Sacred (15 page)

I nodded, a little bit miserable.

“Of course, if Will Cohen shows up, I suppose I could save Connell for another time,” she mused.

I narrowed my eyes. “No way,” I said.

“Off-limits?”

I considered. Who was I to stake a claim on Will? I mean, he wasn’t my boyfriend—Andy Turlington was. Still, I wasn’t about to loose Lily on him, even if I had suggested at the library that I could fix them up. I remembered the blaze of his eyes and made my decision.

“Off-limits,” I said firmly.

Lily shrugged. “A shame, but friends first. If you want to keep him on the back burner, that’s cool.”

It wasn’t that I wanted to keep Will on the back burner, exactly. It was just that I couldn’t stand the thought of another girl’s hands around his neck, another girl’s lips on his.

“Off-limits.”

The house was full of our classmates. Most of the girls had hearkened back to the grand Halloween tradition of grossly underdressing for the weather. Thin scraps of fabric clung to their bodies almost as if to spite gravity, and several tottered on high heels, though none as fabulously as Lily.

The boys didn’t grow up quite as quickly as girls; several besides Connell were dressed as superheroes, some even as the same superheroes I’d seen earlier in miniature. I counted two Spider-Men and a Superman. No SpongeBobs, though.

Almost everyone was holding a red plastic cup full of social lubricant, and a few of the bravest kids were dancing, even though the evening was young and they couldn’t be drunk yet.

“There’s my girl!” shouted Andy. Dressed as a pro baseball player, he wore a red-and-white jersey, tight white pants, tall socks, white shoes. He slung his arm over my shoulder and the liquid in his red cup sloshed messily, threatening to splash me.

“Hey, hey,” I protested.

“Sorry, baby,” he said, taking a step back. “You want a drink?”

Under normal circumstances, I’d say no. I’d always said no before. Alcohol was not my drug of choice. My drug of choice was racing along a wide, empty trail, wind whipping my hair, Delilah’s hooves drumming out a rhythm I loved.

But Delilah wasn’t here. As I looked up at Andy to see the anticipation burning in his eyes, I thought that maybe I could use a drink.

So I nodded. Andy practically ran to the keg.

The beer tasted bitter, a poor substitute for the Halloween candy of my lost childhood. But I drank it anyway, trying to stop myself from counting up the calories in the cup.

“Can I have another?” I asked, thrusting the cup in Andy’s direction.

“Take it easy, Scar.” He laughed. “You can’t weigh more than a buck ten. You don’t want to get wasted, do you?”

I didn’t answer. Maybe that was exactly what I wanted.

Andy shrugged and turned to refill my cup. Lily was gone, dancing unabashedly out in the middle of the living room floor, although not entirely to the beat of the song. All the furniture had been pushed up against the walls to clear some
space for dancing, but most of the people at the party were pushed up against the walls as well.

I began to feel warmer, looser. I felt my knees beginning to move with the rhythm, my hips swaying. Andy returned and placed my cup back in my hand. It wasn’t as heavy this time; some clear liquid filled it only about an eighth of the way up.

I looked at Andy quizzically.

“Vodka,” he said.

Did it matter, really, beer or vodka? I didn’t know enough about drinking to have an educated answer, so I shrugged and tasted it.

It wasn’t bitter like the beer had been, though it burned my throat and sent a wave of fire across my chest, down into my belly.

But the music didn’t seem too loud anymore; it seemed just right. In fact, I felt like dancing. I took Andy by the hand and led him out onto the floor. When I turned to face him, he looked a little embarrassed, and I realized that even though we’d been dating—on and off—for most of a year, we’d never really
danced
, except for that awkward rocking of compulsory slow songs at school shindigs.

It occurred to me that I should feel nervous—but I didn’t. I felt weightless and sexy, and completely, utterly fabulous.

The song flowed through me like blood, and beat in me like a pulse. I pushed against Andy, smiling, and he smiled too, and thrust his hips in my direction. I threw my head back and laughed out loud.

