Sympathy For The Devil

11. Recoil

Eddward was good at many things, and that knowledge made confidence one of them. However, he found himself now reminded how easily arrogance could be misconstrued as self-assurance. He must notbe arrogant. Arrogance was dangerous. Arrogance was a smokescreen against proper judgment, a threshold for critical errors just waiting to happen.

The outline of his tags were red lines impressed into the palm of his hand, bordering a similar imprint of an 'M'. He had discovered over the past two days that he really only needed one hand to write, or to eat, or to open his locker. His left was right at home, gripping his tags until he was almost sure that the marks on his palm would be permanent. As for swim practice... well, he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

He missed Marie. He hoped that she was recovering.

And yet, he found himself strangely resenting her. He had never begrudged her friendships before - she had her friends and he retained his - but he felt a slight stab of annoyance now, when he remembered that she was friendly with Kevin Anderson. Thoughts of the little - cretin no longer communicated the feeling behind it - had once irritated Eddward as simply a waste of thinking, but now they aroused something dark and angry and careening dangerously toward hatred.

The fact that this little nobody, who he manipulated and harassed for the sake of mild amusement, whose intellect (if one could call it that) was dull and average and utterly ordinary, whose name Eddward could barely remember on the best of days, had slipped beneath his radar and driven him to such a depth of disquiet, was almost more than he could bear. The fact of the matter was that, for all his suspicion at Kevin's evasive behavior in the past few days, for all of Eddward's bluster when actually confronting him, notonce in his entire search had it actually crossed his mind that Kevin might have taken them. Not once had he even entertained the notion.

But then, of course he wouldn't have. Kevin wasn't someone he suspected; Kevin was something he stepped over.

He had been surprised, to put it at its most basic level. Perhaps, from here on out, he might be more alert. He might actually look at the the boy, really look at him, when he spoke at him.

To begin, Eddward might as well make an effort to remember his name.

It struck him with the force of a freight train.

One moment, Kevin was staring in the school bathroom mirror, dabbing gingerly at his eye with the soaked paper towel he clutched in both hands. Tears beaded in his eyes, a natural pain response to poking at his injured face. The next, he was staring downward in the general direction of the sink, wide-eyed, seeing nothing, as his fingers curled tightly into the cool, wet paper. He felt it give way in his hands until it ripped in half entirely, and the pain-tears in his eyes became real ones. His chest felt tight, his throat burned. He could not breathe, he could barely see or hear, and yet...

There was a power to what he was feeling, and it simultaneously frightened and exhilarated him. He released the paper towel pieces, only to curl his hands into fists again, before cocking the right one back and smashing it straight into the wall.

Pain shot up to his shoulder, and he gasped but did not cry out. The wall did not give way, but the skin of his knuckles did, and he was lucky that the bones did not follow suit. He shook out his hand, feeling the cool air sting the newly-opened cuts. His breath came in furious gasps, the tears continued, and he would later be grateful that this moment had no witnesses.

He was angry.

He had never been so angry.

Perhaps, in another life, if he had been born with more physical strength and were more prone to this kind of anger, then he might have been a bully himself. The thought unsettled him. And yet, part of him, that dark part from which this rush of rage has reared its ugly head, could not help but envy this hypothetical Kevin. He could not help but wish for a world in which he was the strong one and Eddward was weak. In that moment, just in the span of a few breaths, Kevin honestly wanted nothing more than to see Eddward feel what Kevin felt now, when he was only able to imagine saying things that he could never say out loud, or to Eddward's face.

Every day. Every time you talk to me, every time you open your mouth, you make me feel weak, and pathetic, and tiny. You have no right. Do you hear me? NO RIGHT. Because the only one who's weak and pathetic and tiny is YOU.

He took a breath again, and nearly choked on it. The near-hyperventilating turned to gasping sobs. His throat was tight and painful.

Yeah, right.

As if he would ever say that. Nice thought, though.

The freight train moved on, leaving him battered and limp on the side of the tracks. With a shaking hand, he turned on the faucet and ran cool water over his knuckles until the blood was swirling down the drain.

It wasn't fair.

Karma was supposed to be a thing, wasn't it? What goes around comes around, and all that stupid garbage? Or maybe that was a bunch of crock, too.

He wiped his eyes with his uninjured hand.

He couldn't even blame Eddward for his physical hurts and get him in trouble for that. Because Eddward had never laid a hand on him, had never needed to. He had a silver tongue, with barbs if he needed them, and could probably refute any lie Kevin could think of.

Kevin wasn't sure what made him angrier, the fact that he could never get away with it, or the painful awareness that he probably wouldn't have told the lie even if he could.