by Barnes, Vivi
Liv
I awaken to the feeling of a thousand tiny fists trying to pound their way out of my head. Slowly I open my eyes and let them focus on the blue walls.
Blue?
My heart starts to pound hard as my eyes move about quickly, finally falling on an unfamiliar painting of flowers. Shit, where am I?
I push myself into a sitting position, my head as tight as an overfilled balloon about to pop. From this angle, I can see a lineup of small roosters along a shelf, and I breathe a little easier. Somehow, I ended up in the spare bedroom. How did I get here? I stumble to the door, leaning against the frame for a moment. The room isn’t spinning like the club did last night, but I’m still unsteady.
Tylenol. Need Tylenol.
Last night—what happened last night? All I remember is Z showing up, looking incredibly hot, which was so surreal and even now makes me tremble. I remember feeling really weird, and Z putting his arms around me. And Sam leaving me with him. Everything else is a blur.
I walk to the bathroom, splash water on my face, and brush my teeth. The reflection in the mirror confirms that I look as good as I feel. I’m still wearing the clothes from last night, minus the shoes. My fingers get stuck raking through my tangled hair, so I tie it into a makeshift bun and trudge to the kitchen to search for medicine.
“I’m telling you, Derrick, we need to call the police. We don’t know what kind of trouble she could have gotten herself into.”
I freeze.
“Take it easy. They don’t consider it a missing persons case until she’s been gone for twenty-four hours.”
“Then what? They’ll find her dead in a gutter, and what kind of people will we be labeled as? And I can’t believe you let her go to some dance with a girl we don’t even know.”
“I was trying to be a cool dad.”
“You’re a moron.”
Crap. I chew on the inside of my cheek for a few seconds, then realize I have no story to tell, real or made-up. I walk around the corner into their view.
“Olivia! Where have you been?” Derrick rushes over to me and tries to take my hand, his face concerned, but I quickly shove it behind my back.
“I just woke up.”
“Really? We checked your room this morning and you weren’t in it.”
“I know. I was in the spare room.”
“What? Why didn’t you sleep in your own room?”
“I don’t know. I guess I was confused last night.” Seriously confused.
Derrick flicks a quick glance at his wife, who’s glaring with arms crossed. He switches his gaze back to me. “Well, how come you’re wearing the same clothes you had on at dinner last night and smelling like an ashtray?”
I sniff my shirt. Yuck. “I guess I slept in my clothes. But I promise, I woke up this morning in the spare room.”
“Did you sneak in through the window last night?” Denise asks, the tone in her voice telling me that no matter what I say, I’m screwed.
“I…I guess. I don’t remember.”
Denise looks accusingly at Derrick. “Well, obviously she was drunk. This is what comes of letting teenagers out on their own to do who knows what. Never again. If she stays in this house, she abides by my rules.”
“I’m right here, you know,” I say, rubbing my temples. Her loud voice is making the throbbing in my head worse. “I didn’t drink anything, but I know you won’t believe me. I think I remember something about—”
Whoops, don’t need to go there. There’s no way I can make her believe anything other than I was smoking crack or something. “Can I have two Tylenol, please?”
Denise sets her shoulders and glares at her husband, the look clearly saying, See, hangover! But she does get me a couple tablets.
I return to my room to lie down. Derrick follows me. “Are you really okay, Olivia?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Do you remember anything that could’ve happened to you? At all?”
“A friend of mine showed up and we talked. That’s when I started feeling…sick.”
I suddenly remember feeling something else when Z showed up and hope Derrick doesn’t notice the heat spreading across my face.
“Okay, well, I think you should be home at nights now. No more partying, you got it?”
I nod and he walks away. No worries there. I have no intention of doing any more clubbing in the near future.
Lying back on the bed, I close my eyes and try to sort through the foggy memories. And, oh God, I was with Z, of all people. Touching him. A lot. He must think I’m a complete idiot. So much for my plan to play it cool. And he looked so different. My mind tries to slip around the word hot, but it’s hard not to admit it. Strangely, the way he was dressed at the club fits his personality more than his prep-school look during the day.
