Page 11 of Beautiful Dark Temptation

I’d been assigned a tutor by the name ofDasher T which I thought was a stupid name and expected a matchingstupid person. But the guy wasn’t that bad. He looked almost likeBucky Barnes if you squinted a little bit. Much skinnier with thelong dark hair parted in the middle. He wore a black t-shirt of aband I didn’t know with a flannel over it and dark jeans. He alsohad forearm crutches and his jeans flared. He looked up at me andglared with those deep-set Bucky eyes. “You’re late.”

I was twenty minutes late. “I got lost,” Ilied.

He pushed a workbook in my direction. “Youhave forty minutes to get through those questions when you could’vehad an hour.”

I sat down and flipped through the book. Ithad a lot of questions. “These are a lot of questions.”

He looked at his watch. “Tick Tock.”

Dasher was a good teacher but not patient. Ididn’t finish all the questions when I had to hand the book back.He got up using the crutches as if he’d had them all his life.“What?” he snapped.

“What?” I snapped back.

“Ask.”

I shrugged. Even I knew it was rude to stareand ask personal questions about people’s disabilities, religiousaffiliations, and gender. And never, ever, congratulate a girl forbeing pregnant. She could just be fat. Oops, I meant curvy.

When I didn’t say anything, he slung hisbackpack over one shoulder. I reached for it on instinct to helphim but dropped my hand when he glared at me. “Sorry,” I said,feeling the need. “I was taught to help people.”

Well, that was a lie. It was just ingrainedin me for some damn reason. I always helped Mrs. Martinez with herchihuahua, although that furball always wanted to eat me. I’dhelped Mr. Aquino mow his lawn when his son was out of town. And Ionce helped a little ole’ lady carry bags into her car at the localfood mart. Daniel had laughed his ass off at that one. Called me apussy. But the lady gave me five bucks, so there was that.

Dasher glared at me and walked away.

During the several weeks of tutoring, Ilearned to be on time or spend the hour looking for him somewherein the woods. I once found him in a tree house. A fucking treehouse. Now, I wasn’t scared of much … but heights and drowning.

“I was just three minutes late!” I hadhollered up to the tree in the sky.

“That’s three minutes! Now get your ass uphere if you want to finish this book!”

I considered leaving him in his tower likesome sort of princess, but I really didn’t want to go back to Mx.Burnes and tell them I had no clue what the white elephant in thatbook meant, so … I climbed. And didn’t look down.

It was my motto for the rest of the summerwith Dasher. Climb and don’t look down. Do without thought. Learnwithout question. Speak without reservation. His brain was filledwith shit like that. And sometimes, his mind was a weird place.

Like when he decided to take me out atnight. I’d never seen such darkness in my life. He’d turn off theflashlight and I couldn’t even see my own hand in front of my face.That’s how dark it got. And it was never quiet. But the noisesweren’t ambulances, cops, or guns, but frogs mostly. The nocturnalcreatures of the night.

Up in his tree house one night, we laid outon the balcony to look at the stars. Dasher showed me theconstellations and we talked about how astronomers calculateddistance via time and light. He always had a lesson in his talks.The guy was super smart. Maybe smarter than Nick.

“How’d you get so smart?” I asked him.

“I had nothing better to do after theaccident. It wasn’t like I could go anywhere.”

“How’d you get hurt?”

“Car accident.”

“Well, your parents must be proud of you forbeing so smart.”

He stayed silent. Parents were an off-limitstopic of conversation at Arcadia. They were called sponsors. And wedidn’t have events to bring family on campus. We were dropped offand forgotten.

“Nah,” he said finally, his hand up in thesky as if he were trapping a star in his palm. “I wasn’t born agirl.”

I didn’t know what that had to do with beinghappy for his smarts, but I didn’t ask. “This isn’t the peacefulArcadia like Dr. Casera wants us to believe, is it?”

He laughed but it wasn’t a real laugh. “Doyou know the story of Zeus, the Greek god?”

“I saw the Olympians on TV.”

“Well, Zeus was a man-whore. Arcadia iswhere he stashed his illegitimate son from his wife who wanted tokill the bastard child. The son’s name was Arcas. The story goesthat Hera turned Arcas’s mother into a bear because of theinfidelity. One night, Arcas was going to kill her as the bear, notknowing it was actually his mother, but Zeus spared him of that andturned both of them into constellations.” He pointed at the sky.“Ursa major and Ursa minor. The big and little dipper.”

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