Life of the Party

by Christine Anderson

  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 stunne
d 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.”

  “Really?” Charlie eyed me worriedly. “We shouldn’t just take her in? They can’t tell that she did coke unless they do a pee or a blood test.”

  “Please, Charlie. I don’t want to go there.” I didn’t want to acknowledge what had happened, what had almost happened. I just wanted to put the whole unpleasant incident behind me. “They’ll make me go to the police.”

  “Are you sure Mac? If anything happens to you I’ll feel even more terrible.”

  “I’m sure. Honest. I’m fine.” I lied. My very bones seemed to ache in places and I felt weak all over. “I’ll be fine. Can we just forget about it, please?”

  “Forget about it? Mac, he could have hurt you! He almost—”

  “I know. I know.” I shook my head. “But he didn’t. I’m fine, really. It’s no big thing.”

  “You’re better off than he is, anyway.” Zack chuckled darkly. “By the time we finished with him.”

  “Is he very hurt?” I wondered. I grimaced and looked up at Grey.

  “He got what he deserved.” Grey admitted. He looked down at the backs of his hands, bruised from the fight; his knuckles were scraped and bleeding. He shrugged. “Don’t worry about that asshole.”

  I wasn’t worried. But I was … regretful. I couldn’t believe what had happened. The change that came over Brad had been … disturbing. I remembered the mad, eerie light in his eyes as he glowered over me, the aggression that drove his hands, his wet mouth hard upon my skin. I shuddered involuntarily.

  Grey noticed. Wordlessly he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and drew me near, pressing me close against his hard chest. I lay against him and fought off the tears that threatened to spill, tears of trauma and tears of relief. My throat ached. Charlie switched off the interior light and started the car. We pulled out of the parking lot and onto the highway.

  Grey’s hands rubbed my back soothingly, his fingers stroked though my hair. He didn’t let go of me once the entire trip.

  CHAPTER 22

  We were all a bit more subdued than normal. Zack and Charlie were at the counter island in the middle of her kitchen, playing a game of crib, dealing cards in between snorting lines. I was laying on the faded old couch in the living room, oblivious to the South Park episode playing on the TV; waiting for the joint I’d just smoked to help alleviate the fearsome pounding in my head. Grey was sitting in the easy chair not far from me, silent and pensive, his face tight as he stared at the television set.

  I blinked slowly, seeing nothing, thinking about boys. Were they all so cruel, so callous and mean? First Riley had totally abandoned me, his best friend, with seemingly no good explanation except the sudden desire to completely change his life and leave all the old behind. So he’d left me behind, and that had hurt me, deeply. Then Brad had tricked me, preying on my vulnerability and my desperation for a friend, leading me to believe he really liked me when all he wanted was to get some at the end of the night. He’d hurt me, he’d viciously attacked me, and though my bruises would heal on the outside, inside I’d always carry the scar of his betrayal.

  I shuddered at the thought. I couldn’t keep from remembering the images and sounds and feelings of Brad’s assault. I still smelt like campfire, and the smell reminded me sharply of the evening, of sitting by Brad and drinking and laughing and thinking about how much I liked him as a friend, how much fun we were having together.

  I shut my eyes drowsily, hoping for sleep, desperate to forget it all in the relative peace of my subconscious.

  “Mackenzie, Mackenzie, wake up,” Grey shook me on the shoulder lightly, but it still sent a throb of pain racing down my arm. I moaned and opened my eyes, looking directly into his face, rigid with concern as he crouched before me, hovering; his blue eyes avid with worry. “Try not to go to sleep, okay? For a little longer?”

  Ah, yes. And then there was Grey. Was it possible that he was the cruellest of all? How easily he’d made me love him, with his wit and his charm and his good looks and his talent. He’d trailed me along, making me believe I had a chance, making me delight in the connection I thought I’d found … the hope that we could be something together. But then he’d rejected me—brutally, and ignored me for weeks, like I truly was nothing to him. Now, the deep concern for me written in every worry line on his handsome face was the most confusing of all. The meanest thing he could have done after everything we’d been through was care. And the regret in his eyes, the anxiety in his features told me that he did, that he cared more for me than I could ever have imagined. How badly I wanted to believe it, to believe him. How badly I wanted to hope. But I couldn’t, I wouldn’t let myself. I’d only be setting myself up for more hurt.

  And my heart couldn’t handle much more.

  “I want to go home.” I whispered to him.

  Gently, Grey brushed the hair out of my face. “You do?”

  I nodded as gingerly as I could to try and spare my aches and pains. “Yes.”

  “I’ll get Charlie to give you a ride.”

  “No.” I protested. “I want to walk.”

  “I’ll go with you then.”

  “No, you don’t have—”

  “I’m coming with you.” He insisted. The look he gave me was stern. Resignedly, I nodded, and then painfully pulled myself up into a sitting position. His hands were warm and gentle as he helped me get to my feet.

  “I’m going to take Mackenzie home,” he announced to our friends.

  Charlie frowned. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Mac, I don’t know if you should sleep, after hitting your head so hard.”

  “Her pupils are fine,” Zack decided then, after a studied look into my eyes. “And it’s been a few hours already. If she had a concussion or something, we’d know it by now.”

  “How do you know all this stuff?” I wondered weakly, made a little uncomfortable by his penetrating gaze.

  Zack shrugged. “For a while the
re, I wanted to be a paramedic. Lucky for you, hey?” He grinned. “You should be fine, but if anything changes, like you can’t see or you’re dizzy and throwing up and stuff, don’t be an idiot. Go to the hospital.”

  “Thanks Zack.”

  Charlie gave me a hug then. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay? Are you really sure you’re fine?”

  I nodded gingerly. “Yeah. I just want to go and sleep.”

  “Okay.” She looked pleadingly over at Grey. “Take care of her, will you?”

  He nodded, and his words seemed to be weighted with meaning.

  “I will.”

  The air was still warm outside, but I couldn’t keep a shiver from running up my spine as we stepped onto the sidewalk. I wrapped my arms around myself and stared down at the ground, trying to seem oblivious—but painfully aware of the footsteps beside mine, the silent presence so close to my side. Grey and I walked quietly a few moments, listening to the wind in the trees, the sounds of our shoes on the cement. With every step the air seemed thicker with something … with nerves and frustration, with unspoken … impatience, almost.

  Finally, Grey cleared his throat. He seemed uncomfortable beside me, fidgety. His jaw tensed a few times, and he opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

  “I’m not very good at this.” He suddenly blurted, running a hand through his thick mess of dark hair.

  I didn’t say anything, only looked over and waited for him to continue.

  “I owe you an apology, Mackenzie. An explanation at the very least.”

  I nodded.

  “I … uh ….” He looked over at me. “… Does your head still hurt?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? What about your—”

  “I’m fine Grey.” I nearly snapped.

  “I’m sorry.” He breathed deeply, and he looked at me again, his blue eyes full of warmth and sincerity. But then he shook his head and fell silent.