Welcome to Sugartown (23 page)

A month on
and she’s still dragging me around to places I don’t want to go.
Tonight, it’s a harvest hang-out. I don’t know how many of these
things Holly and I have attended, but they always begin with a
bunch of idiots gathering in a newly harvested cane field on the
outskirts of town and end with a bunch of drunk idiots running from
the cops before they get arrested for drinking in a dry zone and
lighting bonfires during bush fire season.

Tonight the
crowd is mostly old enough to know better, and yet here we are: a
bunch of high school leavers too afraid to admit we’re not ready
for adulthood and more terrified still to leave our safe little
town for the big, bad world.

Before
Elijah, I would have given anything to get out of this place.
Afterwards, I’m thanking my lucky stars for the job security that
comes with being the pie shop owner’s daughter, because it means I
don’t have to face what all my school colleagues are going through;
where they should study, where they should live, and that
all-important period of self-discovery you go through after you’re
given the weighty title of being an “adult”.

Thanks to my
mother and father’s dreaming, my future is securely mapped out for
me. I’ll work in the diner until I’m too old to remember the
recipes, I’ll more than likely still be cleaning up after my kid
brother until he’s forty, and then I’ll die alone with a thousand
cats who won’t hesitate to eat me once the kitty chow runs out, and
all without ever having left Sugartown.

I should be
more upset about my future prospects being so bleak but I just
can’t seem to give a crap these days.

Holly groans,
“Would you at least try to look like you’re having fun,
please?”

“
But I’m not
having fun, Hols. I’m watching a bunch of bogan dickheads chugging
beer-bongs while avoiding watching you be mauled by your boyfriend.
No offense, Coop.”

The boyfriend
in question is Cooper Ryan, the hot bartender that Holly got lucky
with at the Sugartown Hotel a few weeks back—and he’s recently
become a permanent fixture in my best friend’s life which is fine
by me because he’s sweet, he treats her right and he gives me
Holly-free time enough to wallow in my misery. He swings his head
out from the hollow of her neck and smiles at me. “None taken. I do
maul. I should really cut back but I’m just a stupid, beer-chugging
dickhead unable to resist her charms.”

“
Well, they
say awareness is the first step.” I smile back, but it’s as weak
and horribly disingenuous as they always are lately.

“
Aww,
Cooooop.” Holly reaches up on tiptoes to kiss him. “Do you have any
idea how much I want to tie you up and screw your brains out when
you say things like that?”

“
I have some
idea,” he mutters into her ear.

I roll my
eyes. “Would you two get a room, already? You’re making the other
bogans nauseas.”

“
Ha! Now you
know what it was like when you and Eli-” Holly begins but her eyes
double in size as she realises she almost named ‘he who shall not
be named’. “Shit, Ana, I’m sorry.”

“
It’s okay,
Hols. I’m going to go grab a drink. Why don’t you two go grab a
room, or the backseat of Coop’s car, or any other semi secluded
place to … um … get busy, and I’ll meet you back here in fifteen?”
I tease, but I’m only half joking about the sex. At least if they
get it out of their system now, we won’t be run off the road
because Holly decides she’d rather jump on Coop’s gearstick than
get us home in one piece.

“
Ana?” Holly
starts.

I shrug her
off with a wave. “I’m fine Hols, just thirsty.”

“
I love you
my little slutsky!” she yells, just loud enough to draw the
attention of everyone around us, in true Holly fashion.

I laugh and
make my way over to the bonfire, which oddly enough is where the
eskies with all the combustible liquor are.
Because nothing says inconspicuous like an illegal
twenty-foot bonfire that can be seen from space. Idiots.

I pull out a
bottle of Stella Artois and think of Elijah. I wonder where he is
and if he’s thinking of me, too. Earlier, I saw Nicole and her evil
minions, so at least I know he’s not fucking her up against a wall
somewhere. My heart thuds against my chest as I think back to that
night. A part of me hates him so much for making me witness that
because never in a million years would I wish the same fate upon
him. I love him too much, which makes me think that, despite his
declaration, he didn’t love me at all.

