Huge (30 page)

“Don’t worry, it’s okay.”

Sure, everything was okay.
How could she know it had parts if she’d never done it before?

“Seriously, it’s okay,” Stacy reassured me, and went on, “At least you didn’t try to lick it off my hand like—” She clamped both palms over her mouth before she could finish. Her eyes were startled, questioning. She’d slipped, and was looking to see if I’d caught it.

Yeah, I’d caught it. Everything was
not
okay. She
had
done it before; it was my first time, but not hers. She’d done that with someone else, to someone else, for someone else, someone that—aw, gross! That was totally fucking gross! Who would do shit like that?

“Like
who
, Stacy?” I asked, although I had the dread feeling I already knew.

“Who what? N-n-nothing. N-n-no one.” She looked up, down, left, right—anywhere but at me. “I mean, at least
you
didn’t, like, because that would be …”

“Stop lying, Stacy.” My voice was blunter and flatter than I’d expected, and it hit her hard.

“I’m not, I can’t—” She stopped. It was sinking in to her now; she was nervous. Up went her hands to her mouth again, only there was more alarm in her eyes this time.

I was freezing, swaying, and queasy, but I could feel it starting to build. She’d done that with someone else.
Aw, Christ! Aw, shit!
I wasn’t her first; she was mine, but I wasn’t hers. She’d seen someone else the way she’d seen me, she’d touched someone else the way she’d touched me, she’d kissed someone else—
aw, fuck!
I’d fucking
kissed
her! I felt sick; I wanted to spit. I did.

“Did you promise him, too?” I growled. “Did you swear to Razor
the way you swore to me?” My voice was nasty and biting, and I didn’t know where this was going, only that it was going to get worse, much worse.

Stacy straightened up a little. “No, I never promised Razor, I didn’t—Oh, shit!” She punched herself in the thigh and stomped her flip-flop in the grass.

Jesus! Could she suck any more at this? And I was going to trust her? I’d
already
trusted her? Mistake—big fucking mistake. “If you didn’t swear to Razor, Stacy, then why can’t you say it?” That practically stung as it left my mouth.

“I’m, I’m not supposed to—”

“You’re not supposed to what? You’re not supposed to go around jacking everybody off?”

“No! Don’t
say
that! I don’t! I’m not—”

“You’re not what? You’re not a liar? You’re not a person who swears and then breaks her promise the first chance she gets? What? You’re not what? Go on, say it.”

“Please, Genie, stop. Please.”

“Don’t call me Genie! My name’s Huge! Fucking Huge! Got it?”

“Okay, Huge.”

“Okay?
Jesus Christ, Stacy! Is that all you can say? No, you can say more; you have more to say. So say it.”

“But I’m not supposed to—”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. You’re not supposed to what?”

“I’m not supposed to
tell.”

A backbreaking chill rattled down my spine. My lungs were hot and full, my veins flooded and throbbed, and blood or waves or bass drums thundered in my ears. I didn’t want to think it. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be able to take it. I was slipping already; I knew it. It was coming on fast and it wouldn’t take much … or long.

“Can’t we just drop it? Please, Huge? Like forget it and sit back down?
Please?”

Stacy had clasped her hands beneath her chin, pleading, shaking,
and I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see her face. But it was too late, way too late, and with my eyes closed I saw it anyway:
Stacy and Razor alone in the dark, up close … touching
.

I wasn’t by the reservoir anymore. I was standing on the edge of a muddy, mile-high cliff in the dark, and the ground beneath my feet was starting to give way. I was ruined, devastated. I was wrong about her, totally wrong, and starting to fall. I wasn’t thinking, I couldn’t, but I heard the question—why’d you do it, Stacy, why, with
him?
—in the weakest and most pathetic voice I ever could’ve spoken.

