We’ll find each other later, I assured myself.I’ll find the others later.
I ignored the prickling at the back of my neck, telling me that I should find themnow. Instead, I closed my eyes, felt my heart flicker at Derek’s warm hands on my hips, and started to dance.
***
Please pick up, I thought, shivering in the chilly night air. Tiger Inn’s tropical weather had worn off entirely.Please pick up, please pick up, please—
“Hello?” Austin said groggily. “Mads?”
At the sound of his voice, hot and heavy tears spilled down my cheeks. “Austin,” I croaked. “Austin, hey. I need to talk to you. I know it’s really late, but…” I swallowed, then repeated, “I know it’s really late.”
“Really late?” My brother laughed softly, still half asleep. “Try almost two a.m.” He yawned. “Just be quiet, okay? Katie’s a light sleeper.”
“Okay,” I agreed, but then did the complete opposite ofstaying quiet. I openly started sobbing. Sobbing in my stupid excuse for a shirt and drenched in sweat and Unicorn Snot and wearing enough eye makeup that it was probably running in rivulets down my face right about now.
This girl, passersby would think,is havinga night.
I could tell Austin’s spine straightened from the sound of his voice. “Mads, what’s going on? Where are you? Princeton, right? This is your Princeton weekend?”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see, and then word-vomited up the whole night. “The field hockey girls totally ditched me, and Shelly won’t answer my calls or texts,” I said over the lump in my throat. “And I can’t go back to her room…”
“Youhaveto go back to her room,” Austin said firmly. “Right now.”
“But she hates me!” I wailed at the same time a muffled voice went, “Austin, is everything alright?”
“Not really,” he told Katie. Freaking Katie. “Mads is at Princeton…”
“Oh mygod,” I heard her groan, loud and clear, after he recapped my recap. “Are youkiddingme? She didn’t call your parents?”
My blood burned.I wanted to call my brother, I thought.I wanted to call my best friend, the person I can always count on for help.
I doubted I wouldeversay that about Katie.
Whatever Austin said was hushed, definitely drowned out by him pressing his phone against his chest.
And then, a beat later, Katie’s voice came over the line: “Where exactly are you?”
“Wawa,” I answered. “I didn’t know where to go after leaving the party, but I knew Wawa would be open—”
“Okay,” she cut me off. “Here’s Austin.”
“Do you have your pepper spray?” he asked.
“No,” I said, goose bumps creeping up my arms. “I dropped it at the party.” My voice quavered. “I, um,usedit at the party—”
“What?!” Austin and Katie both shouted.
I was, it appeared, on speakerphone.
“I was dancing with this guy,” I explained. “It was fun at first…” I remembered how good Derek’s hands felt on me, how his warm breath tickled the tip of my ear. My body was humming, a sensation that made it easy to ignore his slurred words or running his hands over places I didn’t quite want them. “But then things took a turn when he told me he hoped I’d be his number three.”
“Hedidn’t,” Austin ground out as Katie said, “What does that mean?”
“Three girls in one night.” I couldn’t help but blubber again. “You kiss one, kiss another, and then take the thirdhome.”
“Ah,” was Katie’s only comment.
“And then,” I told Austin, “I stopped dancing, and he asked what was wrong, so I said I didn’t want to go home with him. He tried to kiss me, and I pushed him away, but he followed me off the dance floor and wouldn’t leave me alone. Shelly and the othergirls were nowhere. He offered to walk me back to the dorm, but once he put his hands on me again… I sprayed him when he tried to stop me on the stairs.” I reached up to rub my eyes. “Then I made a run for it.”
