Chapter Fifteen
Clutch was walking around the outer rim of the party as if he were performing an incantation, smoking cigarette after cigarette.
Everyone was trying to steer clear of him.
They handed him their whole pack of cigarettes when he only asked for one, their whole secret pint when he only asked for a splash in his red plastic cup of Hawaiian Punch.
After a while, he finally texted her. Bailey’s phone buzzed and she took it out of the pocket of her skirt.
Baaaaiiiillllly. I’m here.
She angled her phone away from Vanna and responded,
I see you. You’re surprisingly bad at subterfuge for a delinquent. I can’t just disappear right away.
So you haven’t told anyone you’re meeting me? Interesting.
What’s so interesting about it?
That you’re scared.
I’m not scared.
She finally got up from sitting with the Feathers and their boyfriends by the fire. In a setting like this, firelight, laughter all around, it was hard to act like being the odd man out was actually the superior option, the way she did at school. “I have to use the bathroom.”
As soon as she grabbed her purse, an ember popped in the fire, sounding like a gunshot. She turned quickly to see sparks flying into the air, turning to ash. As the ash floated higher, it appeared to turn into bats fluttering above the fire.
“I’ll go with you,” Vanna said, standing.
Bailey spun around. “Can’t I do anything alone?”
Vanna sat back down, looking taken aback at Bailey’s tone.
No one had seen Bailey mad before, and the town’s collective unconscious knew that an angry Wester was a thing to avoid.
Bailey gave Vanna’s head a conciliatory pat as she passed, trying to make up for snapping at her without actually saying she was sorry.
She’d called too much attention to herself as it was.
She walked to the edge of the clearing where she’d last seen Clutch, but he wasn’t there anymore. She reached the hemlocks, their branches nearly white in the moonlight. She got out her phone to text him, and that’s when he grabbed her from behind and pulled her into the woods.
She immediately turned and faced him. His features were all angles and shadows. “I was beginning to think you weren’t serious,” he said.
“You could have left.”
“Not without you.”
They heard some rustling nearby, and someone called, “I found a big one!” Some boys in shirts and ties, their jackets long discarded, were scouring the woods for more logs to throw onto the fire.
“Come on,” she said, taking his hand, acting like she knew what she was doing.
Clutch paused. An interesting pause, she thought, as she tried to pull him with her. It was like he hadn’t expected this to be so easy. He started moving forward. “Just remember this was your idea.”
“You weren’t coming before I asked?” She was walking backward, talking to him face-to-face as she led him deeper into the woods.
“As I recall, you didn’t ask. You commanded.
” He gave her one of his devastating smiles.
“But it was perfect timing. My grandfather had just told me I had to be out of the house by Monday. So I’m a free man now.
I can do whatever the hell I please. And it’s almost poetic, in a way.
At a bonfire, I start to burn everything around me. ”
“You weren’t free to do that before? That’s not what I heard.
” There were many rumors about Clutch, all based on the idea that he did what he wanted, so don’t get in his way.
But that didn’t scare Bailey as much as it seemed to scare others, because Mim had taught her that real power came from making someone believe something without ever having to prove it was true.
“I got a free place to live, and a promise of something better if I just held out long enough and behaved, at least as far as my grandfather knew. Lies. All of it.” He suddenly grabbed her and she felt a burst of unexpected alarm, her first clue that perhaps she wasn’t as comfortable around him as she thought she was. “Watch out,” he said, “you’ll fall in.”
Bailey immediately turned to see they had reached the bank of the wide creek. She hadn’t realized they’d come this far. Fog was rolling over the water, lifting and curling.
“People underestimate that current,” Clutch said, taking out a cigarette and lighting it. “Ted Mulveney died in it years ago.”
“Who?”
He offered her a cigarette, but she shook her head. He shrugged as he sucked in some smoke. “Just some guy trying to clear a storm drain. I looked it up.”
“Why would you look something like that up?”
“I wanted to be Aquaman when I was a kid.” Bailey smiled at that.
“So one day, I jumped in the creek to see if I could breathe underwater. I almost drowned. I couldn’t tell my dad about it, because he’d told me to stay away from the creek.
But it made me wonder: Why did I survive?
I must be special.” He looked at her, his eyes so light blue that they were like mirrors in the moonlight.
“I bet you think the same thing about yourself.”
She gave him a strange look. “You’re not thinking of tossing me in the creek to see if I drown, are you?”
“Isn’t that what they do with witches?”
She backed away from the water. She wasn’t sure if he was joking.
“Does your grandmother know you’re out here with me?” he asked as he watched her sit on the twiggy forest floor and take out her phone.
“No,” she said, scrolling through her music.
He flicked some ash from his cigarette. “Good.”
She cued up “Everywhere Girl.” “I could introduce you one day. I think she might like you.”
“What an interesting invitation. So what am I, a pet project?” He took one last puff, then tossed the cigarette into the creek. He walked over to her and sat so close she could feel the buzzy heat of him. “What are you listening to?”
