Lucky Girl

by Amanda Maciel

  “There you are,” someone says behind me, and I leap straight into the air, choking on a scream.

  I turn around so fast that my skirt tangles between my legs. There’s a huge hulk of a person right behind me, getting closer.

  “Hey, hey,” he says, chuckling. “It’s just me.”

  It’s Cory, I realize. It’s Cory, I’m not about to be murdered, we’re—

  He wraps his arms around my waist and presses his mouth down onto mine, hard and hot.

  Oh.

  We stumble backward through the porch door—he’s pushing us, I realize, to the sunroom couch. That’s where my shirt is, I think stupidly.

  Cory’s pushing too fast and the back of my right leg knocks into the corner of something hard—a table, a metal table, fuck, that hurts—but he’s also kissing me too insistently to talk, so hard I can barely gasp. Then I’m under him, lying down, and his hands are in seven places at once. On my breast, pushing my bikini top out of the way. On my hip, pulling the waistband of my skirt.

  His hips dig into mine and there’s this shock of feeling there, this flash of heat, a second when my body just responds to his because we used to do this. A couple of seconds ago, this was a thing I did that felt good.

  But then the feeling is gone because everything hurts—he’s going too fast and his fingernails scrape the soft skin of my belly.

  And Maddie.

  Jesus Christ!

  My brain slams back into my skull with a sickening thud and I’m all the way conscious, all the way here.

  Cory’s still got his tongue in my mouth. And I have my hands around his back! What am I doing! Nononono, I think. MaddieMaddieMaddie.

  His shoulders are so wide that I can’t really get my elbows back around the way I need to, but then he shifts a little—oh, shit, he’s pulling on my bikini bottom now—and I’m able to tuck my arms in and brace my hands on the front of his pecs. I start pushing, gently at first, and then harder, and then as hard as I can. I don’t think he can even feel the pressure. Or he does and doesn’t understand—his mouth tastes like beer and lemons and I know he’s drunk, too.

  I know he thinks I’m into this.

  I try pushing again because now my skirt is stuck and the kissing has gone on forever, oh my God, just come up for air already!—and then he does. His face moves.

  I take a big, gasping breath that’s almost a laugh. This is so not okay! What is he even—shit. I feel my skirt being pulled down clumsily, painfully. The stinging in the back of my leg flares up, and suddenly I’m sitting upright so fast that I accidentally headbutt Cory, another sickening crack that echoes in my skull.

  “What the fuck!” he sputters. He reaches up to touch his forehead, and right then there’s another burst of lightning outside and I can see his face.

  He looks furious.

  The laugh dies on my lips, and everything seems to slow way, way down. Everything inside my head gets super quiet.

  “Come on, let’s just do this,” Cory says, and I’m back down, he’s pressing me back down.

  Just before he crushes his lips against mine again I gasp, “Maddie!”

  But he just goes, “Nope, Cory,” and I can’t see anything because his face is too close, and the stench of alcohol fills my mouth, and he’s clawing at my clothes again. And at his clothes.

  This isn’t happening like this, though. Cory’s so sweet—I’ve seen him be sweet, I know he’s a good guy.

  Well, he’s sweet with Maddie, a voice in my head says. Unhelpfully.

  One of Cory’s knees jams its way between my legs, and that same little voice adds, I guess we’re just doing this.

  But no, I can’t—I didn’t mean to flirt with him, I want Maddie to have him, I want her to be happy—

  My hands scramble in the tiny space between my chest and his, trying to push or scratch or something, but it’s no use. I wrench my head to the side to breathe, but I just hit a wall of shoulder and arm muscle and Spring Break Cancun T-shirt.

  This is so stupid!

  Why am I so stupid?

  I bite his arm.

  There’s a rough grunt. And then a release.

  I can see his face again, almost—and then I’m blinded, I can’t see anything.

  The lights are back on.

  Another shaky laugh rushes from my lungs, though it might just be the beginning of a sob. I didn’t know there were so many lights on this stupid porch, but look at them all! And the kitchen—the kitchen is brighter than the sun right now!

