Steal
a/n: this is for Glittering Moonlight. initially i started writing this over summer '12 (…i know) for haritha (cela fille), but due to certain complications, i never finished it. so yeah it's finally done (and i'm cuttin' it real close with the word limit, let me tell you—11 damn pages on word docs). thanks to livvy for reading through this and being so positive (love ya).
for you, GM. please enjoy.
Cigarette, beer, cigarette.
The succession crawls as I hunch over the bar, sagging into my seat.
In front of me is my painfully short dissertation on cognitive dissonance—the topic assigned to me by my perceptively unhinged psych professor. 'Say what?' Layne had demanded last week, looking at me inquisitively like a mouse on its hind legs. Cognitive dissonance is the feeling of distress that results from simultaneously holding two or more incompatible beliefs, but Cam had hauled Layne away before I could tell her so.
Cognitive dissonance kind of reminds me of the animals in Aesop's fable who stole the sick stag's food and indirectly caused his death. Perhaps they too were torn by their discrepancy between beliefs and behaviors. Or perhaps Aesop didn't appreciate the ever-growing profundity of animal minds.
Maybe those animals are a lot more complicated than we thought. Or, we're less complicated.
I'm knocked out of my reverie by Cam (whose own afternoon sequence is something more along of the lines of beer, beer, more beer). "In this world, there are talented people, and there are less talented people," he remarks indiscriminately from beside me. From his blatantly insensitive eyebrow gymnastics and pointed looks, it's easy to resolve where Cam has placed me.
Carefully stowing my draft away into my pack, I demand to know what his problem is, my tone scathing and polished with venom. In return, he gives me the face. Cam is notorious for this face— askew eyebrows, grooves in his forehead, and a grin that consumes his cheeks.
"There's this girl," he proclaims, uncapping his Coors Light.
"Oh?" I'd presumed as much. She's undoubtedly foreign, terminally bitchy, and terrified of weight gain. Guzzling down my drink with the belligerence of a tiger, I ask, "Who?"
Cam sighs, each breath awash in reverence. "Her name is Claire Lyons, and she's enormously talented." A tender grin slips across his face— "I'm in love with her, Derrick. Totally, absolutely—"
"—In love," I close impassively. I turn my head to the left and roll my eyes, because he's notorious for this too.
.
Kemp Hurley's father dies on a Wednesday.
This is big news, because he was very rich and very successful (and, well, that's enough to make anyone in Westchester read the obituary). The funeral is, I find, equally garish — pricey black fabric, enough champagne to last me a lifetime, and onyx fingernails plastered to glossy handbags.
At first, I hadn't wanted to go— the finality of lifetimes makes me implausibly uncomfortable, and so do the Hurleys—but Cam had towed me along, assuring me that there would be an open bar.
I maneuver my way to the very last row of chairs at the gravesite; I'm just about to sit when Kemp Hurley himself brushes past me, his expression twisted with jarred frustration. He still has the same dark hair everyone is enamored with— illustrious for the tussle, the disarray, the sloppy strands at his ears —but his eyes are unusually frantic.
Kemp is a tactless cardboard cut-out who stole my girlfriend in the fifth grade, but I'm not heartless. Pityingly, I seize his arm and spin him around.
"Kemp!" My voice is scarce and high and barely recognizable as my own. "Hey man," I intone quietly, "I'm so sorry."
But evidently Kemp is still a ruthless kind of person, and he sneers at my touch. "Me too," he spits aggressively. As if provoked, Kemp storms away, my hand falling from his sleeve. I stand there, feeling like more of an idiot with each passing second, until a familiar hand pats you on the back.
"Whatta' asshole," says Cam wisely.
.
Mrs. Hurley gives a final speech before sobbing like her insides have caught on fire; Kemp has to peel her off the podium. Then, in true Hurley fashion, there is a profligate buffet meal. Cam materializes behind me and slings an arm around my shoulder. I turn around and catch him grinning widely.
"I think it's illegal to look even remotely happy at a funeral," I quip darkly, glancing briefly at the poplar casket.
He ignores me. "You'll never guess who's here." Cam is bristling with vigor, slapping my arm. He pauses painstakingly and then cries, "Claire Lyons!"
