Life of the Party (22 page)

Reluctantly he
let me leave, but I could still feel his eyes following me. I
ambled away from the party and down the little gravel road, the
warm wind blowing softly in the poplars above me, the path lit
dimly by a tall, failing yard light somewhere in the middle of the
campground. Drunkenly I stumbled towards the entrance, giggling
every time I tripped over myself. I was happy to be alone for a
moment. I really needed to clear my head.

At the front
gate to the park I found an old pickup truck parked haphazardly on
the grass right beside the turn off. Clumsily, I climbed up onto
the tailgate in perfect view of the road to wait for Charlie. I
kicked my feet and lit a cigarette and tried not to think of
Grey.

Of course it
was no use. I blew my smoke into the calm night air—it was cooler
away from the fire, but I didn’t mind it. Try as I might, I
couldn’t figure Grey out. He was unpredictable, volatile at times …
but when he was being sweet … we were so good together. Maybe
that’s what hurt the most, knowing what we could’ve had.

I sighed. As
drunk as I was, I still wanted to get wasted. And then I
remembered, with a quick surge of excitement, that Charlie had
packed me something sure to get the job done. It was perfect; I was
alone so I seized the opportunity, digging through my purse until
Charlie’s cool silver vial was in my hand. Quickly I did one
nostril, and then the other. The relief was almost immediate, and I
smiled, thanking Charlie again in my head. I did another, and then
another, until even my nerve endings felt like they were trembling.
I lifted the scoop to do just one more snort, and mid-inhale, Brad
was suddenly standing before me.

He swayed
unsteadily, but his amber eyes were wide with surprise, as if
cocaine was just some myth and legend he had never expected to come
into contact with.

“Are you doing
cocaine?” He chuckled in disbelief.

“No.” I lied. I
don’t know why I lied, it was so obvious. I tucked the vial back
into my purse and wiped at my nose. Suddenly I was high—like really
high. I felt antsy, full of pent-up energy.

“Wow. You
really are a bad-ass, aren’t you?” Brad was asking.

“I don’t know
about that.” I smiled shakily. “I just like to have fun.”

Brad shook his
head. “I didn’t believe them … but they were right.”

“Who was?”

“My friends. At
the restaurant. They said you were bad, but I didn’t believe them.
You’re way too … sweet looking.”

“Well my
friend, I guess looks can be deceiving.”

“Yeah, I
guess.” He shrugged. “But … if they were right about that … maybe
they were right about the other thing too.”

“I think your
friends gossip too much.” I laughed. “Why? What else did they
say?”

Brad shrugged
again, taking a step towards me so that he was standing in between
my legs. With a grin, he rested his hands on my knees.

“They said that
you were easy.” His voice was low now, amused. “They said you were
a sure thing.”

“They said …
what?” The smile faded slowly from my face. And then, suddenly, all
of it made sense. Brad’s unexpected interest in me, the real reason
for his sudden attraction even despite all our obvious differences.
He didn’t really like me; he didn’t want to be my friend. He just
wanted to get laid.

It stung. I
blinked at him stupidly a moment, trying to recover from this
shock. All night I’d been revelling in the thought of a new friend,
and the whole time he’d just seen me as a means to an end. It was
harsh, a brutal realization.

I crossed my
arms. “Sorry to disappoint you.” I glared.

“Don’t be.” He
smiled wickedly. “You won’t.”

Then, suddenly,
so quickly that I couldn’t move to stop him, Brad grabbed me by the
shoulders and tried to grasp me in a kiss. I struggled for a moment
to get a grip, and then, either because I was coke-strong and angry
or maybe just because he was so drunk, I pushed him off me, hard.
Brad staggered backwards and fell in an unruly heap upon the
ground. I slid quickly off the tailgate and ran as fast as I could
for the approach way. I’d go all the way down the road until I
found Charlie, if I had to.

I saw
headlights approaching, but they were faint and off in the
distance. I prayed they were from Charlie’s car. Brad was tough,
and drunk or no, I knew it wouldn’t take him long to recuperate and
come looking for me. I hoped my rejection had been enough to turn
him off for good, but somehow, with a thrill of terror, I knew that
wouldn’t be the case.