I don’t know how I’m going to be able to show my face on Monday. But someone had to have drugged that drink.
I jerk up, trying to ignore the stabbing head rush. Of course, Tyson. He gave me the soda and I drank it all; he must’ve slipped something in it. Maybe I should call the police, but I don’t know what they’ll ask. It’s probably too late for that, anyway.
I wander back out to the living room. Denise is nowhere to be found and Derrick is watching TV. I boot up the computer and Google “drugs at club.” The results display information about GHB, ketamine, and a slew of other things. I’ve heard of some of these before, but for some reason, it didn’t click until now that something like this could be what was slipped into my drink. Tyson was trying to put me out so he could…rape me?
My hand falls away from the mouse and I stare at the screen, numb. Why would he do that? He’s a jerk, for sure, but I never thought he would be capable of something like that. In all the many horrors of my life, no one has ever tried to drug me.
“Everything all right?” Derrick speaks up from the couch. I don’t say anything. I can’t tear my eyes away from the screen. If it wasn’t for Z showing up exactly when he did…
“My God, what are you looking at?”
Startled, I try to switch screens, but it’s too late. He’s already gotten a full view.
“Olivia,” Derrick says, his forehead creased. “If something happened, I need to know about this.”
I bite the inside of my cheek hard to keep from crying. “I don’t know. I think someone slipped something in my drink.” I clear my throat to steady the tremors in my voice.
“What? How’d you get home last night, then?”
“Sam gave me a ride. She saw me before I passed out, and I remember her taking me to her car.” I don’t tell him it was Z I ended up with before passing out.
He stares at the screen for a moment. “Do you know who gave you the drink?”
“No,” I lie.
“Okay, well, I want you close to the house from now on, okay? And I’ll be coming home early from work each day to make sure you aren’t here by yourself.”
Crap. “Um, you don’t need to do that, Mr. Carter.”
“Derrick, please. And I think I do. You don’t want something like this to happen again.”
He moves back to the couch and I shut down the computer. Great. Now I’ll never have a moment alone.
Derrick takes me to school on Monday with the promise that he’ll be waiting for me when I get home. Wonderful. It won’t surprise me if he insists on walking me to work, too. But part of me is glad that I won’t be on the bus with that slimeball Tyson. I don’t think I’d be able to stop from ramming my backpack in his face.
I get to school and approach my locker with no sight of Tyson. My thoughts are so jumbled by the time I get to Computer Science that I’m honestly not sure if I’ll end up screaming, punching him, or ignoring him. Or maybe all three—in that order. At the door, I take a deep breath, square my shoulders, and walk in the classroom.
More than half the students are there already, but Tyson is missing. Z is typing and doesn’t make eye contact when I pass in front of him toward my seat. He’s dressed in
his usual school attire—Polo shirt, glasses, hair slicked back—but there’s an addition of what looks like a small red scratch etched into the side of his cheek. I sit down and catch him in my peripheral vision. He’s still not paying attention to me, which I’m used to. But after Friday night, I’d hoped for a glance at the very least. Maybe the whole thing was all a drug-induced dream and he wasn’t even at the club.
“Hey, girl, how’re you doing?” Sam asks, slinging her backpack over the chair and sitting down to face me.
“I’m okay, but I’ve got a ton of questions.”
“I’ll bet. I tried calling you a couple times but your foster dad said you were busy.”
“Yeah, apparently I’m three years old all of a sudden. They’re really pissing me off.”
Sam smiles at that. Then her eyes rise above my shoulder and widen in shock. The rest of the class gasps, and I follow the stares to see Tyson walking to his chair. He slumps down, not looking at me. I clamp my mouth shut and face forward as Ms. Walsh starts the class, but I can’t help but peek at Tyson. His face looks like it was pummeled in the boxing ring. The top of one cheek is swollen, an eye is black and blue, and his skin looks like someone took sandpaper to it.
