Everything to Me

by Teresa Hill

  * * *

  11

  Dana

  He walked away.

  Again.

  God, what do I have to do? He looked so mad at one point, I thought he was about to go all caveman on me and throw me over his shoulder and carry me away from here. Not that I’ve ever wanted a guy to treat me that way, but I would have been okay with that from him.

  Want me, I think.

  Claim me.

  Drag me off somewhere, crush me against you and kiss me like you’re crazy in love with me. Promise me we’ll always be together.

  I’m shocked at myself. I want to be a strong, independent, capable woman. The idea of him treating me that way should not make me all hot and bothered, and yet it does.

  Not that he’s ever going to do it.

  I’ve been pushing and pushing to get him to that point where seeing me with Tripp is so awful Peter can’t stand it and does … something. Something like dragging me out of here and telling me that I will never let Tripp anywhere near me again. That the only guy I get to be close to is him. That he’s done pushing me away. That everything is going to be different now, because he wants me. Me and nobody else.

  I even put on the tiniest bikini I’ve ever owned at Halloween and got in a hot tub with Tripp, laughed and flirted like crazy, although I somehow managed to slip away every time he got too handsy. He’s not going to put up with this much longer. I doubt he would have that night in the hot tub if some girl I didn’t know hadn’t gotten really drunk, taken her top off and climbed onto his lap.

  She looked at me like she’d won by taking Tripp away from me, and I felt a little guilty about how grateful I was to her for sticking her bare breasts in his face.

  Yeah, this is me, being the stupid girl, playing games.

  I can’t even do this right, because it’s not working. Me using Tripp to make Peter jealous is a massive failure, and I’m so pissed I want to scream. Now, I’m stuck here with Tripp. I’ve worked so hard to convince Peter that I like Tripp, that I welcome the kiss he gives me as I watch Peter walk away.

  It’s crazy, letting this guy I really don’t like give me a wet, sloppy kiss. As mad as it makes me to admit it, Peter’s right. Tripp is drunk. I taste pure vodka in the kiss, and I don’t like vodka. How could anyone really like it? It’s like pouring fire down your throat.

  Plus, I know Tripp’s only kissing me to make Peter mad. I don’t know exactly why they dislike each other so much, but they do.

  Tripp finally quits practically drooling on my neck. He takes a step back and gives me a goofy drunken smile he thinks is sexy, and all I can think is, Uhh … No.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he asks.

  “You taste like vodka.”

  He holds out his drink to me. “Have some, and we can both taste like vodka.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Might loosen you up a bit,” he says, like what he really means is that I could use some loosening up.

  Even if I did loosen up, I can’t imagine liking him. I know he’s puzzled by that, by me. It’s always easy for him to get girls, and either he finds me a challenge or he can’t believe a girl can resist him.

  I’m not finding it difficult. I’m supposed to swoon because he gets drunk, grabs me and attacks my mouth with his tongue? This is supposed to do something for me?

  Because it doesn’t.

  I wonder sometimes if anything ever will.

  Okay, if anyone else will.

  Peter’s only ever let loose and kissed me like crazy once, about six months ago, and it was amazing. It was everything I ever imagined it would be. I thought my mom and little sister had been seriously hurt in a car accident, and he thought I’d been in the car, too.

  Turned out, Lizzie broke one tiny finger, but it took a while to find that out, and we were terrified until we did.

  Peter and I never talked about it afterward. I took off to California to visit Stanford. Peter’s mother showed up at his house that weekend. By Monday, he was making out in the hallway at school with another girl, like nothing had ever happened between us. Like it meant nothing to him.

  I’ve been a mess ever since. Mad. Hurt. Confused. And still hoping that one, crazy kiss mattered. It meant everything to me. While he’s been showing me it didn’t mean anything to him.

  God, I’m such an idiot.

  Tripp comes at me again, lips first, and I turn my head to the right to escape.

  “Come on, Dana,” he says.

  “Vodka is so strong it makes my eyes water,” I say finally.

