.you don't have to call me// kaitlin {clue}

[charade]

cleo.

"Ooh, look what you made me do
Look what you made me do
I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me
I'll be the actress starring in your bad dreams"

The first day of school was supposed to be the day she made a splash. Walked in with a brand-new outfit, caught people up on everything she did over the summer that they could only wish they’d done, and most importantly, set the tone for the rest of the school year. But Principal Morrigan was setting the tone for them, a bleak and depressing atmosphere.

Okay, so there was maybe a psycho on the loose. Probably some morphling junkie with a machete. Big whoop. Frankie’s murder was a little harder to explain, but personally, she thought Frankie had chopped Scarlet up for ruining his party and then killed himself. It was pretty obvious once you thought about it.

God, she was so smart.

But it was disgusting, to think that there had been bloody body parts all over campus. The janitorial staff had better have bleached everything twice and replaced all of the floorboards.

If she found a finger somewhere she was going to scream.

Cleo yawned, looking back at Maverick as the principal started droning about sports and after-school clubs. He looked about as bored as she felt, and was almost as attractive looking bored as she was too. The fact of the matter was that she knew he was desirable. Many students wanted a piece of him, so by default, she wanted some too. Unfortunately, they said, he was rumored to already be dating someone new.

That was fine with her. She had no intention of dating him. She didn’t need to be in a relationship with him to get some use out of his body. She bit her lip, imagining that jawline nestled in the crook of her neck. She had to one-up Clara somehow. An assistant coach. Honestly. Oh well. If Maverick was off the table, there were plenty of other fish in the sea.

And Cleo had enough hooks for all of them.

She pouted. At the very least, just being seen talking to him would get a little buzz going among the hanger-ons. She leaned towards him, pleased that he had wound up sitting by her.

“This is stupid. You think other schools hold lame assemblies when a student gets reaped?” She tossed her hair to the side to get a better look at him. “Who’s going to go cry to the counselor? It’s not like Scarlet had any friends.”

Frankie on the other hand—

He had friends, sure. However, she hadn’t ever bothered to get to know him, even though she’d attended all of his parties. They’d been great.

Especially the last one.

“Wouldn’t you agree Mav?”

elegant

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

M A V E R I C K

Here's the thing: you might miss Frankie.

He was your friend, or as much of a friend as you have ever allowed yourself to really have since Grady disappeared on you and you pushed everyone else away. You were an ugly thing in grief, alone and monstrous, and when your mother sent you to Salvatore, it took nearly a year for Frankie to weasel his way into your heart. You let him hang around, went to the parties he threw and didn't quite smile when he told one of his asshole jokes, but you let him make you some version of happy, some version of a boy who had friends, and it made something warm bloom in your chest when he responded to every one of your barbed words and harsh comments with nothing but a lolling smile.

You wish you could care that you were cruel to everyone who had ever cared about you, wish somehow that you knew any more how to let people in, but you can't. It's like there's this uncrossable gap between what you feel and what you want to feel, a hollow space where a part of you has been carved out and turned into kindling for someone else's fire.

You don't like when people call Frankie monstrous though, when people try and say some snide shit about how what he did to Scarlet was cruel and unusual, how he never should have thrown that party, about how his behavior was disgusting, something to be ashamed of, and him being found dead in his bedroom? Some kind of well-deserved karma.

Bullshit.

Each and every single one of you had had a hand to play in what happened to Scarlet, and you all know it.

Each and every one of you is vicious.

Some just hide their teeth better.

When you realize that it's Cleo Burns you've sat down next to, you know already that at some point or other, you're probably going to regret it. Cleo with her bottle-blonde looking hair that she always insists she's never even touched, Cleo with her holier-than-thou smile that always had a way of looking something like a sneer to you, Cleo with her cruelty.

You're twin sides of a cruel coin, you suppose; all she needs to do is smile, and all you need to do is lie, and the world thinks that it knows you. It never does.

She talks and talks and talks, but you don't look at her until she says you name. You twist your head to the side, look at her over your shoulder and will your mouth into anything other than a flat line. Not a smile, but—bored amusement, maybe.

"Oh for sure," you say. She doesn't say anything about Frankie, about how he's dead too and he did have friends, or at least people who certainly were pretending to be. Doesn't say that you're one of the people who should looked sadder than they actually do. "No one's mourning that girl."

Here's the thing: you might miss Frankie.

Cleo just doesn't get to know that.

