The Killing Kind

CHAPTER TWO

March 22

She could no longer stand the sound of his voice. Seriously. This is how fucked-up things had gotten between Zoe Martin and Chuck Kirby, her boyfriend since the summer between their junior and senior years at Smyrna High School. Her head started hurting every time he opened his mouth. It set her teeth on edge. It didn’t matter what he was saying. Or what the tone of it was. He could be happy and laughing, cracking jokes. Or angry and lashing out at her (though that was pretty rare). He could say something sweet, the kind of thing that should melt a girl’s heart, and it would only make her want to throw up.

Thing was, they’d just been together too long.

More than three and a half years now, coming up hard on four full years. Spring break was here, which meant summer was just around the corner. The prospect of yet another anniversary as Chuck’s girl stirred feelings of desperation and dread. Sometimes she could feel her youth melting away, disappearing in slow but relentless drips down a cosmic drain. Every passing day was another lost chance at something new. It made her so fucking sad. And maybe that made her immature, a notion she’d lost some sleep over in recent months, but she’d come to accept her feelings as genuine. She didn’t care if it meant she was shallow. She was young, still a few months shy of legal drinking age, so she was allowed. The time had come to embrace immaturity while she was still in a stage of her life where that was acceptable. In two short months her junior year at Vanderbilt University would be history. As would her relationship with Chuck. She wanted to be truly carefree again, to revel in her youth and experience a level of emotional freedom that hadn’t been hers since high school. There would be a time for a forever relationship somewhere else down the line.

Somewhere way down the line, preferably.

And with someone other than Chuck.

She’d made the decision weeks ago.

She’d kept it to herself so far, whispering nary a word of it to anyone, not even her closest friends. This goddamn excursion to Myrtle Beach was the main reason she hadn’t made it official yet. The trip had been in the planning stages since the end of the previous summer. Chuck’s father, a big-shot developer, was paying for everything, the ostentatious beach house and the van rental being the primary expenses. The big Chevrolet Express guzzled enough gas to give your average environmentalist a coronary, but Conrad Kirby’s platinum-card largesse rendered even the rising fuel prices meaningless. Everything was covered, down to the incidentals.

But it wasn’t just the money holding her back.

There were her friends to consider.

Annalisa Collins and Emily Sinclair. Not just her friends, but her best friends, a connection extending back into childhood, long before Chuck had come into the picture. So Conrad’s undeniably generous invitation had been extended to them, as well. Zoe just didn’t have the heart to ruin it for them. So she’d decided it’d be easier to just delay the big breakup drama a little longer. She wouldn’t do it right after they returned either. Too tacky, that, not to mention a touch too obvious. After a lot of thought, she’d come to the conclusion it would be best to wait until just before the end of the spring semester. That way she’d get free just ahead of the dreaded summer anniversary. Sure, Chuck would be upset for a while, but he’d get over it.

It was something to look forward to.

In the meantime…

“You shouldn’t have been so mean to that girl.”

Emily was talking to Chuck again, giving him more shit about the run-in with the goth chick back at the strip mall. Unlike Zoe, she was not at all reluctant to confront Chuck or call him out on his bullshit. Zoe generally thought Chuck was all right. A touch too arrogant, sure, but some of that was to be expected, given his privileged upbringing. But underneath all that he was a decent, caring guy.

Still…Emily was right.

He had been pretty mean.

Chuck and Joe Walker, his best friend, were up front, with Chuck planted behind the wheel and Joe slouched down in the shotgun seat, an open tallboy can of Bud held between his legs. Chuck grunted. “Ooh, Little Miss Bleeding Heart’s all offended and shit.”

Joe laughed and knocked back a swig of beer. “Yeah. Em’s all about cultural diversity and respectin’ our mutual fuckin’ differences and shit.” He twisted in his seat and poked his head through the gap, a grin lighting up the part of his handsome face visible beneath the black shades perched atop his nose. “Good thing she’s such a good lay.”

Emily’s tone turned frosty. “Hmm…Want to guess who won’t be getting any for a while?”

There was a snort from the back, and Annalisa’s exuberant voice rang out. “Yeah, right! You’re like this one.” She nudged her boyfriend, Sean Hewitt, who was back there with her. “Too horny to go without more than a day. I’ve heard the stories. He’ll come begging for it, you’ll mess with him a little, and then you’ll both wind up making enough noise to scare the neighbors half to death. Go on, tell me I’m wrong.”

Zoe glanced up from the copy of Entertainment Weekly open in her lap and saw Emily struggling to hold back a smile. She gave up and shook her head, hiding the smile by twisting it into a smirk. “Whatever. He will have to beg for it, though, I guarantee that.”

Joe shrugged and laughed again. “I’ll beg all you want, baby. Hell, you can tie me up and spank me for being such a bad boy, too.”

Emily’s smirk deepened. “Yeah. And maybe even make you wear a dress again.”

“Again!” Chuck looked like he wanted to puke. “Oh, man. My best friend’s a fucking cross-dressing perv. Gross, dude.”

