Swell (12 page)

That night I made homemade spiked punch with a little Sunny D and pinot grigio. It looked like OJ in the drink box, but tasted like relief. After a few more taste tests, I packed a final bottle for school, and placed it at the back of the fridge. I couldn’t wait for morning.

The jungle juice wasn’t enough to get drunk off, but it did put me in a brighter mood at lunch. Everything looked better and I wasn’t so worried about seeing Christian… until I did. He walked up to the lunch table with Hillman, and I hunched down behind Jenna.

“What?” Jenna asked.

I pointed and her mouth scrunched into a crescent.

“Oh gees, just ignore him. If he even dares to come over here I’ll kick his ass.”

Nobody saw me, but I did see Christian sit next to one of the new cheerleaders — a blonde with giganta-tits and perma-giggle over anything Christian said. God, he looked good. His hair was longer, and he wore a red shirt that set-off his beautiful pale skin.

The blonde kept touching Christian’s arm, but when she put her hand against his cheek and looked into his eyes, I wished I had something more to drink. I would need to get a bigger juice box.

/////

I’d been working most Saturday mornings to complete the mural. I had no desire to spend any more time in the office of my ex-boyfriend’s dad, and I wanted it done. Something, however, kept me wishing that Dr. Rusch would ask how I was.

Bettina brought me a sugar-free snack one morning and watched me work. She was silent, which was unusual for such a chatty woman, until she asked about Christian.

“Aren’t you dating Dr. Rusch’s son?”

“I
was
.” This was the conversation I wanted to have with Dr. Rusch, not his office manager. I squeezed the hell out of my paintbrush to maintain composure. What I really wanted to do was throw paint at her.

“I don’t understand. You’re a perfectly nice girl, and he’s a really good-looking boy.” As if looks were all that mattered in a relationship.

“He got busy with school.” I prayed that the talk would end, but Bettina was not a quitter.

“That never stopped him in the past… with dating, I mean. Christian is good at prioritizing.” Her face went pale when she realized her slip.

Christian had never put one thing ahead of another before me. There had always been balance between business and pleasure, and I was now aware of my unworthiness. He needed to stick his nose in a book more than he needed me.

“That’s interesting.” I shoved my brush in the paint cup and stood up, needing a break from Bettina.

“Don’t let me interrupt. I was just checking in, seeing how things were going,” she said. And then she left me standing there, my brush dripping dangerously close to the carpet. It almost fell from my fingers, which had curled into a fist.

When I got home I went straight to my closet and searched for something, but came up dry. Damn it! I would have to go pimping.

I’d thought about cultivating other liquor store relationships than Tony’s. There were too many familiar faces, and the owner had chased me away several times. Even the Mexican guys knew who I was, and called me
muchacha perdida
—
lost girl
in Spanish whenever I showed up.

Victor’s Liquor was a block from Tony’s. The lighting was bright, the parking lot busy and there was a ton of new people to choose from. When I saw the tall biker guy get off his Harley, I made a beeline. He had a thick blonde mustache and wore a Judas Priest t-shirt with no sleeves. Right away he knew what I wanted.

“Whaddya need, girl?”

“Malt liquor.” I pressed a 10-spot into his hand. He grinned, revealing several missing teeth. The ones that remained were the color of a lemon.

Biker boy came out with a big bag of tall cans. There were four! I was stoked. Best of all, he said goodbye without expecting anything in return.

I needed a place to drink that was closer than the beach, and in my neighborhood that would be the canyons that snake between the houses. Sometimes the homeless slept there, but because I’d grown up playing in the canyons, I wasn’t afraid. Today they sounded like the perfect place to get drunk.

A fallen tree by a tiny creek was a good place to sit and pop open my first can. One after the other, I poured the liquid down my throat, burped, and polished off the stash. By that time, my heart pounded and I felt out of breath as I thought about the climb out of there. So I decided to just sit and enjoy the slowness of my brain and eyes. That’s why it was too late to react when I saw the flash of black in front of me.

There stood a pasty-fleshed man in a black shirt and shorts, hands at his side. I got to my feet, wishing the empty can I held was a broken bottle.

“Canyon party?” He looked about 40, with long black hair. The crinkles around his eyes enhanced their bug-eyed appearance. My gut told me to run, but my mind said I’d never make it up the hill quick enough.

“I don’t want to ruin your party. I just want to party
with
you.” He sat down on the tree and lit a cigarette. It smelled pungent and thick, and upon further inspection I saw that it was a joint.

If I pretended that I wasn’t afraid, then maybe I would be able to get out of this.

“Can I have a hit?” I asked. He smiled and passed the smoldering stick to me. I took the joint, which felt like a hot cylinder of burning hay against my fingers. Being that I’d never smoked anything before, I tried to imitate what I’d seen at parties by putting the joint at the tip of my lips. I tried to inhale but didn’t get any. Maybe he didn’t notice. I gave it back and he took a long drag.

“What’s your name?”

“Katie.” A fake name would somehow make this situation not real. But it was, because he finished the joint and pinched the remains between his fingers, stood up and towered over me. A smirk was on his lips and his wide eyes grew even larger.

“Know why I like the canyon, Katie?”

“Why?” I looked around for a stick or a rock, and the shortest route out of there.

“Because you can’t hear nothing up there if it’s going on down here.” He stepped toward me. My knees liquefied.

“Let’s party, Katie.” He reached for my shoulder and I froze. He brought his fingers down my arms and reached for my hands, gripping them tight as he began pulling me through leaves and twigs, the brushy overgrowth and toward a storm drain. I knew that that once he got me in there, I was his game.

