Cheaters Anonymous Read online

  CHAPTER 2

  Eleven years earlier

  Sitting underneath the bleachers, I pulled my legs up to my chest and closed my eyes, and listened to the hum of vibrating metal that bounced from one end to the other. During the past week, this new hiding spot had given me the most peace of the day. As the cheerleading squad stopped their routine, the noise of the student population in our high school blended with the aluminum whirr. I lowered my shoulders and leaned my head back against the metal stand that supported the seats above me. Nine and a half more months and this place would be abandoned. The dreaded summer break would begin, and without quiet places like these to hide underneath, I would be forced to leave this city. Maybe a fresh start at university was exactly what I needed? I’d only been at this school since last March. Dad’s job meant we moved from one big city to another, and my lucky draw this year was a private neighborhood of mansions on Long Island so that Dad could commute to Manhattan. We lived in what I assumed to be one of the more prestigious areas, where all the kids in the neighborhood went to the same private school.

  I opened my eyes as the smell of pot permeated the air. A few feet away, a boy I’d seen around school sat down and leaned back, pulling in a lungful from his joint. His eyes lazy, he let the smoke out slowly before turning my way.

  “Want a hit?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  May as well live it up while I can.

  For me, by the end of the year this place would be history, and my social life would morph from non-existent to completely dead. But maybe we’d stay in Washington for a bit longer than a year – that was the plan, at least. This time we’d be moving with mom only. Dad was staying behind, though he’d promised “nothing would change.” Actually, tired of watching him lie and cheat, I had been praying for a while now that our life actually would change. Mom had finally smartened up.

  He shuffled his way toward me and hit his head on one of the bleachers. While he didn’t make a sound, I chuckled at the surprise in his eyes when he looked up with that expression of wonderment at how the metal seat had gotten there. For someone of my frame, crawling underneath the bleachers wasn’t an issue. But he totally didn’t look like he belonged here – which made him perfect company because I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere.

  I took the flawlessly rolled cannabis and brought it to my lips. Feeling his gaze on me, I looked to the side at his Yeah, baby smile. He must have been smoking for a while now.

  Feeling moisture at the tip, I inhaled. Watching a football practice, we passed the shrinking doobie back and forth. It was a good thing we were sitting upwind; otherwise, one of the coaches could have caught us.

  “Look at those fools.” He pointed to a couple. Sherry, the cheerleading squad’s captain, was wearing her practice uniform as Bradley ran up to her in that bulky way, making each step look as if it had been rehearsed to perfection by every single football player in the world.

  “What about them?”

  “She’s completely oblivious that’s he’s cheating on her.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Guys brag.” He shrugged.

  It took a moment for the pot to kick in, but when it did, I saw the pair all over each other in slow motion. I laughed – but in my ears only heard a snort.

  “Good shit?” he asked.

  “It is.”

  “Watch this.” He brought my attention back to the field. A girl from the squad stomped over to the pair, jutting her manicured finger into Bradley’s chest. I didn’t know her name. They exchanged what looked like a few angry words.

  “Oh, oh,” I chuckled. “Cat fight?”

  “Nah, their claws are still growing. And they’re both hoping to win Brad over. Another three years, maybe we’d see some hair tugging and nail scratching.” He shrugged again. It seemed to be one of his favorite gestures.

  Brad was definitely on the top of the hotness scale, and I wasn’t surprised that every girl in the school wanted a piece of him. I’d do anything just to be part of the popular crowd for one short day.

  I felt bad for Sherry for only a moment. Then I remember her prancing around school inserting pamphlets of a photograph of me looking back at my own ass with a red stain on the back of my white pants. I’d sat on a ketchup packet in the cafeteria, but it certainly didn’t look like a condiment on my ass. She showed the picture to Brad. And then I didn’t feel so bad anymore. She had destroyed me the first week here; the bitch deserved to be cheated on.

