said didn’t scare him, but I was hoping that it did at least a little bit. “Empty threats won’t get you anywhere.”

“Empty?” I laughed, standing to my feet and taking a few steps closer to Lance. “I don’t make empty threats.”

“Okay!” Lance defended, but he was still laughing at my attempt to scare him which didn’t seem to be working, much to my disappointment. “Just sit back down.”

“If I’m bugging you, then just tell me what happened Saturday night and I’ll leave. It’s that easy.” I told him simply with an innocent smile spread across my face.

“Well, you’re not bugging me, but I can’t tell you.” He mumbled with an apologetic shrug of his left muscular shoulder. Before he went into the Army training, Lance had a gifted body and shaggy brown hair but now, his body is kind of... well, perfection. Yeah, it’s basically perfection. And even though his hair is now cut into a buzz cut, it’s cute on him. I prefer his long hair, but the buzz cut works too.

“And why not?” I nearly screeched, ready to just give up and live my whole life without knowing what had happened. I didn’t even really want to know before Zoey put it in my head that I may have told him things that I really shouldn’t be telling people. That thought never even occurred to me before Zoey had mentioned it. Ugh, she sucks.

“Because if you’re overreacting right now, so I have no idea how you’ll react if you actually know what happened. And, honestly, I don’t think you need to worry about it because it’s no big deal.”