"But then again, having 'friends' doesn't mean anyone's gonna go crying to the counselor when you die either." Your eyes are black holes where something bright should be shining. "After all, can't imagine anyone shedding a tear when you go."

Just because you are twin sides of a single cruel coin does not mean that you won't be cruel to her, too. Maybe to her you'll be cruelest of all.

[charade]

cleo.

"Ooh, look what you made me do
Look what you made me do
I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me
I'll be the actress starring in your bad dreams"

Dying young was sad,she supposed. Even if it had been someone as annoying as Scarlett. But was she supposed to feel bad? The girl had lived as a nobody and died as a nobody. And it wasn’t as though she’d been the only one at the party to pull the prank on her. It had been a team effort, which was saying something, because group projects usually only had one person contributing.

It was amazing that’d they’d actually pulled it off. It would have been the prank of the century if Scarlett hadn’t gone and gotten herself turned into dog food. Instead, it was barely talked about except in whispers. Downcast gazes and awkward shuffling. All that hard work ruined and gone to waste because of some lunatic. The nerve! The prank had taken months to plan out.

But the past was the past, and the dead were dead.

When Maverick’s barbed wire tongue slipped out from between the smile he painted on his lips, she smiled frostily. There was a darkness drifting behind his eyes, something she recognized from anytime she looked in the mirror. The stains on her soul looked back at him and blew a kiss.

“Oh, Mavvy, you’re so—funny.” She said in a tone that implied he was anything but. He was trying to get a rise out of her, but she wasn’t about to let him know that. It didn’t particularly bother her whether or not people cried over her when she tragically overdosed on valium and wine at the ripe old age of thirty-seven. All that mattered was that they remembered her. And thus far, she’d done of a pretty damn good job of being unforgettable.

“You’re right though,” she said instead. “Hardly anyone seems to be tearing up for poor Frankie, and he definitely had friends.“She dabbed the corner of her monogrammed handkerchief at her tear ducts. Silk, imported directly from district eight. A gift from Grady. It remained dry when she took it away from her face.

“I’ll miss his parties, and the way he was a slack-jawed idiot when me and the girls stripped down to our bikinis in front of him before getting in the pool.” She shook her head. “Didn’t have a lot going on upstairs though.” Cleo leaned towards Maverick, patting his knee gently. “Not like you, such a sharp wit you have. You ever cut your mouth on that tongue?” The smile on her face was a coy one, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

elegant

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

M A V E R I C K

You can feel her bristle.

She does what she can to not show it, but the thing about you and Cleo is that as much as the pair of you would hate to ever admit it and would probably rather drop dead: like recognizes like. And you see her for exactly the rotten thing that she is. She gives herself away from the moment she opens her mouth, lips pressed into not the right kind of lines to imply that she's actually unbothered. You know that you're the same way, have always been shit at hiding how you're really feeling, know that when you're upset it gets written all over your face.

That's why you always twist it into anger.

It's easier to manage your anger than it is to manage your pain, easier to channel, easier to make into something that you can control.

She calls you Mavvy to get under your skin, you know. It's not that she doesn't succeed; you hate the nickname, the sound of it in her mouth making your bring your fists together and crack your knuckles. Not exactly a nervous habit, but a—tick. A thing that you need to do to relieve tension collecting in your body. She's not unsuccessful in her attempt to piss you off. You won't deny that. But her trying to get under your skin tells you one very important thing: you got under hers.

Her talking about Frankie though is barbed wire wrapping around your bones, and you're genuinely worried that you might deck her right here in the assembly in front of all the other students. You know that somewhere in the back of her head, that's probably exactly what she wants. Grady's girl, looking to ruin over and over and over again the person who ruined him. Not that you ruined Grady. He made sure that you never got the chance. But the possibility was there, and for that you're never going to be forgiven. For the fact that Grady hates you, you will forever have people like Cleo Burns breathing down your neck to get you most certainly not hot but without a doubt bothered.

It doesn't matter that for years, you made him happy. Doesn't matter that you were there when he first fell in love with painting, doesn't matter that the two of you found your footing in art and together realized that it could save you from those houses that weren't homes.

No one is ever remembered for the happinesses they create.

Only the things they destroy.

Her dabbing at her eyes is so fucking performative though it makes you want to gag.

You just roll your eyes instead, grit your jaw as tightly as you can and don't even try to pretend like she hasn't pissed you off. She knows she has; she probably knows exactly what's running through your head, knows that you want to wrap your hands around her throat and choke her out until she can never shit like about your dead friends again.