Emily chuckled. “Perfectly harmless fetish.”

Joe knocked back some more beer and laughed. “Dude, you’d do it too if it meant you got to hook up with that every night.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of his girlfriend. “No shit, man, and I’m not just saying this because I’m already half-buzzed and it’s barely noon, but Em is the greatest fuck of all fucking time. I’d shoot a man in Reno for just one taste of her sweet, sweet pussy.”

Zoe made a face. “You’re disgusting.”

Joe grinned. “Disgusting, but adorable.”

Emily rolled her eyes and heaved the sigh of the long-suffering. “Joe, because you worship the ground I walk on, I can cut you some slack for the stupid things that come out of your mouth. But your friend up there is a fucking douche bag.”

Zoe slapped the magazine shut and gaped at her. “Emily!”

Chuck laughed. “Oh, you’re gonna get it now. My girl won’t take that kind of talk about her man. Will ya, honey?”

Sean Hewitt chimed in from the back. “Catfight! Hot lesbian catfight!”

The comment elicited a boisterous round of laughter and hooting. Joe started looking for his camera and making comments about putting up a video on YouTube.

Emily looked at Zoe. She was still smiling, and there was a disquieting knowing quality in the cast of her features. Zoe stared back at her and, as always, was struck by her friend’s classic, elegant beauty. She looked like a film star of the 1940s. Refined, assured, oozing intelligence and sexuality, with a slender neck, kissable lips, and the cheekbones of a silver-screen goddess. The kissable part Zoe could attest to, having made out with Emily a time or two. That radiant face was framed by dark hair cut in a choppy style. Looking at her now, Zoe realized her friend bore a passing resemblance to the goth girl Chuck and Sean had treated with such obnoxious derision. The resemblance was pretty close, actually, with Emily as a less garish and more sophisticated version of the younger girl. And maybe that was a little part of why Emily was so pissed at Chuck.

The larger part being that she simply hated his guts.

Emily’s eyes flicked toward Chuck. “Oh, please. She’s no more your girl than I am. And I’d rather be flayed alive and fed to rabid weasels than touch you.”

The van’s interior went deathly silent. Zoe’s heart began to race. Emily couldn’t know about her plans to break up with Chuck. Right? Or had she gotten too drunk one night and told Emily something she couldn’t remember? It was vaguely possible, but she hadn’t done a lot in the way of excessive drinking since making her decision. Nonetheless, paranoia took root inside her and made her want to scream.

It was too soon for this.

And pretty much the worst possible time for it.

Chuck glanced at the rearview mirror. “You’re full of shit, Emily.”

An amused grin played at the corners of Emily’s mouth. She looked at Zoe again. “Am I, Zoe?”

Zoe seethed inwardly. There was only one way to defuse the situation and prevent the vacation from turning into a total disaster before it was barely under way. Shit. “I’m your girl, Chuck. Em’s just fucking with you, but she does have a point. You shouldn’t have been such a dick to that girl.”

Chuck slapped a palm against the steering wheel. “But she was a freak! Christ, you saw her!” His voice took on the thick, warbly tone Zoe thought of as his Retard Voice. “Oooh, look at me, I’m all fucking alternative. I’m all goth as fuck. Look how different I am. Look at all my piercings and tattoos and my freaky fucking clothes. Oh, I’m just so much cooler and with it than all you square preppy fags. Oooohhh…” He cleared his throat again and shifted back to his normal tone. “And fuck it, I’m not apologizing for anything. I hate that shit. People like that are the biggest posers of all. Maybe she learned herself a good fucking lesson today.”

Joe barked laughter. “The one and only Chuck Kirby, ladies and gentlemen. The man, the myth, the legend…”

“The fucking asshole,” Emily added, but this time she was ignored.

Joe opened another beer and slurped foam from the top of the can as it burbled out of the opening. He wiped his lips and leaned between the seats to show Emily a foamy grin. “Can’t let any go to waste. That’d be alcohol abuse.”

Emily sighed again and glanced at Zoe. “Boys. How I hate them.”

Zoe shrugged, a what-can-you-do? gesture. “Yeah.”

Joe gasped. “How dare you! We’re not ‘boys.’ We’re men. We’re…we’re…”

“Barbarians?” Chuck suggested.

“Yeah!” Joe swigged more beer. At this rate he’d be passing out later in the afternoon. “We’re barbarians! We’re fucking cavemen!”

He held his hand up for a high five and Chuck obliged him.

Zoe listened to them trade beery inanities back and forth and felt the beginnings of a fresh headache. Every stupid thing out of Chuck’s mouth just made it worse. She snared some Tylenol from her purse and washed the pills down with a gulp of Coke.

She picked up her magazine and again tried to concentrate on it.

But it wasn’t easy.

She could feel Emily staring at her. It made her anxious and paranoid. She had the uneasy sense that her friend could see her every thought. Eventually she turned away from Emily and closed her eyes, pretending to fall asleep.

But the feeling didn’t go away.