Being Kalli (25 page)

I take him to the side outside the party, where there’s a couple of benches overlooking some scarce gardening. He hops there on my arm, then bends to pull off his shoe as his face draws near to mine reactively, a grimace tightening his expression. Somehow he’s an inch from my face, and we both notice it.

I have no desire to kiss him.

I used to look at hot guys like him and was fuelled to kiss them because I desired what they could offer. Now, he can’t offer me anything, so I’m not interested.

Except he forgets about his shoe, and grabs my face in a reflex. I pull back, but his lips meet mine, and for a moment I freeze in shock.

The fuck? Was it the absence of dreamy eyes that gave him the hint? Or that I haven’t once tried to touch him in any way? Maybe it was the fact I just wanted to get the hell away from him.

My sense kick
s in and I pull back, but he gets both hands around my face and tries to stick his tongue in. Fighting the urge to knee him, I get my hands and push against his chest, hard. The guy’s probably as drunk as I am, so I give him the benefit of the doubt since he’s been strangely nice to me.

The moment he notices how hard I push against his chest and how I try to swivel my lips to the side so he can’t kiss me, he yanks me close, ripping at my hair. He gets his hand, blindly feeling up my thigh.

“Donovan,” I scream. “Get off.”

He pulls back, but it’s only his face. His hand remains clamped on my upper thigh and at the back of my hair. “What? Aren’t you fucking drunk enough yet? For fuck’s sake!”

I stare at him and everything starts clicking. Donovan isn’t a nice guy. He’s been strangely nice because he’s acting, and I’m now fighting for my strength because my body is too drunk to fight back as it should.

“Why will you f
uck everyone but me? I licked you up, made
you
come. You promised to give it up to me, so where is it? Huh? I only want it once, ‘kay? I have a pretty good clue you’re good after that shit against the wall in fucking public, and my girlfriend won’t fuck me yet.” He pushes me horizontal on the bench with a hand over my mouth and his other hand forcing me down by my chest. “So I only want this once to tide me over.”

He leans in close, teeth bared. “Once, okay?”

I bare my teeth too, try bite him, but he has his hand purposely bent outward to muffle my voice and prevent my teeth from hurting him. I thrash my legs, but his weight suddenly on top of my thighs glues them down. My heeled feet thrash against the planks. I barely feel the pain with my head spinning and my teeth and senses numbed, so I keep thrashing and moaning. Writhing.

Nothing.

Nothing gives.

I don’t have to look to know someone would pr
obably notice if they walked by, if they turned, if they then stared into the darkness back here. But someone might not come, and if they do, there are cars I can hear on the main road, and there’s still the music inside which would muffle the loudest moan I can make.

“Qui
t moving and this will be easier.”

I’ve heard that before.

He said it to me and I didn’t listen.

The whole time I thrashed in my handcuffs and cut my wrists enough to bleed, but not enough to leave a scar.
Same as my ankles. I moaned so much I lost my voice. My body betrayed me and I’ve spent nine years since living with the repercussions of not being able to do anything.

I nod and the tears slip out easily. I
won’t fight uselessly this time; every action for my escape will be with intent.

Who’s to say he won’t get annoyed,
kidnap and dump me somewhere? There are fields back there, and plenty more darkness. And he seems sober.

“Okay,” I cry.
“I’m sick of playing hard to get.”

The tear
s slip out more, so he lets me worm up one arm under the weight of his chest to wipe them away. I leave my hand there, covering my eyes so I don’t have to see.

Donovan starts making a fuss at our crotches. Must be undoing his button and fly. He looks down
, and with the distraction I feel into my cleavage and press the call combination I’ve committed to memory from so much time on my phone. I press where the call function is, I press at the top of the screen where my last caller should be and dial. Nate should be there if I’ve actually done it right.

If my shaky
fingers and limited movement have allowed me to do all these steps properly, the buzzing I’m feeling through my chest should be real. Donovan’s knuckle grazes my bare skin down there and a thick, long thing presses on me.

Now.

I’ve been still.

I’ve cried like a damsel in distress.

He thinks I’m a useless slut who deserves this.

The problem is privileged fucks like Donovan don’t understand
the desperation of a broken person fighting to survive.

I squeeze my extremities in wit
h a swift tug. Then out. My knees power into his balls from behind and I use my free elbow to knock off his chin.

His jaw makes a spine-tingling crack
ing sound as his head follows through with the force upwards. His pelvis convulses, and one hand flies between his legs. When I wiggle this time, I come free, worming out from under him and to the ground like a slinky, feet last to follow.