  I tried to concentrate on the commotion in front of us, but the after-effects of my inhalations were too good to ignore. I opened and closed my eyes quickly, and then looked from side to side. The time slowed. As I watched the threesome, weird anticipation brewed inside my chest. My heart beat faster, and I wondered whether it was the pot or the unveiling fight out on the field. Brad stepped from one foot to another, and I was pretty sure he was stuttering too. When Sherry slapped him, turned on her heel, and stomped off, I couldn’t help but feel a rush.

  He deserved the slap. She deserved to be alone. I just wished the other girl had some smarts too and left him as well. Instead she hung on his arm like some kind of a medal around an Olympian’s neck. It made me sick to my stomach, admitting that I would probably have done the same.

  Still, my satisfaction was priceless.

  When I looked to the side, I noticed a huge scar running up my weed buddy’s arm. “Where did you get that?” I asked.

  “I fell down the stairs.”

  “Fell?”

  That look in his eyes told me he’d had some help with his ‘fall.’ “You’re new here, aren’t you? What’s your name?”

  “Julia. We moved from Denver last March.”

  “Well, Jules. If you want some of my advice, don’t get involved with any guy. There are no pretty rainbows at the end of that road. The only thing you can do is help a girl like that out. Get her out of a relationship before it’s too late. And the best way to do that is to be the one who takes the guy away and makes the girl see what an asshole he is. Look at her.” He nodded toward Brad’s new prize. “She’s so gonna get hurt.”

  “You sound like an expert.”

  “I’ve seen enough. I’m Nick, by the way, but my friends call me Scar.”

  “So what, do you just flirt with a girl and make sure the guy sees it to break them up?”

  “It’s a bit more complicated than that, but yeah, that’s the gist of it.”

  I wondered whether Scar would cheat on a girlfriend.

  “I know what you’re thinking. And yeah, I’d cheat too.”

  “But you haven’t.”

  “No, but I would. It works both ways. It’s human nature to procreate, and people seem to miss that point. Monogamy is not natural. That fact should have been accepted by the population long ago.”

  “What about those people who make it?”

  “Anomalies. Those exist in nature too. Sixty percent of marriages have an unfaithful spouse – and those are the ones honest enough to be a statistic. Since humans are a species with an instinct to survive, they’ll lie to further their own agendas, whether it’s career or personal. Infidelity is in the genes, and it ruins the anomalies forever, creating an infinite loop of cheating. Sooner or later the anomaly will stray as well and will defend their action by calling it a rebound.”

  I’d never heard a boy my age speak with so much knowledge of infidelity. I thought I was the only one who’d already been exposed to it. My innocence had been stolen by watching fights brew between my parents and by the herds of women filter through our house. A belief in love – true love, the kind you’d sacrifice your own happiness for – never even had a chance to grow.

  “You should write a book,” I said, but in his dreamy state he probably didn’t hear me.

  Could Scar be an anomaly? And why did his words hit home more than I wanted them to? Because they were the truth. What he said to me had been proven over and over again. Everybody cheated, including my father. I’d
never want to stay in an unfaithful marriage, yet my mother had let him cheat for years. She just sat there, watching – and until recently, she didn’t do anything about it.

  But Scar was right. I hoped my mom could go through with the divorce, and given her recent dates, it seemed she was finally acknowledging that the marriage had failed. In fact, I knew she’d already gone on the rebound and I didn’t think she wanted to bounce back. The only bounce I saw were her boobs when her much younger boyfriends came into picture and she ran right into their arms. Could I blame her? They were hot and young enough for me to date.

  I met up with Scar under the bleachers for the remainder of the year until school finished. Though he didn’t know it, he gave me a piece of my lost innocence back. He made my life worth living again. My grades picked up and school wasn’t as boring. I finally had a chance to get into medical school without my parent’s financial support. I remembered those few months at Scar’s side as the most honest ones in my life. Unfortunately, I would get one last sour lesson about men before I left for Washington.

