Existing (15 page)

“Get off me.” I lift my knee as hard as I can and
clip his balls. I watch him recoil in agony.

“Ashley!” Charlotte squeals down the stairs. I know the music is too loud for anyone to hear.

“You’re feisty,” he grins as he recovers and pins himself against me again. A breath of air escapes from my mouth from the force of my back colliding with the wall. “I like feisty girls.”

I can feel my eyes widen and blink at him. I have no idea what to do. Is he being serious? Is he really going to hurt me? As I look up into his face
, I see a hand fly over his shoulder. Within seconds, the boy is spun around and I hear a loud crack as a fist connects with his face.

“Get the fuck off her
.”

The boy slumps to the floor with a huff. I watch wide-eyed as Cabe grabs him by the scruff of his neck a
nd drags him down the stairs. His legs are limp and his feet bump against each step until Cabe throws open the door and throws him out of the house. Charlotte comes to stand next to me and puts her arm around my shoulders.

“Sorry about Rob,” she says. “He’s al
ways been a sloppy drunk. Normally, we have someone watching over him to make sure he doesn’t step out of line.”

I shrug but can feel myself shaking.
“I just didn’t know what to do,” I confess. Maybe this party was a bad idea. There’s a reason I’ve never made friends and never been to parties, and right now, I just want to crawl away and go hide again.

She smiles sadly
at me. “I guess your first party ever isn’t going so well then, huh?”

I force a smile. “It’s okay, but I really need to use the bathroom now.”

She nods and walks to a door directly in front of us. She pushes it open and both of us gasp as we take in the two naked people having sex like animals in the middle of the big bed. “Ohmygod,” Charlotte says, sounding as mortified as I feel. “Sorry.”

The two people don’t stop moving their hips as they turn to stare at us.
I don’t bother to look at the girl because the boy is grinning devilishly at us, pinning me to the spot.

“Care to join in girls?” he pants.

“Ugh, you’re a disgusting fucking manwhore, Riley Morgan,” shouts Charlotte.

“You weren’t saying that two years ago, Charlotte Johnston.”

“Worst mistake of my life,” she mumbles.

We back away quickly, pulling the door closed. I c
an feel my eyes widen as Charlotte leads me down the landing.

“Riley Morgan?” I whisper.

Charlotte stops and nods toward a door. “Here it is.” She opens the door and I gingerly peek my head around the doorframe to find a toilet, a shower, and a sink. I have never felt so relieved in all my life to see them.

“I lost my virginity to him two years ago. I thought he loved me but he didn’t,” she tells me.

I nod. “Oh.”

“It’s fine,” she says dismissively. “
I was madly, blindly, and stupidly in love with him, but you know what? All men are just assholes. And Riley Morgan is the biggest asshole I’ve ever met. He broke my heart, ripped it out of my chest, and stamped all over it in front of the whole school.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Honestly,” she sighs, “it’s fine now. I’m fine. Back then I wasn’t, but now I know better.”

I nod.

“I’ll be in the kitchen,” she tells me.

“O
kay, I’ll come to you afterward.”

I step into the light and lock the door behind me. When I look in the mirror
, I jump at the sight of myself. I’d forgotten what Charlotte had done and hardly recognize the girl that stares back at me. I look healthy, alive, and I guess prettier than I normally do. I can see my own smile stretching across my face. I like it.

I glance at my shoulders to see if Rob’s grip has left a mark but there’s nothing there. He didn’t hurt me; it just shocked me more than anything that someone would behave like that at a party and
with a girl that he didn’t know. I guess I need to learn a few things and learn them fast. I empty my bladder and wash my hands and decide it’s time to head back down and face the music.

“Are you alright?”

I stop in the doorway and nod my head at Cabe. My eyes travel across his face and then along his arm that’s leaning high up on the door frame. I can’t stop wondering how someone like him can be friends with Riley. I’ve realized that just because Cabe doesn’t date girls at school, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t date them period. Maybe he treats girls just as shitty as Riley does, but he does it where people can’t see.

“He’s a jerk. He shouldn’t have touched you like that. Did he hurt you?”

I watch his eyes move quickly up and down my body and shake my head.

“Good,” he says. He
stops for a few seconds and just stares at my face. I can tell he’s thinking about something, but I don’t dare ask what. After a few awkward seconds, he pinches the skin in between his eyes, takes a deep breath, and holds his hand out to me. “Come on. Let’s go get some air.”

I take his hand and immediately feel a ball of fire ignite in our palms. I can feel eyes burning into us as we walk down the stairs and through the living room and kitchen. Cabe picks two beers up as we pass Charlotte and the othe
rs in the kitchen and leads me outside, without speaking a single word to me or anyone else. We walk over the stepping stones until we get to the very back of the garden. He fumbles with something but I can’t see what it is until he pushes the small wooden gate open and walks onto the beach.

“This is really nice
,” I say, hearing the sounds of the waves lapping against the shore. “It really is a beach house.”

He chuckles and walks further down the beach before sitting down and handing me a beer. I sit next to him and feel the sea breeze fly through my hair. I take a deep breath.

“How’s the party going, apart from the Rob incident?” he asks.

I smile and cli
ck the top off my beer. “It’s okay.”

“Did you come with that Ashley guy and Ben Maguire?”

“Yeah,” I nod. “They picked us up from Charlotte’s house.”

He rubs the bottom of his chin and leans back with his hands buried in the sand behi
nd him. I stare at his white shirt and dark denim jeans. “I didn’t realize you were dating Ashley.”

I smile and turn my head toward him
, feeling my hair snake around my shoulders before hanging down by my face. “I’m not dating him. They just picked us up.”