The room was spinning, or I was spinning, or maybe
everything was spinning. I didn’t care. I let Andy pull me close, and we moved together.

His head lowered to my ear and he whispered, “You look sexy as hell, Scarlett. I’d want to do it with you even if you really
were
an alien.”

I shivered a little, and took another sip of my drink.

The party was still going strong when Andy pulled me from the makeshift dance floor and nudged me toward the staircase, up toward his room.

“But all the people,” I murmured.

“Connell will take care of it,” he answered, steadying me on my feet as I stumbled slightly.

His room was decorated with pendants from various baseball teams. Above his bed hung a poster pulled from a
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit edition. It was of a girl, probably no older than I was, standing under a waterfall, pushing her hair back from her face, her mouth open in something simulating pleasure.

Andy guided me to the bed and gently pushed me back onto it. My heart thudded wildly, and as I lay there, the room suddenly seemed to be spinning too fast, out of control, no longer fun.

The weight of Andy on top of me felt too much to bear—as if I was being smothered. His mouth crushed mine, and his hands roamed my body, finding my breasts through the Lycra costume and squeezing them almost painfully.

He thrust against me, and I was afraid suddenly of the rough push of him, and my hands scrambled against his shirtfront.

He must have taken my anxiety for pleasure, he must have thought my fingers were trying to unfasten the buttons of his jersey, because he lifted off of me and pulled off his shirt, tossing it near the closed bedroom door.

“Scarlett,” he murmured, “we’ve waited a long time for this.”

“I don’t know—” I started to say “I don’t know if I really want to do this,” but Andy’s mouth crashed down on mine again, almost as if he didn’t want to give me a chance to stop him. This time, his hands pushed downward, and as one of them snaked between my legs, I clenched my thighs together, suddenly sure that I was in the wrong place, wanting nothing more than to be at home, in my own bed, alone.

Andy’s hands were stronger than my thighs, and with something that sounded like a laugh, only angrier, he pried them apart and wedged himself between them.

“This sure is a hell of a costume you chose, Scar,” he mumbled as his hands worked to pull the unitard down off my shoulders. He yanked roughly, and I heard the neckline beginning to tear.

“Wait, Andy, I don’t think—”

He interrupted me again. “Don’t think, Scar, just feel.” His words were garbled, tainted by beer and testosterone, and I felt again as I had felt in my dream, impossibly weighed down and lost, my sense of direction distorted, beginning to suffocate, out of breath, out of time.

The door banged open. Suddenly the music from downstairs seemed louder, even more confusing, without the wooden door muffling it.

Andy lifted his head and swore roughly, turning to see
who had entered. Before he had a chance to swivel all the way around, hands yanked him up and threw him from my body.

The room was spinning again, the music was insanely loud, my heartbeat was wild. Then my eyes found Will’s, and my face split into a wide smile. Will smiled back before he turned to Andy, who was rushing at him, his face full of fury.

“You’re dead, Cohen,” he spat, his arm pulled back to punch Will’s face. Will ducked neatly to the side. Andy, who hadn’t expected to miss, stumbled forward with the weight of his swing, and Will stuck his leg out and tripped him.

Andy got up twice as mad and swung again. Will’s face was angry too, but not in the same rage-filled, thwarted way as Andy’s. Will’s face was in the same moment both furious and calm. His beautiful mouth was set in a line, and his eyes tracked Andy’s attack like a predator’s. This time, when Andy swung, Will caught his hand and twisted it, hard, to the left. I heard a sickening crunch, and Andy fell to the floor, making a sound like an animal caught in a bear trap.

Still, he stumbled to his feet again, cradling his injured hand and preparing to hit with the other. Will clenched his hand into a fist and, with a jab almost too fast to follow, he knocked Andy hard in the gut.

Andy made a sound like “oof,” something I didn’t know people did in real life, and this time, he stayed down, his body curved inward like a fetus, and he rocked a little from side to side, groaning.