  CHAPTER 3

  It’s a shitty feeling knowing that the one person you’d like to fall in love with is someone you can’t. And I knew I couldn’t, because anything more than friendship with Scar would ruin the best thing we had – each other. And there was no way I was willing to go that route. The last thing I wanted was for us to become that couple who would break up because the other one cheated. We’d seen it over and over again, at school and at home.

  Over the past few months, my mom had grown her own wings. My sister and I sat on the living room couch, watching her get ready for her “date” with yet another man, making bets as to how long it would be before they split. If someone told me that she was planning to screw every single guy in the world, I would have believed them. Still, not many made it to date number two. I had a feeling that while my mom wanted to give the impression of a whore, that was far from the truth. She appeared to be looking for something she’d lost long ago, and I couldn’t figure out what that was.

  Scar’s lawyer father hadn’t been home much – something about businesses and the FBI haunting his ass. Scar laughed that he’d finally get what he deserved. He insisted that his father was a son of a bitch who was screwing his secretaries instead of concentrating on a family that was falling apart. After having known him for a few months, I realized that Scar hated his father beyond limits. Yes, the guy had fucked up, but it wasn’t Scar’s fault. There had to be more to the story than he let on. I mean, their feud went beyond infidelity. But every time I asked Scar if he wanted to talk about it, he’d say it was less dangerous if I didn’t know. While I had a good reason to despise my father, he had never hidden his infidelity and claimed it made him appreciate Mom that much more – otherwise known as feeding your spouse a bunch of crap to justify your getting laid. Mr. Wagner was a hiding type of a cheater, which made his deception even worse. Spending time at Scar’s house was like watching a circus on wheels. Mrs. Wagner was like the mother I never had. Despite having servants and butlers, she was like Carol Brady or June Clever, cooking, baking, cleaning – things I’d never seen my mom do. Mr. Wagner’s office doors kept closing and opening as businessmen and characters I didn’t want to know anything about made their way through. One time I saw a gun holster underneath his arm before he put his jacket on and left the house.

  So there we were, away from our broken homes, walking hand in hand to an end-of-the-year party. It was also a birthday party for Brad, the football team’s captain, just a few blocks away from Scar’s house. I usually made a point to miss such events, but Scar was like a social butterfly who never seemed to linger too long in one place. While Scar technically didn’t belong to any social circle, he knew everybody. He was their social circle.

  His asking me to come… I wasn’t sure whether it was a date or not. Actually, I was pretty sure we went out as friends only, but in my mind I wanted to pretend we were more, the way everyone else at school thought.

  Scar still had that mysterious yet friendly look about him that drew people to him. And I totally got it, because if I could, I’d stay permanently glued to his side.

  Tonight, his hair was dyed black, with bangs longer than was appropriate for someone coming from a family of his stature. I had helped him with the coloring that afternoon. A metal chain clipped to his belt-buckle hung down and over his black jeans. I wondered whether he was planning to strangle someone with it. When he walked into a room, he completely overpowered it with his presence. If he was going for the gothic look, it was working. Scar had gone through phases, from rock-and-roll to disco and now goth. It made me excited to see him in the morning when he picked me up for school. Each day I hoped it was D-day of change. I had yet to meet a boy who could outshine him, and every time I looked at him I felt my belly drum with excitement.

  Saying we were an odd couple was an understatement – especially since we weren’t a couple at all. But tonight was different. The atmosphere shifted the moment Scar picked me up in his Hummer and gave me a single white rose. If he was trying to imply purity, he had it wrong. I had lost my virginity at the end of the previous year, and it was bad enough that I still saw Kirk at school. Not only was he one of the more popular boys who seemed to have everything going for him, but he was also gorgeous as hell.

  “You sure you want to be here, Jules?” Scar took my hand and squeezed it in assurance as we headed down the stairs toward the basement. Shock waves of blaring music rolled over my skin.

  “Of course I do. I can’t be a complete social outcast.”

  “I don’t get why you would want to be in their inner circle, Jules. You’re too smart and too beautiful. You shouldn’t worry about fitting in.”

