#i prefer 3rd person limited ftw

[thekingslover]

(a little something original)

A bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and a baseball bat in the other, I stagger away from the bonfire party in the park to the edge of my high school campus. I turn left, ignoring the administration building before me, and the classroom building to my right. Only when the stadium looms over me, I slow my pace. I stop nose to nose with the bronze statue out front.

“You think you are so perfect,” I tell my bronze reflection, sans nearly ten years. It stands as tall as me though, eight year old me posing atop a decapitated dragon head. Bronze-me holds a sword straight up, a real sword. The one I’d used that day. Above the sword, written in big metal letters screwed to the side of the brick stadium entrance, reads, Home of the Hunters.

Eight year old me, there, labeled not just as a dragon-hunter, but as a symbol of one. My bronze face is proud, eyes up, smile open-mouthed, awed. It was never like that. It’s never been like that. It’s sure as hell not like that right now.

I take a swig of Jack. It burns the whole way down, then churns in my stomach. I’m not a drinker, my body reminds me. I’ll be sick later. I’m pretty sick now.

“So damn perfect,” I growl at the statue, throwing as much alcohol as spit. I really don’t want to swallow any more of this stuff. I take another sip for more venom. It dribbles down my chin and drips onto my Varsity Hunter t-shirt. “You’re a liar.”

I scream it. “Liar!”

I swallow. It burns.

A sniffle escapes me. When did I start to cry? Am I crying, or is it just the alcohol making my eyes water?

It hurts to think this hard.

I drop the bottle. Enough of that. And grip the baseball bat with both hands.

I want to bash my smug, bronze face in. I cried that day. I threw up in the bushes. I wasn’t a hero, or an example of a hunter. This is a fraud. I am a fraud.

I wind up for a swing.

“You’re going to break your arms.”

Bat still raised, I swivel on my heel, ready for hell.

Sebastian Grimes isn’t hell, but damn if he isn’t close. Standing in half shadow, he looks like he’s there too. The bonfire from the party is too far away. The only light between us is the tungsten fixture high on the stadium wall. It flickers now and then. Bugs fly around it. Some adventurous ones drop down to me, but who cares about bugs when my whole world is one swing away from crashing down. God, I want it to crash.

“The hell you want, Grimes?” I snap. Leave me and my misery alone.

Sebastian unhooks his crossed arms to scratch at his chin. “If you hit that statue with that bat, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

I snort. “Since when does Sebastian Grimes given a shit about what I do.”

“The community might be upset to see how far their golden boy has fallen.” Face as impassive as ever, he shrugs. “I’m part of that community.”

“Community service, then, huh?” It hurts more than it should. I hadn’t been expecting any comfort from Sebastian – the guy has had it out for me ever since he transferred in two years ago – but I thought that maybe watching someone fall apart might garner a little sympathy. No one gave a shit for their golden boy, not really, outside of wanting me to exist. A nice little trophy.

“Something like that,” he says, but it’s different. He’s looking at me. He never looks at me. Not like this, right in the face. His dark eyes are veiled in shadow, I can’t see them clearly, but I feel them on me like a butterfly touch. For a moment, fear shoots through me. If I move an inch, that butterfly will startle and fly away.

Embarrassed by my own thoughts – comparing Sebastian to a butterfly? Really? – I duck away first. My head hurts. My cheeks burn. I shouldn’t have come to this party. I should have just gone home.

I can be their golden boy. I can match their expectations. I can meet all the labels they have in their heads about me. I can be good, and strong, and proud, and relentless, and… brave. I can be anything but honest. That’s my curse.

Sebastian walks toward me. He moves with elegance, a perfect coordination that I’d never be able to match, even if I lost 30 pounds to be as rail thin as him.

I think he’s coming for the bat, and my grip tightens. But he doesn’t take it. Instead, he stops at my side and looks at my statue.

“How much of the story is true?” he asks.

A bug lands on my bronze-nose. My throat tightens. “It’s all true,” I lie.

Sebastian laughs, and my anger flares. He doesn’t trust me? Everyone else trusts me! I’m totally trustworthy.

Except I’m not. At all. I cool my defenses with a deep breath. Soft as a ghost, I whisper, “Don’t tell anyone.”

Sebastian’s laughter dies. “No one would believe me anyway.”

I drop the bat first, then myself into the grass. It’s cool and wet on my butt, certain to stain my jeans. I don’t care, especially when Sebastian joins me.

The light flickers and goes out. We’re alone with the bugs and bronze-me, barely visible in the dim starlight. The moon’s already come and gone. Stupid moon, always leaving when things get tough.

“Still, it comes back every night anyway,” Sebastian says, and I realize I said that out loud.

It’s intimate out here in the dark. Alone with Sebastian, the boy I’m supposed to hate, who says he hates me.

I don’t hate him though. He’s the only one who’s ever critical of me.

He’s the only one who really looks at me and sees me. Not the golden boy. Not the perfect lie. Me.

“I really hate this statue,” I tell him, just a little secret, one he probably already knows.

“It does make you look like an asshole, but that’s not hard.”

I groan and lower my back into the grass. I don’t even want to look at the thing anymore. My stomach churns.

Sebastian asks, “What do you hate most?”

Where to start? The happy expression, the hero pose, the gruesome details of the dragon head. All of those are terrible things, but the worst is… “That damn sword.”

“The sword?”

My tongue wants to talk so I let it. “My grandfather’s. Grandmother tells everyone he gave it to me. He didn’t. I stole it. I wanted him to stop hunting. He was gone all the time. I barely knew him.”

My eyes water again. Damn alcohol. “He died without it. When they attacked.” A small breath. “Grandmother said it saved my life. My grandfather, she said, would have easily chosen to give his life for mine. Well, he never really had a choice.”

A rustle in the grass. “If I get you that sword, what would you do with it?”

“I don’t want it,” I say. “I never want to see it again.”

A loud clank echoes, then a wooden bat thrown, bouncing against sidewalk.

“Grimes?” I stumble to my feet. In the dim light, it almost looks like…

He didn’t. He couldn’t.

You’re going to break your arms.

My bronze arm is bent. The hand is missing at the wrist.

Sebastian and my grandfather’s sword are gone.