But that's a bad fucking idea and you think saying it out loud would be ever worse, so instead you say the thing you think will piss of Grady the most: "I'd rather cut yours."

When some people smile, it's kind.

Yours is all teeth.

[charade]

cleo.

"Ooh, look what you made me do
Look what you made me do
I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me
I'll be the actress starring in your bad dreams"

Oh, I wish you would, she thought darkly as he cracked his knuckles. Did she strike a nerve? Say it ain’t so, Mavvy. There was a reason Grady avoided him, she knew that much. What she didn’t know was why, because Grady rarely talked about himself or his past. That was fine; it wasn’t as though she was tripping over herself to talk about middle school or that she used to be friends with a wallflower like Parker.

But she hated not knowing. Oh how she hated it. So she watched his face instead, something dangerous uncoiling in her chest. Had he been better friends with Frankie than she’d thought? It wasn’t something she’d bothered to pay attention to. Maybe that jab had been in poor taste, but it wasn’t like she was about to apologize. He’d just have to deal with it.

“I’d rather cut yours.”

Oh. Oh that was too good.

“Promises, promises.” She replied, giggling coquettishly, her eyes tracing the tension in his jaw, daring him, egging him on with a feral grin to match. So he’d rather cut her mouth with his tongue, would he? Cleo whipped her head towards him, darting like a viper, only an inch or two away from his face. “Go ahead. I don’t bite—” she trailed off, thinking. There was a fire dancing in her eyes. A challenge.

Maverick probably tasted like cigarettes and regret, venom and hard edges all rolled into one. She also figured he was too much of a punk to answer her challenge directly. He was the type of boy to kiss a gal behind the dumpster, wasn’t he? Hiding the monster in his heart behind a veneer of cool indifference. They were alike in that respect.

Though she was fire and he was ice. 

In any case he certainly didn’t have the balls to mess with Grady’s girl. Not that Grady had the balls to defend her, even if Maverick did. She looked up at the sky in a grandiose show of faux innocence as she finished her sentence.

“—hard.”

elegant

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

M A V E R I C K

You don't give her enough credit.

You knew that she would respond well. Or, not well exactly, but you knew that she would be able to handle anything that you threw at her and bite back just the same. Maybe say something even worse.

You do not expect her to lean in.

You don't expect to be able to tell that the scent of her shampoo lingers in her hair, something a little bit sweet and a little bit floral.

Vanilla, maybe.

And violets.

You've never been particularly smell sensitive, but she's right there, not a single hair out of place, looking at you with eyes like that and you can't help but notice every little thing about her. The cruel curve of her cupid's bow. The sharp little blonde bits at the end of her bottom lashed, the little place where mascara has flecked onto the top of her cheek and she hasn't quite noticed it yet. The bright blue of her eyes, unwavering and cold.

If you were the sort to get intimidated, you think this would be the moment.

You've always been clumsy with your words in the strangest of ways, never quite able to get across how you're feeling or what you're thinking, never exactly able to say what it is that you want to say. No one ever taught you how to communicate with the rest of the world, just tossed you out there and said figure it out, which only made you decide it was easier to just never let the world know what it is that you're really feeling. And Cleo's voice telling you to go ahead certainly makes you feel a lot, though none of it is what it would look like to the rest of the room.

You lean in as close as you can, armrest digging into your ribs as you invade her space right back, get closer even than she had dared. A fucking game of chicken, you guess.  "I think you're all bark, Cleo Burns," you say just as the very edge of your bottom lip grazes the top of her ear. When you pull back, you lean back into your chair and look away from her, eyes focused back on the stage.

When you speak again, your voice is deadpan.

"Your liptstick is bleeding."

[charade]

cleo.

"Ooh, look what you made me do
Look what you made me do
I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me
I'll be the actress starring in your bad dreams"

From as close as she was she could smell the smoke and nicotine that clung to him like a second skin. Could dearch his eyes for malice, mischievousness or something more. Those hazel eyes were like honey or maybe amber. How many students had gotten trapped in those eyes and slowly suffocated every time he blinked? And then of course he leaned in. Close enough to touch.

Close enough to taste.

Cleo’s heart beat a little faster.

It always did when someone refused to back down.

His lips brushed her ear and it took nearly all of her self-control not to nip his neck right then and there.

However, his next words were a bucket of ice water on her rising mood. She withdrew, recoiling like she’d just been slapped. What an idiot. Like he didn’t know who she was or what she capable of. The insults were blunt, cut right to the heart of what she cared about. He was doing his best to piss her off and it was working.