It wasn’t. Even
as I ran away Brad caught up, silently, in a full run, and tackled
me to the earth. It happened so quickly and unexpectedly that I
hadn’t even time to prepare myself. The full weight of him hit me
running; his two-hundred pound body slammed my little frame down
onto the grass. My head hit the hard, cold ground with a sickening
thump, his weight crushed me.

I was aware of
an odd, high pitched ringing sound as my vision slowly restored,
the edges of my sight crackling white until the disruption faded,
dissolving into a black sky of night that stretched above me,
dotted with bright stars. My breath was harsh, gasping loud in my
ears as I struggled for consciousness.

There was
weight on me. I felt I couldn’t breathe. Somewhere in the dim
corners of my mind I could hear the jangling of my belt as it was
ripped open. The noise shook me, and I realized sluggishly what was
happening, what was about to happen if I couldn’t stop Brad. I
could feel his hot, sticky, thick hands on my skin. Weakly I lifted
my arms, but there was no strength in me, the blow when he knocked
me down had robbed me of any might. Feebly I tried to stop him from
undoing my jeans.

There was
another noise then, new and totally foreign, but near. The sound of
car tires crunching on gravel, the sudden absence of engine noise
as the vehicle was put in park and the motor cut off. Charlie.
Charlie was there, she had come to pick me up. Charlie could help
me.

“Shhh.” Brad
stopped suddenly, as aware of the car as I was. He pressed his
heavy hand over my mouth, I breathed desperately through my nose.
In the dim flicker of the yard light Brad’s face looked eerie,
crazy. He was breathing fast.

“Is this
it?”

“It has to be
it. Look at all the cars.”

“But do you see
her? She said she’d be at the entrance. Mackenzie?” I could hear
Charlie’s voice calling to me. Her shoes stepped onto the road.
“Mac?”

I wanted to
answer her. I needed to answer her. I tried to shriek as best I
could with Brad’s hand over my mouth. The noise was a muffled,
strangled cry.

“Shhhh.” Brad
warned, pressing harder. Black spots danced before my eyes.

“I don’t see
her.” Another voice, distinctly male. It was Zack. “Maybe she’s
over at the fire.”

“Maybe.”
Charlie’s voice sounded doubtful. “But she said she’d be here.”

“She’s probably
totally wasted by now, maybe she just forgot. Come on, let’s go
check it out.”

I could hear
their shoes passing by on the gravel and knew this would be my last
chance. They’d be too late to help me on their way back. I fought
then, I had no strength but I fought. I squirmed and writhed and
tried desperately for any way to free any part of me from Brad’s
deathly heavy grip. I screamed into his palm, I tried to bite his
flesh. Somehow I managed to wind my hand up between his arms, to
find his face. My fingers searched the contours of his head, my
breath almost spent as they finally found what they were looking
for. Roughly I shoved my fingertips into his eye sockets and
pressed as hard as I could.

It worked. It
was just enough to make him instinctively protect his face, to
remove his hand from my mouth. I drew a hasty ragged breath and
screamed as loudly as I was able with the few seconds that I
had.

“What the
hell—”

“Did you hear
that?”

“What was
that?”

“Mackenzie!”
Charlie’s voice. I screamed again as Brad’s hand clamped back over
my mouth. His eyes were red as they glared crazily down at me. His
breath was hot and sour with beer. He grasped a handful of my hair
and yanked my head back unmercifully, tears sprang in my eyes and I
gasped in pain, my body slackening in submission.

“Shut up. Shut
up.” Brad demanded. Gone was the nice, funny, polite boy that had
invited me to this party. He had transformed into some drunken,
disgusting, lust-filled monster. Cautiously he looked up as the
footfalls broke into a run, coming back towards us. My sight was
dimming; I had no strength left at all to fight. I could only hope
they would find us in time ….

And then, the
crushing weight was lifted from me. My ribs ached as I sucked in a
full breath; my bones throbbed in relief. I lay on the ground,
completely stunned, gasping in breath after breath of the sweet
night air.

“Mackenzie!
Mackenzie!” I heard Charlie come running, she knelt down beside my
head once she found me on the ground. “Oh my God, are you okay? Are
you okay?”

“Yeah … I ….” I
couldn’t talk. I opened my mouth but no words would come.

“It’s okay,
just relax. Just breathe.” She did up my jeans and my belt, pulled
my sweater back down over my torso. Her touch was cool and soft,
gentle in comparison to Brad’s rough, sticky hands.

