Lies Like Wildfire

by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez

  Justin strolls up a few minutes later. He looks different than he did on the highway. He’s freshly shaved and he’s wearing a broken-in denim jacket, a baby blue T-shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. “Hey,” he says, his eyes sweeping down my body. He’s cuter than I remember.

  “Hey.” I feel my skin flush from my neck up.

  He kisses my cheek, and the clean scent of shampoo and aftershave fills my nostrils. His lips are soft and warm. “You look beautiful. Come on, let’s go inside.” He takes my hand and leads me to the ticket booth.

  My heart skitters and heat floods my groin. I’ve had two boyfriends—one in ninth grade, but he was so shy he rarely touched me—and one in tenth grade, a boy I dated to make Drummer jealous. His name was Marcus Hoover. He was mean and always had food stuck in his braces, and he dumped me when I made a face about kissing him. But this—this feels different.

  Justin buys two tickets and then asks what I want from the snack bar. He pays for everything without waiting to see if I’ll offer to split it. When I order a small bag of popcorn, he asks if I want a larger size and candy too. I stick with the small but I do accept the candy, and he buys Hot Tamales and sodas for both of us.

  We pose in front of the movie poster, and I take a selfie of us with my phone. In it, Justin gazes at me while I smile at the camera. I wonder what Drummer will think when he sees it.

  Inside the theater, Justin follows me as I choose the seats. We settle in and he whispers to me before the movie starts, “I felt bad that I lost track of you after I dropped you off that day. You were all alone except for your dog. I should have walked you to the front desk.”

  “It’s okay, I had friends waiting for me.”

  His eyes roam slowly across my face, and his arm slides around me and massages my shoulder, sending another flush of heat between my legs. “Is your family all right? Did you lose anything in the fire?” he asks.

  Did I lose anything in the fire? Great question. Just my sanity, maybe my best friends, and perhaps my future in law enforcement. “No, my family and house are fine,” I answer.

  “Pretty awful, what happened to your town.”

  “Yeah.” His free hand takes mine and draws it to his lips for a quick kiss that makes my nerves twirl. “What do you do for work?” I ask. It’s ridiculous that I’m holding hands with a guy and only know his first name. Everything inside of me screams: Stupid girl!

  “I drive for the quarry,” he answers. “It’s a union job. Good benefits and vacation time.”

  Benefits, vacation time? Justin is definitely a real adult, and I squirm a bit.

  “How about you? What do you do?” he asks.

  I feel young, too young, and the lie slips out quickly. “I’m a junior at San Diego State, just home for the summer.”

  “Oh?” He raises his thick brows, looking surprised. Is he surprised that I go to SDSU or that I’m a junior? I can’t tell, so I chew on my soda straw.

  After the movie, Justin walks me to his car, a black Altima, in the parking lot. Last time I saw him, he was driving a truck, and I wonder if he owns two vehicles or if he borrowed this one. I glance at the license plate. I should text the number to Mo in case anything happens to me. God, what the hell am I doing?

  “I know a great place to see the stars,” Justin says. He entwines his fingers with mine. “Want to see it?”

  Oh, wow! My heart stalls and my breathing grows shallow. I know better than to go anywhere with this stranger, but I hear my answer as if I’m somebody else: “Sure.”

  Justin smiles and I slide into his car. He pulls smoothly out of the lot, the radio on low. The Altima is an automatic, and he holds my hand as we drive. He takes me to Lookout Point, a place I’ve been to with my friends, but the partying crowd hasn’t arrived yet and the lot is empty. He pulls into a spot overlooking the valley. The moon has risen over the mountain, full and swollen, washing the understory in silver light.

  “You can see where the fire traveled,” Justin says, pointing at the scorched dark areas below.

  My voice pitches uncomfortably high: “I don’t want to talk about the fire.”

  “What do you want to talk about?” His eyes trail toward my lips, and the atmosphere in the car shifts, becoming heavy and buzzing—like a sky full of lightning.

  “I don’t know,” I whisper.

  “I have an idea.” He leans across the car, cups my face, and kisses me softly. “Do you like that?”

  The truth is, I do. I close my eyes in answer, and he kisses me again, more urgently. I sink into the leather seat as his upper body covers mine. He kisses my lips, cheeks, eyes, then moves down to my neck. My heart flutters and his breathing grows deeper, faster. My head bumps the glass window.

  “Let’s go to the backseat,” he suggests.