It takes me a moment to remember who she is before I shatter the silence."What's she doing here?" Westchester is reasonably small—just a couple of art museums away from getting knocked off the map—and I've never heard of her. Unless…"Is she dating Kemp?"
Cam scrunches his nose at the mere thought of it. He scoffs, "Oh, please. She's, like, an event-planner—it's her job. Like I said," he beams, rolling his sleeves up in the way one only does when priming for a fight, "Enormously talented."
.
I swill the ice around in my glass and examine her surreptitiously from above the rim.
Claire Lyons has sandy freckles and pale hair that furls inside the hood of her sweater. This she wears indifferently, with her hands barely drawn through the sleeves.
Everything about her is exhausted. Dragging bones. Sluggish movements. Wire-like arms.
"What the hell?" She is shouting, her words acute. "You call this cranberry?" Claire seems distressed as she holds a tablecloth up to the light and squints. I listen furtively as she perseveres that red is another color entirely, swigging my drink casually. After a moment she burrows into her sweater, pink-faced.
The attendant in question snatches the tablecloth and gurgles something inaudible.
Flaring with aversion, Claire storms towards the bar, and I can sneak a better glimpse at her. I find that she has skin that strains against her bones like there isn't enough to go around, and round eyes, apprehensive and light blue.
Propping her elbows on the counter, she practically implores for white wine. I swallow vigilantly and watch as she sweeps thin, short hair out of her face. Shutting her eyes again, Claire exhales harshly.
"Tough day?" I catch myself by surprise, and the words almost lodge in my throat. God, I think to myself, mortified. I sip to give my hands something to do, uncertainly waiting for her to respond.
Slower than I'd like, she levels her gaze. "Do I know you?" It isn't a critical sneer, but it's close.
"I'm Cam's friend, Derrick." Whether it be owing to my apprehension around Claire, or simply due to my standard, unfeeling douche-baggery, I tell her, "He's in love with you." The words spill from my lips like poison.
One hand is in her mouth, absently gnawing off a thumbnail, but Claire doesn't look surprised. "Cam is…unyielding."
It's then that I see him just out of earshot, legs pumping to catch blustery air, striding towards us. I pull back, straightening my narrow tie. "Hi Claire," Cam beams immediately.
"Um, hi." Her voice is high and spun with bother. "I didn't realize you'd be here."
She is patently irritated by his presence— it's like her eyelashes are surly; like even her bones are aloof —and I have to choke back my laugh with a swig of my drink.
Cam grins. It's a violently happy—and almost daunting—stretch of skin. "Maybe it's fate."
Claire blinks incredulously, Cam gapes back, and silence unfolds. Casually, I watch her lips narrow into a despondent vein, her fingers bunching and binding the base of her sweater. Claire turns to me and under her breath—so quietly, I'm not sure if I've even heard her right—"Shitty fate, huh?"
.
Cam will not be dissuaded.
We go out again some monotonous days later, this time accompanied by our friend Layne, who is about as peculiar as her name suggests. Uncontrollably and incessantly, Cam rattles on about Claire through uninhibited mouthfuls of Fordham.
"She's got these eyes—like, this robin-egg blue color—and it's like light reflects them, Lay, I swear t'God." Cam stares at Layne imploringly, but derisively she pinches his cheeks and makes what I assume are squawking infant sounds.
"Fuck off," he scowls, pink-faced and embarrassed, before turning to me. "You understand, don't you, good buddy?"
"You're annoyingly persistent," I deadpan, fishing around in my backpack for cigarettes. I draw out the L&M Lights, unsmiling, and stick one between my lips. I don't tell him that Claire thinks so, too.
Cam rolls his eyes, filches away my pack of cigarettes, and sets off again.
.
I've always liked Alicia Rivera.
She's nice, and from what I can remember from the days of high school cliques, fiercely loyal. All of Westchester is invited to her wedding, but the day of, Cam falls severely ill—or so he claims.
"He must be intimidated by her big, big breasts," Layne whispers loudly to me as she playfully tucks Cam into bed. "Poor baby."
I repress my laughter. "Cammie, you don't need to be insecure," I croon with a full-fledged grin, slinging my jacket over my shoulder.
