Buddy and I take a seat under the shade of a tree. I lean my back against it, open my school bag and do my homework. The sun is bright today, the weather warm for spring, yet as the sun begins its descent, there’s a chill in the air.
A little over an hour later, Randall, the house manager, appears. I watch him walk across the lawn in his brown suit, his arms held close to his sides. When he reaches me, he stands at attention. “Your parents have requested your company for dinner.”
With a lift of my chin, I answer, “If the dog is not allowed to dinner then neither am I.”
He casts a frown. “I was afraid you’d say that. Your mother is adamant the dog remains outside.”
It’s not like me to act defiant, but these days I’m finding myself acting more and more like my own person. “Then so do I.”
“Miss Jules, you can’t stay out here all night. You’ll freeze.”
“Watch me.”
He looks pained as if the orders he’s been given are not the ones he wishes to follow. “Your mother left explicit instructions that if you are not in the house by the time she goes to sleep she is locking the door and you are not to be allowed in.”
My voice is calm as I state with the utmost conviction. “If she wants to keep me outside like an animal then that is how her daughter shall behave.”
Randall slumps his shoulders and traipses back to the house. I pull my blazer in closer and continue with my homework.
A slight rush of excitement rushes up my spine. I’ve never done anything wrong. Sure, a typical teenager would be sneaking out of the house to party. This may not seem like the most rebellious thing for others to do; but for me, it’s groundbreaking.
When the sun sets, I pull out my phone and read a book on my kindle. The night chill has set in but I’m fine. Randall walks me out a blanket, which I kindly accept and goes back to the house.
I place half the blanket over Buddy and we cuddle.
“You stink. Tomorrow, I’m sneaking you in for a shower,” I tell him and I swear he nods in agreement. I have a bottle of water in my bag, which we share. My granola bar has chocolate in it so I give him my apple instead. He only eats a few slices before lying down and going to sleep.
We lay and listen to the waves crash. The winds are pushing in so I wrap the blanket tighter around us. My teeth begin to chatter. I snuggle closer to Buddy, relying on his warmth.
I shift my body to accommodate my aching muscles. I’ve been holding my body tight, protecting it from the cold, so much that my limbs become sore. Crawling into a fetal position, I huddle under the blanket completely and hold Buddy as tight as possible. The ground is colder than I expected. My body is shaky, my lips trembling. Exhausted from the internal fight, it doesn’t take long until my lids become heavy and sleep overtakes me.
☽
I wake to the bright sunshine and am in the comfort of Egyptian cotton sheets. My body is warm, yet my limbs are still aching from shivering so much.
Shivering.
Cold.
Something I am not.
I shoot up and push the covers off me. I’m in my uniform. In my bedroom. I don’t remember coming in last night
“Buddy?” I call out but he’s not here.
I rush out the room and down the hall, calling for my dog when I bump into Randall.
“You came in?” He sounds surprised to see me.
“Where’s my dog?”
He shakes his head. “Where did you leave him?”
I run downstairs and out the front door. My dog is no longer under the tree where we were huddled last night. There is no way he could have survived on his own. He’s too old and slow. I walk around the house three times looking for my dog, calling out his name. I run back to the lawn and under the tree. I check the pool area and even take a look down toward the beach. He’s nowhere to be found.
I run up the back steps toward the veranda stopping midway to use the height as a vantage point. Buddy is nowhere to be seen.
“Damn it!” I yell and squeeze my eyes shut. I kick the wall of the stairwell so hard my big toe starts to throb. Hopping on one foot, holding my other one in my hand, I spin in a circle and end up facing the carriage house. For some reason the scent of peppermint and musk overwhelms me.
It’s not in reality. It’s a memory.
Or was it a dream?
I may never know.
The House Party
LYING ON MY bed, my feet are propped up in the air as I study for a Geometry test. I tap my pencil on the paper, trying to solve a problem, when the doorbell rings. A moment later, my name is called so I rise from the bed, walk out to the hallway and peer down to the foyer. To my surprise, Gavin is standing with my father by the front door. The two look up when I appear.
“You ready?” Gavin asks causing me to scrunch my face in confusion. “The party. You said you would go.”
I forgot all about it. That’s not entirely true. I remember telling him I’d go but I hoped he’d forgotten all about it. I honestly never thought he’d show up at my doorstep to pick me up.
“I’m not dressed,” I say.
“I’ll wait,” he offers and I try to think of another reason why I can’t go. They are staring at me, probably wondering why I’m just standing here.
I shift my weight from side to side before finally conceding. “I’ll be down in five minutes.”
Throwing on a pair of jeans, a light blue sweater and chucks, I toss my hair in a low ponytail and put on some mascara and a lip-gloss. If the way the girls in my school hike up their skirts and undo the buttons of their blouses are any indication, I’d assume the girls at this party to be dressed as slutty as possible. I glance down at my sweater and wonder if I should put on something a little more . . . provocative.
I shake my head and erase the ridiculous thought from my head. When I get to the foyer, Gavin doesn’t seem disappointed in my attire and I find myself slightly relieved, which kind of bothers me.
