He shifted his weight against me harder, pushing me toward the backseat of his car. My feet faltered in my attempt to rebel against him and I tripped, landing face down against the suede backseat. Vincent landed on me with a thud, pinning my arms between my chest and the seat tightly. His weight on me crushed my lungs and sent pain from where I’d hit my back against his car door surging through me, making it hard for me to breathe. I struggled to pull my arms free and bucked my hips in an attempt to get him off me, but it did neither. In fact I thought it turned him on more.
“Grind it, girl,” he murmured against my ear and I whimpered.
“Stop,” I whispered my throat thick and constricted by my tears.
Finally managing to get one arm free, I groped around for something to use as a weapon but found nothing besides more seat. Pain shot through my back as he adjusted his weight to undo his pants. I decided to use my free arm to gain some leverage and pushed up hard to get him off me. Vincent gripped my wrist so tight to stop me in my attempts that my fingers began to tingle. I felt his other hand move from my hip and slide between my stomach and the seat as he inched toward the button of my jeans.
“Keep fighting me, Julie, and you’re only going to hurt yourself,” he said, successfully unbuttoning my pants and pulling them down with a few hard, deliberate jerks.
“No,” I tried to yell but it was muffled and choked sounding through all of my tears and saliva.
My face pressed farther into the seat as he pulled my arm around behind my back and held it there. Vincent’s other hand trailed along my inner thigh until reaching my panty line. The fabric was cotton, but it might as well have been lace with as easy as it was for him to tear them off me. I turned my head farther to the side and let out another muffled scream. My hips came up again and again as I attempted once more, one final time, to buck him off me or at least wiggle one of my arms free.
Nothing I did mattered. Vincent was stronger than me. This was real. This was happening and there was no way out. No chance for mom or Cole to get me out of the situation this time.
The inevitable had finally caught up with me.
Vincent struggled to shift his pants down and with one deliberate thrust of his hips I felt him enter me from behind. I screamed as loud as I could, but knew after a few seconds of no one coming to my aid that it had been drown out by the music and the drunken conversations of the party.
After a few moments, I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and let my body go limp beneath him, giving up on fighting because I’d already lost. My mind thoroughly shut down as though placing me in a numbed form of survival mode—giving me peace in my most powerless moment.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
NICK
I pulled into Saxton Camp, my headlights sweeping over all the cars lined up side by side. Jesus, had the whole school shown up here? I parked and got out. Hard, drumming music flowing to my ears from someone’s wicked system in their car and loud laughing and talking filled the night sky. This was right where I needed to be. Here, having fun. I wondered what Jules’ surprise would be. I hoped it was something good.
I heard a muffled grunt and passed a car with the back door opened and two sets of legs hanging out. Classy. I shook my head and grinned and continued forward. Until I heard the name Julie flow to my ears from the guy’s mouth, that was when my legs stopped on their own and I lost any trace of a smile.
I couldn’t tell the color of the car, but there was no mistaking, now that I was looking closely, the type—an older model Chevy Camaro. Adrenaline spiked through my veins and the walk from where I’d stood to the side of the car was nothing but a blur. Vincent, I was sure it was him, was too busy doing his thing to notice someone had walked up. I glanced inside and saw Jules laying beneath him—chest down, head pressed to the side, eyes shut tight, one arm pressed against the back of her head by him, with pain etched into her features—and I lost it.
My hands fisted the back of Vincent’s shirt and I pulled with all my might to get him off her. With his pants constricted around his ankles, Vincent didn’t have any chance of running. I wouldn’t have let him run anyway. Shock had found its way into the blue of his icy eyes, making him not appear so cold and sure of himself like he had the only time I’d met him.
A red wrath consumed me as rage blistered my insides. Everything surrounding me faded out, becoming nothing but a wavering blur…everything except Vincent’s face. That was the only thing that remained sharp and clear. My fist connected once…twice…three times, unrelenting in allowing him to breathe, tense up, or block my blows. I made up for the last time I hadn’t been able to defend Jules against this jerk when she’d needed someone to. I released all of my pent up anger and emotions from the night onto Vincent’s face with ease.
“Nick, stop!” a soft voice said to me, but it was so far away that it was easy to ignore.
Blood splattered across my shirt as my fist connected with Vincent’s nose directly for a second time. His head lulled to the side, my firm grip on his shirt collar the only thing holding him up. I gritted my teeth together as a loud growl filled my ears. Was that me? Sweat broke out on my forehead in the form of tiny beads, but I only gripped Vincent’s shirt tighter, unwilling to let him go.
A hand touched my shoulder. “Nick…enough.” It was Jules talking.
I released Vincent at her command and he fell backward to the ground, sprawled at an odd angle due to his pants still hanging around his ankles. I took in a deep breath and then another and another. My lungs seemed starved for air. My chest felt constricted and unbearably tight. My body tingled and burned with the adrenaline that still raged through me. Jules sniffled from somewhere behind me and I remembered her once more. I turned to face her, clenching and unclenching my fists at my sides.