Casting my eyes left to the mirror on the wall, I consent to a fleeting look at myself. My brown eyes and sparse eyelids look worse for wear, but I'm clean-shaven and my pale hair lies flat, at least.
I drag my hand through it and turn back to Cam, who scowls, "I hate you both."
.
The first thing I do when I arrive at Brooklyn's Prospect Park is look around for Alicia, but reflexively my eye catches someone else.
She's wearing an orange dress, florid and short, and lipped with lace. Her hair is convolutedly coiled and pinned to her scalp in little rings. Her shoes are white. Disbelievingly, I squint.
Claire?
I flatten my lapels and pass a hand through my hair before I advance. "Nice wedding," I say when she spots me, feeling fairly ill at ease. "Very impressive." She must be brilliant if Alicia Rivera asked her to plan her wedding.
She narrows her eyes and rolls back her slight shoulders. "Thanks," Claire responds wryly, waifish and tall in her shoes. "You're Derrick, right?"
Nodding, I chew on my lip before exclaiming with far too much fervor, "You look great." Incredulous, my throat constricts.
Goddamn, I need a beer. Or four.
.
The reception is lavish, and everyone in their pretty silk makes me feel extremely underdressed. I tell Claire this, and she laughs—high and genuine, very girlish.
I bounce my knee tersely as the band in matching suits begins to play a loose interpretation of an Etta James song. The chunk of bruschetta on my plate is half-eaten, curled into the cresent shape of bite marks. Beside me, Claire indolently sips mineral water, closely watching the groom as he bows and offers his hand to Alicia Rivera, who giggles uncontrollably. "They're cute together," she says finally.
I grunt noncommittally.
"Like, they look nice together," Claire continues languorously, watching Alicia Rivera and her new husband perform what appeared to be a tempo-heightened version of the beguine, involving convulsive hip rolls and spirited snapping.
"Mmm."
"You know," Claire continues, as if she hasn't heard me, "like they both have the same dark hair. It's nice and thick. They even have the same eyes. I bet their kids—"
"Wanna dance?" I stand up suddenly, unaccountably out of breath. If I have to watch the groom attempt to dip Alicia Rivera one more time, I'm going to snap my glass in half.
.
"So, the bride or the groom?"
"Bride. We went to high school together."
"Cool," Claire replies shortly.
Then silence again. Her hands are clasped around my neck, which is inexplicably beaded with sweat, while my own hands tremble like feathery moths on her chiffon waist.
A moment later, Alicia knocks over a chair mid-spin. When she stoops to pick it up, there is a disharmony of cheering and buoyant laughing from the guests. Claire joins in, but the noise that funnels from her mouth isn't the same girly shrill from before. Instead it swells to fill the space, and her head rolls backwards. Under my prying stare, she composes herself hastily. Unfortunately, the abrupt end of her cackle marks the beginning of another episode of uncomfortable quiet.
I'm itching to say something. Something cool. I wish Layne were here; she'd ease the tension with a lame crack about the absorbency of tampons, or something. I'd even tolerate Kemp Hurley, whose vulgar remarks could make for decent conversation.
"I don't get the ridiculous construction that we have to dance at weddings," I finally divulge from my desiccated mouth. It's the first thing that pops into my head.
Claire rolls her eyes contemptuously. "Oh my god, it's not a 'ridiculous construction.' Dancing is happy—weddings are happy." And I am sort of happy, shitty dexterity aside, as I swing to the tasteless tune.
She steps back for a twirl, pink-faced. When I draw her back in, the space between us is drastically smaller. I realize that I'm warm inside my jacket—severely warm. My hands drop from the small of her back before either of us have time to blink.
"Do you—" I sputter, cyclically and hurriedly running fingers through my hair. "Do you want a drink, or…?"
Claire gawks at me, before whirling around on the balls of her feet and marching towards the bar. "Men!" Claire exclaims, but she's smirking.
.
The bar is held inside the church. I want to laugh at the irony, but I also know that Claire planned it, and the last thing I want to do is hurt her feelings (or get punched).
I first notice the stained glass windows with their soft colors, like the light of a candle; not harsh fluorescence that would expose the pews in all their bare angles. Then I see the angel ceramic decals on the walls, burnished decorative stickers stringed together to spell Congratulations!
