How to Fail at Flirting(78)

“You think you can fight me? That girl in the picture, the girl who needed to be told what to do, that’s the real you.”

I shook my head, finding no voice. I started to retreat into myself as I had all those years ago, to fold into the smallest possible space where I could block out what he was doing.

I remembered Felicia and Aaron saying, We’d love to see the volume go back up.

Wes’s words from my self-defense class filled my head. If you can’t do anything else, use your voice.

Then there were Jake’s words. I love you.

I wasn’t the same person I’d been three years ago. I’d rediscovered my own strength, and I deserved better than this. I don’t have to fold. I can fight and I can save myself.

I screamed as loud as I could in his ear, and he clamped a hand over my mouth. Fighting my instinct to pull his hand away, instead I wriggled an arm free and jammed the heel of my palm up into his nose like Wes had taught me. The crunch was satisfying, and he grabbed for his face as blood gushed down his chin. Before he could retaliate, I kneed him in the groin with all the strength I could muster and shoved him away from me.

My breath came fast, and a primal rage coursed through me. I knew I should run, but I wanted to go on the offensive, to kick him or punch him again. In that split second of indecision, he grabbed me, his hand viselike around my wrist. He was unhinged, his face contorted in a gruesome snarl, blood running from his nose. “I would have been nice, but you had to push. You always had to fucking push.”

My heartbeat thudded in my ears, but Felicia and I had practiced—we’d done the move over and over again in class and out, so clamping down on his hand and twisting until his extended arm was behind his back and under my control was natural. Forcing him to his knees in front of me was almost instinct. My mind whirred at conflicting and crashing thoughts—how much I loved feeling strong, how much I hated being even remotely like him, how he’d hurt me for so long, and what he’d wanted to do to me in that clearing. “You’re damn right, I fucking push.” I sucked in another shallow breath, applying more pressure as he tried to shift away. “I push back now, and you don’t ever get to push me again.”

“We heard screaming—what’s going on here?” Jake’s partner, Carlton, ran up the path flanked by Jill and Davis’s friend, Doug. They stared at me wide-eyed, three mouths agape, and after a moment, I released my hold and Davis scurried from me.

“What the hell happened?” Carlton stepped between us.

Davis held up his bloody hands, palms out. “She’s crazy,” he exclaimed. “She just went nuts and attacked me.”

Still standing in place, the three looked between us, but all I could do was shake my head. I couldn’t get enough breath, and my pulse thrummed, but I stuttered, “He attacked me.”

Davis again gestured to his face. “Doug, you know me, man. I’d never do that. She’s lying.”

Jill continued to look at me, worry and something else etched on her face. Empathy? Judgment? She stepped nearer to me, asking if I was okay, but I could only shake my head. The power that had been surging through me dissipated, and my hands began to tremble, my legs feeling wobbly. The full impact of what he could have done, what he wanted to do, hit me, and tears sprang into my eyes.

She looked from me to Davis, her shoulders squaring. “She’s not lying,” she said to the other two men. “He would . . .” Jill glanced at Davis again. “She’s not lying.”

Doug and Carlton exchanged a look, and Carlton talked hurriedly into a phone.

My heart thundered, sweat ran down my back, and I was numb, as if I were outside of my body. I pulled at my shirt, trying desperately to put it back in place. Smears of his blood ran down the front, and a button was missing. They all stared at me.

Three more people rushed into the clearing, and everyone was talking at the same time. I shook, unable to still my hands. This isn’t really happening. The sting of my cheek from his slap and the scrapes along the backs of my arms from the tree couldn’t be explained away. He hit me. He was going to . . . Tears pricked behind my eyes, and my breathing was fast, too fast. The ghost of his touch on my body turned my stomach, and my head spun.

People were talking in hushed tones all at once, and the sound was overwhelming, a dissonant clatter in the stillness of the woods. It was blocked out when two solid arms circled me.

I took a gulping breath, inhaling as deeply as I could.

Sandalwood.

Jake’s familiar voice was thick with emotion as he spoke close to my ear, cutting through the chaos. “Are you hurt? What happened? Did he . . .”

“No, I—” I tried to take a breath, but instead I sobbed, unable to finish the sentence. He pulled me tighter against his chest, his chin on my head. Everything seemed to come out at once in a steady stream of tears—the fear of Davis hurting me, of losing everything I’d worked for, of losing Jake. Also, the knowledge that I’d fought back, finally, after all the years of hiding. I’d fought.

“They’re all going to know about us.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice rough. He ran his hand over the back of my head, stroking my hair. “You’re safe.”

“Really, guys. This is not what you think. Doug, c’mon . . . you know me. She was into it and then just went off.” Davis’s voice crawled up my spine, and I shuddered.