Forgiveness and Permission

by C. L. Stone

  When the noise from the house died down, North’s hand slipped away from my eyes to rest around my shoulders.

  We closed in on the car. I looked through the group of keys for one that I thought belonged to Silas and unlocked the door. North fell into the back seat, I slipped in next to him, scared to leave him alone.

  North slumped in the seat, putting a palm on his forehead. “When they get here, you should sit up front,” he said. “If we can’t figure out what this is, you probably don’t want to be next to me when it hits.”

  “Should we go to the hospital? Should we call Dr. Green?”

  “We’ll call if we can’t figure out what it is and if I start doing something really stupid.”

  I hated this. We were finally going home, which I was grateful for, but this was much worse. I was angry at everyone on the football team for this, and at everyone at the party. They were all awful. No wonder Kota didn’t want me to go. I kicked my sandals off, picked my feet up off the floor, wrapped my arms around my legs and buried my head into my knees. I just wanted to hide my anger.

  “Don’t, Sang Baby,” North said. I sensed him shifting and he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me to lean against him. “Don’t fall apart on me now.”

  I collapsed into him, relieved to have him so close. It was only minutes since we were in the closet together and he was kissing me, but now it felt like a million years ago, another person. My cheek pressed to his chest. “I don’t think I want to go to another party.”

  He cupped my head, pressing his nose to my hair. “Never?”

  “Not one where they’re trying to poison you, North.”

  He frowned against my head. “You do realize that they were trying to poison you, right? It was your cup.”

  I fell quiet, unsure how to respond. He was right.

  “Next time, will you listen to me? Please?”

  “I did listen to you.”

  “You were about to drink the water.”

  I sucked in a breath, pulling back from him. “I wasn’t! I just said it was probably fine.”

  “You had it at your mouth.”

  “I was just pressing it there,” I said. “I wasn’t going to drink it.”

  He grunted. “How was I supposed to know? And I was still right. If you did take a chance on it ...” He stopped, rolled his eyes, falling away to sit back against the seat. “I can’t believe this. I can’t take you anywhere without someone else trying to fuck things up.”

  “What else am I supposed to do?” I fired back at him. “Lock myself up in the closet?”

  He sat up, his hands reaching out to grip me by the shoulders. “Shut up. Don’t you ever fucking say that again. Don’t talk like that.”

  “Well what do you want me to do, North?” I asked. I wasn’t really angry with him, just at the situation and at people I couldn’t yell at. I knew I should have kept it to myself but I couldn’t stop. “I can either go out and do things and try to pretend to be normal or I’m stuck not going anywhere. Which is it? Where do you want me?”

  His mouth fell open, moving like words wanted to form but he couldn’t figure out which ones. He scowled, shoving me.

  I fell onto my elbows in the seat, backing up slightly against the door. He dropped on top of me. I trembled. I’d gone too far. I’d made him mad.

  He shoved my hand toward my mouth. He brought his mouth down hard against my fingers.

  The moment of panic slipped away the instant I realized he was kissing me. The heat I felt with hate and anger inside of me turned into something I didn’t recognize. All I knew was I cared about North and he was right there in front of me. I wanted to forget everything about tonight and be happy again, and he was the only thing there that could save me from it. The heat of his body was warming against the chill of the evening. His power was overwhelming but I surrendered to him. Trust him, he’d told me. They knew what they were doing. Let go and let them take over for a while. I willed myself to stop worrying about everything, and it was much easier to do when he was directing.

  My free hand drifted up, and I clutched at his chest over his heart.

  He kept his lips over my hand, but gripped at my hips, sliding me down further into the seat. The hoodie slid up at my back, exposing part of my belly.

  When his fingertips traced against the softness at my bare side, I trembled.

  “Baby,” he pleaded against my fingers as his mouth seemed to swallow through my hand to kiss me. “Sang ...”

