AlteredTundra
Theyra
Aces Away
Hey Im Jordan
LovelyComplex
Festive
Sapphic Pigeon
Sadie
Damycles
“A great numb feeling washes over me as I let go of the past and look forward to the future.
Pretend to be a vampire.
I don't really need to pretend, because it's who I am, an emotional vampire.
I've just come to expect it.
Vampires are real.
That I was born this way.
That I feed off of other people's real emotions.
Search for this night's prey.
Who will it be?”
- Brett Easton Ellis, The Rules of Attraction.
Pretend to be a vampire.
I don't really need to pretend, because it's who I am, an emotional vampire.
I've just come to expect it.
Vampires are real.
That I was born this way.
That I feed off of other people's real emotions.
Search for this night's prey.
Who will it be?”
- Brett Easton Ellis, The Rules of Attraction.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Theo entered into his homeroom to a round of applause, or at least it sounded like that in his head. Mr. Phoenix was wasting his time breathing as usual so the Franchise didn’t pay him any mind, instead allowing his burned hazelnut eyes to fall upon the amassed group of student bodies that were taking their seats in anticipation of the English teachers latest pointless diatribe. Time withers souls, life withers bodies and in his gaze he scanned the faces of his peers to find any kind of light or spark that could ignite a feeling within him or at the very least, create a convincing enough lie that would allow for him to be sucked into a feeling of normality. When he caught sight of her by the window, Theo knew exactly how he wanted to proceed.
Tatum Sterling.
She was there that day when he and that druggie scum Raven broke up. It was just before the summer break and they were hanging out at a party when Raven got up to the bathroom; when she returned she was a mess and barely functioning. Theo wasn’t one to judge people on their habits but the girl was an absolute state, a fucking embarrassment. There was no way he could spin and justify this to better him so the best thing was to cut the head off of the snake before she decided to bite him. He saw Tate watching and knew then, in that very moment, exactly how he needed to spin it to make it work for him.
The doting boyfriend, the worried lover unable to speak up about his feelings in worry about how it would affect the missing puzzle piece of his heart. And of course it worked, Theo’s plans always did. Now there he stood and where was Raven? Rehab. All summer he had been speaking with Tate, she reached out to him of course to see how he was and that was all the opening he needed. He knew that he was in her head, soon he’d be in her heart and he’d be between her legs and the connections that the quiet little mouse had would work one hundred percent in his favour.
This would be easy.
Theo took off his letterman jacket, showing off his huge biceps could never hurt but he knew that to win Tatum, looks weren’t enough, he had to win her love. That was the only way this was going to work. He greeted a few friends nonchalantly as he made his way through the desks until he reached a seat by the window. He dropped his bag and jacket on the floor before taking a seat next to the brunette. The Franchise swept a hand through his red hair before offering up a smile to his sweet and shy prey. “Hey you.”
The brunette was in her own little world as she sketched, eyes darting back and forth between the paper and her reference. The stack of books piled high on Mr. Phoenix’s desk had captured her attention almost immediately - the colorful spines of the many different works of Shakespeare were positioned in a way that was chaotic and precarious. It piqued her creative eye; one wrong move, and the whole tower would collapse.
As she focused on perfecting her rough drawing, she could see someone approach out of the corner of her periphery, dropping their belongings in her line of vision. She let her gaze drift over to the letterman jacket and the familiar name stitched onto the sleeve before looking up at the red haired boy with a timid smile.
She was still unsure exactly how it happened, but somehow she had been convinced to attend a party at the end of the last school year. Tatum rarely made appearances at such gatherings, and it showed - she hung out against the wall for the majority of the evening, just observing. She seemed to be one of the only people amongst the revelry that witnessed Theo’s messy breakup and she saw firsthand how torn up he was over the whole thing. She felt badly for him and couldn’t believe how careless his ex had been; Theo evidently cared so much about her but her addictive habits were the straw that finally broke the camel’s back.
So, the brunette did what anyone with a heart would do: she checked in on him. Sure, she wasn’t entirely convinced that he knew who she was, after all, he was the star of the Football team and she was but a mere wallflower, but for some reason, she couldn’t idly stand by. Thus started their unconventional (and unprecedented) friendship.
