The Sea of Tranquility (40 page)

I hang around the bottom of the stairs for a few minutes, and when Kara Matthews starts doing a beer bong in the kitchen, I use the distraction to duck under Kevin’s makeshift barricade and sneak upstairs so I can use my phone.

I may be a little shitty right now, but even with a few beers in me, I never forget to watch my back. No one follows me and I turn down the hall to the left and slip into one of the bedrooms. I stay against the wall until I can feel the light switch. The room is empty. The music is still blaring and I can just make out the muted chanting of Kara’s name. I take out my phone, knowing there are only two people I can really call. Josh is the one I want to call but I don’t really know if that’s allowed anymore. There’s Clay, who I’d have to text, but I could have done that from downstairs. I came up here for one reason and it’s because I wanted to call Josh.

I dial and wait but there isn’t any answer. It doesn’t go straight to voicemail. It just rings. When the recording finally kicks in, I hang up. It’s too pathetic to think about leaving him a message. I flip the keyboard open to shoot Clay a text and see if he can pick me up, but before I can get the first word out, the door opens.

And Kevin Leonard is there.

“I thought you’d change your mind,” he slurs, and I wonder how much he struggled to get it out. I’m about to shake my head again but he’s right in front of me now. And I’m not running away or saying no or pushing him. Because, really, I just don’t care. If I want to ruin myself, then this is my chance. Josh is gone, like everything that was taken from me and everything I’ve thrown away since. There is no Josh Bennett for me anymore. There really isn’t anything.

That’s the only moment I have to think before his tongue is in my mouth and he tastes like piss beer and I probably do, too, and everything about this is disgusting, but I deserve it. He’s grabbing my chest through my dress with one hand and running the other up my thigh. My arms are limp at my sides and I close my eyes and just let him do it. He starts pulling my underwear down and then stops to get rid of my dress. He pulls it part of the way up and I can feel the cold air on my inner thighs and against my stomach, reminding me that I should be used and thrown away, too.

Then his hand is between my legs and I gag into his mouth when I feel his fingers. And maybe I’ve finally had enough and I won’t choose this pain.

I break away from his mouth and his hand and I pull my dress down. If there is such a thing as rock bottom, it’s where I am right now. I can lie to myself. I can lie to Josh. But it’s just that. A lie. I didn’t destroy any part of me when I slept with him, even if I did destroy everything after. I knew that it wasn’t true when I said it and I know it now. I don’t regret one minute I ever spent with Josh. What I regret is every single second after. I regret ripping his heart out. I regret sending us both straight to hell.

If I let Kevin Leonard do this, if I let myself do this, then this, here, now, will be what destroys the last good thing about me. This will be my unforgivable thing. I will never come back from it because there will be absolutely nothing left in me worth loving. And for once in my stupid, pissed on life, I can’t do it. Or, more importantly, maybe I won’t.

I push my hand against his chest. Not violently. Just decisively. I shake my head at him.
No.
I try to look apologetic. I feel guilty. Am I supposed to feel bad in this situation? I don’t really know the rules. I yank my dress down as far as it will go, but it doesn’t feel like enough.

“What the fuck, Nastya?”

I shake my head again. I mouth the words
I can’t
because I need to make sure he understands. He understands, but he doesn’t care.

“You’re really going to blueball me up here at my own fucking party?” I don’t even have a chance to bend over and pull my underwear back up before he grabs me and kisses me again and I don’t need an invitation. I stomp on his foot and grab for the door, but my hands are shaking and it’s locked and I can’t make my fingers work fast enough. I get the lock flipped but I don’t have enough time to turn the doorknob. I should have gone at him harder but I didn’t think I needed to. I just wanted to let him know it wasn’t happening and give myself enough of a window to make it to the door and get out. But it’s not enough. His hand wraps around my arm, turning me to face him and I grab his pinky finger and bend it back. I’m not in a position to take him down and I just want to get away. That’s all. I hear his finger crack and his other hand immediately swings up and punches me. It’s such a knee-jerk reaction, I’m not sure he even realizes what he’s done. I catch the full force of his fist against my cheek and my balance is off, so the impact spins me face first into the corner of the nightstand next to the bed. I can feel the blood running down from the corner of my eye and I swipe it away. From this position, I flip over and try to buy myself a second by kicking him but he grabs my ankle and drags me away from the door. My underwear has worked its way down to my knees, the panic is starting to push bile into my throat and I feel myself stop breathing.