“Are you okay? Do I need to take you to the hospital, call 911? What? Tell me what I need to do.” I sounded frantic, I knew I did, but it was because I was.
My eyes grazed over Jules as she stood in the narrow space between Vincent’s car and the large truck beside it with the muddy tires. Her pants were pulled back up and she stood with her arms wrapped around her tightly, staring at the ground in front of her feet. She looked normal, not at all frantic or broken like I’d expected her to be. Was she in shock?
She shook her head. “No. Please don’t do anything.”
I reached out to touch her, to comfort her, but she jerked back away from me quickly. I let my hands fall at my sides when I realized why—they were covered in Vincent’s blood. “Are you sure? I mean, don’t you want to report this or have a doctor look you over?”
“No.” Her voice was small, but eerily firm. She wiped a tear from her cheek and I saw a tremble pass through her body. “That would just blow it out of proportion. All I want is to go home. Can you please just take me home?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I can do that.”
~
We rode back to our street in silence. I wasn’t sure what to say. The words I’m sorry flashed through my mind, but I didn’t say them. I watched Jules from the corner of my eye the entire ride home, worried about her. She never once shed another tear. I wondered if she was still in shock or if she was just numb. Maybe it was denial. Those all seemed like things she would be feeling right about now.
I wanted to ask her how it had started, where the others had been, and why they’d let her go off with that pissant alone, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to press the issue unless she was willing to talk about it. And it didn’t seem like she was. Who would be?
“Nick?” Jules said as we pulled into my driveway, her soft voice startling me.
I shifted to look at her, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Yeah?”
“Please don’t tell anyone what happened,” she whispered.
My stomach twisted. I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t want anyone to know, why she didn’t want to file a report and press charges against his ass. “Okay. I promise,” I said instead of arguing with her. And I meant it. I wouldn�
�t tell a single soul unless she said it was all right.
“Thanks,” she said, finally bringing her eyes to mine. They were bright and wide, innocent, and heartbroken. They took my breath away.
“It wasn’t your fault. You know that, right?” I don’t know where the words came from or why I’d even said them. There was just something reflecting in her eyes, something in the way she stared at me that made me think that was why she wasn’t going to do anything about what Vincent had done to her. That was why she was going to let him get away with it.
She didn’t argue. She didn’t even agree with me. She simply reached for the handle and started to climb out of the car without a word.
I sat there for a brief moment, dazed. Jules believed that it was her fault. I pounded my blood-crusted fist against the dash and hopped out of the car, running after her.
“Jules, wait,” I shouted.
She paused in the middle of the road and turned to face me. I jogged to her, not stopping until I was directly in front of her.
“I’m sorry I was late tonight.” I ran a hand through my hair and then stopped at the thought of Vincent’s blood now being greased through it. “If I hadn’t been late, then what happened might not have.” This was something I would always be sorry for. Guilt would always weigh heavily on my heart because of that moment, because if I hadn’t been wallowing in self pity about my fucked up family I could have been there and this would have never happened.
Her eyes shifted to mine and grew hard. “It wasn’t your fault, Nick. I’m not blaming you.” She walked away then without looking back.
I stood in the street until she was concealed behind the closed door of her house. I was blaming myself. I would always blame myself for this no matter what she said. I should have been there. And from the look in Jules’ eyes, she’d always blame herself for this night, too.
CHAPTER FORTY
JULIE
I sunk against the door and let the tears I’d been holding in during the ride home finally spill over. My house was quiet, which meant Cole wasn’t home still from wherever he was at for the night. I counted this as a blessing. My legs trembled beneath me just before my knees buckled and I fell to the floor. A sob escaped me and my hot tears picked up flow. Hugging myself tightly, I rocked back and forth while I sobbed, finally releasing the cries that had been muffled in my throat the entire night, the screams of agony.
I was sickened with Vincent, sickened with my mom, my brother, my life…myself. I cried and rocked myself until I had no more tears left inside of me and I’d made myself sick from the movement. Rising to my feet, I fumbled with the lock on the front door and made my way upstairs. The desire to scrub my body clean was overwhelming.
I wondered what my life would be like now—if I would have to face Vincent a few times a week like normal while he sold pills to my mom and screwed her for payment, or if he would just stop coming around at all. How would mom react once she found out that I was the reason why she wasn’t going to be able to get her fix until she found someone else to buy from or to strike a deal with? An image of her screaming at me, telling me that I probably deserved what happened, flashed through my mind and I choked on a sob, because I knew that was exactly what she would say once she found out. Especially if she ever found out how I’d been dressed when it happened. She’d say I had asked for it; I knew she would.
I went straight to my bedroom and grabbed some sweatpants and the largest sweater I owned before making my way to the bathroom. It wasn’t until I was undressing that I noticed the deep purple bruises on my wrist. The more of my clothes I stripped off, the more proof of what happened and how hard I’d tried to stop it haunted me in the irregular shapes of fresh bruises across my skin. Finding they were mainly on my wrists and inner thighs was a relief because I knew they would be easy to hide. If they’d been on my face, I’d have been screwed.
