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You’re snuffing the heat from your cigarette when Patrick finds you. He’s had a bit of a back-and-forth with you, like a predator might have with prey; leaning against your locker, putting on the capital-r Redemption Boy act whenever he said that no, I don’t want to be paired with Moose, I’d rather be put with someone like you who won’t distract me.
You give him a look—this sort of fleeting, deer-like look, where you clearly don’t want to be shot, but knowing better to not act like you’ve already been beheaded. He can work with it either way. “Yeah?”
Simple, easy. Could be interpreted poorly, but could also not be, just from the one-word response yet pissy intonation. “Nothing,” says Patrick breezily. “You got more of those?”
You spare a glance to the Winstons that you’re crushing in your grip. Patrick already knows you’ve got about ten left in them, but you nervously flick them open—closed—open again—closed—before acquiescing. “Sure. Will you leave me the fuck alone if I hand you one?”
“If you want me to,” says Patrick flatly, though his smile — cavernous and yellow — doesn't drop.
“I don’t believe you,” you say. It’s not even snarky, just a statement. That makes him smile.
“Lighter?”
And, like the idiot you are, you let him do what he wants.
Patrick knows you don't like him. Lucky for him — and unluckily for you — people don't like you much, either. The burnt, heady smell of tobacco that clings to your clothes and your downtown apartment address are enough for people to part like the Red Sea whenever you go down the hallway. Boys have long since given up on asking you out as a joke, instead spreading rumors about how cheap you’ll go for a handy, while their girlfriends laugh and lean into each others’ ears whenever you walk past. It's probably why you get along so well with Marsh, even though she's two years younger than you. He slips a dry hand into his pants; he’d pay to get both of you in the same room together, really. Trashy bitches who don't know any better.
The sun’s just starting to rise, a swelling, pregnant mass of light spilling into his room. He thinks of what you’d look like beneath him — if you’d cry, if you’d fight, if you’d do both, or if you’d just slut yourself out the whole way through. Everyone did that in the end, but the difference was how they began it. He can deal with either — can find satisfaction in breaking you down, or knowing that you were really just a whore all along, like all girls are.
When he comes, he thinks of you cold and dead beneath him.
Your attempts to conceal your discomfort have started irritating Patrick. It's boring, predictable. Your jaw is subtly clenched as you busy yourself with the assignment page.
“It’s either a tri-fold or an essay, and we can do a character analysis of Ahab or—uh, the… Moby… apparently. So, whatever would get it done faster.”
“I think about it a lot.”
“What?”
Patrick mulls over what he could say to get a reaction out of you. He has a lot of good ones, but settles for the most vulgar. “Oh, I don’t know. You getting split open by whale-cock. Really gets me and the boys going, you know.”
You look over to Ms. Ahearn, a skinny, bird-nosed woman, before thinking better of snitching. While everyone knew Patrick was trouble, you were so deep in shit that nobody would care what you said in the first place — you’d probably just be blamed for instigating it. “Tri-fold, then.”
“Oh, threesome?” says Patrick breezily, like he’s talking about the weather.
You spare another look at Ms. Ahearn, looking mildly nauseous. He smiles at you, closed-lipped, and eyes your swan-like neck.
You smoke cigarettes at the Quarry every Friday. Sometimes, if you're stupid enough, you’d go there late into the night, with newly-forming bruises dotting your skin. Patrick thinks they suit you, and wishes he could add more on: a gift, a reminder of what you were made for. Your uncle is a nasty, nasty man, but Patrick knew he was nastier.
Sometimes, you’ll get sloppy-drunk off of wine-coolers with your chunky headphones over your ears, blaring your shitty music, stumbling your way home and skinning your knees on the roads. Your bruises are worse, these times.
It would be so easy for him to take you there, and that’s why he doesn’t. He wants you to remember it. He wants it to come from some sort of excellent planning on his end, where the odds are against him, yet he wins through sheer force, like he always does.
But Patrick — not patient, just aware of what will make him feel like he did all those years ago, lurking around the crib — bides his time.