  Cory’s face is still twisted in something like rage, but he’s blinking furiously, too, and so disoriented that he’s sitting all the way up. Still on top of me, still with one leg twisted in my skirt and the other braced against the floor, but the weight is off my rib cage.

  I take a ragged inhale, and when it comes back out I’m laughing again. I’m so relieved I can breathe now! Look at me, breathing! Stupid Cory, you almost suffocated me!

  There’s not enough air to talk yet, but it’s fine. He stopped.

  I’m still half laughing, half panting when I notice there’s a shadow in the kitchen doorway. I turn my head almost lazily—I’m suddenly so tired, and it’s so late, and that was so hard, trying to get him to stop crushing me—I think I’m still smiling moronically, and maybe my eyes haven’t adjusted after all.

  Because it’s Maddie, there, in the doorway.

  “You’re here!” I say. I practically sing it. Like it’s a good thing. Like she came to save me.

  “Typical,” she spits.

  And things click back into place. My smile disappears and so does my not-boyfriend—Cory stands straight up from the couch, easy as pie. No pushing necessary.

  “You just do whatever the hell you want,” Maddie’s saying, her voice as coarse and painful as the burn I can feel on my cheek from Cory’s stubble. “What, was this all a joke? Were you guys just laughing at me this whole time? Or can you seriously not keep it in your pants for five seconds?”

  I can sit up now, but it feels like it takes an hour. My arms are like jelly, and it’s hard to pull my bikini back into place. But I can’t sit here half naked while Maddie screams at me. I can’t even understand what she’s saying—I was laughing at her?

  “No,” I say, but it’s too quiet. Why can’t I get my voice to work? “No, Mads, it was just a mis—”

  “Just don’t,” she snaps.

  Cory’s standing there, totally still, staring at something off to the side. Waiting for us to figure it out, I guess.

  My skirt is bunched under me and I can’t get it pulled up, but I feel too weak to stand. I wish I could stop thinking about my clothes and just say something to Maddie—I have to say something—but my head is like Cory’s hands were just now, trying to do three things at once and fumbling with all of them.

  The thought of Cory’s hands makes my insides lurch, and for a second I think I might throw up. I almost want to throw up, to get all this stuff out of me, to show Maddie how sorry I am—but then I don’t.

  She’s just staring at me with tears in her eyes, and all I can do is sit, my fingers scrambling uselessly around the stupid hoodie Gabe gave me, pulling it closed as best I can. Hiding my skin.

  Maddie isn’t even looking at Cory, just at me. I’m the one who did this, who betrayed her. I’m the one who said it was okay, the one who was happy for her and him. She thinks I didn’t mean it.

  But I did. Right? Of course I did.

  I force myself to lift my eyes to his face, and there’s a fresh wave of pain because there it is—he’s sorry. He’s grimacing with regret.

  At least, I think that’s what it is. He’s not looking at Maddie, either, and for a second I grasp some awful energy between them. A fight? But they barely know each other, they aren’t even—

  “You’re not even going to say anything?” Maddie is screaming now, her whole body is turning red.

  I jump back a little on the couch. It feels like I’ve been slapped.

  “You’re just
going to fucking sit there,” she adds at a much lower volume. “Well, that’s just terrific, Rosie. What a way to be a friend.”

  My mouth drops open but still, nothing will come out. Nothing nothing nothing chants that awful voice in my head. Where did that voice even come from, anyway?

  “And you,” she says. She still isn’t looking at Cory, but we both know who she means. “I guess you knew where to go to get what you wanted.”

  It’s not until she spins on her heel and starts walking away that my body finally remembers how to move, how to do something. I stand up so fast my head spins, but I ignore it. I pull up my skirt and lurch forward, hitting the front of my leg against the goddamn metal table this time, and trip after her.

  “Wait!” I say, my vocal cords still miserably failing to work properly. “Maddie, please, you don’t—”

  Everyone’s coming upstairs now. The basement door is vomiting a bunch of laughing, stumbling idiots into the hallway, Gabe and Olivia and Ryan and Marcus, just a blur of noise blocking me, letting Maddie get away.