"Pretty," I say offhandedly, weaving in between the mingling flocks that have convened in tightly-knit circles.
"Right?" Claire replies, sounding pleased.
The drink she orders is purple like the veins on the backs of a baby's eyelids—jack fused with something else, a juice maybe. She sips vigilantly but it spews from her lips almost immediately, like it cooked her mouth. Claire pulls a face and I guffaw. "What do you do?" She asks as means of a distraction, running napkins across the length of the bar.
"I'm in school. I'm writing a thesis now, actually, and when I'm done—"
Claire lifts her head, apparently interested. "—What's it about?"
"Cognitive dissonance. It's the clashing of conflicting thoughts, and the discomfort that results from it," I respond before she has a chance to ask what it means. "Like how I feel when I concurrently want to spend time with Cam but also strangle him."
The mention of Cam lures something that I didn't know was hiding out of the corner. "Speaking of which," I drawl slowly, letting the implication hang between us.
Her reply is colorless. "He isn't my type."
"You have a type?"
"I have standards," Claire rectifies craftily. When I ask what they are, she eyes me charily, biting her lip. "He has to be tall," Claire says finally. She lifts her pale eyebrows superciliously, daring me to belittle her words. "Compassionate. Oh, and I hate waiting," she adds forebodingly. "If he's late for anything, I'll end him."
I leer humorously, and Claire draws in a breath. She seems nervous—this is new. Brushing away her faint yellow bangs, she tells me softly, sheepishly: "I like brown eyes."
.
Kendra Block is very much like a horse: tall and loud, with teeth like a swarm in a stadium, all crammed in. She is middle-aged, threadlike, and impossibly wealthy. She organizes a benefit every year to raise money for the homeless; the third time I see Claire, she is just as much a guest as I am.
I arrive with Layne and Cam, but excuse myself to the bathroom when we arrive. Just as I step out of the port-o-potty, I spy her. She hovers over a silent auction booth, her back to me, a flaccid braid dribbling down her back. "Claire!" I shout, indubitably turning heads.
Claire smiles widely and my stomach lurches. She gives me a clingy hug, her fingers splaying across my shirt and hollowing marks in my back. "Hey."
Funny thing about girls: they're unbelievably predictable. I'm sure I know what soupy query she is cogitating in her head, so I blurt: "Cam's here, you know." I expect her to curse or scowl stonily; to hold storm clouds in her hands and wring them out until rain falls.
"Damn," she giggles. "We could hide?" Another funny thing about girls: sometimes they surprise you.
My stomach flips, as is often its habit around Claire. I nod mutely, and she drags me away from the silent auction. She guides me inside the house, ignoring my objections ("We're trespassing on private property!"). Claire wrenches me into the kitchen and pulls the door shut, cackling jubilantly.
"What the—"
"I used to be friends with Kendra's daughter—Massie. We played a shit-ton of hide and seek, back in the day," Claire interjects, still giggling. I roll up my sleeve and put a hand on her shoulder sternly.
"You were friends with Massie Block?"
Claire ignores me. Her eyes zero in on my forearm.
"Why did you get them?" Claire's fingernails graze my skin; pink and pimpled goosebumps crawl up my arms. "Do they mean something, or…?" She trails off—almost condescendingly, like are you shittin' me right now?—and stares at the tattoos: the deer, a sinuous flag of bacon, and the letter D.
Obviously, they aren't romantic symbols—they're somewhere near gallbladders and deodorant in terms of poetic nature—but they're hardly Etch-A-Sketch shit.
"You're fucking toast, Claire Lyons," I tell her. It's meant to come off sounding indifferent, but deep down I'm perturbed, and maybe a little disappointed. My lack of a tragic fate—a fate maybe like that of the deer's in Aesop's fable—has nothing to do with the value of the ink that stains my skin.
Something must register on my face. "Hey…Derrick?" Her voice is tender. "I'm sorry if I…"
"It's fine, Claire. I'm just being st—"
"No, everyone thinks I'm a bitch." Claire laughs humorously, but her expression hardens with defiance. Taken aback, I step away, slouching with my hands stuffed in my pockets—a very casual pose for what I expect to be a serious discussion.