“Hey,” Tate greeted, twirling her pencil nervously between her fingers. “Big game happening tonight, or so I’ve been told. You must be excited.”
“Honestly? I don’t get too excited about these things any more.” Theo slipped his arm behind Tate’s chair and rested it on the back of it as he leaned deeply into his own. “I spend a lot of time training, doing drills, lifting weights, studying the plays etcetera but at the end of it all that I know that when it comes to the game itself, all that matters is I see my target and I make the first move.” He inched ever so slightly closer to the shy beauty as he spoke. “It’s pretty boring really.”
Theo looked at the quiet artist with subtle confidence. He had learned over the years how to keep up appearances and manage perception. It was a skill gleaned from the learning tree of his grandfather, a hell of a businessman and wiseman to many. His cousins, the Stratton twins, were unabashedly themselves and didn't care about what people thought. Theo was different, he knew that what people thought was the difference between success and failure and TVC never failed, it wasn’t in his vocabulary.
“I’ll tell you what would get me excited.” He began, his voice melting into her ear like butter, his words soft and smooth. “Seeing you in the bleachers. You really kept me sane this summer and I think having you front and centre…well how could I lose with you smiling at me?”
Tatum could feel her body tense as Theo placed his arm along the back of her chair, oh, so casually. She tried to pay attention to what he was saying, she really did, but it was hard to focus when she was so consciously aware of how close he was, how he seemed to be moving even closer.
Now, it wasn’t that she was uncomfortable. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Of course she found him attractive, you’d have to be blind not to see his inherent boyish charm. But it was difficult for her to believe that someone like him could even be remotely interested in someone like her, so she tried to play it off as just him being nice. After all, his breakup was still pretty recent. She knew who his friends were, knew who he associated with. He was in the spotlight when she kept to the shadows, and for good reason. Tatum couldn’t seem to put two and two together.
She fought back a blush as he mentioned wanting her to be at the game. “Oh, I uh… I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m going. Well, I wasn’t planning on it at least.” She continued fidgeting with the pencil in her grasp, “If I’m being honest, I haven’t been to a football game since well, never.”
“First time for everything isn’t there?” Theo could read the subtle movements of her fingers around the pencil, the tenseness of her shoulders. Tate wasn't used to this kind of attention but she didn’t hate it. The fluttering of her big blue eyes staring at him; she was flirting or trying to. It was cute.
She was cute.
Tatum was something different than the other girls at Beverly Hills. She was beautiful, there was no doubt about that but she had spent years attempting to fly under the radar, to pass as one of them. The way she carried herself; hiding behind her overalls and bandanas, it was all an act. Maybe even she didn’t know it but Theo knew differently. He had been watching her, the same way he knew how to watch everyone else, to learn, to absorb their idiosyncrasies and their vibes. Knowing people was his business because if he knew them, he could control them and if he could control them, then there would be no stopping him.
Tate was the perfect first step in making his plan for the year happen.
“Listen; I would never force you to do anything you didn’t want to or felt uncomfortable with.” Theo shifted his body to face her, giving their audience the nod that this was a “private conversation”. He reached over and placed hand on her arm gently, his puppy dog face smiling at her. “It’s just an invitation, that’s all. You’ve really helped me this summer and I just wanted to show you how much I appreciate you. There’ll be a seat at the front with your name on it. You don’t have to take it, I won’t be mad if you don’t but seeing you there, I reckon I might just play my heart out.”
Tatum felt herself growing a little warm with all of his attention focused on her. It was consuming, in a way, how he looked her directly in the eye, how he placed his hand reassuringly on her fair skin, how the rest of the classroom seemed to fade into the background as he spoke. This was a new feeling, one she had yet to experience.
Maybe, just maybe, this could be good for her.
The brunette swallowed, her throat having grown dry, “I mean, I guess I could try and convince JJ to come with me… I’ll see what I can do.” She smiled shyly, “No promises though, but I’ll try. It is our last homecoming after all.”