“A singer named Andy Smooth. He was from Hen Town, and my grandmother was in love with him. I found a picture of the two of them together. I like to think this song is about love.”
From the windshield of my van
Night grew blackberry blue
And stars overhead made their evening debut
Your lips to mine, I fell into you
Everywhere Girl
Just for one night
Go everywhere, girl
He threw his head back and laughed. “I hate to break it to you, but that song isn’t about love.”
“Yes, it is. It’s about experiencing something new and beautiful, something you never expected,” she said. “Among other things.”
“Is that what you call it? Other things?” he said, leaning in.
She leaned her head back in tandem. “Let’s just talk for now.”
“Talk,” he repeated. “Okay. About what? Here’s my vote: Other things.”
Bailey rolled her eyes. “What did you mean when you said you were going to burn everything down around you? We don’t have the rules of school anymore, but there are still rules to Hen Town.” She gave him a pointed look. “Pretty sure arson is one of them.”
“I wasn’t referring to arson. And I’m not staying in Hen Town, Bailey girl.”
“You’re not?”
“Hell no. I hate this place and everyone in it. And I’m going out with a bang.
That’s what I meant.” He reached over to twirl some of her hair around his finger.
“But I get why you’re staying. Here you have money.
Your grandmother’s protection. The permission she gives you to look at people like they’re beneath you.
You’re a perfectly crafted replica of her, but with nothing inside. ”
She flinched at that. She had wanted to be understood, she just wasn’t prepared for him to understand the worst parts of her, as if that’s all there was.
It was a fear she kept quiet, but one always there—that because Mim didn’t represent good things, maybe there wasn’t anything really good about Bailey, either.
“That was a mean thing to say,” he said softly. “I apologize. Outsider rage is what my middle school counselor called it.”
“I get it. I feel like an outsider sometimes, too,” she said.
He smiled, but when she didn’t smile back, he said, “You’re serious.”
“My grandmother must have felt the same way when she was my age. It was the only time she rebelled.”
“I know why I’m here, but I’m finally beginning to understand why you are.
” Her hair still twirled around his finger, he moved his mouth until it was inches from hers.
She could smell the sharp, sweet scent of alcohol on his breath.
Her heart started beating faster. “I’m happy to oblige, Bailey girl.
” Then he kissed her, hard. He was angling for control, and she let him have it for a moment, then pulled away.
She put her hand to her mouth and checked her fingers to see if she’d cut her lip against her teeth. “Does that work with the other girls you’ve been with?”
“I don’t work for anything.” He grinned. “All this comes naturally.”
“You’re treating this as a sure thing.” Now she felt irritated.
She didn’t want to admit it, but she liked him better when she didn’t know him, when he was a creation.
An Andy Smooth. A hero in a book she’d read.
She wanted that moment in the cafeteria back, the electric moment that illuminated hidden depths for a fraction of a second, like a light in a cave.
“Bailey girl, it was a sure thing the moment I finally got you alone,” he said, amused.
He put both his hands on her shoulders and shoved her with such force that she hit the ground and lost her breath.
She stared up at him, not fully understanding what happening.
Then he was on her, his hand thrusting up her skirt to pull at her underwear.
It hurt, the fabric digging into her until it finally ripped, burning her skin.
“What are you doing? Get off of me!” He was ruining everything. She pushed at him, feeling twigs twist in her hair. It was going to take forever to get them out before she could reappear at the bonfire.
It didn’t cross her mind that he wouldn’t do as she said.
But instead of stopping, and without saying a word, Clutch hit her hard across her cheekbone.
She was so surprised by it that she froze.
No one had ever hit her before. He then put his forearm against her neck and shifted his weight to lean on her heavily as he unbuttoned his jeans with his other hand.
She began to choke and her eyes filled with tears. Above her in the night sky, ash-bats hovered. Her vision was going dark. Was she going to die here? She was. She was going to die from trying to be in love.
She turned her face away. She didn’t want him to be the last thing she saw.
And there, standing by the creek, was a man.
He was wearing a work shirt and waders. And he was carrying a hoe, like he was out here cleaning drains. He looked so sad to see what was happening. Why wasn’t he doing anything? She gasped and reached out her hand to him.
Clutch stopped at her movement and jerked his head around to see who was there.
It relieved some of the pressure on her neck and she was able to suck in a whisper of air.
She immediately took advantage of his distraction and sat up, her forehead hitting his head with a painful clap.
Clutch cursed and sat back, holding his head.
She immediately pushed him away, grabbed her purse and phone, and ran faster than she’d ever run in her life while Andy Smooth was still singing.
When she burst out of the woods, she careened into Tasha Keller, who fell backward. But Bailey didn’t stop. She skirted around the crowd, trying not be seen. She reached the makeshift parking lot and wrenched her car door open and got in.
To her surprise, Tasha slid into the passenger seat beside her.