Followed by blankly looking at the field below and pretending she didn’t exist.

What a tease.

Cleo rolled her eyes. A beat passed. Maybe two. And then she hastily dug her compact mirror out of her purse and flicked it open, worried that he hadn’t just been talking out the side of his ass. What an infuriating boy. She grimaced. Son of a bitch, it was. It wasn’t a disaster, but it was noticeable enough that she was horrified.

Swore to God that Clara had taken her lip liner because she couldn’t find it before she left her school in the morning. She pulled out a little packet of sanitary wipes and opened it, blotting the offending makeup and checking her progress in the mirror.

An easy fix.

The compact mirror snapped shut and she turned, narrowing her eyes at him. He was going to regret antagonizing her. Because now of course, she had to prove him wrong. If not for the very public place they were in she’d have leaned over and clamped her mouth down on his shoulder until he shrieked.

She rummaged through her purse instead.

“Mav,” she said quietly. If either of them was a dog chained to a post and unable to do anything but bark it was him. “I think you’re the one that would look good in a collar.” She hissed the last word as she whipped her eyelineing pencil out of her purse and stabbed him in the leg with it. It wasn’t hard enough to make him bleed, but she hoped to hell that it left a welt.

She smiled sweetly.

elegant

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

M A V E R I C K

If there's one thing that you've learned, it's that most people don't really feel real unless they're being watched.

People like Cleo Burns need attention in order to feel alive, need eyes on them and voices chiming in from the background that they're beautiful, that they're wonderful, that they're the most wonderful fucking thing they have ever seen grace this earth. You don't care how much people deny it, don't care how much people try and say that they don't need applause to live.

Everyone is some goddamned version of Tinkerbell.

Cleo, you know, likes eyes on her. It's why she prances around in all that imported shit that you know Grady buys for her, why she's so attached to her precious designer labels. She can't afford to have a hair out of place, can't afford a line to be not quite right—it's why she recoils like she's been slapped when you tell her that her lipstick is messed up. And you know that somewhere at the bottom of your heart, you're supposed to feel bad for being cruel to her. You're supposed to feel some sort of sympathy, be an empath, figure out that what she's doing comes from some deep, dark place that she's probably afraid to admit exists. But Cleo Burns was as responsible for the death of Scarlett as the next person in that room was, is as responsible as you are. And she's sitting there spitting on her memory, trying to spit on Frankie's, and you just don't feel bad. You don't want to take back what you've said, don't want to say you're sorry and that the two of you should be friends.

You remember reading somewhere or other once that some people end up making their whole lives about getting over one thing, and end up with a life stuck in the past.

They end up erasing their own future.

You know that maybe that's something that you should take to heart, that you should try and get up and move on and pretend like losing Frankie hadn't been such a terrible blow. You should accept that everyone did something awful that night, even the bystanders, especially the bystanders, and you should try and tell yourself that everyone makes mistakes. That you're all going to grow from this.

You should get over it.

Get on with your life.

But Cleo digs her little eyeliner into your leg, grounds you in exactly the emotion you know you should try and temper. You snatch it out of her hand, reflexes sharp, teeth grinding together so that you don't make any too visceral reaction to the pain.

Quickly, you snap the eyeliner in half and drop it on the ground.

"Do that again, and my hands will be a collar around your goddamned throat, Cleo," you say, voice low and threatening. You have never been a snake hiding in the grass; you wear the threat of violence bright and colorful between your shoulders.

When you bite someone, it's their own fault.

[charade]

cleo.

"Ooh, look what you made me do
Look what you made me do
I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me
I'll be the actress starring in your bad dreams"

Maverick was an interesting boy.

For all his effort to stay out of the spotlight, acting like he didn’t care what people thought of him, it seemed like he liked it. He stood out. And he had to know he stood out, just like he had to know why so many people were interested in him. Perhaps he really didn’t care about anyone other than himself. Maybe he was tired of games. But that was what made him so fun to mess with. To flirt with.

He was a walking natural disaster; a hurricane in human form, destroying everything that crossed his path and then moving on with all the regret of an uncaring god. Other students were caught in his pull and buffeted and bruised by the storm, only to thank him for it with starry eyes, each hoping that they would be the one to change him, to peel back those layers of indifference and find the caring, beating heart that surely lay within.

Idiots.