“What happened to you?” Kelly, the girl on his other side, asks. He glances at me, then back to her. “Nothing,” he mumbles.
I turn to catch Z’s eyes on me—probably the only eyes in the room that aren’t on Tyson. His head is tilted slightly as he considers me with pursed lips, then his focus shifts back to the monitor.
What the hell?
Z beat up Tyson. I saw it in his eyes. How did he know? I kind of remember saying something about Tyson giving me the drink.
Damn it. Or good? I’m not sure what to think.
Tyson spends the entire hour not talking or looking anywhere but at his computer screen. Even Ms. Walsh seems stunned. She doesn’t call on him at all. When the bell rings, he’s the first one out the door.
“Z?” I say quietly as he walks by, but he doesn’t stop.
I nudge Sam. “Did Z do that?”
Her eyes follow him, seeming genuinely unsure. “I’d say the less we know about that, the better.”
I should be happy, but the whole thing doesn’t seem right. Okay, so maybe I pictured it over the weekend, someone whipping the crap out of him, but I didn’t think it would actually happen. It seems so…odd for Z to do that. He never even gives me the time of day.
Z completely ignores me in English Lit, showing up right as the bell rings and looking especially interested in whatever the teacher is saying. I stretch my arms out and glance at him, but he keeps his eyes focused on the front. I even resort to the childish move of dropping a pencil near his feet. He picks it up and places it back on my desk without looking at me. I’ll have to corner him at lunch.
On the way to the cafeteria, Tyson intercepts me. He waits until a couple other kids pass by before cornering me next to the water fountain. I grab my backpack in my hands, planning to shove it at him should he even think to touch me.
“Why’d you send that guy to beat me up?” His voice sounds warped through his puffy lips.
I hold my glare. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, come on. He was talking to you at the bar.”
At the bar? He has no idea Z is the one who beat him up. Z did look very different that night.
“I don’t really know him. Not really.” Boy, that’s the truth. “But why the hell did you try to drug me? I’m not stupid. I know what that drug is for.”
Tyson stares at me for a moment, his eyes wide. “Wait, you really think I did that?”
I take a breath to steady my anger. I don’t want to lose it in the middle of the hall at school. “You gave me the drink, you drugged it. It’s not that hard to figure out. You’re lucky I didn’t call the cops.”
His mouth drops open. “I didn’t. All I did was hand you the drink like the guy asked me to.”
“What guy?”
“He said he was a friend of yours. I was kinda drunk, so I don’t know. Actually, come to think of it, I’m pretty sure it was the same one you were all over at the bar.”
“The same…?”
“The same guy who gave me the drink. Yeah, that was him.”
His casual observation cuts through me like cold steel. The same guy? Why would Z beat Tyson up if he were the one who gave me the drink? And why would I believe Tyson, anyway?
“Trust me, I didn’t do it,” Tyson says again. “I wouldn’t do something like that.”
Trust him? I almost laugh at the stupidity of it. “If that’s true, which I don’t know if I believe, you were an asshole to pass me a drink someone else gave you.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He backs away to join his friends.
I take a deep breath and push the doors open to the cafeteria.
…
Z
Sam starts her bitching before she even sits down. “Z, you’re an idiot. Why did you have to go beat up that dumbass?”
I sigh. Nothing I can say will make Sam happy. The worst part is I’m still not sure why I did it myself. Maybe because Liv’s wide-eyed innocence played heavy on my mind the whole night. If I hadn’t been there to rescue her from that jerk… Even now, looking at his battered face, I feel strangely vindicated. Maybe that’s why I don’t tell her the gravel did most of the work on him, not me.
“I thought you liked Liv,” is all I say. “The guy drugged her.”