  Whenever he called me beautiful, I felt my heart skip a beat. Scar had a way of accentuating each syllable of the word that sent waves of heat over my skin.

  “That’s easy for you to say. Everyone knows you. I just feel like I need to spread my wings a little. You don’t expect to be by yourself for the rest of your life, do you?”

  Scar hadn’t even celebrated his own birthday last week. His mom and I had baked cupcakes for the family of seven (Scar had a younger sister I never saw and three older brothers), and that was the extent of his festivities.

  “Actually, I do. But I don’t need anyone else anyways. I have you.”

  I felt my cheeks heat. What exactly did he mean by that? When I heard him say such things, it confused me. Weren’t we just friends? One moment Scar made it seem like he’d stay single for the rest of his life, and another like I would be right there with him, always at his side.

  “Scar, I’m leaving in a couple of weeks. Besides, you do know that we’re not together.” I paused. “I mean, unless you want to be?”

  OMG! Was I asking Scar out?

  “What’s the difference anyways?” he asked. “I mean, at least as friends we can confide in each other and trust each other. Anything more and we’d be bound to get hurt. You know how it works. And you could move to the other side of the world, Jules, and I’d never forget you.”

  Wow! How could I even begin to make sense of what it was like to be Scar? He had told me his ideology of couples inevitably cheating on each other quite a few times. In fact, he had proved it to me more than once. In the past three months, he’d instigated the breakup of four different couples and they didn’t even have a clue. It was like his special hidden talent. Yet I couldn’t help but have hope for him. Maybe someday he would find that one girl who could change his mind.

  But imagining him with anyone else felt wrong. Even though we were just friends, it had felt like much more than that since the day we met. I trusted him with my life, and I couldn’t say that about too many people.

  By this time, we had reached the bottom of the stairs. The music had died down a little, which was a good thing because I was quite fond of my eardrums.

  “Want a drink?” Scar asked.

  “Sure.”

  We didn�
�t get a chance to head toward the table set with booze before we heard, “Look who the devil dragged in.”

  My heart stopped in my chest as I turned around to the familiar voice. Kirk, the only boy I’d ever slept with, stood beside Scar. I tried to hide, unsuccessfully, behind Scar’s body until he pulled me forward, resting his hand around my waist. Kirk paused for a moment, taking in the awkward situation, and eyed me from the bottom up.

  “Hey, Julia,” he said. “It’s nice to see you again.”

  “It’s nice to see you too,” I replied, leaning in closer to Scar’s side, sinking into the comfort of his body.

  Scar threw Kirk one look and the preppy stepped back, taking his eager gaze away from me.

  “You got some goods?” Kirk asked.

  With that Scar reached out to shake his hand, swapping a bag of weed for a few dollar bills. Yes, Scar not only smoked the stuff, he also grew it and dealt it. I never asked him where because I simply didn’t want to know. But I had to admit the shit was good; top quality, in fact. Scar must have made a lot of money selling it, but he never flaunted it. For someone who had all the money in the world, with an unlimited credit card, I sometimes wondered why he needed to sell weed anyway. It seemed to be more of a hobby to Scar than a business.

  “I’m gonna go get a drink. Do you want anything?” I asked.

  “It’s okay, I’ll grab something later.”

  “Okay,” I said, and made my way over to a table against the wall. As I passed the couch where a few of the cheerleaders sat, I saw Sherry snicker and lean in to whisper to her friend. And that was the reason why I normally avoided such parties. I wasn’t sure whether they were talking about me or not. They weren’t technically looking at me. Why was I being so self-conscious?

  I looked down to the cooler stuffed with ice and beer bottles, wondering whether Brad’s parents knew about the alcohol, but I doubted that they even remembered that it was his birthday. When multi-million dollar contracts came into play, parents’ memories of what was important vanished. Last time I heard, Mr. and Mrs. Watson were on a business trip somewhere in Saudi Arabia. As an international lawyer, his father knew Mr. Wagner well, and on occasion I’d seen the Watsons visit the Wagner residence. Never casually, though – it was always about business.