I can feel my cheek burning where he hit me and the blood from the gash is running into my eye and I’m trying to focus because I’m afraid at any moment I’m going to leave this room and be back in the trees, with dirt and blood in my mouth. And then I’ll lose all control. I’ll stop fighting completely. Kevin Leonard will be able to do whatever he wants, and I’ll let him because I won’t even be here anymore.
The focusing is almost impossible when my brain is split between staying awake in this room and trying to fight him off. He’s over me, pinning my arms and legs to the floor and pushing his mouth on me again. He has every one of my limbs is immobilized. I can’t even shift. I lean into him to give me just enough leeway to tilt my head back and head-butt him because that’s the only option I really have. I’m aiming for the bridge of his nose but my position is off and my forehead cracks against his instead. It’s a mistake but he’s so drunk that it’s enough. My head is screaming at me from the impact as his sweaty body falls on top of mine, crushing me with the weight of every bad decision I’ve made over the past three years.
“Dude! Forget it.” There’s saliva running down the side of his mouth.
The fight has gone out of him and I think it finally hits him, in his drunken stupor, what’s going on, because he looks at me like he’s just now seeing me bleeding from the head on the floor in this room with him. He leans back and I haven’t even had a moment to turn my body and free myself when the door abruptly opens and I’m looking up from the floor, underneath Kevin Leonard’s body, at Drew Leighton’s face.
“What the f**k, Leighton?” Kevin spits out. There’s more embarrassment than venom in it, but I’m not excusing him any more than I’m excusing myself. He’s still struggling to push himself off of me and I use the distraction to twist my hip and get the rest of the way free.
For a minute, or maybe just a second, Drew is frozen. There are so many emotions on his face that I can’t sort them all now. Confusion, disgust, anger, guilt, fear, horror. I wonder how bad my face is to make his look like that.
Kevin is barely standing now and I’m dizzily getting to my feet, my head still reeling from smashing into his. Before I even register what’s happening, Drew’s fist is in Kevin’s face and he’s down again. I look at Drew and he’s shaking. There is something so wrong with the sight of Drew Leighton hitting someone. Drew Leighton is supposed to be sunny and irreverent and free of every care in the world. There isn’t even a glimmer of violence in him. I wish he hadn’t done it. I wish he hadn’t seen this, because as crazy as I know it sounds, I feel like he’s just lost his innocence.
Drew is standing in front of me, knuckles bleeding, with a look of such sheer despondence that I feel like I should comfort him. But I can’t. Now that this is over, my adrenaline is starting to drop and I want to get away from here, because I smell like Kevin Leonard and I’m starting to shake, too.
I lean against the wall to steady myself. Drew curses under his breath, pulling his sleeve over his wrist and trying to wipe the blood away from my eye. “Can you walk?” he whispers.
My look tells him I can and that I don’t appreciate the question. I don’t say anything. We turn toward the door and I realize that my underwear is still at my ankles. I stop and just stand there, looking down at them. Drew turns to find out why I’ve stopped, his eyes following mine to my feet, and all of his muscles tense when he sees why I’m not coming. He stifles another curse as I bend over to pull them up because I can’t look at his face right now.
“Stay behind me, okay?” His words are strained and he sounds like he’s in pain. He takes my hand so tightly, I think he might crush it and pulls me behind him so I’m blocked from view. I catch Tierney Lowell watching in the hall before I turn away. I drag my hair down around my face and lean into Drew’s back like I’m wasted, just until we can get through everybody and out the door. And maybe wasted is exactly what I am.
My face is bleeding and swollen but I don’t even care. For the first time in forever, I make a choice not to shit all over my life and I can’t even like myself for it because I made it five minutes too late.
At least no one can tell me it was random.
***
“Are you okay?” Drew waits until we’ve gotten in his car and driven away from the house to ask. I’ve hated that question for years.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Your hand.” My eyes go to his split knuckles which are straining even more with his iron grip on the steering wheel.
“I don’t give a shit about my hand,” he bites out at me and I instinctively recoil because I’ve never heard him raise his voice. “Sorry. I’m sorry.” He pulls into the parking lot of a convenience store and parks the car. This whole situation is f**ked up and he says so at least three or four times.
“What happened?” He sounds like he doesn’t really want the answer.
“Just a stupid situation that got out of hand.”
“You think?” His tone is sharp.
“Are you pissed at me?” I ask.
“No, I’m pissed at me.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s my fault you were in that room in the first place. I finally bothered to look at my phone and got your text. I thought I’d find you sitting up there and waiting, not on the floor with Kevin Leonard on top of you.” He takes a breath and lets it out watching the lighted R on the store sign flicker in and out. “Josh is going to kill me.”
“Josh isn’t going to care.”
“You know that isn’t true, so don’t say it. I don’t have it in me to argue with you about it tonight.” There is so much weight in his voice that I feel it physically pressing on me.
“If you knew what I did to Josh, you would hate me, too. He won’t care and I won’t blame him for not caring.”
“You’re right. I don’t know what you did to Josh. I have no idea what went on there because neither of you will tell me. I do know that whatever it was will not be enough to stop him from giving a shit about someone hurting you.”
I flip down the visor and check the bruise on my face and the cut on my eye in the mirror. It’s really not so bad, but my cheek and my forehead are already starting to swell and I know it’ll all look worse tomorrow.
“His pants were still on.” He’s tracing the logo on the steering wheel now.