I flip the
bottle cap off my beer and take a long hearty swig, which almost
comes straight back up when I open my eyes and see Scott standing
before me.

“
Hey,
Blondie. Rough night?”

“
And it just
got worse.”

“
Ouch.” He
raises his own beer in a toast and gives me that stupid half-smile
that used to turn me to complete mush but now kind of makes me want
to punch him in the face. “You really know how to wound a
guy.”

“
So I’ve
heard.”

He reaches
into the nearest esky and pulls out two more Stellas. “You wanna
take a walk with me?”

“
Why would I
do that, Scott?”

He shrugs.
“Payback for drinking all my beer?”

“
Sorry, I
didn’t know it was yours,” I mutter, as I avoid meeting his eyes.
Though I despise him, his eyes are still kind of pretty to look at.
In fact, all of him is pretty to look at. Not as pretty as Elijah,
but pretty, none the less.

Annnnnd now I
know I’ve had too much to drink.

I run a
mental tally in my head—one vodka and cranberry at Holly’s house
and one and a half beers since we arrived. It’s not much, but it’s
enough for a lightweight like me. Still, I’m in a reckless,
poisonous mood, so despite the buzz I have going, I feel like it’s
not enough.

Weirdly,
Scott must pick up on that because he says, “Come on, I have some
hard stuff in the car and you look like you could use a stiff
drink.”

“
What kind of
hard stuff?”

“
Tequila.”

“
To-kill-ya!
Awesome! Lead the way.”

Scott smiles,
stuffs two beers in the pocket of his hoody and walks me over to
his giant, dual cab, fifty-thousand dollar Toyota HiLux—which is
just what every idiotic nineteen-year-old needs to be driving,
especially when there’s alcohol involved—and fishes out the bottle
of tequila before handing it to me. I’m so relieved I could kiss
him, but I’ll settle instead for not punching him in the
face.

Scott leads
us to a small ravine, far enough away so we can no longer hear the
noise of the party. He slides down the small embankment and sits on
a patch of soft grass. I follow suit, though my descent is a little
more awkward and I end up stumbling a few steps before backing up
and plonking myself down next to him. We’re looking at nothing but
row upon row of cut cane fields and there’s no other light but the
moon—and yes, I am here with the McDoucheNozzle that basically told
the whole town I was a giant slut, but it’s peaceful and Scott
always was good at distracting me from reality.

I twist the
cap off the tequila and take a hearty sip. It burns like nothing
else going down but once it’s finally settled the warmth spreads
through my tummy and it feels sort of nice, so I take
another.

“
Easy,
tiger.” He takes the bottle from me and swallows back some of the
contents. It must go down the wrong way, because he coughs and
splutters and beats at his chest like a gorilla. “Holy shit that
hurt, I now know why you call it to-kill-ya.”

“
Don’t tell
me you’re a virgin, Scott?”

He turns to
me with his brow raised and an incredulous look upon his face. “You
do know I went out with Nicole for a whole six weeks, don’t
you?”

“
Not the kind
of virgin I was talking about, but thanks for the painful reminder
of the fact you ditched me for boob-a-skank,” I say, and snatch the
bottle back.

“
Yeah, well,
I was an idiot.”

“
No argument
there.”

“
So, what’s
the deal with you and gigantor?”

“
Who?” I
feign innocence, or ignorance—I can’t remember which, because I’m
drunk, remember?

“
You know,
prison-tattooed, scary-arse gigantic motherfucker?”

“
Oh,
that
gigantor.” I shake
my head and sigh. “No deal. We broke up, he fucked Nicole and broke
my heart.”

Scott raises
the bottle and says, “To fucked up exes!”

“
To
home-wrecking sluts!” I salute as I take a swig.

Scott takes
back the bottle and waves it in the air. “To wankers who don’t know
a good thing when they have it.”