Sam rubs at her temples. “I do like her, and you know that’s not the point. You’re risking all of us, you know? What if he figures it out and presses charges? They’d come after you, and then we’d all be screwed. You should’ve let me handle it.”
“They won’t come after us. And maybe she’ll like us more. We did save her from a major f—”
Sam pokes me as her eyes lift over my shoulder. “Hi, Liv!”
I turn to see Liv staring at me, frowning. Sam pulls a chair out for her but she doesn’t move.
“So, I was thinking about going to the mall after school today. Want to come?” Sam asks, acting like she doesn’t notice that Liv’s still standing.
Liv’s eyes are still on me. “Can’t. I have to work.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
“Maybe. Well?” She directs the question to me.
“Well, what?”
“Tyson’s pretty messed up.”
I shrug and take a bite of my apple, curious to see where she’s going with this. Sam gives some lame excuse about getting water and leaves.
Liv sits down on the edge of a chair. “So you beat him up?” Her voice is low, her tone accusatory, and she seems upset…at me? I take another bite and don’t say anything.
She twists her necklace around her finger and her eyes drop to my collar.
“He looks really bad. Why did you do that?”
“Liv.” Her eyes lift to meet mine. “You were drugged. He gave you that drink. He admitted it.”
“He actually told you he put something in it?”
“No, he denied that, obviously. But he admitted to giving you the drink.”
Her forehead wrinkles as she considers this, fiddling with a sugar packet on the table. “But what if he didn’t put the drug in it?”
I stare at her for a moment. How the hell did she end up at that conclusion? “Are you serious?”
“I ran into him in the hall. He said someone else gave him the drink to give to me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“He might not have been lying. The person who slipped something in my drink could’ve been someone else.”
“Okay, so, who do you think it was?” I’m sure my voice sounds patronizing, but I don’t care. How could she believe Tyson, of all people? And I thought she was smart.
She looks away, her face flushed. “I don’t know.”
I can’t help it. I laugh. “You sure are naive for a foster kid.”
She jumps to her feet, her face screwed up in fury. “My pe
rsonal life’s my own business, not yours. And I can take care of myself.”
I can’t help laughing as she walks away. Take care of herself? Sure, and maybe she should call Tyson to see if he wants to go hang out later, just as friends. Give me a break.
Liv stops abruptly and turns back to face me, her jaw sticking out slightly in defiance of my laughter. I tilt my head to watch her as she moves slowly, deliberately back to me. Her sudden switch from an open Pandora’s box to this quiet, contained anger is fascinating. She rests one hand on the table next to me and leans in close—an intimidating move a girl’s never made on me before. I’m stupidly nervous and intrigued at the same time.
Liv’s ponytail falls forward enough for me to catch the soft, clean scent of her shampoo. There’s nothing else soft about her right now, though. She pierces me with her eyes, like she can see into me. “I don’t know what you’re up to, Z,” she says slowly, quietly. “Or what happened that night. But you don’t intimidate me like you think you do.”
She pushes away and walks out of the cafeteria, leaving me staring after her in undeniable awe. I would never have expected that from her.
“What’d she have to say?” Sam asks, startling me as she sits down. “And why are you staring at the door with your mouth open?”
I clamp my jaw shut and turn to her. “She doesn’t think Tyson drugged her. She’s only mad at me for beating him up. And I’m not sure, but it sounds like she thinks I might have done it.”
Saying it out loud, it sounds even more ridiculous. How could she believe that? I notice the faster pace of my heartbeat, normally only triggered by meetings with Bill. Shit, do I actually care about this?
Sam’s mouth drops open. “What the hell? You?”
I laugh out loud but cringe inside. If she thinks I’m just some bully beating up people, or that I’m capable of drugging her, she’ll never trust me. Or Sam. And we may as well drop the whole idea of twisting Olivia Westfield.
Chapter Six
“‘Once let him feel that he is one of us; once fill his mind with the idea that he has been a thief, and he’s ours—ours for his life!’”
—Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
LIV