Stacy took a half-step backward, then froze in her tracks; a shaft of moonlight illumined her face. Her eyes were squinted and a touch too spread out; her cheeks were a little too high and a little too sharp; there was nothing wrong with her nose except it was always bunched up; she had gapped front teeth, a slight under bite, and a mouth too wide by a fraction; there were three popped-zit scars on her forehead and one on her chin; her hair was dyed cheaply black and poorly cut; she was short and scrawny and dressed like a tart; and
she
was the girl, the thirteen-year-old girl, who’d just broken my heart. She’d killed me, but she was afraid now, very afraid. I saw it in her sad hazel eyes.

I looked down, swallowed hard, and said, “Why, Stacy? Why with him? Tell me the truth.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and looked lost and alone. She dropped her face and kicked the ground.

“Why, Stacy?”

“But I’m not supposed to—”

“We’ve covered that already. Why?”

Stacy shifted her feet, still holding herself, and sighed a heavy, defeated sigh. She raised her head, looked at me finally, and said, “He
made
me do it.”

“What?”

“Razor made me do it,” she repeated. She wasn’t looking down or away or anywhere else but at me.

“What do you mean, he
made
you do it?” I was getting hotter around the neck and face again. “How?”

“He said he’d
tell if
I didn’t do it.”

“Tell? Tell what?”

“What he wanted me to do with him, and more—things that I didn’t do, things that I wouldn’t do—but he said he’d tell
everyone
that I’d done them anyway, and tell them to tell everyone else, and they’d believe him and he’d do it, too, but he wouldn’t if I…”

The moon was distant now and dim; it seemed much darker. Something inside me was wounded, crawling, dying, but I’d already come this far, so I had to press on. “But why?”

“Because he’s a baby and a coward and a liar and he tells you he really likes you and wants to be boyfriend and girlfriend and gets all horny and grabs at you and just like whines and begs and won’t stop until you feel sorry and do what he wants and I
hate
him.” Stacy’s cheeks were flushed; she was still holding herself, but she’d balled her hands into fists. “I hate him. I wish I’d never met him or talked to him or …”

She seemed to be telling the truth, but it wasn’t what I wanted to know. “No, Stacy, why’d you go with him in the first place?” That was the best I could do; anything more and I didn’t know what would happen.

Her cheeks were crimson, her eyes were wet, and her shoulders dropped just a little. “Because … he asked me to.”

“And you said okay?!” I felt like hanging myself. It was so obvious, so ridiculous; it was almost funny. Suddenly I wasn’t too fond of that word anymore,
okay
.

“Uh-huh.” She nodded. “What was I supposed to say?”

“How
about fucking no?
Did you ever think of that?”

“But he told me he liked me and was begging and whining and crying—I didn’t know what to do!”

“So you just said okay, what the hell, and whack, whack, whacked away?”

There was acid in that, hot blistering acid, but the way it came out almost made me laugh. Not like a good laugh, though. No, there were no gags or punch lines or answers here. It all meant nothing; I could see that now. If you asked her for it, she just handed it over, gave it up. What we’d done meant nothing. What I was after meant nothing. The case meant nothing. All of it was nothing. And that was funny, not like hilarious, but a different kind of funny; bitter and hollow and dead, but funny all the same. I should not have been the least bit surprised. Nah, I’d
always
been shit, I’d always been a joke, I’d always been nothing, and Stacy was exactly the confirmation I needed.

There was just one more thing I needed to ask.

“Stacy,” I said, “are you a slut?” I just felt like I
had
to know.

She recoiled, as if I’d slapped her. “What?”

“Are you a slut? It’s a simple fucking question.”

“But why—” She faltered and stepped back. “He
begged—
”

“Yeah, we covered that already. He whined, he begged, he cried. Fine. The kid’s a baby and a pussy and a liar and a bully. He manipulated you till you said okay, and then he leaned on you and pushed you around and intimidated you and threatened you and got you between a rock and a hard place and made you do something you didn’t want to do. I get that; I get all of that. But that
still
doesn’t answer my question.”

Stacy looked confused; it might’ve been a little too much for her, maybe because she really wasn’t all that smart. But I wanted an answer, and I was going to get it. “It’s a simple question. Yes or no.
Are you a slut?”

