I shake my head, lifting my bag from the floor. “I’ll call a ride.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Bye, Alex.”
He lifts a hand, sadness and regret like a winter coat around his shoulders.
Downstairs, I find his parents and offer some halfhearted excuse about too much homework. They’re super nice, smiling and inviting me back some other time. I think I smile back, but something in me is cracking, the memory of how Alex’s body felt on mine so welcome and so horrible at the same time. I just need out, need air, need away from Alex, who I like and want but for all the wrong reasons. Who I don’t like and want enough.
I manage a civil goodbye and get myself out the front door. Every nerve hums and tears blur my steps as I walk through his yard and spill onto the sidewalk down the block. I collapse on a bench half covered with low-hanging magnolia branches, my lungs heaving, tears falling, too many fears and thoughts swirling in my head.
I take my phone out and send a text. Ten minutes later, Hannah finds me crying on the bench and takes me home.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I KNOW HANNAH WANTS TO WALK ME TO MY DOOR. I also know she physically can’t get herself out of the car. She came to a complete stop on the street before she was finally able to turn into the driveway, and now we’re just sitting here, both of us staring at my house while I try to calm down.
My face feels cracked from dried tears and I’m still shaking. Can’t stop shaking. “It’s okay,” I say, when I think I have enough breath. I’m far from calm, but it’ll have to do.
“I can’t go any farther,” she says, her eyes fixed on the top floor windows of the house, my brother somewhere behind them. Her fingers wrap around the steering wheel. “I’m a shitty friend.”
“You’re not. You’re amazing and I love you.” I hug her, as much as I can while my bones rattle together, and press a kiss to her forehead. “Thank you for coming to save me.”
She laughs, but it’s soft. “I didn’t save you. I can’t save anyone.”
“You can. You did.”
“I just hate that we hurt like this, you know?”
“What do you mean?”
She grabs my hand and squeezes. “I think about the things we’ve talked about in Empower. Articles we’ve read about all the girls who were thrown away by boys like they meant nothing. All the times a girl’s voice seemed to mean less than a boy’s. All the times the courts sent out a shit ruling on a rape case. It never really hit me, you know? I mean, it did, but not like this. I never thought it’d be my story. Or yours. I never wanted to let this be our story.”
“You didn’t let it happen, Hannah. You trusted Owen. There’s a difference. And with me . . .” I inhale a deep breath. “I didn’t let him either. He just took.”
She nods and squeezes my hand tighter.
I want to tell her about Alex, about what he saw, and I will, but right now there’s this feeling inside me that I can’t explain. I’m either dying or being reborn, joints coming apart or melting together, all my blood leaving me or swelling my veins. I kiss Hannah’s cheek and manage to get out of the car, promising to text her later, and make it inside my house.
The TV mumbles in the living room, but I head straight for the stairs. I need my room, my bed, my sound machine emptying my thoughts and singing me to sleep.
“Mara, is that you?” Mom calls, but I don’t answer. I’ve just reached the second floor, nearly running, when I ram smack into Owen in the hallway.
Holding hands with Angie.
His other arm reaches out to steady me. Instinctively, I shrink away. He sees my retreat, and some desperate part of me wants to apologize. The other part wants to scream and slap and claw.
“Hi, Mara,” Angie says, but he’s already pulling her down the stairs. He calls something to our parents I can’t make out and then they’re out the front door. I hear our car start up, but I don’t move toward my room. That something growls and stalks, still hungry, still unsatisfied.
Angie’s hair was curly, wild and thick, her cheeks flushed and her hand tucked so trustingly into Owen’s. She loves Mozart’s flute concertos—?I remember that from History of Music. One time freshman year, I forgot my lunch and couldn’t stomach the cafeteria’s Salisbury steak, and she split her peanut butter and honey sandwich with me. I don’t even know why we were sitting together. Charlie must’ve been absent or maybe her lunch sucked too. It’s all hazy, but right now, standing in the hallway, all these little moments from going to school with Angie for the past three years come trickling back into my mind.
She suffers from major stage fright and never auditions for solos.
She has a 4.0 GPA.
She has a baby brother. He’s only about six months old, and I remember that every member of the symphonic band brought her a green balloon the day he was born last spring. She left school that day with a ton of balloons, several of them escaping during dismissal and drifting off into the sky.
She came to an Empower meeting once or twice. She said she wanted to come to more, but the time conflicted with her private flute lessons.
