“No,” he says. “I have a different lunch hour. Wasn’t the first time, though. Dude can never keep his hands to himself.”
“You’re talking about Garrett?” I ask.
“The one and only,” Jonah replies.
“So he has a reputation?”
“You talk like an adult, you know,” he says. “It’s kind of weird.”
I reach to twist a lock of hair around my finger, smiling. “Good girl, remember?”
Jonah laughs and takes a sloppy sip from his cup. “Yeah, all right. I like it,” he says. “Anyway, fucking Garrett. Last semester he locked himself in the art room closet with Bernice. It was wild,” Jonah says. “I mean, he didn’t even touch her, but I thought she was going to stab out his eyes.”
Maybe she should have.
“And he doesn’t get in trouble?” I ask, pretending to sound fascinated.
“For what?” Jonah asks. “I just said he didn’t touch her.”
I don’t know, how about false imprisonment? A number of other harassment charges?
Jonah licks his lips before his mouth turns up in a grin. “Not you, though,” he says. “I heard you broke a lunch tray over his head. What did he do? Hand up your skirt?”
I physically recoil from the suggestion, and Jonah laughs an apology.
“No,” I say. “It wasn’t me. He was pretending that Adrian was …” I know I have to stop being so formal, but I’m truly not sure how to word this. “That she was jerking him off,” I say quickly, internally cringing. “She was crying. It was traumatic.”
But Jonah scoffs.
“Crying? What a baby,” he says. He uses his cup to point at me. “We need more girls like you,” he says. “Ones who like to fight a little. You can hold your own, Mena. What made you so brave?”
Dealing with men like you.
The wind blows my hair across my face, sticking it to my lip gloss. I peel it away.
“I’m not sure how I got this way,” I say sweetly.But I might have a guess.
Jonah stares at me like he’s trying to figure me out. Between us, my phone begins buzzing again.
“Should you get that?” he asks dreamily. He leans noticeably closer.
“It can wait,” I say. I pretend to feel something crawling on my leg and use it as an excuse to move back a few inches. Jonah trails me with his eyes.
“Why aren’t you dating anyone?” he asks. I don’t want tostray into this conversation, I need him to stay focused.
“Do the other boys act like Garrett?” I ask. “Locking girls in rooms?”
He stares at me a moment, seeming confused. He takes a drink. “No. I’ve never had to lock a girl in a room to have sex with me, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“I’m sure you haven’t,” I say. “It just seems …” I search for the right way to phrase this. “It seems that at least Garrett does this a lot. I wondered if I should watch out for others.”
“Stick with me and you won’t have to,” he replies. He’s growing tense, possessive.
“I’m thinking about my friends,” I say. “Who they should look out for?”
“I don’t know what you’re really asking,” he says. “But none of us do anything that they didn’t beg for first. The girls at school? They beg.”
I hate him. It comes so clearly to me. I hate him and everything he stands for. The sense of entitlement, privilege. That girls being afraid of his reaction is the same as consent. Jonah thinks hedeservesgirls. That they’re his possessions.