Donovan
whispers, “You whore,” and yanks back up on my feet. Hands to the gravel path, ass up to his mercy, he pulls me up, and wallops me across the cheek.

Stars.

My vision turns into a dreamy gaze. The lights from the lampposts twinkle and black dots appear everywhere. I stumble to the floor and crawl in exactly the same way I see dying soldiers in movies try to crawl away just before they get shot for good.

Where is
help?

I feel
Donovan’s hands on my ankles and the gravel scratches my back as the bottom bit of my flowing dress stays in place and I come down to his hands.

Somehow, someway, I see my phone slipped out when I came off the bench. I saw
Taken
and if this saves my life, I owe Liam Neeson.

“Please,” I beg him. “I have this fear about
places that look like parks, places like this bench behind the party.”

For a second, I see his look flicker and I rush out my words. “I got bitten
by a dog in an exact park like this one. Right on a path where I was walking when I was a kid. I can’t stop shaking. Not here. Anyway but here.”

He gives me an odd look, and then he steels his gaze again.

He grabs my waist, but I headbutt him. He hits me again, and when I can push through the little corners of light in my vision and the thumping subsides a fraction, I see him putting me down in the grass further in the darkness. Out of direct vision.

And then I see Nate’s figure coming behind Donovan.

I purse my lips and lie still. Donovan gets his hands bunched at the hem of my skirt before he knows he’s too late. That Nate’s hands have him at his back. And then Donovan sails through the air. He hits the ground with a thud and takes one look at Nate. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness, and I can just make him out licking his lips, wiping something from his mouth. He launches at Nate.

Donovan has force when he punches Nate
’s chest, but Nate is quicker. He ducks the next one, and pins Donovan from behind. Donovan thrashes and starts to wriggle free.

Meanwhile,
I’m still trying to find balance and see through the dizziness. My head is seriously messed. I’m past horrible and surely looking putrid, but every time I try to stand I wobble if I don’t hold the ground below.

Donovan ducks out of Nate’s hands and my heart lurches.
Now I’ve found my balance, heels lost somewhere, and I stand, hike up my skirt and roundhouse kick Donovan. His back arches with my foot thumping him, giving Nate time to block with his forearm and twist his hands back to pin him.

Instantly, Nate
drops with Donovan, pinning his weight on him facedown onto the grass. There seems less of a chance of the situation flipping from our favour, so I run to my phone. Confused for a second at why my screen looks odd, I have to press end call before I can call the cops.

Beside Nate, I whisper, “What happened?”

“I had to come. Told Scout I could see you leaving the party and to let me meet you in privacy. Of course, my sister rings, bawling her eyes out. I can’t believe—”

“Shh,” I whisper, kissing his head. “
I hope she’s okay. I’m fine now.”

The sirens come within a couple of minutes,
and the whole time I’m staring down at Donovan’s face.

I crouch to his level, look
at him and roll my eyes. “You had me, you know. I may never understand your twisted mind, but there’s something you don’t know.” I bend closer, since Nate has his hands secured. “You don’t fuck with fucked up chicks like me. I’ve seen how you guys work and I can play you twice as hard as you play me. Thanks for …”

I trail off, realising love cured me, not
dealing with my hate.

Donovan’s bottom lip trembles, and with sirens halted nearby and cops yelling with
drawn guns, he panics, saying, “Why? For what?”

“
You don’t need to know …”

…
that you’ve made me realise I have no use fearing guys like Nate, the good ones. Not all guys are bad.

Justice has a funny way of giving hope to the hopeless.

Nate and his friends poked a beehive with a stick once, then ran like hell to a nearby door and watched the swarm. They created a dark haze, a buzzing to drone out everything else, and left me watching with a sense of awe.

When the police swarm in, it’s the same.

They latch onto Donovan and Nate. Nate’s cooperative but mostly silent. He won’t talk without his lawyer, but from where I stand being examined, watching him being cleaned up also, we share a silent conversation.

Kalli:
Please don’t feel bad. You did nothing wrong.

Nate: I’m devast
ated with myself.

You would
n’t be able to tell Nate had the upper hand during the fight through his body language. He looks up at me through drooped eyelids, his lips turned down, him biting on the edge of his lip. After a bit, he avoids my eye contact altogether when he sees me looking back.

I end up going to the hospital. My chest is tender, but I’m fully examined and
it’s determined they’re ugly bruises, but it’s all they are. They found bodily fluids on me down there from when Donovan rubbed his erect length on me. He set himself up for that fuck up. I may have a concussion after those whacks, so they keep me overnight for observation.