I’m panicking like this is a nightmare. He’s laughing like it’s a game.

“Come on. You came up here and made me think you were going to screw me. You could at least suck my dick.” He doesn’t even sound angry. It’s like he’s trying to convince me.

If I had any bad feelings about fighting dirty, they’re gone now. The shit part is that I’ve never been as good at defending myself from the ground and nothing is as easy as it was when I was practicing in a controlled situation. Nothing. Plus, the beer isn’t helping, no matter how sober I suddenly feel.

I don’t have the kubotan. It’s in my purse under the seat in Drew’s car, right next to my can of pepper spray because I didn’t have anywhere to clip it on my dress. I figured I was going to be stapled to Drew’s side the entire night, anyway, so I didn’t think I’d need it. Maybe the operative words there are
didn’t think
.

The fact is, I don’t want to use either of those things on Kevin Leonard. I just want to get out of this. I feel like I’ve set off a string of explosions and now I’m trying to outrun them.

It doesn’t surprise me that putting myself in this stupid-ass situation is what it takes for me to finally decide not to completely incinerate what’s left of my life. I’m such a fucking idiot. Maybe karma is just trying to give me what I said I wanted, but never really did. To wreck myself once and for all.

I can feel my cheek burning where he hit me and the blood from the gash is running into my eye and I’m trying to focus because I’m afraid at any moment I’m going to leave this room and be back in the trees, with dirt and blood in my mouth. And then I’ll lose all control. I’ll stop fighting completely. Kevin Leonard will be able to do whatever he wants, and I’ll let him because I won’t even be here anymore.

The focusing is almost impossible when my brain is split between staying awake in this room and trying to fight him off. He’s over me, pinning my arms and legs to the floor and pushing his mouth on me again. He has every one of my limbs is immobilized. I can’t even shift. I lean into him to give me just enough leeway to tilt my head back and head-butt him because that’s the only option I really have. I’m aiming for the bridge of his nose but my position is off and my forehead cracks against his instead. It’s a mistake but he’s so drunk that it’s enough. My head is screaming at me from the impact as his sweaty body falls on top of mine, crushing me with the weight of every bad decision I’ve made over the past three years.

“Dude! Forget it.” There’s saliva running down the side of his mouth.

The fight has gone out of him and I think it finally hits him, in his drunken stupor, what’s going on, because he looks at me like he’s just now seeing me bleeding from the head on the floor in this room with him. He leans back and I haven’t even had a moment to turn my body and free myself when the door abruptly opens and I’m looking up from the floor, underneath Kevin Leonard’s body, at Drew Leighton’s face.

“What the fuck, Leighton?” Kevin spits out. There’s more embarrassment than venom in it, but I’m not excusing him any more than I’m excusing myself. He’s still struggling to push himself off of me and I use the distraction to twist my hip and get the rest of the way free.

For a minute, or maybe just a second, Drew is frozen. There are so many emotions on his face that I can’t sort them all now. Confusion, disgust, anger, guilt, fear, horror. I wonder how bad my face is to make his look like that.

Kevin is barely standing now and I’m dizzily getting to my feet, my head still reeling from smashing into his. Before I even register what’s happening, Drew’s fist is in Kevin’s face and he’s down again. I look at Drew and he’s shaking. There is something so wrong with the sight of Drew Leighton hitting someone. Drew Leighton is supposed to be sunny and irreverent and free of every care in the world. There isn’t even a glimmer of violence in him. I wish he hadn’t done it. I wish he hadn’t seen this, because as crazy as I know it sounds, I feel like he’s just lost his innocence.

Drew is standing in front of me, knuckles bleeding, with a look of such sheer despondence that I feel like I should comfort him. But I can’t. Now that this is over, my adrenaline is starting to drop and I want to get away from here, because I smell like Kevin Leonard and I’m starting to shake, too.