That’s when I saw a bottle.

My hand had a mind of its own as it swept down, grabbed the bottle, and smashed it on a rock. I brought the homemade weapon to his neck. Blood trickled down his chest and onto his shirt from the initial piercing.

“You fucking let me go or I’ll kill you.” I pushed the jagged edge deeper into his skin. His goldfish eyes widened as he held his mouth agape. Without even trying to overtake me, the guy pulled away and ran into the storm drain.

For a moment I stood still, bottle in my hand. Red droplets graced the sharp ends and I watched them drip before I woke up. Still grasping the bottle, I ran up the hill, through a neighborhood and to the main road, where I collapsed on the curb. Cars whizzed by, ignorant of my plight.

Every cell in my body shook and buzzed on the walk home. I thought about what could have happened. That guy would have probably raped me. He could have beaten or even killed me, ramming my head against the storm drain walls. I collapsed in the bushes a block from my house and threw up everything I’d pimped.

Chapter 14

They were against the wall, Hillman’s face almost as red as his hair. Christian rammed his hands into his nose and jaw. I crawled into a ball on the bed and watched the scene play-out, my hands instinctively wrapped around my knees.

Christian took Hillman by the shoulders and threw him against a shelf, books tumbling over their heads as Hillman tried in vain to fight back. A loud crack rattled the room when Christian threw Hillman to the floor and stomped on his legs. It seemed like he was killing him.

Nothingness quivered in the room as Christian drew me close to his chest, picked me up and carried me out of my torture chamber.

“We need to get you out of here
.” He placed me like a feather in the back seat of his car and covered me with a blanket.

≈

I threw the broken bottle into the bushes after I barfed and wiped underneath my eyes with my sleeve. I was sure I looked like I’d been up to no good.

Upon entering
the house I shouted hello into the vacant hall, and sprinted to the bathroom. My hair was layered with leaves and grass, and dirt smudges marked my cheeks and forehead. The evidence of the afternoon was gone with soap, water and a flick of my hairbrush.

My mom was walking down the hallway as I exited the bathroom and made a sharp turn toward my room. Before she entered, I dove onto bed and covered my head with a pillow.

“Rebecca, Dad was about to go looking for you.”

“I went for a walk and saw someone I knew.”

“Not any of those girls...”

“Nope.” Those girls would have been easy to deal with, compared to the nightmare that had waited in the canyon for me.

“It’s not like you to run off without letting us know where you’re going.”

“I just forgot, okay? It’s not like I didn’t let you know on purpose.” In fact, I didn’t want anyone to know what I was doing anymore.

“It gives me palpitations when I don’t know where you are.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know it happens, but please try to remember.” She sat down on the end of my bed in the little area that wasn’t covered with clothes.

“We’re going to dinner with the Quigleys tonight. You’re welcome to come with us.”

Going out to dinner with my parents’ friends was low on my list of priorities. They asked too many personal questions and Mr. Quigley had a problem talking to anything but boobs. I had more interest in doing homework than eating with them.

“I’m gonna stay home. I did a lot of painting today and I’m tired.” I peeked at her from behind the pillow. She was scrutinizing the walls that I’d covered in posters of Klimt and Picasso.

“Okay. We’re leaving in an hour, in case you change your mind.”

I locked my door, changed out of my soiled clothes, and put them into a trash bag. There were a few empty wine bottles sitting in the can, and I thought about how drinking had gotten me into trouble. For a brief moment I considered never drinking again.

That didn’t last very long, because Allison called to invite me to a party the following weekend.

“Who’s throwing it?”

“Hillman… the usual.”

I let out a groan. “I don’t feel comfortable hanging at his house.”

“He’s pretty intense. Don’t take him too seriously.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed. He sneaks around and follows--”

“Follows? You?”

“Yeah.”

“It could be that he’s checking you out.”

“But he did that even when I was with Christian!”

Allison sighed. “About a year ago, Hillman caught Christian with his girlfriend. You wouldn’t know her, cause she graduated. Anyway, she was dating both Hillman and Christian, but Hillman had no clue until he found them under the bleachers after a game.”

“So it’s personal…”

“Pretty much. Ever since then, Hillman’s had this love-hate relationship with Christian.”

I pulled more info from Allison about the girlfriend. Her name was Cindy Beckman and she was older than both Christian and Hillman, a cheerleader and, when she turned 18, she became an exotic dancer. Hillman must have loved that. Unfortunately for him, Christian must have, too.

“Hillman was bigger than Christian back then… taller, stronger. So he beat the shit out of him. And then she breaks up with both of them the next day.”

I tried to picture Christian as a young teenage boy on the verge of a growth spurt, gawky and inexperienced with long legs and a body that hadn’t caught up with them yet.

“Anyway, that’s history. Give me details about you and Christian.” Re-telling the story brought back the hollow, thrown-away feeling I hated.

“I bet Hillman had something to do with it. He likes to get back at people who’ve crossed him.”

“Even when they’re his friends?”

“It doesn’t matter. Hillman never forgets things. And when he wants something, nothing stands in his way.”

It was starting to look like a soap opera, with everyone stabbing each other behind the matriarch’s back.

“But who knows? Girls cream their jeans over Hillman. He’s pretty hot, actually. Have you seen his abs?”

“More times than I can count,” I said, recalling the poolside staring incident.

“If he’s been following you around, maybe you should give it a shot.”

The thought of going out with Hillman never crossed my mind. I had a hard time seeing myself with his possessive tongue shoved down my throat.