  “Ryan!” I say as loudly as I can.

  He stops, a huge grin still on his face, and gets a good look at me.

  I can see what he sees. I can feel what he sees. I’m clutching the unzipped front of my sweatshirt and my skirt is still twisted around. My hair is everywhere and I know my makeup is gross and smudged. I can feel the hot, sweaty wall of Cory standing behind me. I can feel how his clothes must look, just as screwed up as mine.

  A couple of screw-ups. I can see it.

  And then Ryan’s head swivels to the right, to the other end of the hall. I lose track of everyone else as they scatter, and it’s just Ryan’s eyes watching Maddie as she throws open the front door.

  We both start moving at the same time, both start calling out for her and rushing to get to her, but Ryan has a head start. Ryan can get his feet under him, can move in a way that doesn’t feel like torture. He gets to the door so easily I want to cry, and then I see that Maddie is crying.

  They’re both out on the front steps so fast. Then they’re hurrying down the lawn. I don’t even get to the door before the screen is slamming in my face, and Maddie’s car is lighting up as she climbs into it. And Ryan climbs in on the passenger side.

  For an eternity I stand there behind the screen, watching it all happen. The rain is lighter now, hitting the earth the way rain is supposed to, insistently but not violently. Not cruelly. The yard and the street tell the story, though—leaves and branches cover the grass and the cars and the sidewalk and the road. They flutter in the wind, but from the way the rain falls on them, you can tell they’re dead. You can tell they got ripped away from their trees and flung to the ground without mercy.

  Maddie’s taillights are an angry red, disappearing into the darkness.

  10

  I DON’T KNOW how they’re going to make it home. I don’t know why she’d try to drive right now—it’s so late, and she was drinking, and the roads are a mess, beyond a mess.

  My legs give out under me, and I find myself kneeling on the hard ridges of the welcome mat just inside the front door. The storm window feels cool under my forehead as I rest there, breathing. Catching my breath.

  I screwed everything up. I secretly resented Maddie, and look what happened. I’m a tiny, small person. I wanted Cory’s attention. I needed it.

  I didn’t care about Maddie until it was too late.

  The voice in my head won’t shut up. It runs around in circles, reminding me how I felt when I saw Maddie at the airport. How I felt scared that she was so pretty all of a sudden. What kind of friend doesn’t want her friend to be pretty, to be happy, to have everything she wants?

  The kind of friend who didn’t know what to say before Maddie even left, didn’t know how to be there for her when her life was bad. And now tries to ruin it again, just when it’s getting good.

  At least Alex wasn’t here.

  Ugh. What a stupid thought.

  Everyone will know some version of the story by morning, obviously—Olivia will take care of that, no problem—and most of them will probably roll their eyes and make some stupid comment about me being a skank or whatever. But perfect Alex Goode seeing me be such a loser would’ve been a million times more humiliating.

  The house behind me feels huge and quiet, and I remember everyone who is still here. Cory. Gabe and Marcus. Freaking Olivia.

  With a strangely calm feeling, I stand up, grabbing the door handle to help myself off the floor. Then I click the heavy wooden door closed and lock it.

  I know it’s not safe to stay upstairs, especially in the front rooms with their huge windows. But I pad to the sitting room anyway, my feet sinking into the soft carpet. My leg burns where it hit the table, so I carefully sit on the tufted leather couch and lie down on my other side.

  But it doesn’t feel right. I don’t want to lie down on a couch.

  So gingerly I get up again and lower myself onto the stiff armchair. It’s too straight and the seat is barely big enough for me to tuck my legs under me, but I don’t care. It would be impossible to have sex on this chair. If a girl was going to sleep with her best friend’s brand-new boyfriend, she couldn’t do it like this.

  I keep shifting until my cheek is resting on the cold, leather arm of the chair and my legs are pinned awkwardly by the other arm. The chair creaks painfully, and I know I might be damaging it, but I don’t care.