“That’s all I can ask.” The red haired boy softly let his finger trace her arm, just enough to entice and only lightly tickle. “Bring as many friends as you want. There’s likely to be a party afterwards, so we could all go together.” Theo knew how to reel her in. It was all in the way she carried herself. “It’d be like our two worlds coming together. Plus if you come, I just have to take you to this little place on the beach, I think you’d really like it. You’ll want to paint it immediately…” The Franchise lifted his hand up from her arm and gently moved it to her face. “Speaking of, you got a little paint just there.” He gently wiped and caressed her chin with his thumb. “There you go, all gone.”
Theo’s touch sent goosebumps up Tate’s arm. She willed herself to play it cool, to not show her cards, but she was absolutely certain he could tell she was getting a bit flustered. The blush she had willed away was now blooming on her cheeks as he wiped away the stray paint on her chin. Bashfully, she turned her head and looked down at her desk, “Not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m not much for parties, so that one’s another hard maybe.” Tatum stated, taking a moment before lifting her gaze back to Theo, “Besides, won’t your friends think it’s a bit odd that we’ve started, well, hanging out all of a sudden?”
“Who cares what they think?” Everybody did. Everybody cares what they think. Theo’s friends were the Elite, the Hive Five, the Jocks, the God damn Illuminati, they controlled everything. “Plus, what’s there to care about? We’re friends, you helped me when I needed it and I really enjoy your company. Don’t worry about anything anybody else is doing, Tate.”
His plans were working even better than he’d hoped. Getting into Tatum’s head wasn’t really the big challenge but getting her to see the world through his eyes? The veil lifted? The rose tinted glasses broken? To get her to see those around them for what they were, empty vessels void of anything remotely considered human decency. Nepo babies and troglodytes destined for internet viral videos and brief sojourns onto reality tv.
Now that was the challenge he craved.
“But like I said, I’m not forcing you to do anything. It would just make me real happy to see you there, that’s all.”
It was easy for Theo to not have to worry about what everybody else was doing, he was at the top of the food chain and didn’t answer to any higher powers. But Tate lived her life in constant recognition that she was at the bottom of the totem pole - not that she minded being there, it was exactly where she wanted to be- and thus was always thinking about how other people perceived her. “If you say so…” Tatum replied doubtfully, moving to close her sketchbook.
The girl had made it her goal not to attract any unnecessary attention over the past four years. Her philosophy about high school was simple: get in, get shit done, keep her head down, and get out. It’s what had always worked for her, what she needed to do to get by. But for some reason, the prospect of being around someone in the limelight didn’t scare her as much as she thought it would. Maybe it was the way Theo was looking at her, actively choosing to notice her and get to know her, that opened her up to the idea of not standing on the sidelines. “No, I know, and I appreciate that. I’ll think about it, really.”
“Alright then.” Theo’s face was chipper. He knew that he had won. Even if her words were dripping with self doubt, he knew that a few more words from him through the day would send Tatum off the edge of the map and into his world. By the end of Homecoming, she would be his.
Too many people overthought everything, life really wasn’t that complicated. High school certainly wasn’t that complicated. It was survival of the fittest, a Serengeti or jungle with its own ecosystem and wildlife fighting and fucking until they were dying or dead and the rules of attraction were built in primal instincts embedded into their very core. Theo was the master of those rules.
“So.” He leaned back; giving the artist her own space back. It was like a taster; Tate had experienced his touch now, his presence, she would miss it, crave it, want him. “What are you working on? If you don’t mind me asking?”
Tate gave the red haired boy a soft smile, opening back up to the page she had been previously drawing on. She held the book out to him so he could take a closer look, “It’s nothing special, I just saw the stack of plays on Mr. Phoenix’s desk and thought it looked interesting.” The brunette watched Theo’s expression as he viewed the sketch, taking the opportunity to get a better look at the boy while he was preoccupied. She took in his muscular frame, the way his chest moved as he breathed, and how his hair brushed over his forehead and eyes. “Shakespeare inspired me today, I guess.”
“Shakespeare, really?” Theo’s eyes didn’t leave the page for a moment. He could feel her big blue eyes staring at him. He let her see everything. He balled his fist ever so lightly to tense the large muscles in his arm. “Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.” He held a pause long enough for his words to sink ever so slightly into her alabaster skin. Everything with purpose. He lifted his head to meet her smile with one of his own. “Yeah I know Shakespeare. Mom is a big fan. Surprised she never forced me to do theatre.”
