12. Then #2
I kiss him again and he responds, giving in at last. I move against him again, nerve endings snapping to life, forgetting anyone could walk up on us and not especially caring.
He gasps, suddenly, grasping my hips. “Stop!” he yells, pushing me off him.
I hit the ground hard, my back absorbing most of the fall, and blink up at him, stunned. I can’t believe he shoved me. I want to think it was an accident but…he yelled at me. So it wasn’t, really.
I sit up gingerly, wincing at the pain in my back, while the noise of the party continues around us, unabated.
“I don’t understand what just happened,” I whisper.
His shoulders sag and he doesn’t meet my gaze. “I…came.”
“From that ?”
“Yes,” he says, his voice sharper than I’m used to. “You were moving all over the place and then the kissing and…what did you think was going to happen? I told you to get off my lap.”
I can’t think of a time when he’s been mad at me before. But his anger sparks my own. “What’s the big deal, Danny? You think you’re not getting into heaven because you came by accident ?”
He rises. “It wasn’t an accident! We made bad choices and this was the result.”
He storms off toward the house and I remain where I landed—sitting on my ass in this dark corner of a backyard, hours from home, and feeling guiltier by the second.
I took something he didn’t want to give. Am I any different than Justin, cornering me, acting like all my objections were some coy game I was playing?
Tears slip down my face. I don’t know why I always want to do the bad thing, why I can’t just be happy with my easy, safe life and my wonderful boyfriend.
I’m ashamed of myself, and I’m angry at the same time. Why is it that all the people inside get to drink and grope each other and whatever else they do? Why am I the only one who has to choose between good and evil, when the rest of the world gets a little of both?
I’m too upset to stay here or to go inside to look for him, not that he seems to want me looking for him anyway. I just want to return to the safety of my room, a quiet place where I can rest my head and figure out how to fix this.
I slip through the darkness to the gate on the side of the yard. The hotel is less than five miles away. God knows if I can stand on my feet at the diner for ten hours a day, I can walk five miles in flip-flops.
The neighborhood turns rough a few blocks from campus.
I’m out in the open. Vulnerable. Easy prey.
I pass a group of men on the darkened main road and their faces gleam with that ugly kind of interest, which I know more about than I should.
It terrifies me, so I break into a run because what else am I going to do?
I can’t walk back into that party with my tear-streaked face, begging someone to help me find Danny.
My flip-flops start to curl beneath my feet, so I slip them off and carry them, heedless of the gravel digging into my soles. It hurts, but I was already hurting, and fear is currently my dominant emotion.
The air is colder, and the sweat against my skin makes it worse. My teeth chatter, and a car’s headlights loom behind me, but the car slows rather than passing.
I think of the incident last summer and run faster, slipping down a side street and then an alley, realizing fully what a terrible idea it was to take off on my own the way I did.
I shouldn’t have run away from Danny; I should have listened, and yet it feels like something inside me will die if I continue to live this way.
He wants what’s best for me and he’s usually right.
Perhaps this thing in me should die, but the very thought of it makes me want to lie down in the street and give up.
Without that small, hopeful flutter in my heart—the desire for things I can’t picture or name—I wouldn’t be able to go on.
“You aren’t cut out for this . ” Isn’t that what Luke said?
Except what option do I have? I can’t hurt Danny.
Footsteps pound the pavement behind me, and then hands grab my shoulders, tight as a vise.
“Juliet,” Luke snarls.
I gasp as he turns me toward him, his eyes wide and incredulous.
“What were you thinking?” he hisses. “It’s not safe out here at night. Jesus. You could have been raped.”
My shoulders sag. I tried to do something tonight to change my life. I let Danny see who I really am, and then I ran away, and it was all for nothing. I look like a fool, and now I’m being returned to him like a beaten dog, head hanging low.
“Come on.” He places his hand at the small of my back, guiding me down the street to an unfamiliar car before opening the door. I fold myself inside in defeat.
He pulls off his sweatshirt and tosses it into my lap. “Put it on. You’re shivering.”
I do as I’m told, wondering just how bad this situation must be for Danny to send someone else after me. “Why are you here?”
He starts the car. “Danny was going to come after you and I convinced him to let me come instead so you wouldn’t feel like you’d been captured.”
I look out the window. “I’m not sure I see the difference.” He’s returning me to Danny as if I’m an escaped prisoner. He’s returning me and it doesn’t matter, does it? I’d have returned myself in any case.
“I’m not here to drag you back to him, Juliet. I’m just making sure you get to the hotel okay.”
“Why are you even bothering?”
He’s silent for a moment. “Anything that matters to Danny matters to me,” he finally says.
I don’t know why his answer hurts. Did I believe, for a moment, that he might have any other reason? I hate this piece of me that wanted there to be one.
We pull in front of the hotel, and I start to take off his sweatshirt, but he stops me.
“Keep it. I’ll watch to make sure you get in safely, but I’ve got to return this girl’s car.”
I try to laugh but make a choked sound instead. “God. I’ve never seen someone so desperate to get rid of another person.” My eyes well as I reach for the door.
He winces. “I’m not trying to get rid of you.”
I round on him. “Of course you are. It’s not even surprising .” Tears clog my throat but I no longer care. “Why do you hate me so much, Luke? What did I do?”
That muscle in his cheek contracts. His eyes squeeze shut, and when they open, they land on me in a way they never have before, as if I’m made of glass and a thousand times more valuable. He’s showing me, at last, something he’s hidden so well for months.
He swallows. “I don’t hate you.”
For a fraction of a second, the truth rests between us.
He doesn’t hate me. He has never hated me. And I’ve never hated him.
I grab the door handle, practically snapping it in my haste as I scramble out of the car. “Thank you…thanks…I, uh, I really appreciate you coming to get me.”
I think he says my name but the door is already shutting and that’s probably for the best. I’m scared he might say something he can’t take back, and I might too.
I go inside and shower, trying to rinse it all away.
The incident with Danny, yes, but most of all the things I learned tonight: about Luke, and about myself.
By the time I’m done and clad in pajamas, there’s a text from Danny saying he’s waiting outside my room and that he’ll stay there all night if he has to.
I open the door, and he pulls me against his chest. It’s easy, now, to throw myself into his arms and apologize, over and over.
Because I am someone who thinks terrible things, and wants terrible things, and I could never, ever deserve Danny, not in a million years. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
“No,” he says, “ I’m sorry.”
I blink up at him. “What? Why would you be sorry?”
“Luke yelled at me after you left,” he admits. “He didn’t even know what happened, but he said I was an asshole for walking inside without you and that I treat you like you’re my kid sister. I don’t mean to, you know that, right? I’m just trying so hard not to be tempted by the wrong things.”
I nod. I do know. He wants me to be safe, and he wants us to do what he believes is the right thing. I just don’t happen to agree with him. I want Donna’s contentment with life, her innate goodness…I’m just not sure blindly adopting the pastor’s values is the only way to get it.
“You’re everything to me,” he whispers. “More than my parents, more than the entire town. I’d give up everything for you.”
I think of the time Luke said that one day Danny would lose me, and that the longer this went on, the more I’d fuck him up when it happened.
I made a decision when I was fifteen…to be with him, to become part of his family. It felt like a life raft. Now it feels like I might’ve been slowly drowning this whole time instead…and taking Danny with me.