  His knee knocked against mine, shifting up along my thigh. He pushed, parting my legs. He gripped at my hips again, readjusting me where he wanted me against the seat and he pushed his body down on top of me. I felt his hip bones biting into my inner thighs and his groin pressed up against mine. His rough hands slid up my sides, dragging the material of Kota’s hoodie and my shirt up along with it to expose more of my stomach.

  I gasped against my fingers at my mouth. I didn’t understand what he was doing. My mind was wild, wondering if I’d gone too far. The heat of him was suddenly overpowering. I gently nudged at his chest with my hand, unsure of how to tell him. At the same time, I didn’t want to stop.

  He hovered over me, and let go of my sides. His hand found mine at his chest and he squeezed it, pulling it from his body and pushing it up against the door over my head. He pinned it there at the wrist.

  He broke from kissing at my fingers, his dark eyes like deep shadows. His heavy breath fell against my face.

  I looked back at him, tempted, afraid, warm, wanting. The will to let him take over again overtook me. I wanted to connect with him and this felt like the answer, only I was scared, too. It was like being this close would make him see who I really was and that I was probably nothing like he imagined.

  His other hand clutched my wrist, drawing my fingers away from my mouth. He pinned that one, too, against the door over my head.

  His eyes zeroed in on my mouth.

  The door behind him flung open. North’s face turned from heavy hunger to surprise.

  “Get off of her!”

  There was a grunt and North sailed away from me. He fell backward, spilling out onto the grass through the open door.

  I scrambled to get up, terrified and confused.

  Nathan loomed in the open door. He ducked his head in. “Sang,” he said. He held out a hand. “Come on.”

  I don’t know how I managed to hang on to him, I was shaking so badly. Nathan collected me tenderly, pulling me from the car.

  Out in the yard, Silas had a foot on North’s chest, keeping him pinned to the ground.

  “Get the fuck off of me,” North said, his eyes wild. He gripped at Silas, clawing at his foot. This wasn’t the fake fighting I’d seen earlier with them in the closet. This was real. “Let me go,” he shouted.

  “You’ll thank me later,” Silas said, putting more pressure onto his foot.

  “Stop,” I called out to Silas. “Don’t hurt him.”

  “Fuck you,” North yelled at Silas. Even while North scrambled, his body seemed incapable of gathering enough strength to get Silas off of him. “Give her back. I’m not done with her.”

  “Come on, Sang,” Nathan said, pulling me away and walking me around the car. “Don’t look at him.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Nathan opened the front passenger door for me. “It’s the Ecstasy talking, Sang. He’s high. I don’t know how much he got.”

  “What’s going to happen to him?”

  “We’ll have to watch him until this gets out of his system.”

  “Should we call Dr. Green?”

  “Maybe,” Nathan said, nudging me toward the car. “Let’s just get out of here.”

  I relented, and fell into the seat.

  Nathan shut the door. He ran around the car. Silas removed his foot and picked up North. North’s body slumped against Silas, like he was a little unstable. It looked like he was dizzy.

  Nathan held North up while Silas slipped into the car. Silas reached b
ack as Nathan was pushing North onto the seat. When North was inside, his head rolled back against the headrest. “Fuck you all. Fuck.”

  Nathan opened the driver’s side door. He patted his pockets and looked over at me. “Keys?”

  “Got them,” Silas said, fishing them off of the floor and passing them over.

  Nathan selected one and started up the car.

  North rolled around in the back seat, cackling. “Oh god. I love parties.”

  I glanced over at Nathan, but he was focusing on turning around to go back down the road.

  “You okay, Sang?” Silas asked from the back seat. He slipped a hand over, putting it on my shoulder.

  I glanced back at his concerned face. “Yes, I think so,” I said. I wasn’t really sure I was okay. At what point exactly did the drugs in North’s system take over? He seemed almost normal before. Now he was rolling around and looked crazy.