Tatum tried to stifle a laugh, caught by surprise from his words, “I would have never taken you for a Shakespeare enthusiast, guess you learn something new everyday.” She commented, mentally noting his choice of quote and the fact it was a deeper cut than your average ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. The brunette motioned to the tower of books that she was referencing, “Caught my eye when I walked in. Something about it being stable yet unsteady, haphazard but also orderly, kind of spoke to me.” Tate shook her head, realizing she was probably giving him much more context than he desired. “Or it’s just a pile of books. Dealer’s choice.”
Theo leaned his chin onto a balled up fist to look deeper at her, “You basically just described this entire class.” He chuckled lightly. “You know that right?” Tate carried an energy that not many of those that he actually knew possessed. Most of his friends, if you could even call them that, were vapid and plastic, Theo knew this. He knew by association he may be viewed as such but he did enough to differentiate himself from the norm, it seemed, at least to him, that Tatum was the same. At least in her eyes anyway. “Then again maybe you’re right, maybe it’s just a dusty pile of old books but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So if you think there’s something there, there probably is. Connection can be an inexplicable and undeniable thing.”
“I mean,” Tatum looked around at their peers, contemplating Theo’s statement, “You’re not wrong, but I feel like there’s more to it than that.” She countered, returning her gaze to him. She placed her pencil down on the desk before clasping her hands together in her lap. “I probably sound a little bit crazy, but you learn a lot from just observing things. I’ve had nearly four years of practice,” A small laugh escaped her lips, referencing her quieter tendencies. “There’s always more to something than meets the eye.”
If only she knew. Theo too was a student of the human condition, probably more so than most. He had spent years learning body language, tone of speech, nervous tics, everything he could possibly read from a person he had studied so that he always had an advantage. Tatum didn’t have to know that though, she was trying to share with him. One of the things he had discovered is that women love to share, they love to just talk and they love it when they think you’re actually listening. “Oh really?” He increased his attentiveness, shifting his body around just a little more and leaning closer. “And what has all your observation told you about me, Tate?”
The brunette looked at him, really looked at him. If he had asked her that question before this summer, she would have cited him as the typical Elite archetype. She had seen him in the hallways between classes, joking with his friends and talking shop, and he always oozed confidence and privilege, the kind of guy who knew he was just that good. He was in league with Ethan Green and Jack McDonough, guys whose arrogance and ego preceded them. He fit in with them almost as easily as breathing, so she assumed he was just like them.
But he was asking her this post-summer, after she had seen him at quite possibly one of his lowest points. The girl was surprised with herself, someone normally so perceptive, at how she had put him into a specific box without scratching the surface, before she actually got to know him better. She was slowly realizing how wrong her previous observations were. “Honestly, I don’t know,” Tatum paused, a subtle smirk gracing her features, “Ask me some other time, I’m still trying to figure you out.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” Theo took out the reading glasses from his letterman pocket and slipped them onto his face, letting his lips curl into a sweet, almost innocent smile. “It’s a date.” He was blessed by boyish looks, it was very hard to not smile with him. The Franchise knew how to turn it on and how to make them see what they needed to see. The glasses alone he didn’t actually need, they were all for show. A subtle way to pull those around him into security. It was a stereotype of course, the harmless glasses wearer but it was one that was ingrained into society that it was unavoidable. “I guess I better get my own list ready so I can read out and count all the reasons why I like you.”
A date.
Did she just hear him right? Tatum’s face went from playful to surprised in two seconds flat, an instant blush staining her porcelain skin. She quickly looked down at her clasped hands, hoping Theo wouldn’t see her visceral reaction to those three words he so nonchalantly stated, or how she somehow blushed more at the next sentence that flowed from his lips so freely. So maybe he wasn’t just trying to be nice… it seemed that he was genuinely interested in her. In her years at BHHS, she had never actually been asked out, always too much in the background to garner any admiration. Or, she would get asked out, but jokingly only because people thought she shared her mother’s well-known knack for debauchery.
Taking a breath, she lifted her head back up to Theo, biting her inner lip in an attempt to fight the smile that she so naturally wanted to show. She didn’t want to seem too eager or desperate. So as her baby blue eyes met his light brown gaze, she spoke softly, keeping her composure. “We’ll see.” The brunette picked back up her pencil and continued to draw, paying no mind to the way her heart was racing.