He laughs and stares into my eyes. “Are you sure he knows that?”

“Yes,” I say quickly.

He shakes his head. “He’s telling people he’s with you.
As in, with you, with you.”

I cough. “Well we’re not, so he shouldn’t be.” I take a huge mouthful of beer and sigh as I feel the coldness trickling right down my throat and into my stomach. Why would Ashley be telling people we’re together
, I wonder?

He laughs. “Do you see everything that simply?”

I shrug. “Not really, but that one is pretty simple.”

He reaches out quickly and tucks my hair behind my ear. I freeze at his touch and the feeling his fingers have left across my cheek.

“Sorry, I just wanted to see your face.”

I pull back shyly
. “And why would you want to do that?”

He sits up and looks me dead in the eye. The air around us suddenly feels warm
, making me shiver as the temperature around my skin changes. “Because you’re beautiful.”

“I’m not,” I say qui
ckly.

“Rose, I-“

A girl squeals and laughs from behind us, plucking us from our moment together. I release the breath I’ve been holding as I turn to look at what’s happening. The tall, big breasted girl from earlier runs up and throws herself on top of Cabe. The force at which she throws herself at him causes him to collapse on his back. The girl licks his cheek.

“Gabriella,” he says slowly. “What
the fuck are you doing?”

She laughs. “Giving you what you want. What you’ve wanted for a
long time.” She straddles him, forcing her dress right up to her leopard-print panties and places her hands on the sand at the side of his head. “I know you want me,” she says, wiggling her hips and giggling. “I can feeeel how much you want me, Cabe. I watch you watching me.” She bends down and plants her lips onto his. His hands move down her back and at that point, I get up and walk away, not stopping when he calls out my name.

I stride into the garden feeling the sting of tears at my eyes. How could he say something
like that to me when he’s messing around with Gabriella or whatever her name is? I stare at the house and the shadows at the windows and sigh. I don’t want to go back in there. I lower my head and walk slowly up the grass, feeling like an idiot. I know nothing about boys and how their minds work. Was it stupid of me to think that, by him telling me he thought I was beautiful, he meant it? Was he playing me the whole time? Maybe he’s just like all those other boys that girls talk about who say something but mean something completely different.

“Rose.”

I turn and squint through the darkness. “Who’s there?”

“It’s us.”

“Charlotte?”

“Yeah,” she says, “and Cora,
Hannah, Ashley, and Ben.”

I walk over to them
, holding my empty beer bottle in my hand. I realize that I need to forget about Cabe and whatever it is that he’s doing with Gabriella on the beach.

“Are you alright
, Rose? I heard that Rob gave you a hard time earlier.”

I sit down next to Ashley and sigh. “He was a bit drunk but I’m alright.”

He leans forward and pulls a beer from out of a red tin bucket. “No, you’re not. You’re not nearly drunk enough.”

I take the beer from him and smile. “Thanks.”

“Where did you go off to anyway?” Charlotte snuggles up into the side of Ben, which makes me wonder again how she knows him. 

“I was on the beach.
What time is it anyway?” I ask.

Ashley pulls his iPhone out of his pocket and narrows his eyes as the light of the phone makes his face glow white.
“Nearly nine.”

I nod and pull my own phone out of my bag. “What’s the address of this place anyway?”

“It’s alright,” says Ashley. “I’ll take you home.”

“My Dad is picking me up,
” I tell him, “but thanks.”

Ben rattles off the address and I send a quick text to my Dad so he kno
ws where to come and get me. As I sit and drink more beer and listen to the drunken chatter around me, I can’t help but think about the ghost and how it just suddenly appeared when I was at Charlotte’s house earlier. I haven’t seen it for nearly two and a half months, and that was the first time I’ve ever seen it somewhere other than my own home.

A round of laughter shakes me from my thoughts. “
Oooh,” Cora shouts. “Did you finally get your man, Gabriella?”

I turn my head and watch Gabriella stagger across the grass. Despite her clumsiness and level of consumed alcohol
, she still looks stunning. She turns her head slowly around to us and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. I cringe, thinking about what it is she’s wiping away. Her skinny, long legs are all that I can see of her as she approaches us. “What’s it to you what I’ve done, Cora?”

Cora and
Hannah laugh. “We’ve been watching you drool all over him for the last nine months. It’s been quite entertaining.”

Gabriella smirks. “He was the one drooling over me.”

Cora snorts. “That’s not what it looked like to everyone else. It looked like you were making a fool out of yourself actually.”

Gabriella flops down into the chair opposite me and kicks my leg as she crosses her leg
over her knee. “I’m not a fool. He’s the fool for waiting so long.” She grins to herself. “He was just teasing me. I think you can take my word for it when I tell you he thinks I was worth the wait.”

“What?” spits
Hannah as she slams her beer bottle back down onto the table. “You just slept with Cabe?”

Gabriella smiles proudly. “I
didn’t just sleep with him, Hannah. I fucked him into next week. I showed him what he’s been missing all these months.”

“Lucky bastard,” whistles Ben through his lips.

“Ben!” Charlotte diminishes. “She’s disgusting!”

“I am not,” Gabriella says
, flicking her hair. “I’m hot and you all know it.”

“Modest too by the sounds of it,” mumbles Cora.

Charlotte snorts and Hannah hits Cora on the back.

Gabriella holds her hand up. “Li
sten honey, if you’ve got it, which I do, then you flaunt it. I know you’re just jealous.”

“Ah, hardly,” says Cora. “You’re nothing but a skank.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“I am not.”

“Slut.”

“Okay
,” says Cora, standing up with her fist clenched. “You of all people do not get away with calling me a slut, Gabriella Knight.”