  Again my voice comes, unbidden: “Okay.” We crawl to the back, where his head grazes the ceiling and he laughs at himself.

  I sit upright on the seat, and we kiss some more. When his hands find my breasts, a moan escapes his throat and he pushes me flat on my back. My heart begins to slam. My entire body tenses, and Justin pauses. “Do you want to keep going?” he asks.

  I can’t answer. I don’t know what I want, but I’m curious and I’m here, so I nod.

  Justin grins and tugs off his T-shirt. His bare skin is smooth and muscled, and I forget myself and touch him. He shivers; his smile broadens. He’s more deliberate now. He takes off my top and expertly unsnaps and removes my bra. He groans at the sight of me, and suddenly his mouth is all over my naked chest. My body vibrates, and this feels good, very good.

  “Hannah,” Justin whispers, “you’re so fucking gorgeous.” He presses his hardness between my legs, and his lips cover mine. His tongue plunges into my mouth, making me gasp. His hands slide down, and he pushes up my skirt and then unbuttons his jeans. “Hannah,” he murmurs, but I feel like he’s lost in his own world.

  Suddenly, a condom appears in his hand, and I stare at it in shock. Unlike Drummer, Justin isn’t playing around. He rubs his palm down my thigh, then back up, and rests it between my legs. My thoughts spin away from me.

  “You okay?” he asks. I’m on my back and his thumb is hooked in my underwear, ready to pull them off. His breath is hot on my cheeks, and his body is heavy. There is a trail of dark hair on his stomach that leads down.

  I nod and he hesitates. “You sure?”

  To shut him up, I pull him down and press my tongue into his hot mouth, and that is all the reassurance he needs. A deep shudder rolls through his body. There’s inevitability in his excitement, like a roller coaster at its apex, just before it drops—there is no stopping Justin now. I mean, if I screamed, I could probably stop him, but I don’t want to. Someone has to be my first time, why not him? It will never be Drummer.

  Justin rips the condom wrapper open with his teeth and sits back to roll the condom on. His torso scrunches, constrained by the low headroom in the car. Every muscle in his body flexes, and the sight of his erection shocks me as if a bucket of ice water has been dumped on my head. This is real. This is happening. I close my eyes and brace.

  He enters me and the pain is blinding at first, then surprisingly pleasant, then hot and slippery, and then it’s over. Justin flops on top of me, utterly spent.

  I breathe in the silence. My mind empties.

  Justin slowly comes back to life, and one hand plays with my hair while the other moves to wipe me dry with his T-shirt. He’s about to throw his shirt on the floor when he sees the blood. “Hannah?” His brows knit together. “Was this your first time?”

  I close my eyes, feeling suddenly embarrassed.

  He sits up and I feel him staring at me. “Hannah, shit, I’m sorry it was so fast. You should have told me. I would have got us a room, taken more time. Fuck, I’m really sorry.”

  I bristle at the implication I made a mista
ke. It’s my first time; how am I supposed to know what I should have done? And maybe he should have gotten a room anyway. I curl on the seat so he doesn’t see my tears.

  “Hey, no, it’s my fault,” Justin amends, pulling me into his arms. “I—I felt some resistance. I should have stopped and talked to you.”

  His sudden regret makes me feel worse, and my body grows stiffer.

  Justin senses I don’t want to talk about it. He gets dressed (all but the soiled T-shirt) and helps me find my clothes. We climb back into the front seats. “I’d like to see you again, make it up to you,” he says with a slow smile warming his face. “You’re beautiful, Hannah. I had a great time.”

  “Me too,” I say, but the words jam in my throat. There is no going backward, no do-over for our first time, and we both know it.

  The drive back to the theater is quiet. Justin walks me to my car and tries again. “I like you, Hannah, and not just because of what we did. I think you’re pretty, and I want to know you better.” He forces a hug that I don’t return. Justin feels more like a stranger now than he did before we had sex. I smile to urge him on his way and then slip into my car. There, I let out my breath and delete the selfie we took with my phone.

  When I get home, I’m glad my dad isn’t here. He’s either working late or he’s at the tavern talking with townsfolk and having a beer. He likes keeping his finger on the pulse of the community, especially when it’s suffering.

  In case there’s a bear prowling the yard, I honk the horn and rattle my keys. A couple of raccoons slip into the shadows, but no bears.

  Matilda greets me at the porch door. She’s upset and barks at me, reacting to the blood in my underwear. I stroke her head. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” She licks my face, and her big brown eyes tell me everything I wanted so desperately to know—that I’m beautiful, lovable, and perfect just the way I am.