It was all there, the ringing of the hands, the subtle lip bite that she didn’t want him to notice; the smile. She was his. He had led the horse to water and it was oh so easy to make her drink. “I suppose we better start paying attention otherwise people are gonna start to think I’m a bad influence on you.” Theo smiled that damned smile. It was a mirror to the lips of a rattlesnake, enticing and deadly in equal measure. One just couldn’t look away. Theo was the apex predator of Beverly Hills High. He was Godzilla. He was King Kong; and he had found this night's prey, her name was Tatum.
He was going to ruin her.
Tatum Sterling.
She was there that day when he and that druggie scum Raven broke up. It was just before the summer break and they were hanging out at a party when Raven got up to the bathroom; when she returned she was a mess and barely functioning. Theo wasn’t one to judge people on their habits but the girl was an absolute state, a fucking embarrassment. There was no way he could spin and justify this to better him so the best thing was to cut the head off of the snake before she decided to bite him. He saw Tate watching and knew then, in that very moment, exactly how he needed to spin it to make it work for him.
The doting boyfriend, the worried lover unable to speak up about his feelings in worry about how it would affect the missing puzzle piece of his heart. And of course it worked, Theo’s plans always did. Now there he stood and where was Raven? Rehab. All summer he had been speaking with Tate, she reached out to him of course to see how he was and that was all the opening he needed. He knew that he was in her head, soon he’d be in her heart and he’d be between her legs and the connections that the quiet little mouse had would work one hundred percent in his favour.
This would be easy.
Theo took off his letterman jacket, showing off his huge biceps could never hurt but he knew that to win Tatum, looks weren’t enough, he had to win her love. That was the only way this was going to work. He greeted a few friends nonchalantly as he made his way through the desks until he reached a seat by the window. He dropped his bag and jacket on the floor before taking a seat next to the brunette. The Franchise swept a hand through his red hair before offering up a smile to his sweet and shy prey. “Hey you.”
The brunette was in her own little world as she sketched, eyes darting back and forth between the paper and her reference. The stack of books piled high on Mr. Phoenix’s desk had captured her attention almost immediately - the colorful spines of the many different works of Shakespeare were positioned in a way that was chaotic and precarious. It piqued her creative eye; one wrong move, and the whole tower would collapse.
As she focused on perfecting her rough drawing, she could see someone approach out of the corner of her periphery, dropping their belongings in her line of vision. She let her gaze drift over to the letterman jacket and the familiar name stitched onto the sleeve before looking up at the red haired boy with a timid smile.
She was still unsure exactly how it happened, but somehow she had been convinced to attend a party at the end of the last school year. Tatum rarely made appearances at such gatherings, and it showed - she hung out against the wall for the majority of the evening, just observing. She seemed to be one of the only people amongst the revelry that witnessed Theo’s messy breakup and she saw firsthand how torn up he was over the whole thing. She felt badly for him and couldn’t believe how careless his ex had been; Theo evidently cared so much about her but her addictive habits were the straw that finally broke the camel’s back.
So, the brunette did what anyone with a heart would do: she checked in on him. Sure, she wasn’t entirely convinced that he knew who she was, after all, he was the star of the Football team and she was but a mere wallflower, but for some reason, she couldn’t idly stand by. Thus started their unconventional (and unprecedented) friendship.
“Hey,” Tate greeted, twirling her pencil nervously between her fingers. “Big game happening tonight, or so I’ve been told. You must be excited.”
“Honestly? I don’t get too excited about these things any more.” Theo slipped his arm behind Tate’s chair and rested it on the back of it as he leaned deeply into his own. “I spend a lot of time training, doing drills, lifting weights, studying the plays etcetera but at the end of it all that I know that when it comes to the game itself, all that matters is I see my target and I make the first move.” He inched ever so slightly closer to the shy beauty as he spoke. “It’s pretty boring really.”