I snatch it
back and say, “And to arseholes who break your heart,” before
shooting him a dirty look and taking a long pull from the neck of
the bottle.

By now my
head is swimming. I’m pretty sure my fifteen minutes is up and I
know I should get back to the party so Holly doesn’t worry, but I
don’t feel like making the trek. I don’t feel like doing much of
anything, actually, so I lie back on the grass and stare up at the
stars.

“
I like your
to-kill-ya, Scott.” I hope he doesn’t notice how much I just
slurred that sentence, and then I wonder why I care whether he
knows I’m blind drunk or not. This fucker broke my heart, too.
Granted, not as badly as Elijah, but he still did it. My inebriated
brain at least has the sense to tell me that I didn’t love Scott
like I love Elijah, and that just pisses me off and hurts my heart
all over again. So I tell my heart to shut up by pulling Scott down
beside me and pressing my mouth to his with a brutal, messy
kiss.

It doesn’t
take him long to catch up. In fact, within seconds he’s pawing at
me and pulling me on top of him. His hand skims up under my shirt
and palms my boobs. For half a second I close my eyes and pretend
it’s Elijah’s hand. There’s one very noticeable difference though:
either Elijah possesses some innate, supernatural ability to
instinctively know how to please women or he’s had an awful, awful
lot of practise, because Scott’s hand pushing and prodding at my
boobs feels more like a breast exam than anything Elijah ever
did.

I go with it,
though, because it feels better than thinking about how miserable I
am, thinking about how much I miss him, and thinking about the fact
that, although it’s been a month, the pain hasn’t lessened any and
I don’t expect it will.

Scott’s mouth
covers mine with a sloppy insistent kiss, and suddenly I want to
gag. He’s rock hard, pushing his hips into mine with bruising
force, holding my hips down against him with one hand and my head
with his other. I yank away, gulping in air as I raise myself up to
a sitting position, but Scott’s stronger and he pulls me back down
on top of him and then effortlessly rolls us so that I’m pinned to
the ground by his body. I’m starting to see what a horrible idea
coming out here with him was. I’m also beginning to realise just
how much I must hate myself at this moment in my life to have
absolutely no regard for my own safety or self-preservation. In
fact, if Dharma had of walked up to me wielding a cute smile and a
bottle of spirits, I likely would have tagged along behind him,
too.

“
Wait,” I
say, as I attempt to sit up once more by shoving at his chest, but
he pushes me down with a heavy palm splayed between my breasts. I’m
feeling lightheaded and the pressure of him on top of me makes my
tummy do weird flippy things, and not of the good variety. “Scott,
stop. You’re hurting me.”

“
Relax,” he
whispers, nibbling on my ear.

Bile rises in
my belly. I shove at him, more forcibly this time, and when he
doesn’t move I lash out with my hands, gouging my nails down one
side of his face. “I said stop, you arsehole!”

He sits back
on his knees and presses his hand to his cheek. He’s bleeding. His
eyes blaze with desire and hate, but I don’t give a crap. I waste
no time getting to my feet and climbing up the
embankment.

“
Ana, get
back here!”

“
Fuck you!” I
scream back. No sooner have the words left my mouth than I feel his
arm slip around my waist and drag me backwards, down the
embankment. His other hand covers my mouth and, even though I bite
down on it as hard as I can, he gasps but doesn’t let go. I thrash
and kick against him, all the while screaming into his palm as he
lugs me further down the hill.

We’re not in
the same spot as we were before. There’s no grass here, only a
rocky patch of hard-packed earth. If we were in the same spot I’d
consider using our abandoned tequila bottle as a weapon, but I
can’t even see it—I can’t see anything on account of the dizziness
and moonlight. Scott releases me—I don’t know why, I don’t question
it—I simply run as fast as my uncoordinated body will take me. It’s
not far enough though because before I can even reach the
embankment he grabs my arm and pushes me to the ground. I hit the
hard ground with a thud. Breath whooshes out of my lungs and my
head lands hard enough that I feel both stunned and like I want to
throw up my guts, all at once.