Put Me Back Together(43)

He yanked hard on my arms, pulling me even closer. My thighs pressed into the side of the armchair as he brought his ear closer to my lips. “What was that, honey?” he said. “Did you say, ‘I’m sorry, Buck?’”

I swallowed hard as he tugged on my arms again and the whistling in my ears reached a fever pitch. All of a sudden I wasn’t at a party anymore. I was in the woods, with the cold seeping through my clothes and another boy was tugging on my hands and telling me to hurry it up.

“You heard him, Katie Kat. You’d better hurry now. If I get there first who knows what might happen.”

“Let me go!” I screamed directly into Buck’s ear, and to my surprise he did let go of my hands and I fell backwards, landing hard on my ass, my hair falling over my face.

Only when I looked up again did I realize he hadn’t let go of me of his own volition.

Behind the armchair, which must have fallen over during the scuffle, Lucas had Buck trapped on the ground, his forearm jammed under his chin, and his fist raised in the air, ready to smash his face in.

I scrambled over to his side. The room was alive with noise as Buck’s friends yelled at Lucas to let him go—though I noticed nobody made a move to help him. Buck’s bulldog face was an angry shade of red as he strained against Lucas’s arm.

“Let go of him, Lucas,” I said calmly.

Breathing hard, his eyes glued to Buck’s, Lucas didn’t look like he had any intention of letting go. His face was screwed up in a look of intense revulsion I’d never seen on him before.

“Not a chance,” he said gruffly.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Look at me. I’m totally fine. You can let go.”


“See?” Buck choked. “She forgives me. She wants you to let me go.”

“Shut up!” Lucas growled.

Without loosening his grip, Lucas turned his head to look at me. When his eyes met mine they were blazing with fury, but they gradually cooled and I saw the tension in his arm begin to ease.

“That’s right,” I said, nodding. “It’s okay. I’m fine. You can let him go.”

Releasing Buck from his grasp, Lucas sat back on his haunches, massaging his hands. I saw the muscles in Lucas’s jaw flexing as Buck sat up and looked at us both. “Are you guys crazy, or what?” he said.

That was when I punched him in the face.





11





I ran. I ran out of the room, past all the gaping faces, through the living room and right out the front door. I ran down the driveway and onto the sidewalk, and that was when I really picked up speed. The cold air pouring into my lungs felt amazing, like ingesting a gallon of ice cream in one go after spending a sweltering day in the sun. I gulped it down as I ran, my thighs burning, my whole body working in a way it wasn’t used to, though I was finding that I kind of liked it. Car horns honked behind me, but I ignored them. It was such a glorious thing just to run, and run and run and run, and never think of what I was running away from.

“Katie!”

I reached an intersection I didn’t recognize, but that didn’t slow me down. I turned right and kept on running. The honking was louder now and continual, like music to accompany the pounding of my feet on the frozen pavement. Wind blasted my skin, freezing my cheeks and making my eyes water. I tipped my head up and watched the streetlights as I passed under them. I started counting them. Seven lights to the next intersection, and then ten after that. I wondered if I could reach the end of the street. Could I run that far? Could I run all the way through town? I didn’t know. But I knew I wanted to try.

“Katie!”

I had run like this only once before in my life. I remembered now that it had been just like this, running without thought, a weightless, mindless moment. But different, too, because my head had been bleeding and I couldn’t stop crying, my mouth hanging open and a strange bawling sound coming out of it as I had run along the tracks. I’d fallen several times because I’d kept getting dizzy. And they wouldn’t let me run as far as I’d wanted to. They’d stopped me. But I could have kept running. If they’d let me I would have.

I would have run forever.

“Katie, stop!”

Lucas pulled me out of the road, gripping my body with both his arms, holding me from behind. I wanted to keep running, but he was holding me too tightly. At first I struggled against him even as he held me back, murmuring into my hair, but within a few moments I went limp. My legs were burning anyway, and my eyesight was blurring. I stared at him blankly as he put my jacket on me, helping my arms through the holes and zipping it up the front. I was surprised. I’d thought I was already wearing it.

When he was done Lucas bent over, placing his hands on his knees, panting hard. “Where did you think you were going?” he asked.

Looking around at the unfamiliar houses on the road, I shrugged. “I was just running,” I said.

“Down the middle of the street?” he asked.

Not wanting to give away the fact that I had no idea I’d been running down the middle of the street, I shrugged again. “Which way is my apartment?” I asked.

Pulling on his own coat, which he’d been holding under his arm, Lucas gave me an exhausted look before pointing back the way we’d come.

I put my hood up against the bracing cold and walked past him without looking at him.