Theo looked at the quiet artist with subtle confidence. He had learned over the years how to keep up appearances and manage perception. It was a skill gleaned from the learning tree of his grandfather, a hell of a businessman and wiseman to many. His cousins, the Stratton twins, were unabashedly themselves and didn't care about what people thought. Theo was different, he knew that what people thought was the difference between success and failure and TVC never failed, it wasn’t in his vocabulary.
“I’ll tell you what would get me excited.” He began, his voice melting into her ear like butter, his words soft and smooth. “Seeing you in the bleachers. You really kept me sane this summer and I think having you front and centre…well how could I lose with you smiling at me?”
Tatum could feel her body tense as Theo placed his arm along the back of her chair, oh, so casually. She tried to pay attention to what he was saying, she really did, but it was hard to focus when she was so consciously aware of how close he was, how he seemed to be moving even closer.
Now, it wasn’t that she was uncomfortable. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Of course she found him attractive, you’d have to be blind not to see his inherent boyish charm. But it was difficult for her to believe that someone like him could even be remotely interested in someone like her, so she tried to play it off as just him being nice. After all, his breakup was still pretty recent. She knew who his friends were, knew who he associated with. He was in the spotlight when she kept to the shadows, and for good reason. Tatum couldn’t seem to put two and two together.
She fought back a blush as he mentioned wanting her to be at the game. “Oh, I uh… I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m going. Well, I wasn’t planning on it at least.” She continued fidgeting with the pencil in her grasp, “If I’m being honest, I haven’t been to a football game since well, never.”
“First time for everything isn’t there?” Theo could read the subtle movements of her fingers around the pencil, the tenseness of her shoulders. Tate wasn't used to this kind of attention but she didn’t hate it. The fluttering of her big blue eyes staring at him; she was flirting or trying to. It was cute.
She was cute.
Tatum was something different than the other girls at Beverly Hills. She was beautiful, there was no doubt about that but she had spent years attempting to fly under the radar, to pass as one of them. The way she carried herself; hiding behind her overalls and bandanas, it was all an act. Maybe even she didn’t know it but Theo knew differently. He had been watching her, the same way he knew how to watch everyone else, to learn, to absorb their idiosyncrasies and their vibes. Knowing people was his business because if he knew them, he could control them and if he could control them, then there would be no stopping him.
Tate was the perfect first step in making his plan for the year happen.
“Listen; I would never force you to do anything you didn’t want to or felt uncomfortable with.” Theo shifted his body to face her, giving their audience the nod that this was a “private conversation”. He reached over and placed hand on her arm gently, his puppy dog face smiling at her. “It’s just an invitation, that’s all. You’ve really helped me this summer and I just wanted to show you how much I appreciate you. There’ll be a seat at the front with your name on it. You don’t have to take it, I won’t be mad if you don’t but seeing you there, I reckon I might just play my heart out.”
Tatum felt herself growing a little warm with all of his attention focused on her. It was consuming, in a way, how he looked her directly in the eye, how he placed his hand reassuringly on her fair skin, how the rest of the classroom seemed to fade into the background as he spoke. This was a new feeling, one she had yet to experience.
Maybe, just maybe, this could be good for her.
The brunette swallowed, her throat having grown dry, “I mean, I guess I could try and convince JJ to come with me… I’ll see what I can do.” She smiled shyly, “No promises though, but I’ll try. It is our last homecoming after all.”
“That’s all I can ask.” The red haired boy softly let his finger trace her arm, just enough to entice and only lightly tickle. “Bring as many friends as you want. There’s likely to be a party afterwards, so we could all go together.” Theo knew how to reel her in. It was all in the way she carried herself. “It’d be like our two worlds coming together. Plus if you come, I just have to take you to this little place on the beach, I think you’d really like it. You’ll want to paint it immediately…” The Franchise lifted his hand up from her arm and gently moved it to her face. “Speaking of, you got a little paint just there.” He gently wiped and caressed her chin with his thumb. “There you go, all gone.”
Theo’s touch sent goosebumps up Tate’s arm. She willed herself to play it cool, to not show her cards, but she was absolutely certain he could tell she was getting a bit flustered. The blush she had willed away was now blooming on her cheeks as he wiped away the stray paint on her chin. Bashfully, she turned her head and looked down at her desk, “Not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m not much for parties, so that one’s another hard maybe.” Tatum stated, taking a moment before lifting her gaze back to Theo, “Besides, won’t your friends think it’s a bit odd that we’ve started, well, hanging out all of a sudden?”