“Ma’am?”

“Yes, Miss Perkins.” The nurse with the bun wound at the back of her head and calm grey eyes stops, one hand to the doorjamb. “You okay?”

“Guess as good as I can be.” I look around my bed. Yeah, I
probably look shit. Thank God the makeup’s all gone now. “I was wondering about Nate. Nate Rocchi?”

“He’ll be just fine.” Sh
e clicks her tongue, then says, “Looked after himself and you, my dear, very well. He’ll be just fine.”

I nod, but then call out, “Something else?”

“Yes, my dear.”

“Is Donovan in this hospital?
Is he able to come in here?”

“He has security and I assure you, we’ve made sure you can rest in peace. Bless.”

I’m alone for only fifteen minutes after she leaves but it feels like forever. I give my statement to the police and answer questions. I can’t afford a good lawyer at the moment, and it’s pretty simple what I say.

“He explained
that he knew I was drunk and tried to force me to have sex with him. He knew I was out of the party, and when my friend had to duck back inside, he faked a sore foot to get me off the path and pin me down.”

I explain me dial
ling Nate from my phone. And about how the only time I intentionally harmed Donovan was in defence, to prevent him from hurting or knocking out Nate.

Mum’s allowed in afterward
, and after the questioning policemen, her entrance is a stark contrast. Her Ugg boots shuffle along the linoleum.

I face her directly.
I see her handbag tucked under her arm, a frown at one side of her lips. She combs her hair down and tucks it under her collar then sits on the chair and reaches her arm out to me.

The déjà vu hits me like a
heavy sack, and the path of the weight that hits me in the chest is like a rolling ball, dragging my breath away for a moment until I look over my body and smooth down my sheets. And take a breath. It’s cool, fresh. I meet her gaze again. In her hollow expression, I read that maybe she’s still hazy about her own hospital stay, but she feels exactly how I just did.

The pain in her eyes makes them darken, and her whole demeanour is slowed down. Her blinks are sweeping, her glance over my form in the bed is intent
, and she appears drowned in pain.

Heat swirls at my eyes. Not wanting to feel the wetness that
will grow next I just smile at her. I find it from somewhere in me, somewhere that recognises I have a mum to come to my bedside, one that finds somewhere to leave her four-year-old sons at this hour and comes as soon as she can—the middle of the night—and a mum who cares about me as much as I love her.

I could have no mum.

I could have a mum too busy for me.

I could have a mum too worried about appearances and pleasing others.

But I have Mary Perkins with me, a mum who loved me too much from the moment I was born and ate up her mistakes and regrets unknowingly because of what they did. So much devastation connects us together here. Mum, the one who came to my hospital bed this time; Mum looking after me; me, the one could have ended up like her, how she got pregnant with me.

I realise that both her and I are far from perfect, but after everything fell apart,
we came together and were able to dig deep into our feelings to realise how similar we both are.

Passion.

Love.

Fear
.

“Baby,” she says, breaking through my moment.

“I’m sorry,” I say, as a reaction rather than meaning it. I’ve stirred up her night and hurt her.

“I love you so much, Kalli,” she says, leaning over to lay her head on my belly and drape her arms around mine. She touches my hands, and says, “
I love you and you have nothing to be sorry for. Rather, I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

I get that tone.
The one where she’s unsure if she’s apologising for this night or for the last nineteen years.

“Okay, no more sorries from either of us then.”

“Just cuddles,” she adds.

“Yep.”

By three-thirty am Mum’s passed out over the back of her sofa chair and my eyelids are heavy like lead. There’s a sense of fear still pumping me alert every time I want to rest which conflicts with my calm at feeling safe with my mum for the first time ever. Knowing Donovan is under guard, away from me, is another soothing element that makes me lie in a lull.

I just lie there.

Tracing the cracks in the ceiling.

Grabs of conversations pass
by my door.

When I finally wake, I forget where I am for an instant, but then Donovan and the
party comes back to my memory, and I turn to see mum curled up and resting on her shoulder on one side of the sofa chair. I wonder how I got here and everything falls in place.

I e
xpected to undo all my progress and my trust to shut right off, but I finally understand what it’s like to be looked after by a parent. It’s the most beautiful feeling in the world being that loved. I close my eyes and envision Nate, and all I want to do is bury into that spot in his chest where I can’t think of anything but his woody scent and the want for him to hold me, let me cry, and feel loved and safe.

I’ve
never felt the need to be vulnerable and beg for love before, but it’s freeing to know both Mum and Nate will be here for me, and I don’t even have to ask.