Her face plunged. She backed up again, tripped over her heels, and fell on her butt into the grass near the steps leading to Darren’s lawn. She sat there, legs splayed, crumbling, breaking up. I stepped forward and she flinched, covered herself. She had to be scared; she had to. I had problems, I was violent, I’d punched a woman in the face, knocked her out cold, and everybody knew it. So why wouldn’t
I beat the piss out of a girl? I was standing over her, fuming, pressing down, losing control, she could see it; I
had
to know, and she
would
tell me.

“Answer me.”

“I, I, I—”

I was straddling her knees, bending forward, my fingers curling slowly to fists.
“Are … you … a … SLUT?”

“P-p-please, Huge,
don’t.”

“I’m not going to
hurt you,”
I said, but wasn’t convincing. “Just answer. Yes or no. Are you a slut?”

“I …
I don’t know.”

It stopped me breathless and cold. I might’ve been able to take one or the other, but I couldn’t take
that:
Stacy didn’t
know
what she was; she wasn’t anything yet, just like me.

Stacy’s eyes flooded, her mouth wrenched down, she pulled her hands to her face, and she wept: she sobbed and heaved and shook and folded and moaned and the ground was gone, totally gone, and I was pitching forward, plummeting, toppling end over end, losing it, all of it, completely, everything, all of me—gone, nothing, destroyed. I’d made her suffer, I was
watching
her suffer, right here, up close, and I was less, far less, than I’d ever been before, less than shit or negative numbers. I was filth, scum, a mad dog in need of putting down. And
I felt
it. Not for me, though, I didn’t feel for me, there was nothing there, nobody home, but for her, I felt for her, how I was wronging her and how she’d been wronged, no matter what she’d done or with whom. Just the threat of a single fucking word had nailed her down, ripped her apart, and skinned her alive, like their words had done to me. But I wasn’t thinking about me, I wasn’t, I was going, I was gone. I leaned over—panting, trembling, crazed—pressed my lips to Stacy’s forehead and whispered, “I’m sorry, Stacy, I am. It’s not you, that’s not you, you’re
beautiful
, you are.” And I
meant
it, more than anything I’d ever said.

Because it wasn’t her. It was
him, them
. What
he’d
done, what
he’d
said; what
they’d
do and say in turn, and what they’d
all
believe. It didn’t matter if it was right, if it fit, was an error, a mistake, or a bald-faced fucking lie; if enough people said it, and enough went along, then
everyone
would believe it—it would count, it would stick, it’d be
true
. And she’d have to
live
with that; we’d
all
have to live with that, and that was
retarted
, truly fucking
retarted—
and that wasn’t even a word.

But we
all
did it; we
all were retarted
. I was, I did it, I’d just done it, I could see that now, although now was too late. I’d come too far, burned the bridges, razed the ground, and there was nothing left behind me and nothing waiting ahead, so I had to run and keep on running because, no matter what I would or would not do, I could not turn back.

I was bolting up the wooden steps, slashing my way up the slope, with nothing in me, before me, or holding me back. I was gone, totally fucking gone.

But I knew where
they
were.

NINETEEN

I tore through the backyard at a speed that didn’t
seem possible—two hundred and fifty to three hundred yards of frantic acceleration, all of it uphill; whipping the extra horses, inventing new gears, seventh gear, eighth gear, ninth gear, faster and faster, leaning forward, digging down, wanting more, stretching for it, tenth gear, eleventh gear, finding more speed, more velocity, but still not enough, never enough, pressing forward, craving more, needing more—racing, crying, and screaming out loud.

It all flashed into view and blurred by so quickly that most of it didn’t register, but what really stuck with me was how everyone just watched. They saw and heard, turned with puzzlement or alarm, snapped to, shook it off, and stepped back or aside. Other than that, they did nothing. A foot, a hand, an elbow, a hip, a knee, a feint step—
anything
would’ve knocked me off stride and sent me crashing down, but nothing came. I couldn’t blame them. They were just the small-town teenagers of small-town parents, minding their own business and having a good time. Maybe they were confused. Maybe they felt like they were missing something, something important
that explained everything and made it all okay. But the many eyes that caught mine seemed to know the danger was real, and just looked on and did nothing.