“Who cares what they think?” Everybody did. Everybody cares what they think. Theo’s friends were the Elite, the Hive Five, the Jocks, the God damn Illuminati, they controlled everything. “Plus, what’s there to care about? We’re friends, you helped me when I needed it and I really enjoy your company. Don’t worry about anything anybody else is doing, Tate.”
His plans were working even better than he’d hoped. Getting into Tatum’s head wasn’t really the big challenge but getting her to see the world through his eyes? The veil lifted? The rose tinted glasses broken? To get her to see those around them for what they were, empty vessels void of anything remotely considered human decency. Nepo babies and troglodytes destined for internet viral videos and brief sojourns onto reality tv.
Now that was the challenge he craved.
“But like I said, I’m not forcing you to do anything. It would just make me real happy to see you there, that’s all.”
It was easy for Theo to not have to worry about what everybody else was doing, he was at the top of the food chain and didn’t answer to any higher powers. But Tate lived her life in constant recognition that she was at the bottom of the totem pole - not that she minded being there, it was exactly where she wanted to be- and thus was always thinking about how other people perceived her. “If you say so…” Tatum replied doubtfully, moving to close her sketchbook.
The girl had made it her goal not to attract any unnecessary attention over the past four years. Her philosophy about high school was simple: get in, get shit done, keep her head down, and get out. It’s what had always worked for her, what she needed to do to get by. But for some reason, the prospect of being around someone in the limelight didn’t scare her as much as she thought it would. Maybe it was the way Theo was looking at her, actively choosing to notice her and get to know her, that opened her up to the idea of not standing on the sidelines. “No, I know, and I appreciate that. I’ll think about it, really.”
“Alright then.” Theo’s face was chipper. He knew that he had won. Even if her words were dripping with self doubt, he knew that a few more words from him through the day would send Tatum off the edge of the map and into his world. By the end of Homecoming, she would be his.
Too many people overthought everything, life really wasn’t that complicated. High school certainly wasn’t that complicated. It was survival of the fittest, a Serengeti or jungle with its own ecosystem and wildlife fighting and fucking until they were dying or dead and the rules of attraction were built in primal instincts embedded into their very core. Theo was the master of those rules.
“So.” He leaned back; giving the artist her own space back. It was like a taster; Tate had experienced his touch now, his presence, she would miss it, crave it, want him. “What are you working on? If you don’t mind me asking?”
Tate gave the red haired boy a soft smile, opening back up to the page she had been previously drawing on. She held the book out to him so he could take a closer look, “It’s nothing special, I just saw the stack of plays on Mr. Phoenix’s desk and thought it looked interesting.” The brunette watched Theo’s expression as he viewed the sketch, taking the opportunity to get a better look at the boy while he was preoccupied. She took in his muscular frame, the way his chest moved as he breathed, and how his hair brushed over his forehead and eyes. “Shakespeare inspired me today, I guess.”
“Shakespeare, really?” Theo’s eyes didn’t leave the page for a moment. He could feel her big blue eyes staring at him. He let her see everything. He balled his fist ever so lightly to tense the large muscles in his arm. “Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.” He held a pause long enough for his words to sink ever so slightly into her alabaster skin. Everything with purpose. He lifted his head to meet her smile with one of his own. “Yeah I know Shakespeare. Mom is a big fan. Surprised she never forced me to do theatre.”
Tatum tried to stifle a laugh, caught by surprise from his words, “I would have never taken you for a Shakespeare enthusiast, guess you learn something new everyday.” She commented, mentally noting his choice of quote and the fact it was a deeper cut than your average ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. The brunette motioned to the tower of books that she was referencing, “Caught my eye when I walked in. Something about it being stable yet unsteady, haphazard but also orderly, kind of spoke to me.” Tate shook her head, realizing she was probably giving him much more context than he desired. “Or it’s just a pile of books. Dealer’s choice.”