  “Of course she’s okay. She was with me. We were doing fine. We could do it some more.” North’s voice teetered on being throaty, almost a growl. “Fucking Christ. Oh that closet. Heh. Fuck me. God no, fuck her. Her mouth ... I was right there. Fuck you guys. Give her back.” North lurched forward, making a grab for my arm.

  “Shut up,” Silas said, shoving his arm back. “And don’t touch her or I’m going to sit on you.”

  “Fuck you, Silas. You were a prick for bringing her out here. Getting her to perch on your lap like she’s some kind of toy.”

  “Ignore him, Sang,” Nathan said. He hit the gas pedal, speeding down the road. “Don’t listen to him.”

  “What’s going to happen?” I asked.

  North laughed.

  “He can’t control what he’s saying,” Nathan said. He leaned his elbow against the sill of the window as he drove, brushing fingers through his reddish hair. “It’s stuff you shouldn’t hear.”

  I collected my knees again, drawing them to my chest and off the floor. My arms wrapped around them and I curled up into myself. I sighed into my legs. A comforting large hand from Silas landed on my shoulder again, holding on to me. I might have crawled back there with him if it wasn’t for North.

  “Fuck you, too, Nathan. Chewing on her fingers. Her gorgeous damn fingers. And fuck you, she could call me honey if she wanted. She can call me what she wants. You don’t get to ...” He laughed again, at a pitch higher than I was used to hearing from him, nearly barking. “Fuck kissing her fingers. It’s close enough. It counts. Oh yeah. No. I’m not sharing. I don’t want to share her. Put her on a boat back to France with me. Fuck her parents. I’ll kill them if they touch her again.” He laughed again. “God, she thought I wanted that damn bitch back there. Taking a bitch over Sang. Fucking cunt almost fucked me over. Fuck her. No. Sang. That’s what I mean. That’s what I want. Those thighs. Rip those apart and ...”

  Silas leaned over, shoving his palms against my ears. “I don’t think I can take this the whole way back,” he said.

  “We need to listen,” Nathan gripped the steering wheel. “We need to hear in case he starts complaining about being too hot or something internally wrong. If he passes out, we need to call Doc.”

  We raced through the night. North sputtered nonsense. Silas tried sitting forward and cupping my ears for me, but he occasionally had to wrestle with North as he took turns lunging at each of us.

  The road was mostly empty. We zoomed past trailer parks and the occasional house set up on an acre of land and neighbors a mile apart. Nathan tried blaring music to drown out North’s talking. It didn’t help. North would try singing along and when he missed the words, he’d curse at us all.

  “Let’s tie him up,” Silas said.

  “I don’t want to do that now,” Nathan said. “We’re almost back, I think.”

  A flashing light flared and a siren sounded.

  “God damn mother fucker,” Nathan bellowed, hitting the steering wheel.

  I cowered into myself, eyes wide. The police. The last thing we needed. North was high. Nathan really had been speeding.

  I was without parents. If they tried to call them, I’d get into so much trouble.

  Nathan slowed, pulling off to the side of the road. As soon as he did, he and Silas moved at the exact same time. Silas lunged himself into the front seat, dropping down like he’d done this a hundred times.

  My eyes widened. What were they doing? I gaped after them, wanting to ask but scared to death already and I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.

  Nathan settled into the back seat with North.

  “Fuck you. I don’t want you,” North said. “Send Sang back here.”

  “Keep your hands off of her,” Nathan said. “And shut up or we’ll all get hauled off.”

  “Send Sang back here and I’ll keep us both quiet.”

  There was a thud, and North yelped, sinking back into the seat, his hand clutching at his abdomen.

  A knock at the driver’s side window spooked me. I jumped in my seat.

  Silas rolled down the window. A beam from a flashlight blared into my face and then at Silas.

  “You kids out late tonight?” the officer said. I couldn’t see his face. His flashlight had my eyes spotting with colors.

  “Yeah. Trying to get home. Football game was tonight. We won,” Silas said.

  “You weren’t drinking, were you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Want to step out of the car for a minute? Bring your license and your registration?”