• • •

I’ve held out for two days to get Nate alone, and like a puppy scratching at the back door to come in, I’ve been waiting for this moment, for Nate to pull up outside my house. I watch from the window as he shrugs out of his jacket and leaves it on his seat. He clicks the doors locked over his shoulder and jogs up to my front steps.

I really wish
the twins and Mum were out.

I open the door as h
e raises his knuckles to knock.

“Hi.”

He grins. “Hey.”

“Um
…” I sweep my eyes over him. Hoodie, khakis, and short hair that make his cheekbones and jaw look rigid and manly. All I manage to say, repeat, rather, is, “Hey.”

He steps in, hooking me by my waist band low on my hips, and takes my lips, still grinning at me. I can feel it between our lips
that all the tension from the weekend is gone. It’s crazy, the power of his body pressed against mine, and what his hands sweeping under my top can do. I have bruises on my chest, but his touch is light enough that it doesn’t spark pain.

“We’l
l be back later, lovebirds!” Mum calls, the twins in tow behind her. They have backpacks on, squeezing past us to rush out.

“Oh, okay,” I say
, separating from Nate’s fingers. “Where are you going?”

She
halts, spins, and stares at me dumbly. “To pick apples? Go for a shop? Does it matter?” She winks and walks them to the car.

“You,” I choke out to Nate.

“Yeah, me. Your mother’s a good sport.”

One, two, not even three seconds later I jump up onto Nate and he holds me wrapped around his body with a hand plastered over my ass, and
the other soothing the back of my neck, making me tingle as much from that as his kisses hungry on my lips.

He kicks the door shut behind him
, and pressed this tight, I stay high up against that door, losing my thoughts in Nate. He bites my lip and pulls back, moaning how much he needs me into my ear and to my neck.

I break
apart for a second, saying, “Uh, Nate?”

“Yeah?” He looks around and seems horrified. “I can’t believe I just assaulted you against your front door. I—”

“No, shush. I wanted that, but my chest has a few bruises and this sort of is
killing
me.”

“Done, babe.”

He scoops me up into his arms and carries me to my room. The bed is messy since I couldn’t hold still or be bothered to stay here long enough to do it knowing Nate was out of hospital. The police were satisfied with what they got from questioning us, and they weren’t interested in pursuing Nate. Especially since it turned out Donovan’s friends spoke out against him.

Nate lays me out on my bed, lying on his side beside me and lifting my head to rest on his arm
. His other arm is bent, his hand holding up his head above me.

Nate
studies my face, his weight hovering over me, his arm muscles taut. I’m dazed because of him, and since that frenzy at the door, all I want to do is enjoy him being here to comfort me tonight.

“I’m such a dick. I should have told you I’d be late.”

“No you weren’t. That’s a special day. I didn’t expect you to come, I’m just so sorry I badgered you at first.”

He knows why I left the party. I told him my pla
n to surprise him with the chai latte and the photo I wanted to print of us, and my scribbles and hearts left at his door. Still, I say, “I feel so stupid he did all that.”

“Hey.” Nate pulls back hair from my face, watching his fingers stroke it away, and then he smiles at me. “Not your fault.
I
was meant to be there right after Scout left.”

I try to nod but can’t do that. I guess this is something we’ll disagree on for a while yet.

“Kall?”

I turn back to him, his expression suddenly cautious.

I say, “Yeah?”

“We’re
still together? Because I fucking love you, and I’d do anything to keep you happy. Even if that means breaking up if these couple of days have been too much.”

“Nate?”

“Yeah?”

I make him wait, expression frozen except for his eyes searching me. I could lick him all up staring at how cute he is.

“I’m all yours. Still am.”

“You don’t have to.”

“This is becoming unnecessarily long-winded,” I say, creating a loose fist and rubbing the back of my hand down his chest. His warmth against me makes me shudder.

“Why?”

“Because I can’t imagine ever loving someone how I love you. So it’s quite simple—us.”

Nate blinks, smiles and then stops as if
he’s been caught out in a test. He leans down and pecks a kiss on my lips. When he sees me still waiting, he gets it, and it’s like this big warm light bulb is heating him from inside his heart, out. Last is the elation on his face.

“
Really?” He smiles bigger. “Kall Bell, I love you. So much.”

“
I’m sorry it took so long, but I’m never going away.”

He lays his head down and
we lie tangled in each other for the rest of that day, watching
Big Bang Theory
, fighting spoon wars to eat ice cream from the tub, and me happy being this new-found Kalli.

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