I lean against the wall to steady myself. Drew curses under his breath, pulling his sleeve over his wrist and trying to wipe the blood away from my eye. “Can you walk?” he whispers.

My look tells him I can and that I don’t appreciate the question. I don’t say anything. We turn toward the door and I realize that my underwear is still at my ankles. I stop and just stand there, looking down at them. Drew turns to find out why I’ve stopped, his eyes following mine to my feet, and all of his muscles tense when he sees why I’m not coming. He stifles another curse as I bend over to pull them up because I can’t look at his face right now.

“Stay behind me, okay?” His words are strained and he sounds like he’s in pain. He takes my hand so tightly, I think he might crush it and pulls me behind him so I’m blocked from view. I catch Tierney Lowell watching in the hall before I turn away. I drag my hair down around my face and lean into Drew’s back like I’m wasted, just until we can get through everybody and out the door. And maybe wasted is exactly what I am.

My face is bleeding and swollen but I don’t even care. For the first time in forever, I make a choice not to shit all over my life and I can’t even like myself for it because I made it five minutes too late.

At least no one can tell me it was random.

***

“Are you okay?” Drew waits until we’ve gotten in his car and driven away from the house to ask. I’ve hated that question for years.

“I’m fine,” I say. “Your hand.” My eyes go to his split knuckles which are straining even more with his iron grip on the steering wheel.

“I don’t give a shit about my hand,” he bites out at me and I instinctively recoil because I’ve never heard him raise his voice. “Sorry. I’m sorry.” He pulls into the parking lot of a convenience store and parks the car. This whole situation is fucked up and he says so at least three or four times.

“What happened?” He sounds like he doesn’t really want the answer.

“Just a stupid situation that got out of hand.”

“You think?” His tone is sharp.

“Are you pissed at me?” I ask.

“No, I’m pissed at me.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s my fault you were in that room in the first place. I finally bothered to look at my phone and got your text. I thought I’d find you sitting up there and waiting, not on the floor with Kevin Leonard on top of you.” He takes a breath and lets it out watching the lighted
R
on the store sign flicker in and out. “Josh is going to kill me.”

“Josh isn’t going to care.”

“You know that isn’t true, so don’t say it. I don’t have it in me to argue with you about it tonight.” There is so much weight in his voice that I feel it physically pressing on me.

“If you knew what I did to Josh, you would hate me, too. He won’t care and I won’t blame him for not caring.”

“You’re right. I don’t know what you did to Josh. I have no idea what went on there because neither of you will tell me. I do know that whatever it was will not be enough to stop him from giving a shit about someone hurting you.”

I flip down the visor and check the bruise on my face and the cut on my eye in the mirror. It’s really not so bad, but my cheek and my forehead are already starting to swell and I know it’ll all look worse tomorrow.

“His pants were still on.” He’s tracing the logo on the steering wheel now.

I nod, even though he’s not looking at me.

“So, he didn’t‌—‌”

“No,” I answer. I don’t want to talk about Kevin Leonard anymore. “Did anybody else see?” I ask.

“I don’t think so. Tierney did, but she was looking for us so‌—‌” he cuts himself off. “I don’t think anyone else was paying attention.”

We sit there, pretending to be mesmerized by the flashing lottery sign.

“I shouldn’t have left you.”

“You and Tierney?” I ask, ignoring the unspoken apology.

“I don’t know.” He shakes his head and turns the key in the ignition. “We need to get ice on your face.”

Drew doesn’t tell me where we’re going. He doesn’t ask where I want to go. He takes me where I need to go and maybe where he needs to go, too. He takes me to Josh’s house.

The garage is closed when we get there, but Drew and I both have a key to the house. He turns his in the lock and pushes the door back for me. I walk inside and Drew follows. When we step into the dark of the foyer, it takes us a minute to process what we’re hearing. And then I wish on a thousand pennies that we didn’t have that key.

CHAPTER 49

Josh

“What the hell, Drew? It’s two in the morning.” I look at his car in the driveway and it’s empty. At first, I suspected he was bringing Sunshine back here because she was drunk, but there’s no one in the car. “You already drop Nastya off?” I ask while he follows me into the family room. Calling her Nastya sounds wrong, but I don’t feel right saying Sunshine out loud anymore.