Page 6

“Oh . . .” Cory looks back at me, belated understanding dawning. “Sorry.”

I don’t respond, aware only that even though Duke backed me up, the distance between us just got wider at the mention of Davey Beet. I get up without saying anything, well aware that if I’m out here much longer somebody is going to get slapped. I’ve built a pyramid of beer cans beside my chair that topples over as I leave the fire ring, what was inside them now sloshing in my belly. At some point Jason and Kavita have disappeared, something that normally would’ve amused me, but right now I’m not finding much funny.

I unzip the tent that Duke and I have taken with us on too many trips to count, sometimes forgoing the canvas to have the stars look down on us. Tonight, I’m in it alone, the unnerving cluster of high-pitched laughter following me as I slip down to the ground, head cradled in my arms.

“What’s the story there, bro?” I hear Cory ask Duke. “Was she banging him?”

“Really? You’re going to ask her boyfriend that?” Meredith says, and I know she’s staring down Natalie when she says boyfriend.

The warm rush of affection I feel is quickly replaced by cold, like someone dropped an ice cube down my throat, when Duke says, “Naw, man. Nothing like that. She just fucking idolizes him.”

And then I hear him crush his beer can.

I don’t know if I pass out or what, but there’s a fair amount of drool on the side of my face when someone crashes beside me. I wipe it away, hoping I’m not too drunk to reclaim my boyfriend’s affections when I roll over to discover it’s Stephanie sprawled out beside me.

“Wrong tent,” I tell her, but she only groans in response.

“Hey.” I give her an elbow, and she slaps at my arm. The next poke gets zero response, so I know she’s out cold and there’s no point trying to move her. Besides, all the beer that was in my stomach has migrated south, and my bladder is on the verge of bursting.

I slip out of the tent, still drunk as hell but awake enough to zip it behind me so that Stephanie doesn’t freeze. It’s spring, and away from the fire the night air has a bite to it that she won’t welcome. If she can even feel it, that is.

A light breeze blows smoke in my eyes, the fire now down to embers and gray ashes, no one crouching near it for warmth any longer. I hear voices up toward the ridge, a mix of male and female, and assume that the others must have wandered there out from under the canopy to look at the stars.

More than once in my life I’ve wished that I were a boy, and every one of those times was when I had to take a piss outdoors. There’s no graceful way to go about it when you’re a girl. And right now I’m not at my most agile, so if I don’t want to smell like urine tomorrow I’m going to have to take everything below the waist off.

I start with my shoes, which apparently I passed out wearing, then strip off my socks. Having wet socks is the absolute worst, and if they’re soaked in your own piss that makes things about a thousand times more terrible. I’ve accidentally peed on my socks enough to know, and though Dad could help me with just about everything in life, that particular problem always left him baffled.

I’m far enough from the tents that I don’t think anyone is going to be able to hear me, so I strip down to my bare ass and crouch. Sure enough, I fall right over, enough beer still in my veins instead of my bladder to make me unsteady. I push myself back up and do what I came out here for, hoping I really did go far enough away that no one can hear because damn.

I’m zipping up my jeans when I hear something that’s not natural. Or, actually it is. It’s the most natural sound in the world, one you can’t hold back no matter how tight you close your throat, the guttural growl of physical pleasure leaking out so that the whole world knows you just had a good time.

I know that noise. And I know exactly who made it because I’m used to hearing it in my own ear, Duke’s body pressed tight to mine. I’m drunk enough that at first it’s a dead kind of feeling as I come up on them. Sticks snap under my feet, and I make no attempt to be quiet, since they didn’t either.

Duke is pulling his pants up over his ass, bare-chested, and Natalie’s shorts are still around her ankles as she sits up, pulling leaves out of her hair.

“What the fuck?” I say.

It’s a dumb-ass question. Nobody needs to tell me what was going on, and there aren’t any words to take it back or fix it. So Duke and I just stare at each other for a beat, Natalie still finger-combing her hair like it’s not her problem.

And I guess it isn’t, really. She’s not the person I want to punch, not the person who promised me good things and honest words. Not the person who told me we’d get out of here together, load his truck up and just go. That wasn’t her; that was him.

“Ashley,” Duke says, taking a step toward me.

It’s all those good things I’m thinking about when my fist flies. I’m pissed, yeah, but not at this last bad thing. It’s all the good stuff I was relying on that just got taken away from me that makes me do it.

I know how to throw a punch. I know where to hit and how hard, my knuckles caving in the bridge of his nose as easily as dry leaves under my boots in the fall. I knock him clean off his feet, the impact jolting up to my elbow as Natalie pulls up her shorts and gets the hell out of there.

Duke just stares up at me, dark blood dripping onto his chest in twin rivers, his hands cupped over his broken nose. He doesn’t yell though. Doesn’t argue or call me a crazy bitch or anything I’ve heard other guys do when their girl gets up in their face about something they totally deserve to be dressed down for. Duke doesn’t do those things, because he’s taken beatings for stuff in his life that weren’t his fault, letting his dad’s fists rain down on him for leaving the trash cans on the curb even though it was his little brother that did it.

This is on him, and he knows it. So he took his beating, and now he’s just sitting there waiting for the rest, maybe a kick to the ribs or a ball-crushing from the arch of my foot. But I don’t have it in me anymore. All the rage pulsed out in that one savage arc that left the smell of blood in the air, tinged with the scent of sex soaking into the forest floor. It’s him I smell around me, every bodily fluid he’s got filling my nose as he starts crying tears to match mine, both of us hitching big sobs that can’t be put back inside.

“Ash . . .” He reaches for me, slow, like I’m an animal in one of his live traps that might bite. And that’s just what I am and exactly where I’ll be if I stay here one more second, because I can’t look at this boy who I hurt in return for hurting me. I can’t hear my name on his lips without loving it, even though another girl’s mouth was just crushed underneath them.

If I stay, he’ll stand up and I’ll go to him, fitting my head into that spot under his chin where I fit so perfectly. And, yeah, I’ll get blood on my face if I do that right now, but he’ll forgive me and I’ll do the same for him and I won’t ever have the courage to walk away because he’s the only boy I ever had for my own.

So I do what any scared animal does. I run.

I have no idea which direction I’m pointed or how far I’m going. All that’s important right now is that I go fast, away from Duke and the smell of him and her. I’m still barefoot, because I never bothered putting my shoes back on after hearing that low hum of satisfaction. Sticks are breaking under my feet, a good sharp jab going into the arch and stealing my breath, but not enough to make me stop crashing through the brush and tearing like a crazy woman down a ridge and back up another one.