by Destiny Webb
“This is how you made it, Sean.”
Defiantly, I looked at him one last time, knowing my eyes betrayed what I didn’t want him to see. Ashamed, I turned and left the room, leaving the door open. I only made it a few feet before I heard the door slam louder than the music still blaring from the party. Feeling terrible for our confrontation, I wished it hadn’t happened the way it did.
With a heavy heart, I turned around and looked at the door. A feeling of pity overwhelmed me and I took a step towards the door. I wanted to console him, to comfort him. Unsuccessfully, I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t the only one who said cruel things, and that I wasn’t the only one who needed to apologize.
Emotionally exhausted, I went to go find Cara to tell her that I was going home. Thank goodness she was not all that well hidden. She was now intertwined on the couch with the boy she was dancing with earlier.
“Sorry to interrupt,” I tapped on her shoulder, “But, Cara I’m leaving.”
She looked up at me, shocked.
“Why? And how are you getting home? Brian’s with my sister.”
“I’ll explain later, and I don’t know yet. I’ll figure it out.”
I turned away from her, thinking about how I was going to get home, when a sudden inspiration hit. I knew how I would get home, but it would require Blake and some well-acted fondness.
Like Cara, Blake was not hard to find at all. He was standing with his friends, drinking, of course. I dreaded every step I took up to them. Then, their conversation was audible to me and it took everything I had not to run away.
“Dude, that was fast. Like, man, one minute you were following her in, and then, like you came back out.” Blake’s friends were drunker than he was and it was quite pathetic.
“Well, you guys know how I roll.” Blake’s voice was thick with implication. I grew more disgusted and uncomfortable.
“Blakey Boo….” I felt stupid and self-conscious. My voice sounded completely fake as I walked up to Blake and his friends; they were too drunk to realize it though. He pulled me to his chest and kissed me. Even though I kissed him back reluctantly, every fiber of me wanted to pull away but, against my better judgment, I stayed where I was. I’d already come too close to being in a sticky situation with him this evening. Certainly, I wasn’t going to let it happen again.
“Hey baby. You and I gonna get together later?”
“Ooooohhhhh…,” his friends chorused. I don’t know why, but at that moment I felt like an autographed football up for auction.
“Well, baby, since you know how I roll, you know it’s not gonna be with you,” I spoke slowly and seductively as I stroked my hand up the back of his thigh to his keys, which were hanging out of his back pocket. I prayed that his quad keys were on them. “So, you know the real reason why he got back out here so quickly was, since he didn’t take off his pants to begin with, he didn’t have to put them back on,” I said maliciously. Might as well make him look as bad as I could.
I gave Blake one last look, and as usual his face was covered with a dumbfounded look. His friends were all laughing as I walked off, his keys in hand.
Wondering what his quad would look like, I walked out of the cabin and down to the mess of quads. There were so many of them. Confused, I racked my brain for all of our meaningless conversations about his “amazing” life. I vaguely remembered him saying something about the fact that he rode dirt bikes. Maybe I wasn’t looking for a quad at all.
With a new goal in mind, I started looking around for a dirt bike or a motorcycle. There were a few bikes in the midst of the quads. Turning to my left, I found a group of bikes all in a line. All the bikes had big, bold white numbers that I knew corresponded with their jersey numbers on the high school football team. Seeing the number fourteen, I knew I had found the one I was looking for.
Blake had a shiny black bike that he was extremely proud of. The memory of the night he took me out on it was slowly coming back to me. It was similar to tonight, except for the fact that I had been able to fight him off. He had been completely out of it, and he wasn’t nearly as strong as he was now. I suspected that steroids had something to do with his current condition. He’d left that party screeching his tires as he sped off.
Rushing so no one would see me, I jogged over to the bike and stuck the key in the ignition. When I turned it, the bike started with a purr. I tried to think of a place to leave it. Quickly, I decided that I would leave it down near the lake for him to find.
As I rode through the night, terrible guilt came over me. The anger had taken over when I was with Sean back there, a delayed reaction to Blake. Calmness was all I had for Blake when it came to being attacked, but when it came to my defender, I was awful and ungrateful. I had to talk to him as soon as I could. I would make it up to him.
The breeze in my hair put my mind at ease as I drove along the shore to the big rock next to the dock. When I arrived, I nestled the bike against the rock and turned it off, leaving the keys in the ignition. When I turned to walk away, I heard other bikes driving up. Crouched under the dock, I listened, and tried to see. The bikes turned off and the sounds of footsteps became audible.
“I can’t believe she did that.” It was Frankie, Blake’s “right-hand man.”
“When I find that bitch, she’s going to regret ever taking my bike.”
Threatening to give me away, my heart pounded in my chest. It wouldn’t be long until he saw his bike, and when he did, he’d find me with it. He didn’t sound as drunk as he had at the party. Maybe it was all a charade he put on to seem cool. His words were still slightly slurred, but he sounded like he was in complete control of what he was doing. He and his friends started to pace.