"You're not a bitch," I tell her sincerely. "You're…cool." The words feel inadequate, so I push ahead. "I like the way you are. I like—" I draw in a faint breath, faltering. I ogle my hands.
The sofa bounds as she shifts and twists, and I know she's staring at me. "Derrick?" I try to swallow, but the sparse saliva only sticks to my arid throat. Her voice is light, but still it catches. "I like you too."
.
I kiss her, and suddenly I'm nothing but my own breath, caught in my own throat, tangled into my skin. My hands flit— fisting in her effervescent hair, delineating her chin, whorling at the dip in her waist— until her perfume settles into my fingers.
Blood pulses in my veins, scrambled with the bones and snarled with the joints. Her mouth is saccharine and hesitant and tastes like strawberry lip gloss; I feel her arms cross and then uncross before she flings them around my neck.
.
A few days later, I invite her over to my place. I live in a narrow, box-like apartment that reeks of cigarettes. I don't really grasp the enormity of the situation until she rings my doorbell. Suddenly, I'm hyperaware of the sullied dishes, pornographic magazines, and my unmade bed.
"Fuck," I snap wrathfully, immediately shoveling a swell of clutter under my bed. I strip sticky soda cans off the kitchen table, kick crumbs from yesterday's broccolini salad into a corner, and then sniff my shirt. Jesus. I tear it off my chest, and replace it with something cleaner.
"Hello?" Claire's voice slips impatiently through the intercom as the doorbell chimes again.
"Don't be like that!" I shout back, feigning annoyance. I press my pack of cigarettes into my back pocket, out of sight.
"Like what?" Claire retorts edgily.
Like a prom queen candidate who lost to her best friend. "Like…" I search for an appropriate answer, "All loud and shit." I expect she's scowling now.
When I finally open the door, Claire storms inside indignantly. She drives a finger into my chest in impassioned aggravation. "You are so annoying."
"Mmm," I reply indifferently, before seizing her chin between two twitching fingers and kissing her. I'm not needy, but I take pleasure in intimacy—closeness and affection and tenderness. I break away from her mouth and kiss down her neck.
I've been aching to do this for days now.
.
camfisher (8:23 AM)- Can we meet up later?
camfisher (8:23 AM)- It's about Claire.
camfisher (8:24 AM)- Did you get my text?
camfisher (8:31 AM)- Der, I know you're there.
camfisher (8:54 AM)- Der,I think she's seeing someone.
camfisher (9:01 AM)- DER!
camfisher (9:10 AM)- What if she's seeing someone?
.
I get a new voicemail, too.
"Hey Der, it's Cam. Can you meet me later? It's about Claire. Like…ah, fuck. I know you think I'm being paranoid, but I swear t'God she has a boyfriend. This is important, Der. I…"
His break leaves soft sad breath in my ear.
"I just really love her."
Cam mumbles something unintelligible—an ugly bruised word from love-cuffed lips.
"Just call me back."
.
The guilt overtakes me, scalding and building, delighted in the intake of my flesh.
It's Cam, and he's my best friend, and he'sentirely in love with Claire Lyons. He's the deer, I realize with a sinking feeling. I hold on to the bed frame for support and grit my teeth. I am not the deer. I am the selfish friend—no, not selfish. Murderous. A warm scream fills my throat.
Cam is poetic, and will talk about the dust-streaked light that reflects off of her robin-egg blue eyes until his voice wastes away. I won't. I can't.
She is lying next to me with her eyes closed, her teeth clinging to her bottom lip and her fingers twisting the white ends of her hair. I can feel her breathing and her shoulder indolently moving up and down.
Sinking in the bed as I shift to face her, I tap her shoulder.
.
"Claire…I don't think we should see each other anymore. It's just…Cam."
.
"You can't— you fucking can't," Claire blusters, arms flying. "What the—you're going to—dammit, Derrick!"
Sinking my teeth into my tongue (and I taste something in my mouth, tinny and saline), I lean against my bed frame circumspectly and stare.
"Don't fucking look at me like that!" She shrieks, her hands shaking. Like what? I try to relax my muscles. Purple with fury, Claire shoves her things inside her purse. Fiercely avoiding my eyes, she grabs her tin of hair pins, her Sears catalog, her cell phone— I want to grab her and scream that she's being stupid, but I don't. I let her pack.