  Silas nodded. He leaned over the center console, fishing out his registration. As he did, he spoke in a soft tone. “Aggele mou, don’t worry. We’ll get you home soon.”

  My mouth was clamped shut. I tried not to shake and stress out that this could be the end of everything.

  Silas stepped out of the car. He left the door hanging open and the officer had him walk with him to the back of the car.

  I held my breath, straining to listen.

  North started giggling.

  “Shush,” Nathan said. “Don’t.”

  “Sang,” North stage whispered to me. “Baby, come back here.”

  I closed my eyes, curling into myself, forcing my head to my knees.

  There was a touch on my shoulder, a slapping sound and the hand let go quickly again.

  Another knock rattled me, and I popped my head up. The officer was standing outside my door now. “Want to step out here with me?”

  “Fuck no, she doesn’t,” North said.

  Nathan punched him again.

  I reached for the car handle, lunging myself out of the car quickly. I wasn’t going to let North backtalk a cop and get thrown in jail. I’d go and get arrested before I let that happen.

  Silas stood by the trunk of his car, his arms folded over his chest. His eyes landed on me and followed as the officer led the way to the passenger side door of his police car. The cop opened it. “Have a seat.”

  This got me rattling again, but there was nothing I could do. I didn’t know why I was being put into a police car. Was he going to take me to the station? Was I being arrested? What could I do to stop it? I thought about punching a button to call Kota or even Mr. Blackbourne, but I wasn’t sure how I could explain this. Maybe Nathan would do it.

  The cop half jogged around the car, getting into the driver’s side. He shut the door. He took out a docket book and opened it, starting to write something on what looked like a ticket. “What’s your name, sweetie?” he asked, his tone curious.

  My eyes widened. Here it comes. “Sang Sorenson,” I said quietly. I couldn’t lie so what else could I do?

  “Where were you all at tonight?” he asked, not glancing up from his ticket writing.

  “There was a party after the football game,” I said.

  “Do you know those boys in the car with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are their names?”

  I blinked after him. He might know Silas now, but would he know the others? Why was he asking me? “That’s Silas standing. The other two
are North and Nathan.”

  “They’re your friends?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to my house,” I said. “Or Nathan’s. We live on the same street.”

  “Are your parents home?”

  Yikes. “Yes,” I tried.

  He flinched, looking up at me. “Are they asleep?”

  “Most likely.” It wasn’t technically lying.

  It was still dark inside his car. I could barely make out the closely cropped head of hair and the broad nose. “Did you drink tonight?”

  “No.”

  His eyebrow lifted. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I had water.”

  “Good girl. What about your friends?”

  “I think they just had water, too. Before we went inside the party, they were telling me not to drink anything else.”

  The officer’s eyes flashed in surprise. “That sounds very responsible. So why are they speeding down this road like a bat out of hell?”

  I swallowed. Maybe a partial truth would work. “We’re all really tired. It was a bad party. We really just wanted to get home.”

  He glanced up and out the window, squinting toward the blue sedan. “Do you want to tell me why your friend is beating up your other friend in the back? Or do I have to go ask?”

  My head snapped around. Silas was standing where he was supposed to, but focusing on the car, yelling. The rear side door was open. It looked like Nathan was trying to yank North back from stepping out of the car.

  I gulped.

  “Do you want to tell me again that they weren’t drinking?” the officer asked.

  I cowered. All I had to go on was Mr. Blackbourne’s words to keep my nose clean. Was being honest what he would want from me now? “They weren't drinking, but someone put something in my drink,” I said, worried this confession might do more harm than good, but I didn’t want him to go over and talk to North and North badmouthing the cop enough to get arrested. “North stopped me from drinking it, but drunk it himself. We didn’t know something was in it until he tasted something funny in the water.”

  “What was in the drink?”

  “We don’t know. They went back to find out. Nathan said he thinks it’s ... Ecstasy?”