The Night Before(38)

“Scared of you? Why?”

“A few years before I…” Heart pounds. Wave of adrenaline. Fight-or-flight reaction surges in an instant. The human body in top form.

I can’t tell this story, but now I’ve started it. I go for a modification.

“… I used to tell on him when he was mean to us. I think I’m the reason he got sent away to military school.”

“Oh shit—he must have hated you.”

“I don’t care. He used to pick fights with everyone all the time—even his brother. One was pretty bad. I saw him fighting with Gabe by the fort and I started yelling that I would tell their mother. Rick threw one last punch then ran off. Told me to go fuck myself first, which was nice since I was only eleven.”

“And then a few years later you kissed him.”

I pretend that wasn’t really a question and move on.

“Okay,” I say with the most engaging smile I know how to make. “Your turn. First kiss?”

Jonathan Fielding starts to tell a sweet story about some crush he had in ninth grade. It’s a script from an after-school special. But my mind is reeling, so his words bounce away.

Rick Wallace. The bottle spins, starts to slow. I see it turn past Gabe and the nameless guy and I cannot believe what is in my heart. I hate Rick Wallace. I hate how he used to terrorize us. It slows more as it passes Noelle. I remember the look on his face when I hit him with that stick. When he felt the power of my rage.

It stops. It points to Rick Wallace. Gabe starts to get up, but there is no time for him to stop it. We move to the center of the circle. Rick grabs the back of my head and kisses me with more than his mouth. He kisses me with years of his own hatred. With fantasies of vengeance. I can feel it all in the heat of his breath. But then I feel something else—his body responding to my mouth. My breath. Telling the hatred it will have to wait.

That day when I was fourteen, I felt, for the very first time, the power of sexual desire. Until then, until that moment, I had been the girl who acted like a boy. Who had fists for hands. Who climbed trees that swung over our house and punched holes in walls and swore like a truck driver, horrible obscenities flying from my little pink lips. Shock and awe. I had an arsenal of weapons to use against anyone who dared be my enemy. To use against the enemy inside myself. The unrest. The longing.

But nothing as powerful as this one.

I left the fort. Left the woods. Left Rick Wallace. And I ran home as fast as my legs would carry me.

But I did not outrun it. That night I dreamed about Rick Wallace. About his mouth on my mouth and his hands on my body. I dreamed of his body releasing the hatred. The hatred relinquishing its power in the face of this greater force, this desire. And what was left in its place was the one thing I craved.

Love.

Jonathan Fielding’s voice has left the room. The story ended.

“That’s a nicer story than mine,” I say even though I haven’t heard one word of it. Still, it’s a pretty safe bet.

Silence. Longing stare.

“I want to kiss you,” Jonathan Fielding says.

I don’t say yes. I don’t say no.

He leans across the sofa. He only has one hand free because he’s holding his drink. It pushes against the drink in my hand and scotch spills on the black leather. He takes my glass in his other hand and he places our glasses on the bare floor.

With both hands now, he gently takes my head like it’s a baby bird and pulls me to him. He closes his eyes but mine stay open.

His breath touches my cheek. His mouth is on my mouth. His hands hold my face.

And it all rushes over me. A tidal wave. A mud slide.

I’ve been kissed a million times. I’ve been through it a million times. Still, it washes me away.

We move through the stages. I know them well. Lips pressed together. Soft, almost still. A breath taken and released. Heat. We come together again, this time lips part. A breath shared. A hand moves from my face to the back of my head. Fingers in my hair. Palm closing, taking hold of me. Desire pounding at the door as his tongue sweeps over mine. This gentle kiss growing furious with passion.

Love. Evasive love. Always running away. But now a kiss, full of promise.

I close my eyes and feel the surge of power, the intoxication. It’s so familiar.

I think of Rick Wallace, lying on the ground.

I think of Mitch Adler, lying on the ground.

Jonathan Fielding. What to do with this kiss? With the promises it makes? I don’t even know you. It’s too soon for promises.

I know I have no right.

But I hate you now for making them.





TWENTY-ONE


Rosie. Present Day. Saturday, 2 a.m. Branston, CT.

What would Laura do?

Rosie thought about the story as she drove home. The seduction. The brilliant seduction. The hours of talking, getting inside Sylvia Emmett’s head. He made her feel something for him just so he could viciously take it away. So he could make her hate herself more than she hated him.

Laura would have been a moth to a flame. Talking and talking. Interpreting his words in a way that satisfied some fantasy of him.

And then a kiss. That’s how it always began.

Why can’t you just leave it at that? See what happens. See if he’s worth it.

It was easy to give advice, stand on higher moral ground. And it was easy to judge. Laura and her wolves.