The One Without Words

❀ chapter ten | fragile masculinity ❀

"So are you high, drunk, or just stupid?" I asked Seth as I opened the flower shop door. Darkness enveloped me as I stepped out. From their plain clothing to their identical fuckboy-esque haircuts, his little posse behind him looked nothing but forgettable.

"We were wanting to buy flowers," a red-eyed Seth replied.

I motioned toward the pink emptiness of our shop. "We haven't gotten our shipment in yet. How did you find our new address anyway?"

"Your new girly website," he said, sniffling. Had he been crying? What the hell was going on?

Jack was still inside the shop, his features lit in alarm. He probably wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out, looking at me like I was crazy for confronting them.

"I'm sorry that our girly site triggered your fragile masculinity," I told Seth flatly, then looked toward his posse. "Do you all have nothing better to do?"

"This is who you dated in middle school?" one guy with a tattoo of a pizza slice on his arm said. "Didn't know you liked Asian girls."

There were so many things wrong with that statement alone. I wanted to throw him off a cliff. I wanted to cut him up like I'd promised to cut up Anika's uncle.

"Or girls in general," another guy added after a long pause. I recognized him from one of Seth's races. I only remembered the fact his name started with a D. For now, I'd call him Douchebag.

Seth's jaw tightened, his smile widening like he was trying his hardest to play along. No longer the leader of the pack, he now the baby of their group, high school senior among frat dudes.

They took a step closer to me, closing me in. Pizza tattoo guy looked me up and down with a sleazy smile while Douchebag whistled. "Why don't you and us get out of here?"

"Or we leave and get back in the car," Seth suggested, looking away.

"What's wrong, Seth?" I asked. Pure thrill coursed through my veins, a break in the boredom as my heart beat faster. "You wanted them to gang up on Jack and not me?"

"We'll make room for two," another guy said. His hair, unlike the others, looked like a literal mop.

The lights went out in the flower shop. Everyone glanced inside, distracted. Seconds later, Jack emerged from the darkness and calmly locked the door behind him with the master key. The air pulsed in the silence, the empty street, light-polluted sky with not a star in sight. Jack slowly looked up at Seth's posse, his gaze tense and guarded.

"Mute boy wanting to join in?" Seth asked, barely above a whisper.

My heart skipped a beat as Jack, without hesitation, punched him in the face.

Smack.

Seth staggered back. Slowly, he touched his fingertips to his jaw. A small smile crept upon his lips, then it turned into a full-blown, typical Seth grin. The other guys cackled. If this was a school hallway, they'd be chanting fight fight fight!

And Seth did it. He pounced on Jack like a leopard, and they grabbed each other in a mess of pale arms and clenched fists. Almost like how me and Jack had wrestled in the flower shop but bloodier, punches and gut-kicks and Seth yelping as Jack went for the dirty trick and kneed him in the balls.

Part of me envied them. Part of me laughed at how they could turn into uncivilized cavemen within seconds—even Jack. The others hooted and cheered them on, making bets on who'd win. I didn't know if this shop had been built atop some gaping hole of negative energy, a curse that made everyone who came near erupt into irrational violence, but I found it way too entertaining to stop.