The Devils You Know by M.C. Atwood

Author:M.C. Atwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Young Adult Fiction
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2017-07-21T16:01:28+00:00

DYLAN

My baby won’t look at me.

The whole world just dropped out from under my feet. My sun, moon, stars. Gretchen won’t look at me. I barely hear what the demon dude says after I see the look on Gretchen’s face.

But the asstroll stares at Ashley, taking a nice long break from talking, to let everything sink in. Gretchen sits down. I move toward her, but she puts up her hand and I know this gesture. It’s the heartbreak gesture. My heartbreak. The don’t-touch-me gesture.

Babe is hurt. Because of me. I can’t breathe.

There are reasons, I want to shout. There are reasons why, I think-scream.

But now the demon dude is talking again. He’s clocking Ashley. I get the game now, too late. I get the game, now that I’m destroyed. The game is “Secret secret, who’s got a secret.” Ashley has started shaking.

I’m expecting a long windup, the way he tortured Gretch and me. But instead, the dude points his cane at Ashley and says, “She’s gay!”

We all flip our heads to Ashley. She takes a step back on her towel boots.

The demon walks around and giggles. “Now, that is hardly scandalous in this day and age. But consider this, peer court! Consider that Ashley came here specifically to meet an Internet paramour for some, what sexual education manuals call, ‘heavy petting.’” He lifts one eyebrow and puts a finger to his creepy shark mouth. “Our Ashley enjoys leading on these poor girls—girls who think she may be the one, the sweetheart of their hearts—and using and discarding them like so many Gucci purses.”

He stops again. “‘But,’ you might say, ‘while this is not exemplary, kind behavior, certainly it is not horrifying.’ My dears, you would be wrong. Ashley here follows her daddy dearest soon-to-be senator’s stance in public: Down with the gays. Marriage between one man and one woman. Homosexuality is a sin for depraved monsters and godless heathens. And all that delicious folderol that religion has devised to separate humans. Sound familiar, John?”

He winks at me. I wince. That sonuvabitch. I look to Gretchen again but she has her head in her hands now. I don’t believe that, Gretch. Believe me. Believe in me.

Demon dude takes another lap and looks at Paul. Who physically ducks.

But he whips his head around to Ashley again and says, waving his hand lazily, “Oh, and she’s in love with Gretchen here.”

My body jerks. Whaaaaa???

“Paul!” says the demon dude. Paul tries to speak, “I don’t care what you have to—” But the demon interrupts him.

“Undoubtedly you don’t care. You don’t care at all that you are quite the popular boy at River Red High School in the quaint town of Whispering Bluffs, Wisconsin. Quite the basketball player, quite the laaaaadies’ man. Tell me, Paul, does everyone know that you and your mom take SCA classes? Enact some old Renaissance Faire scenes?” He puts his hand to one side of his mouth and says, “Brings out ye olde jerkin, what what.” He winks at me and then says, “Is that called LARPing, Paul? I am so far behind the terms these days.

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