Glancing in the mirror above the sink, I stared at my naked reflection. My face looked pale. My eyes were dull and lifeless. My lips were red and swollen from unwanted kisses. I held my arms out to my sides and trailed my eyes down each, taking in the sight of the bruises that would look worse before they went away. My gaze shifted back to my eyes and locked.
I felt like my soul had been killed while my body remained alive.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
NICK
Things had changed once again. This time not for the better, at least not between Jules and me. Our time together grew less and less with each passing day, until finally I barely spoke to her at all because I rarely saw her. She’d become withdrawn, not just from me but from everyone and everything.
From life itself.
Tiffany and Emily questioned both Jules and me about what was going on with her, but Jules never once confessed what had happened. Neither did I. No matter how badly I wanted to at times I couldn’t, I couldn’t break my promise.
I found myself growing more and more frustrated because I didn’t know what to say to her. I had no way of knowing how to fix this for her and bring her back to me. Beating Vincent to a bloody pulp hadn’t done anything for the situation like I thought it might when I’d done it. The only good that had come from it was it kept him away from her, but that didn’t mean that it made what happened go away.
I knew that Vincent had been her mom’s pill dealer and I also knew that Jules was given the responsibility to find her mom a replacement. So, I’d helped her connect with this kid named Brian who was in my English class. He was a decent guy and if she had to deal with anyone on her own, I felt confident that he was a businessman about it all and not a wannabe pimp like Vincent had been.
~
I slid from underneath my dad’s old beater I’d inherited when he’d went to The Morris Clinic two weeks before and wiped my filthy hands on an old rag. I’d been changing the oil, mostly because it really needed it, but also because I hoped to get a glimpse of Jules today. Thanksgiving was coming up fast and I wanted the chance to find out what her plans were for the holiday. I’d won a free turkey at work from the employee raffle and planned on cooking it myself. I was nearly finished when I heard Jules’ front door open and saw her step out into the crisp fall air.
She wore her hair pulled back into a ponytail and had on a light blue jacket with a hood two sizes too big and a pair of ripped-kneed jeans. I smiled at the sight of her, and then noticed the way she bit her bottom lip and fidgeted with her fingernails as she walked.
“Jules, hey!” I called out to her, hoping she’d stop and acknowledge me if only for a moment. I was freaking hopeless.
She paused mid-step and waved at me slightly. “Hi.”
I slung the rag I’d been holding onto the driveway and jogged across the street to where she stood. “What are you up to today?”
“I’m headed somewhere right now, actually, so I can’t really talk,” she said like always.
It seemed like she could never talk to me. Why did she always try to brush me off? I wanted her to let me in again. I wanted her to look at me. I wanted to know that she was all right. It was clear that she was breathing, she was standing right in front of me, but a lot of people breathing were still dead inside. I needed to know that she wasn’t, and if she was, I needed to know how I could help fix her.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
JULIE
Nick’s closeness warmed me on the inside. I’d forgotten how nice it felt to be in his presence, but I wouldn’t let myself forget the reason why I’d put up these walls between us or why I’d blocked myself off from him. How could I forget? Every time I closed my eyes since that night I was reminded of how dirty I was. How tarnished. And I wouldn’t allow him to taint himself being with me. I wasn’t worthy, not of him.
“Where? Can I drive you?” he asked so earnestly. I hated to turn him down again, but he didn’t need to go where I was. It was bad enough he’d set me up with Brian, my mom’s new dealer I’d had to find her; I didn’t need him taking part in transactions with me.
“No.
I don’t want to interrupt what you were doing with your car over there,” I said, not meeting his stare because I wasn’t in the mood to see the pity in his eyes that always seemed to appear whenever he looked at me lately.
He sighed and shook his head. “All right.”
I hated making him angry. I hated always having to push him away, but when would he realize that he could do better than me? I was broken and polluted. Couldn’t he see that? Didn’t he understand that I was saving him from winding up like me, from me brushing off on him, from me dragging him down? His life had gotten so much better over the last month, mine hadn’t. If he hung around me, I’d only remind him of his past and how horrible his life used to be…never allowing him to fully move forward.
“I have to go. Thanks for the offer, though.” I started walking without looking back because I knew that if I did, I’d see the hurt I’d caused in his features.
~
I met Brian at the gas station a few streets over. It was the place where he always picked me up and dropped me back off. Leaning against the rickety table that sat out front while I waited for his blue Blazer to pull into the parking lot, I thought about Nick. Tears pricked my eyes; he’d never given up on me even while I buried myself in my grief and allowed depression to swallow me whole.
Brian’s Blazer pulled up and I walked to the passenger side and slid in. The tangy scent of his cologne hit my nose and mixed with the faint aroma of a long-ago burned joint.
“How’s it goin’?” he asked with a slow smile.
“All right.” I smiled in return.
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