  I’m not safe, but I’m secure. And I’m not comfortable because I don’t deserve to be.

  I close my eyes. The voice in my head is taking a break, so I slow down my breathing and try to sleep.

  It’s a long night.

  There’s only the faintest hint of daybreak when I open my eyes again. My legs feel rubbery as I slowly unfold them from the chair, and my neck is definitely not going to be okay for a while. There’s an enormous clock on the mantel behind me. I’ve been listening to it tick loudly for what feels like a lifetime, but when I turn around—carefully, trying to save my neck—I see that it’s only been a few hours.

  5:30.

  I sit perfectly still and let the clock chunk its way to 5:31 or 5:32, it’s hard to tell exactly, and then I stand up, inch by inch. I’m either hungover or still drunk—or stuck in some terrible purgatory between the two. Whatever I am, I am not thinking. I am walking down the hall to the kitchen, quietly. I am stepping out onto the sunporch. I am finding my tank top and sandals and carrying them back to the front door and opening the front door and closing it behind me and not wondering if it will lock and putting on my shirt and my shoes and walking down the steps and not falling on the leaves that are everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.

  I am not falling on leaves for a long time. The whole front walk is covered, and the sidewalk is even worse—there are branches to pick my way over, and I’m not sure if I’m stepping onto sidewalk or grass underneath all the debris. My shoes really aren’t great for this, but they’re flat, at least. I wish I still had my jeans from last night, but I left them in Maddie’s car, along with everything else but my phone.

  At the corner of Gabe’s street, I stop and roll up the waistband of my skirt a few times, making it a little shorter and easier to manage. I realize I’m still wearing his sweatshirt, and it’s too warm out—even at this hour, even after such a huge storm, the air is thick with humidity and the sky is low, gray, too close. I’m already sweating.

  I take off the sweatshirt and throw it on the nearest car—then hold my breath. After a few seconds I exhale, relieved that I haven’t set off an alarm, and then, still not thinking, keep walking toward the main road.

  My phone is closer to my hip now, and I can feel it pressing against me with each step. I could call someone. I could—I should—call Maddie or Ryan and see if they’re okay. I should call and apologize.

  But it’s so early. And if I called anyone else, like my mom, I’d have to explain, wouldn’t I? I’d have to have some pretty good reasons why I’m hungover-slash-drunk and walking ho
me at 5:30—5:45 now—in the morning.

  When I reach the main road, I think of another reason I can’t call anyone: the whole city is a mess. The power company is down the street about a quarter mile, fixing wires attached to telephone poles, and trucks that look sort of like snowplows are sweeping the street itself. But otherwise, I might as well be the last person alive. I feel like that robot in WALL-E, wandering around what’s left of Earth.

  Across from the Omaha Public Power truck, I find my sidewalk blocked by an actual tree, a huge tree that stretches from its no-longer-rooted roots to the middle lane of the street on my left. It’s some kind of pine tree, and for a while I just stand there, staring at the branches sticking up in the air, the highest needles reaching well above my head. My options are pretty much nonexistent, and despite my best efforts to keep my brain turned off, it’s forced to struggle awake.

  I can’t get over this thing. If I go right, toward the grass and the roots, I’ll have to deal with an extraordinary amount of mud and yet more fallen branches and leaves. Plus, it’s a steep decline into a little ravine. An image of sliding in the mud and falling down that short hill flashes through my mind, and it doesn’t look like fun.

  But going left will put me right in the middle of the street for as long as it takes to get around the top of the tree, and that doesn’t look fun, either. I also don’t want to attract the attention of the power company guys. There’s something about the postapocalyptic-wasteland atmosphere that makes me wonder if I’m not actually allowed to be walking down this road, or be outside at all.

  Plus, I want to be alone. A sick, sloshy feeling starts rising in my stomach, and I have to swallow once, twice, to settle it back down.

  I don’t want those men to see me. I just want to be invisible for a little while longer.

  I try not to think about what a strange new feeling that is, wanting to be invisible.