I began to wonder if this was some game and they’d seen me come this way. How else would they know to find me at the dock? A few more steps and they would find me. Mentally preparing myself to put up a fight if someone came my way, I was surprised when I heard other engines pulling up. Relief washed over me…I still had a chance to get away. Struggling, I tried to look to see who drove up, but Frankie’s legs were in my way.
“What? Is he not showing?” Blake called.
“No, he’ll be here,” Jonathon’s voice reassured him. My stomach dropped. Jonathon was Sean’s other best friend. I hadn’t seen him at the party. I didn’t even know he would be up here.
Blake and his gang walked forward to who I figured was Jonathon. I guessed it would be safe and I inched out from underneath the dock. I looked around. It seemed as if the party had all moved there. An ominous feeling overwhelmed me as I saw still more people were arriving.
“He’s not gonna show, Blake.”
“Yeah, he’s gonna punk out.”
“Are we gonna do this or what?” Sean’s voice came from the crowd of people. I tried to figure out what everyone was doing there. As I looked around again, I realized that the crowd was in a circle, forming a ring. Blake walked up to Sean.
“Wow boys, he’s more of a man than we thought.” Blake slightly pushed on Sean’s shoulders, provoking him. Sean took a step back and proceeded to retaliate. I heard Sean yell as I stormed up to Blake and shoved him from behind.
“Don’t you dare touch him!”
The crowd grew wild and I could hear Cara yelling at me from the mass of people.
Blake turned and looked at me, his eyes angry and wild. He grabbed my upper arms tightly and threw me to the ground roughly.
“I’ll deal with you later. You’ll learn not to—”
His sentence got cut off by Sean’s fist going into his mouth and knocking him to the ground. He went to get up and Sean pushed him back to the ground.
“Sammy, get out of here. Now.” He didn’t seem angry at me. Sean just looked at me with eyes that were filled with worry before they went blank. Giving me one last look, Sean turned back to Blake, who was just managing to get up, and Sean kicked him.
“Didn’t Daddy ever teach you not to handle women like that?”
&n
bsp; I scrambled up and tried to make my way through the sea of people as quickly as I could. Not quick enough though.
“Yeah, but that’s not going to stop me from kicking your ass tonight.” The crowd’s reaction was to be expected. They laughed and jested. I was almost through the cluster of people.
“Get up. Give me a real fight.”
Then, I was running. The crowd had all moved in closer to see the fight that I didn’t want to see. I kept running until I got past the edge of the forest. I slowed down and started looking for the path. The noise from the commotion was starting to fade. It grew quieter and quieter as I started to make my way up the path back to the cabin. It was only quiet for a moment or two when I heard another engine drive up.
I was about to sprint back into the trees when a familiar voice called my name.
Chapter Eight
“Sam, stop. Get on the quad and let me take you home.”
“Oh, my god, Brian. You just about gave me a heart attack.” As the events of the day weighed on me, I jogged to a little clump of bushes and threw up for what felt like the millionth time that day. I walked back to the road slowly and sat down, putting my head between my knees.
“Sam, what happened tonight?”
“Take me back to the house first; then, I’ll explain everything.”
“But—”
“Stop. If I start to explain anything, I’ll get upset. If I get upset, then I won’t be able to sneak in.”
“You don’t have to sneak in. Just tell Dad that you changed your mind about staying.”
“Yeah, at what is it? Midnight? He’d love that. Can I just sleep in your room tonight?”
“Um…yeah, I guess. If you want.”
“Yeah, that’s my best plan.”
“Well, hop on. Let’s get you home.”
I climbed on the back of the quad and gripped Brian loosely. He didn’t squirm away like he had earlier, and he drove slower than usual. Brian didn’t ask me any questions, thankfully. In silence, Brian and I drove up to the back of the cabin where the window of his room was. There were lattices conveniently located underneath all the second story windows, and thanks to the teens that stayed here, they were still in great shape. I climbed off the quad.
“Are you okay enough to climb up there?” he asked, concerned.
“Yeah, I’ll see you up there,” I reassured him. He turned the quad around and took it to the front. I put my foot in the bottom square and began my ascent slowly. It was an easy task, so I took my time in climbing to put off talking about tonight. By the time I got to the top, Brian was there to pull me in.
Once inside, I stood by the window, feeling awkward. Brian was rummaging through some drawers looking for something. He stood and tossed me a pair of old sweats and a t-shirt of his. Then, he turned and left the room to let me change. I pulled them on, rolling up the too long legs to fit mine, grateful to get out of those clothes that I might never wear again. I sat them on the edge of his bed.
He came back in, after knocking softly, with two water bottles in his hand, and handed me one. I sat down on the ground and he turned to his bed and surprised me by taking a pillow and a blanket that was sitting by the head of his bed. When he was finished making the makeshift bed, he sat down on it.
“You’re not really going to sleep on the ground are you?” I questioned him.
“Yup. So, get on the bed and tell me what I’ve been missing.”
“Fine,” I grumbled, as I moved to his bed. “So, after you dropped me off at Cara’s—”
“No, start off with last night.”
“He already told you though, right?”
“I like to hear both sides of the story,” he smirked.
“Oh, fine,” I gushed out, defeated. “Where do you want me to start?”
“Going to the movie.”