Theo leaned his chin onto a balled up fist to look deeper at her, “You basically just described this entire class.” He chuckled lightly. “You know that right?” Tate carried an energy that not many of those that he actually knew possessed. Most of his friends, if you could even call them that, were vapid and plastic, Theo knew this. He knew by association he may be viewed as such but he did enough to differentiate himself from the norm, it seemed, at least to him, that Tatum was the same. At least in her eyes anyway. “Then again maybe you’re right, maybe it’s just a dusty pile of old books but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So if you think there’s something there, there probably is. Connection can be an inexplicable and undeniable thing.”
“I mean,” Tatum looked around at their peers, contemplating Theo’s statement, “You’re not wrong, but I feel like there’s more to it than that.” She countered, returning her gaze to him. She placed her pencil down on the desk before clasping her hands together in her lap. “I probably sound a little bit crazy, but you learn a lot from just observing things. I’ve had nearly four years of practice,” A small laugh escaped her lips, referencing her quieter tendencies. “There’s always more to something than meets the eye.”
If only she knew. Theo too was a student of the human condition, probably more so than most. He had spent years learning body language, tone of speech, nervous tics, everything he could possibly read from a person he had studied so that he always had an advantage. Tatum didn’t have to know that though, she was trying to share with him. One of the things he had discovered is that women love to share, they love to just talk and they love it when they think you’re actually listening. “Oh really?” He increased his attentiveness, shifting his body around just a little more and leaning closer. “And what has all your observation told you about me, Tate?”
The brunette looked at him, really looked at him. If he had asked her that question before this summer, she would have cited him as the typical Elite archetype. She had seen him in the hallways between classes, joking with his friends and talking shop, and he always oozed confidence and privilege, the kind of guy who knew he was just that good. He was in league with Ethan Green and Jack McDonough, guys whose arrogance and ego preceded them. He fit in with them almost as easily as breathing, so she assumed he was just like them.
But he was asking her this post-summer, after she had seen him at quite possibly one of his lowest points. The girl was surprised with herself, someone normally so perceptive, at how she had put him into a specific box without scratching the surface, before she actually got to know him better. She was slowly realizing how wrong her previous observations were. “Honestly, I don’t know,” Tatum paused, a subtle smirk gracing her features, “Ask me some other time, I’m still trying to figure you out.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” Theo took out the reading glasses from his letterman pocket and slipped them onto his face, letting his lips curl into a sweet, almost innocent smile. “It’s a date.” He was blessed by boyish looks, it was very hard to not smile with him. The Franchise knew how to turn it on and how to make them see what they needed to see. The glasses alone he didn’t actually need, they were all for show. A subtle way to pull those around him into security. It was a stereotype of course, the harmless glasses wearer but it was one that was ingrained into society that it was unavoidable. “I guess I better get my own list ready so I can read out and count all the reasons why I like you.”
A date.
Did she just hear him right? Tatum’s face went from playful to surprised in two seconds flat, an instant blush staining her porcelain skin. She quickly looked down at her clasped hands, hoping Theo wouldn’t see her visceral reaction to those three words he so nonchalantly stated, or how she somehow blushed more at the next sentence that flowed from his lips so freely. So maybe he wasn’t just trying to be nice… it seemed that he was genuinely interested in her. In her years at BHHS, she had never actually been asked out, always too much in the background to garner any admiration. Or, she would get asked out, but jokingly only because people thought she shared her mother’s well-known knack for debauchery.
Taking a breath, she lifted her head back up to Theo, biting her inner lip in an attempt to fight the smile that she so naturally wanted to show. She didn’t want to seem too eager or desperate. So as her baby blue eyes met his light brown gaze, she spoke softly, keeping her composure. “We’ll see.” The brunette picked back up her pencil and continued to draw, paying no mind to the way her heart was racing.
It was all there, the ringing of the hands, the subtle lip bite that she didn’t want him to notice; the smile. She was his. He had led the horse to water and it was oh so easy to make her drink. “I suppose we better start paying attention otherwise people are gonna start to think I’m a bad influence on you.” Theo smiled that damned smile. It was a mirror to the lips of a rattlesnake, enticing and deadly in equal measure. One just couldn’t look away. Theo was the apex predator of Beverly Hills High. He was Godzilla. He was King Kong; and he had found this night's prey, her name was Tatum.
He was going to ruin her.