Will stepped over him and came to me on the bed. He reached his hand down to me. I took it; it was warm.

“Are you all right?”

I nodded, still feeling spinny and sick, and he pulled me gently to my feet. His arm wrapped around my waist to stabilize me, and together we stepped around Andy’s writhing body, and we went down the stairs, and the crowd of dancing bodies parted as we passed.

The sky broke open at last, and the rain washed down on us as we went out, together, into the night.

NINE

N
ow that the rain had finally come, it seemed torrential. Will threw his jacket across my shoulders and wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me against his side. I felt the world vibrating and spinning around me and wondered if we were having an earthquake, but it was all inside my own body; I was shivering terribly, and I was drunk.

Clouds blackened out any stars that might have lit the sky, and the moon was a sliver as sharp as a fragment of broken mirror. Will ushered me silently through the streets toward my house.

I wondered at how empty all the streets were; it seemed not so long ago that they’d been cluttered with eager children and watchful parents. Most of the windows of the houses were blackened too.

And then there was my house, porch light still on, and
I whimpered a little. Will’s hand clutched my waist more tightly as he guided me up the steps and through the door.

Inside, though, the warm promise of the porch light felt unfulfilled. No one was waiting for me; why should they be? My parents thought I’d be spending the night at Lily’s. I’d told them I’d be back home in time for Alice to pick me up on her way to the stable. The great room to the left of the front door, where guests nibbled cheese and crackers during high season, felt as hollow as a cave, and the long staircase toward the second floor and our upstairs quarters yawned at me like a tongue.

Will walked me toward the stairs and guided my hand to the banister. “You’ll be okay now,” he said, not a question. He looked at me for a long moment before turning to leave.

“Wait!” My free hand reached out to stop him, and my own sudden movement threw me off balance. “Don’t go.”

Will turned back around. He seemed to be considering his next move very, very carefully. There was something in his expression that unsettled me; he looked too wise, too old by far to be just a year my senior. But then his face softened into a smile, and I let go the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

“I’m not going far,” he confessed. “Just to my room at the end of the hall. Your dad checked me in a few hours ago.”

Of course. Why else would Will be on this side of the island late at night? I remembered what my father had said about Will maybe using one of our guest rooms now and again.

“I guess it’s lucky for me you decided to come to that party, huh?”

Will’s face twisted, as if remembering something unpleasant. “Luck had nothing to do with it, Scarlett. Why don’t you go upstairs and dry off? I’ll still be here in the morning.” Then he touched my hand on the banister, gently, almost shyly, before disappearing down the hall.

I wanted to follow him. But a violent wave of sickness washed through me, and I rushed as quickly as I could up the two flights of stairs, stumbling into the bathroom. I managed to close and lock the door before the nausea overtook me, and then I collapsed alongside the toilet, retching as quietly as I could manage.

I threw up twice, and then felt better. Still dizzy, but with that familiar sense of hollowness I’d come to depend on. Weakly, I crossed over to the sink and turned on the water to rinse out my mouth.

My reflection in the medicine cabinet’s mirrored door was startling. The rain had washed away streaks of my green face paint, leaving me with a bizarre, marbled appearance. My bobbing antennas were gone, probably abandoned on the floor of Andy’s bedroom, and my tall green buns leaned wildly to one side.

I pulled off Will’s jacket and saw that the neckline of my green unitard was ripped across my right shoulder, exposing my collarbone. The torn fabric hung down in a limp flap.

I remembered how it had come to be that way, and my knees trembled badly. Carefully, I lowered myself to the edge of the white tub and balanced there, lowering my face into
my hands. Thoughts—lots of them—threatened to overtake me, but I determinedly put them away and twisted the knobs of the bath. While the water heated up, I pulled the bands out of my hair and stripped off the gold sneakers, my socks, and the shredded unitard, which I thrust into the trash can. Then I turned the bypass knob so that the water rained down from the showerhead and I climbed gratefully beneath it.