The party is being held at a mansion three towns away. Gavin weaves his shiny black Porsche through the two-lane road that leads from one town to the next. When we get there, he parks his car in the front and hands his keys to the valet. Yes, this house party has a valet. Welcome to the world of Long Island rich kids.
I follow Gavin into the house and it is packed. Music is blaring and everyone from my high school, and quite possibly every high school in a twenty-mile radius, fills the rooms. Gavin grabs my hands and pulls me toward the back. In the kitchen, his teammates cheer for him when he walks in. Their eyes widen at the sight of me. Jaws, from the girls in the room, drop when Gavin slings an arm around my shoulder. I stare at his hand on my shoulder but decide it’s safer here under his arm then roaming alone.
He hands me a red solo cup. I take it and bring it to my lips. I know that if I don’t drink they’ll all just look at me like more of a freak than I am. I don’t need to drink the whole thing. I just have to appear like I’m imbibing.
Gavin takes a cup for himself and downs it fast. There is a rap song blaring from a DJ in the living room. People are dancing, sweaty and practically falling all over each other. Girls are gyrating on speakers with their arms up in the air. Boys are gawking at the short skirts and low-slung tops.
“You feeling ok?” Gavin asks. His question surprises me. I never took him as the considerate type. It makes me smile. “You should do that more often.”
“Do what?”
“Smile. It’s pretty,” he says and I can kick myself for actually liking the way he said that.
We walk into the dining room where there’s a game of beer pong under way. He asks if I want to play but I decline. We leave and walk into a media room where there are a bunch of people playing on an Xbox, a few others lounging on recliners, watching and talking. There’s a joint being passed around. Gavin walks over to the crowd and takes a hit.
“You want?” he offers, pulling in the smoke.
I shake my head, disgusted he’s even asking since I tol
d him last week I don’t smoke. I take a few steps back and lean against the wall, as far away from the smoke as possible. Gavin passes the joint around and talks to the other smokers about baseball. One guy remembers me for playing lacrosse. I nod and start to reply but he gets a fit of the giggles and ends up rolling on the floor in hysterical laughter. My eyes are trained on the guy on the floor when a red object comes flying in the air and pelts me in the head.
“Ouch!” Raising a hand to my head, I acknowledge the plastic, red cup that is now lying on the floor.
With a cough, Gavin laughs into his fist. “I meant for you to catch that,” he says as I rub my temple. “Can you get me another drink?”
Not one to be told what to do, I start to argue but quickly realize I don’t want to be in this room getting high by association anyway. I pick the cup up off the floor and make my way back toward the kitchen.
There are multiple couples making out in the hallway. A guy in just his boxers is dancing on the large entryway table, a group of onlookers cheering him on. Loud music has people shouting to hear one another. I shoulder past the crowd, narrowing my body and shifting to get back to where the kegs are.
“Jules!” My name is called. I turn to see Molly and Bethany from the team. “We thought you didn’t go to parties?”
“Decided to try something new,” I say, excited to see some familiar faces.
“We saw you walk in with Gavin LeGume,” Molly says with a sparkle in her eye. “He’s so hot.”
Looking over my shoulder in the direction of the media room where Gavin is currently getting high as a kite, I say, “We just drove here together.”
“Sure,” Bethany says with the word elongated for dramatic effect.
“I’m serious. He’s not my type.”
Molly squints her eyes at me before relaxing them and then saying, “Then stay away from the second bedroom on the left. It’s reserved just for him. He always takes his dates up there.”
“Oh my God, what is she doing here?” a girl shouts at me from the kitchen island. She hops down and comes stalking toward me.
I roll my eyes at the bitchiest girl I see daily in French class. “Hi, Brittany.”
“If I had known they were inviting trolls to the party I would have stayed home.” She raises her hands to her mouth and makes an announcement, “That’s it. Parties over. The air has been tainted.”
The fact that the music is loud and that she is slurring her words, are on my side. The level of mortification is bearable.
“Get a life, Brittany,” Molly says and it gives me an extra ounce of pride.
Brittany leans in toward me, white-blond hair falling over her dark eyes. “Nice sweater,” she breathes and then pours her half-filled drink down the front of my shirt. I jump back and look at the damage. My mouth is open wide but I have absolutely no words. Heat rises in my cheeks. I’m angry, so angry but the words aren’t forming. Instead, a well of moisture builds behind my eyelids and, if I’m not careful, I’m going to burst into tears in front of everyone.
Two hands grab onto my shoulders and swing me around. I come face to face with Gavin. He looks down at my shirt and then up into my eyes. He doesn’t say a word. He just pulls me toward him and out of the kitchen. Curled in the crook of his arm, he takes me down the hall and up the stairwell to the second door on the left. I would be concerned if it wasn’t for the fact I am drenched and need to get away from people as quickly as possible.
“Give me your shirt. I’ll throw it in the dryer,” he says making my cheeks feel flushed at the idea of being topless in a room with a boy. “It’s fine. You can hang in here while it dries.” Turning round, he adds, “I won’t look. Come on, it’s this or you leaving here in a shirt drenched in beer.”
I gnaw on my lip and contemplate the alternatives. I toss the sweater over my head and over to Gavin.