  “Want a rum and Coke?” he offers helpfully. “Girls usually like that.”

  I doubt rum or anything else alcoholic is going to fix this.

  But Peter’s gone, Tripp’s drunk, most everyone here is drunk, and I’m sick of feeling this way. Sad, frustrated, hurt, mad and so alone. So, I agree to the rum and Coke, and it’s not … awful. Not nearly as bad as vodka.

  I start to not care quite as much that Peter’s gone or that maybe I don’t know how to relax and have fun, that maybe I take life too seriously and I’m too careful and I think entirely too much. I don’t get drunk, just a little loose and not living inside my head the way I tend to do.

  Tripp and some of his friends start to seem kind of funny instead of stupid, and I laugh more than I usually do. I smile. I’m not so much pretending to have fun as maybe actually thinking this is okay, hanging out at the river at night with the stars out and a cool breeze blowing, my bare toes in the water, crickets chirping. It’s okay.

  But then it gets later, and fewer people are here. Tripp wants to take me back to his house. He’s sure his parents are asleep by now, and we can hang out in the game room in the basement where no one will bother us. He does it all the time.

  I know he does. I’ve heard all about Tripp in the game room. I know what happens there. It’s his hook-up spot. I tell him no, I won’t be going home with him, and he doesn’t like that.

  “Come on,” he says. “You know you want to.”

  No, I really don’t. I wish it wasn’t this way, but that’s how I feel, even with that little buzz from the rum. I don’t want to do anything with him. It doesn’t make me feel anything but uncomfortable and sad.

  “I should go home,” I say, standing up with my feet still in the edge of the water.

  “Okay. Sure. I’ll take you.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll get a ride with Becca.”

  “Becca left twenty minutes ago with Brady,” he says.

  “What?” I turn around and search the crowd. She was just here. I swear, not five minutes ago, she was here. I told her on the way here that I’d ride home with her.

  “She’s gone,” Tripp says.

  “No, she wouldn’t leave me.” I’m sure of it.

  He shrugs, gives me another one of those smiles that are supposed to make me give him whatever he wants. “I might have made her think you’re getting a ride with somebody else.”

  “No,” I say again. Becca wouldn’t leave me without checking with me first. She knows exactly what I’m doing, that I can barely tolerate Tripp. “She wouldn’t take your word for it.”

  His grin got even stupider. “Okay, I know that girl has some kind of problem with me. That’s why I didn’t tell her. I asked this other girl to tell Becca you were getting a ride with her.”

  I panic for a minute, that Tripp has gone so far. I know what he’s thinking. Get me in the car, and he’ll talk me into coming back to his house, to the game room, to play games with him that I have no intention of playing. That I have no desire to play.

  “It’s okay. I’ll find a ride,” I tell him.

  But he grabs my arm hard and stops me from walking away. Maybe that should have scared me a lot more than it did. I don’t know. Maybe if I hadn’t been drinking it would have, but it just makes me madder.

  “Tripp, stop it.” I try to jerk my arm away, but he’s really strong.

  “How long are we gonna do this, Dana?” he growls.


  “Do what?”

  “This thing where you act like you don’t want what I know you do. I’ve played along up until now, but it’s getting old. You want me to come to your house and pick you up and take you out, like a date? I bet one won’t be enough. Two? Would that do it? Three?”

  “Three?” He believes in the three-date rule? Or that I do? That if he takes me out three times, I’ll have sex with him?

  “I get it. You want a guy to work for it. You’re not easy—”

  Easy?

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Fine. You proved your point—”

  “I doubt that,” I say, but when I try to walk away again, he’s still holding my arm. His grip hasn’t eased, not one bit. It’s starting to hurt. I catch that first real bolt of fear as I say, firmly and I hope more calmly than I feel, “Let me go, Tripp.”

  “Don’t be like that—”

  “You’re hurting me.” I look around for someone I know, someone I trust. Where did everybody go?

  I see people I know, but everybody left at the party this late has been drinking a lot.

  I turn back to Tripp, and he’s loosened his grip, but he still hasn’t let me go. “Give me a chance. Come home with me. You’ll like it, I swear.”