I told him everything that I had already explained to Sarah and Cara. Like the two of them, he was silent until I got to the kiss.
“So, what did you think?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“About the kiss.”
“Oh….”
“Sam. I’m shocked. You’re blushing! Jeez, he reacted the same way.”
“What?!” I exclaimed.
“He got all quiet and blushed.”
“What did he say?” I was excited despite everything I had gone through.
“Nope. Not ‘til you tell me what you thought.”
“It was indescribable. There are no words to describe it at all,” I sighed happily.
“That’s not fair.”
“Ha! It’s what I thought. Now, tell me what he thought.”
“Ugh. I hate that I tell you both everything.”
“Spit it out,” I demanded.
“Fine. He said it was way different than any kiss he and Tasha had ever had.” Then he quickly added, “In a good way.”
“Anything else?” I asked, knowing that he was hiding something.
“He also said that you were a good kisser,” he reluctantly added. I didn’t say anything. My stomach soared and warmth spread through me. I was about to continue with my explanation of the events when Sean walked through the door, lip bleeding. He walked slowly, like he was tender.
“Sam, please tell me you’re not hurt,” he pleaded, eyes closed.
“No, I’m alright,” I lied. My wrists hurt where Blake had pinned them together and I was rather shaken up, but I wasn’t going to worry Sean with that.
“Can you explain to me what happened tonight?”
“Actually, she was about to tell me all about it when you walked in.”
“Okay.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a clean t-shirt. I gasped softly when he took off the dirty one. It looked like there were bruises starting to form on his ribs, and I felt a pang of guilt. He replaced the t-shirt with the clean one and sat on the bed, waiting for me to speak.
I decided that I would skip the part where Cara and I made plans to make him jealous, and started with Blake and me talking. I explained everything besides my conversation with Cara in the closet and my real reason for leaving the dance floor. When I stopped talking, they both looked at me anxiously.
“What happened when she left the room?” Brian asked Sean cautiously.
“He said something to his idiots and followed Sam,” Sean growled through gritted teeth.
It was getting harder to talk about it. My throat was closing up. I brought my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, then took in a deep breath and continued.
“I found a room that had no one in it. When I went to shut the door, he pushed me into the room and bent to kiss me.”
I stopped talking. I was tired and this was the last thing I wanted to do.
“What did you do?” Brian whispered.
“Well, I told him he had the wrong idea. When he tried to kiss me again, I spit in his face,” I chuckled humorlessly.
“I bet he didn’t like that,” Brian laughed.
“Oh, he loved it,” I said sarcastically.
I went on to explain how he threw me on the bed and took off my jeans. Now and again I’d hear grunts of anger or the tightening of fists or jaws.
“He undid his pants and—”
“I walked in,” Sean finished for me, his eyes on the floor.
“Wow. So why was everyone at the dock?”
“I took his bike down there,” I told him at the same time Sean said, “He came to me looking for a fight.”
“What?!” the three of us said in unison. Sean and Brian were looking at me. So, I sighed and explained myself.
“Well, after I left the room, I went to find Cara and told her I was leaving. She kindly reminded me that I had no way home because Brian here couldn’t keep his pants on for one night.”
“Hey!” Brian began to protest, but I ignored him.
“So, then I went to look for Blake; I had noticed that his keys were dangling from his back pocket. Once I had his keys, I drove his bike down to th
e dock to leave it there for him to find. When I saw them come up, I figured that they must’ve found out and Sean heard them talking. I assumed that was what the fight was about.”
“Well, that’s kind of what happened,” Sean explained. “I came out of the room to get a beer. Blake and his friends came up to me. He shoved me and said I ruined his night, you were his, and that you were enjoying everything. When I told him that you weren’t his and rape wasn’t something enjoyable, he tried to hit me. I grabbed his wrist and twisted it. Cara came running up, saying if we were going to fight, we were going to have to find somewhere else to do it. So, we did. And you happened to be there, shoving him again.” Sean laughed.
“I hope you beat the shit out of that bastard,” Brian growled.
“Believe me, I did.” Sean reassured him.
Everyone became really silent, absorbed in their own thoughts. After a few minutes, Brian’s stomach growled and everyone looked up.
“I haven’t eaten anything since lunch,” he said, getting up. “I’m gonna get some food. Want anything?”
“No, thanks,” Sean said as I shook my head. Brian left quietly, leaving Sean and me alone. We sat looking at each other, not saying a word for I don’t know how long. I swallowed the lump in my throat that was still present…or, at least, I tried to.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “If you hadn’t shown up—” I began to cry. “Then, I treated you so…so….” I choked on my words and started to sob. Sean got up and sat next to me. He tugged my arms away from my knees and pulled me until I was cradled in his arms, crying into his shoulder. He softly patted my hair and rocked me back and forth.
“How did you—?” I gasped.
“How did I know?” I nodded. “I actually was headed to the bathroom…I wanted to be alone too. When I heard you scream, I got worried, so I went down the hall trying doors.”
“But…but…, he lo–locked it,” I stuttered through the tears.
“He may have been smart enough to lock it,” he said through gritted teeth. “But, the idiot didn’t close it all the way.”