“Be right back,” he says and then is out the door.
Taking a seat on the bed, in just my white bra, I slam my palm to my forehead. I am so dumb. Now I’m trapped, half naked, for at least forty minutes. I stand and rifle through the drawers in the room but they are empty.
Sliding my phone out of my back pocket, I call Randall and tell him I’m ready to come home. He says he’ll send a driver immediately. When I ask him to bring me a shirt, any shirt, he doesn’t ask questions.
The door opens and Gavin appears. His eyes immediately fall to the lace of my bra.
“Eyes up here,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. It’s not like I have much of one for him to look at, but still.
Gavin plops onto the bed and pats the spot next to him. I shake my head, ‘No,’ but he just gives a devilish grin.
“I don’t bite,” he says.
“You’re high.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m not completely aware of my actions. I am the one who rushed you here and is drying your sweater, aren’t I?”
I cringe, my elbows rising high to my shoulders, and then sigh. Reluctantly, I take a seat next to him. No sooner am I sitting down, is his hand on my thigh.
I pop up off the bed. “Gavin!”
He pulls me down by my hips. As quickly as I am back on the bed, he rolls on top of me, his legs on either side of my hips, pinning me to the mattress.
“Jules,” he sing-songs. “Lighten up. We have time to kill.”
I try to wiggle away but he’s practically sitting on me. “This is not how I plan to spend it.”
His hands lean on my shoulders. “I told you I love the chase.”
My eyes widen, my heart races. My skin begins to crawl, the powerless feeling of being trapped beneath a man without the ability to move is overwhelming. Rage is building from deep in my belly. My hair is even standing on edge.
He lifts a hand and traces the outline of my bra.
I use the leverage to slam a right hook into his jaw. When he sits up to look down at me, I quickly sit up to jab my elbow in his crotch.
“You mother—”
I don’t stay to hear him finish that sentence for I am up and out the door as fast as lightening. I’m halfway down the stairs when I realize, by the stares of everyone in the foyer, that I am only wearing jeans and bra. A few people start cheering but I ignore them and run fast, pushing passed people as I bolt through the foyer and out the front door, down the steps and straight onto the gravel of the front driveway and into the barreled chest of a man wearing a flannel shirt.
Jameson.
He’s standing in front of the family town car. His eyes run over my body, seething at the sight of me in my bra.
“Jules!” Gavin yells from the front door. I turn and see him running towards me. He now has two friends following him.
Jameson pushes me behind him.
“Who the fuck are you?” Gavin says from his safe distance by the stairs.
“Are you the one who did this to her?” Jameson’s words are deep and loud.
Panic laces Gavin’s eyes as he notices the town car. He must have realized Jameson works for my father. He walks down the stairs, his friends in tow.
“I’ll bring her home,” he says, his hand outstretched toward me, but Jameson widens his stance. Gavin’s face pinches together. “Give her to me or I’ll have your job. You don’t know who you’re dealing with”
Jameson just stares down at Gavin. I can’t see his face but from the way his back stiffens, the hardened muscles beneath his shirt becoming pronounced like he’s ready to pounce, I know he is irate with anger.
I hear a small noise, something metal sliding against metal. I look over and Gavin’s friend has a knife.
“Jameson!” I yell just as the friend reaches forward. Jameson moves away but not fast enough. The knife punctures him in the side.
“What the fuck?” Gavin yells at his friend.
Jameson falls forward, clenching his side. He grabs the knife and pulls it out of his side, looks at the blood dripping from the tip, then drops it on the ground.
The three guys look on in horror;
their eyes round with shock.
“Grab the knife,” Gavin yells. The friend takes his knife back and the three go running down the driveway.
Jameson looks like he’s about to fall over. I place my hands on his biceps and move him toward the car, having him use it for stability.
I lift his shirt and survey the damage. Blood is dripping down his side.
“We have to get you to a hospital,” I say.
“No. It’s just a flesh wound.” He starts to walk around the driver’s side, his hand on the car for support, but he stumbles.
I run to his side and steady him again. “You need stitches.”
He shakes his head, adamantly. “I can’t,” his words are no more than a whisper. The way he looks up at me with those blue-green eyes tilted down at the edges, the lines between them deeply creased, I know this is more than just not wanting to go to the hospital.
“Fine. But let me drive you home.” I hold out my hand for the keys and he looks like he’s about to argue so I add, “I can take care of you.”
His face softens. The hard stance of his body relaxes. With a nod, he concedes. “Keys are in my pocket.”
I blink at him a few times before I realize he can’t put his hand in his pocket to get them because of the pain.
I slide my hand in his pocket. My fingers graze the hardness of his thigh and feel the heat searing though the fabric. I grab the keys and slide them out and then open the back door, ushering him into the back seat.
“Lie down, we’ll be home soon.”
The Rooftop
I KNOCK ON the door of Jameson’s room and then turn the knob, letting myself in. “Hello?”
I’m half behind the door but I can hear the ruffling of sheets and then his grumbling voice. “You’re supposed to wait for someone to say come in before entering.”
Beast: An Anthology Page 14