  “Let me go,” I say, slowly, loudly, so there’s no mistaking that I mean it.

  He drops the fake charm. “You know what people say about you?”

  “I can probably guess.”

  “That you’re a stuck-up little bitch, Dana.”

  “Yeah. Fine.” I jerk my arm again.

  He’s so much stronger than I’ve ever imagined. His chest is like a brick wall as I try to push him away. I can’t believe how quickly I’m losing control of the situation, how fast he has turned into this person I barely recognize.

  The one Peter tried to warn me about.

  “I gave you a chance,” he says, slowly, softly. “I don’t usually waste this much time on any girl, but I made an exception for you. Come on, Dana. It’s time. Show me you’re not a stuck-up little bitch.”

  “Show me you’re not a drunken asshole, Tripp, and let go of my arm!” I’m screaming by now, but I fear words aren’t going to do any good.

  A few people are staring, but no one is coming to help me. A couple of his friends are even laughing.

  I really panic. I grab the drink he has in his other hand and throw it in his face. Maybe the shock will make him stop, or at least make him let go of my arm.

  It works. His hand drops. He steps back and screams curses at me. That’s okay. I’ll get away from him, and everything will be fine. But he’s faster than I expect, and soon, he’s got me by both arms, is right up in my face screaming that I’m a bitch and a cunt and a whore.

  People are still laughing, but a few are at his side, telling him to let me go. He’s so mad, he shoves me — hard.

  Stunned, I land with a splash at the edge of the river. It slopes down at the bank, and it’s all I can do to not roll backward into the deep, cold water.

  As it is, he half knocked the breath out of me. I’m coughing. My chest hurts. I’ve landed on some sharp rocks that dig into my hip and my lower back.

  Tripp’s still calling me a stupid bitch, not worth nearly the time or trouble I’ve caused him. I sit in the water, glaring at him. Vodka drips off his face, his hair. He looks so pissed.

  What have I done?

  I want to get out of here so badly. I shouldn’t have come, shouldn’t have drunk the rum, should never have started flirting with Tripp.

  Suddenly, everything I’ve done lately feels so wrong. And the worst part is, I knew it all along, but I did it anyway. I brought myself to this place, with this guy I don’t even like who’s drunk and mad and scaring me.

  I’m really, really scared now about what he might do next, about whether I can get away and where I might be able to hide from him.

  And I want Peter so much.

  He would never let anyone treat me this way. He would never let anyone hurt me, grab me and not let me go, or call me a whore.

  And I sent him away.

  * * *

  Peter

  I was furious when I left the party. I drove around for twenty minutes trying to find Andie, but couldn’t. She still wasn’t answering her phone. Finally, I gave up and went home, headed straight for the basement and the heavy bag — one thing I can beat the crap out of and not get in trouble.

  When I first started doing this, I was pissed off all the time. I’d hit the damned bag until I couldn’t feel my hands or my arms anymore. Until I couldn’t feel anything. You get that tired, you can fall into bed and sleep. No nightmares. No lying there awake, thinking of all the bad shit that happened to you and what might still happen. About things you want but can’t have. About the girl you want who you just left at a party kissing another guy.

  When I get to the basement, Zach’s already there, sweat pouring off him as he dances around the bag, striking it with highly satisfying smacks.

  He stops when he sees me. “You’re home early.”

  “I didn’t know you were home at all. Trial over?”

  He nods, guzzles water from his bottle and wipes the sweat from his forehead with a small towel. From the way he looks, he’s been at this for a while, but he still seems all wound up.

  “You lose?” I ask him.

  “Not me so much as the kid going to prison.”

  Yeah, he’s pissed. He takes his job very seriously, with good reason. He’s got people’s lives in his hands.

  “How old?” I ask.

  “Sixteen when he did it.”

  Knife fight in a bad neighborhood, I remember. One of the kids involved came out of that fight alive and one didn’t. Now the kid who survived is going to prison. I don’t want to ask if it’s for life.