Maverick was like her. A temper he was terrible at controlling. Always finding people’s buttons and pushing. Forcing people to look at themselves. That’s who he was. That’s who she was. Mirrors that reflected people’s jealousy, their shortcomings. To people like each other, they reflected the darkness that they held in their hearts, the sum of a score of bad choices. Of hearts hurt and apologies left unsaid.

It was what made him hot. Even after he snapped her eyeliner in two and threw it to the ground.

She could always get Grady to buy her another one. The important thing was that she’d gotten a visceral and thrilling reaction out of him. Made the indifference crack and revealed the red hot lava that was simmering beneath. No gentle heart, just fire and heat.

Her eyebrows raised in shock and a slight hint of titillation when he threatened her.

That low and angry rumble in his throat made her heartbeat quicken, made her breath catch. The scowl threatening to take over his face. A shiver ran up her spine and she reacted to it involuntarily. Cleo stared at him dangerously, hungrily, like he was a fly that didn’t know how close the spider’s fangs were to sinking into his neck and drinking deep. She moved her hand up to her neck and squeezed it playfully, a cheshire grin on her lips as she blew him a kiss.

“Look me in the eyes when you do,” she winked, feeling a mirthful laugh bubbling somewhere in her chest. “It’s so hard to find boys that can keep up.”

elegant

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

M A V E R I C K

You know you've made a mistake when all she does in reaction is raise her eyebrows. You miscalculated—something, you're sure. Maybe how little her interest in you could be real, how little she was able to read you. Maybe she was better at this than you had given her credit for. She looks at you like she stops breathing, just for a second, and it feels like a moment between seconds, a crack where both of you can see each other for exactly what the other is.

You had roped her in with all those girls that were obsessed with the transfiguration of the self in the worst kinds of ways. The girls all over six who flip so diligently through those little pamphlets about ways yo change the way they look, the brochures promising the change of your life at the tip of a needle. The images all over the place training people to look and act a certain way, training them to need to have everyone look at them and think: I want to look like that. To be one of the things that everyone wants.

Click.

I want attention.

Click.

I want to be beautiful.

Click.

I want everything to be perfect.

Click.

Cleo was one of the one's taking the photos, one of the one's in front of the camera, one of the ones feeding headlines to the papers and the ones desperately flipping through the pages, searching for a life that wasn't hers and yet was. But here, with her breath in her throat and her eyes just a hair brighter than they normally are—she's as aware of all the horseshit as you are.

You grit your jaw, try to stamp down the flash of excitement you have at that thought.

"Oh, really?" You say, keeping your eyes bitter-coffee dark voids and your voice low. Before you can stop yourself—you tilt your head to the side and look at her in her eyes again. "Pretty boy Grady need some pointers?"

[charade]

cleo.

"Ooh, look what you made me do
Look what you made me do
I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me
I'll be the actress starring in your bad dreams"

Cleo supposed that was the part where she was supposed to lie and say that Grady was a stallion with the stamina of Hercules, but some things were far too easy to see through. Like that satin nightie she still hadn’t gotten a chance to wear for him. Honestly, it was like he was going out his way to not reach the next base with her.

She was starting to think he was afraid of intimacy. Which was understandable, but it wasn’t like they loved each other or anything. Cleo waved a hand dismissively, “Oh, you know. He’s a real sweetheart, but still such a little boy sometimes.” Can’t get it up until he gets daddy’s approval, she almost said.

Maverick on the other hand, he didn’t need anything, did he? No, he didn’t want approval or the spotlight or anything like that. As long as people saw him for what he wanted them to see. It was an easy decision to make, walking her fingers down her leg and then across the gap to his knee, up his leg, across his stomach and to his chest before letting go and putting her hand back on her lap.

It was all part of the game, wasn’t it? It wasn’t enough to be the most important piece on it, nor was winning, even though both of those things were desirable. No, it was also about making sure everyone else could see you playing. What was the point in winning otherwise?

“People at this school are so boring, aren’t they?” she said it quietly, cautiously. She had his attention now, even in spite of stabbing his leg. And his attention wasn’t something she wanted to lose because being in control was everything.

“Not like us, right? We just have to be what they expect us to be and it all works out.” The giggle that left her lips was at once both coquettish and knowing. Oh, she had him pegged, she was sure of it. Perhaps it was petty of her to be doing this, especially when the rumors about him and Ally St. Cloud were still making the rounds, but it was so delightful. Besides, Maverick seemed the type to give as good as he got.

"Wouldn't you agree?"

elegant