“Brad …?”

“It’s okay.
He’s being taken care of.” I could discern the hostility in
Charlie’s voice. In the distance I heard cursing, and moaning, and
the dull, bony crack of knuckles hitting flesh. I winced at the
noise.

“Can you sit
up?” Charlie wondered. Gently she put her arm beneath my neck and
gingerly tried to raise me up. I wanted to cooperate, but the
moment my position changed my poor head throbbed abominably. I
leaned upon her slight form and shut my eyes as waves of pain
racked over me.

“You’re okay
now. We’ll go home soon, okay?”

“Okay.” I
whispered. I don’t know how long we sat there as I wavered in and
out of consciousness, but Charlie’s voice suddenly loud in my ear
startled me into awareness.

“Oh, hey the
guys are back.” She informed me. Then, her voice rose as she spoke,
not to me, but to whoever was approaching. I heard their shoes
crunching on the gravel. “She’s okay. I think she hit her head
pretty hard. Thank God we got here when we did,” she told them. I
lifted my head slightly from her shoulder and looked up as far as I
could without straining. There were two sets of legs before us.

“Let me see.”
Zack bent before me. I could barely make out his face, but his nose
ring glinted slightly in the dim light. Gently he felt around my
face and my scalp. “It doesn’t seem too bad, but we need more light
to tell for sure. Can she get up?” He wondered.

“Can you get
up, sweetie?” Charlie put her arm around my back. I nodded weakly
and tried to find the strength to command my muscles. My arms gave
out as I pushed against the ground.

“I got her.” A
voice, gruff but unmistakable, found my ears. I almost couldn’t
believe them. Before I even had a chance to react, two strong arms
had wrapped around me, picking me up as if I weighed nothing, just
as they had with the pail of salad dressing. There was such comfort
in their strength. He pressed me close to his chest and I wrapped
my stiff arms around his neck and burrowed my face into him. Grey’s
warm, delicious masculine scent wafted over me, and tears of relief
flooded my eyes. My entire being shook. I could feel the trembling
contrast against his hard steadiness.

“Shhh …,” he
whispered, though I hadn’t made a noise. “Shhh ….”

And then we
were moving. He held me gingerly and closely, I could tell he was
trying extra hard not to jostle me at all. I shut my eyes and
listened to his heart beating against my ear. I was too shocked and
stunned to comprehend much but the feel of his strong, warm arms
around me and the sweet smell of his breath against my face.
Nothing else could have soothed me more.

I heard car
doors opening, and then Grey placed me gently upon the backseat of
Charlie’s car. He shut the door for me and then got in on the other
side. Charlie got in the drivers and Zack had shotgun. She switched
on the interior light and they turned back to look me over.

The bright,
blinding light made me squint, and my head protested at the sudden
bombardment to my senses. Charlie’s brow was furrowed with concern
as she gazed at me; Zack wore a slight frown on his face. Their
worry was touching, but there was only one expression that I wanted
to see. His countenance had been impossible to discern outside in
the darkness, and now I looked up at Grey with cautious wonder.

His blue eyes
searched my face with earnest, sweeping for injuries, his jaw
tensed and his mouth set in a grim line. My heart fluttered,
despite everything, at the anxiety I found reflected in his
handsome face. He did care about me. He had to.

“Her pupils
don’t seem dilated.” Zack decided. “But it’s early yet.”

“Maybe we
should get her to the hospital.” Charlie frowned doubtfully. “You
never know.”

“No.” I shook
my head. It took some effort to speak. “We can’t go to the
hospital. I’m okay, really. Nothing hurts but my head.”

“Don’t you
think we should, just in case?”

“I just did a
bunch of blow.”

“So?”

“Her mom’s a
doctor.” Grey explained for me. “She doesn’t want her to find
out.”

“Oh … well …
what should we do then?”

“Can I have a
smoke? Where’s my purse?” My hands were still trembling. I took a
breath and looked for my bag.

“Here.” Grey
handed me one and lit the end. I inhaled deeply, the smoke burning
down my raw throat. The cigarette shook in my unsteady fingers.
Grey cracked the window for me.

“Let’s go back
to your house, Charlie.” Zack suggested. “We can just watch her,
and if anything gets worse, then we’ll take her in.”