  Zach doesn’t take on as many cases like this as he used to. They take too much out of him. Plus, he decided fighting that way isn’t the smartest thing he could do. That’s the other thing he taught me. If you have to fight, at least fight smart.

  To him, that means he spends less time in the courtroom defending juveniles after they’ve committed a crime, and more time fighting to change laws about juveniles being charged as adults and sent to adult prisons, even given the death penalty.

  When he does take on a trial, and I hear about the kid he’s defending, I always think the same thing. Could have been me, so easily.

  It probably would have been if Julie hadn’t come back here, if Zach hadn’t brought Julie here, because I know she came more for him than for me. Without them, I would have ended up in foster care, pissed off at the world. I probably would have dropped out of school and run away by now. Maybe I’d already be in jail. I might be one of the hopeless cases Zach takes on.

  “You look about as pissed off as I felt when I came down here,” Zach said. “Sorry about the game. Julie told me you guys lost.”

  “Yeah. I knew we would. The game was no big deal.”

  “Oh. Anything you want to talk about?” he offered.

  I shake my head. “Same old shit.”

  “Yeah, it is,” he agrees. “Take the bag. I’m going to find something to eat and go to bed.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He takes off upstairs, and I wrap my hands, pull on my gloves and start smacking the bag. It feels good, like it always does, and it hurts a little bit, but not too bad. Not like hitting someone else or someone hitting me.

  It’s satisfying. That’s the best word I can come up with to explain the feeling. Pain that hurts so good. Does that make me some kind of freak?

  Maybe.

  But I haven’t hit that asshole Tripp lately, and I consider that a victory.

  I go at the bag hard for twenty minutes, sweat pouring off me, Tripp’s smug face on the bag every time I hit it. I finally feel not quite as mad or as amped up.

  Whatever works, you know?

  Upstairs, I find Zach still in the kitchen with an empty plate pushed off to t
he side. He’s deep into some thick file open in front of him. He tells me there’s more leftover lasagna, and that the oven’s probably still hot from when he warmed his up.

  “Sounds good.” I find the pan, put it back in the oven and turn on the heat. “I’m going to grab a quick shower while it’s heating up.”

  Standing under the cool spray, I realize it’s all I can do to stand up, between the game earlier, arguing with Dana and working out with the bag. I get out of the shower, and I’m still drying off when my phone rings.

  Andie, I think. Finally.

  I pick up the phone with one hand, still toweling off my hair with the other. I don’t even look to see who’s calling. “Yeah.”

  Silence. After a few seconds, I start to think it’s a crank call. But then a tiny voice whispers, “Peter?”

  “Dana?” My whole body goes icy cold. “What’s wrong?”

  I’ve never heard her sound so tentative. This is a girl who charges through life like she knows exactly where she’s going and how she’s going to get there. That’s not how she sounds tonight.

  “Nothing,” she claims.

  But she’s flat-out lying. I know it.

  “I’m okay, but I need a favor—”

  “Name it. Anything. Just tell me what you need.”

  “Will you come and get me, please?”

  I drop the towel, grab the first thing I see to put on, jeans and a t-shirt. “Where are you?”

  “The river, still. Becca left when I wasn’t looking, and now I can’t get her on the phone. I don’t see anybody else here who I know who hasn’t been drinking and … ”

  “Dana, what happened?” I know something did. It’s got my gut churning.

  “Nothing. I’m fine, I swear, but … Will you come?”

  “Yeah. Of course.” I don’t try to argue with her anymore, to tell her I know something awful has happened. The most important thing is to get to her. Now. “I’m on my way.”

  I think about leaving her there earlier with that asshole Tripp. I knew he has a temper. Andie said he’s a mean drunk, and I knew he’d already hurt her.

  I think about how I almost told Dana everything before I left that stupid party. I tried to get to Andie to tell her I was done keeping her secrets, because Dana’s too important to me to not tell her everything that might keep her safe. I decided I’d make Andie talk to Dana, if that’s what it takes. That she would never be anywhere near Tripp again.