She belligerently scoops up her pretty floral dress, fingernails scraping the carpet, and hurriedly steps into it. Claire jerkily pulls at the zipper, which jams a quarter of the way up her freckled spine. She lets out an irritated scream.
Instinctively I take a step towards her, shoving my sleeves past my elbows. "Hey, let me—"
She steps back and glowers furiously. Her expression cries, I hope you're joking.
Claire scoffs when she spots my lighter and takes that too. "Fuck you," she jeers, her scathing words slicing through me like a knife. She streaks across the apartment in a flaky outbreak of quiet tears, her fingernails notched into her palms.
After the door slams, I press my forehead against the wall, chest rising relentlessly. I am burning in the sin, saturated in it, and even my cells are on fire.
.
Cigarette, beer, cigarette.
The succession crawls as I hunch over the bar, and it doesn't stop.
.
A week later, Cam lets himself into my apartment. He shouts immediately, "Guess who scored himself a date with Claire Lyons?" I know that he isn't spitefully trying to rub this information in my face, but I bristle anyway.
A little voice in my head shrieks that Claire has only agreed to it to upset me. That should make me feel smug, but somehow, I still feel like shit drawn across a sole.
Cam flings his arms into the air in embellished victory. The laugh I offer him is terse and ashy black, filled with a fakeness as transparent as glass.
"Um, are you okay?"Cam pokes my deer tattoo with the mouth of his beer, and I'm annoyed.
Annoyed, because the deer had shitty friends. Annoyed, because they stole his food. Annoyed, because the deer died. Annoyed, because the kindest souls have the shittiest luck.
And annoyed that I care about a fable at all.
"…I'm fine."
.
I find Claire's strawberry lip gloss the day my dissertation is due.
Layne is helping me choose the perfect tie—"Tone it down, but don't hold back. Attire indicates socioeconomic status, you know!"—inside my seemingly bottomless cedar dresser.
Then I feel it, beneath a thin wife beater: plastic, cylindrical, and wrapped in paper. When I hold it up in front of my face, heart racing, Layne snorts.
"Whore," she mumbles flippantly, still sorting through ties.
It is cupped in my hand, like a last vestige of life. It's been almost two weeks. Get over it, I think to myself harshly, tossing it back into the drawer without a second glance.
.
There is a poster outside of my psychology professor's room that I stare at while waiting in line to hand in my thesis. A surgical oncologist hovers over a patient with 'My Real Ones Tried to Kill Me' adorning her t-shirt. I try to picture it: a removed breast, cancer-ridden, the tissue still warm.
More than disturbed, I'm grateful when my professor beckons me inside.
"Mr. Harrington," he acknowledges benignly. I hand him my folder, and he flicks open the manila flap in order to withdraw my dissertation. "Cognitive dissonance," he muses, flipping through the pages but not reading. "What'd you think?"
"About the assignment?"
He shakes his head calculatingly. "The topic." The soft-spoken words dribble off the side of his desk, emptying on the floor like a sack of flower.
"I guess…it's more relevant than I would've thought," I reply shortly.
"How do you mean?" My professor laces his fingers together.
I feel like I'm visiting a shrink. My exhale is loudly discharged. "It's just…in everything, isn't it? Dissonance is hard to escape."
"Our basic beliefs are pretty stable; we don't just go around changing our opinions, do we? If the belief is fundamental and important to you then changing it is unlikely course of action," he asserts evenly. I nod. "But life goes on, doesn't it?"
I think about the deer fable again—always the deer fable. The compulsion to justify decisions may seem irrational or even petty, but it's necessary. It's crucial. I am a lot like the deer's friends: unsure if hurting someone I care about is worth getting what I want. I am a lot like the deer's friends, and…that's okay. Stole, Aesop wrote. But things aren't always so black-and-white, at least not anymore.
"You're a good man, Derrick," he tells me gently. Not 'boy'—man. It feels good.
.
When I get home, I pocket her strawberry lip gloss.
Aesop may call it stealing, but we can call it moving forward.
a/n: sooo…did that even make sense? anyway this has been a work-in-progress for a whole year now and i'm so glad it's done tbh.
prompts: stained glass, angel ceramic, and strawberry lip gloss. thanks for reading!
-han