  I sink onto my porch, hug her tight, and sob into her fur.

  When I’m finished crying, I draw a scalding-hot bath, swallow a dose of ibuprofen, open a pint of Java Chip ice cream, and eat it while soaking in the tub. I’m not a virgin anymore. It’s weird. I don’t feel different, just sore.

  Right as I finish my ice cream, the screen door bangs open downstairs and my dad stomps into the house. Shit, shit! Did one of his friends see me with a strange guy and call him? I unplug the drain, towel off, and rush downstairs in the rumpled clothes I wore on the date. “I can expl—”

  But what I see stops me cold. It’s not my dad; it’s Violet. Her tan skin is ashen, her sable brown eyes are wide, and her pupils have contracted to tiny points. My gut sinks. “What happened?”

  Her voice is strangled: “It’s Mo. She’s in jail.”

  19

  July 27

  Gap Fire: 55% contained

  Fatalities: 10

  Time: 11:30 p.m.

  “Mo’s in jail!” My hand flies to my mouth. “No! Why?”

  “You’re the sheriff’s daughter, you tell me,” she snaps. “All I know is that your dad arrested her and she has a bail hearing tomorrow. A bail hearing, god!” Her gaze zips over my short skirt and smeared makeup, but she doesn’t ask. “It gets worse—the boys are at the bowling alley, stoned out of their minds. Drummer said Luke was crying in the bathroom. Everyone is falling apart, Han.”

  “Do the boys know about Mo?”

  She glares at me. “Why do think Luke is crying? Come on, we have to get them out of there!”

  “Okay, I’ll drive.”

  “I brought my car, Hannah.”

  “You don’t know the shortcuts.”

  Violet shakes her mane of hair. “Oh my god, you guys act like I haven’t spent every summer here since I was seven. I know Gap Mountain as well as you do. I’m driving.”

  She stares me down until I cave. “Fine, let me grab shoes and a jacket.”

  As I find my things, she opens cupboards and pours herself a glass of water in the kitchen. “Uh, Hannah,” she calls. “There’s a bear in your yard.”

  My brain ping-pongs between Mo, the boys, and the bear, leaving me dizzy. I toss on my jacket, slide on the heels I wore for Justin, and glance out the window over Violet’s shoulder. Sure enough, a huge animal is lumbering across our lawn, but that damn hungry bear is the least of my worries. “I’m ready.”

  As we exit the house, I grab my air horn and blow it on the porch, waking old Matilda and scaring off the bear. Then we climb into Violet’s Trackhawk, and she expertly steers the oversized vehicle down the country roads, taking every shortcut I would have chosen.

  The bowling alley is across the street from the burned-down post office. Violet parks the Trackhawk and jumps out. With her rolled sweats, cropped T-shirt, wild bun, and keys dangling from a lanyard, I have a vision of her in ten years, chauffeuring raven-haired, pink-cheeked toddlers to private school, organizing parent brunches, attending charity events with her handsome husband, and making it all look effortless. She’ll stop coming to Gap Mountain, just as her brother did after he got married, and this world—my world—will fade. I’ll probably never see Violet again after college. A sick mixture of sadness and anger floods my stomach.

  Violet halts and her Tiffany necklace glints in the moonlight. “You coming or what?”

  “Yeah, I’m coming.”

  She grips my arm and we cross the parking lot together. She rants about the boys. “When I called Drummer, he said he and Luke crushed three or four beers before they got here, and then they smoked weed.”

  “Idiots. We should be lying low right now.” I pull open the door of the bowling alley and hear loud singing and shouting coming from the lobby. There are our boys, leaning over a dirty table littered with French fries and chicken nuggets. Luke’s hair is uncombed, and he’s singing the “Star Spangled Banner” loud enough to earn stares while Drummer bends over a chair, laughing, his light hair flopping into his eyes.

  The manager stands by, red-faced, clearly trying to get them to leave.

  Violet and I hustle to the table. She grabs Drummer’s hand, and I approach Luke. “We’ll take care of them,” Violet tells the manager. Her dimples disarm him, and he backs up, mumbling something unintelligible.

  We usher the boys out, and the manager shakes his fist at them: “I don’t want to see you two again unless you’re sober.” He tries to slam the glass front door behind us, but it’s on a pneumatic hinge and closes slowly as he shoves on it.

  In the parking lot, Luke stumbles to his old Chevy Malibu, leans across the hood, and lights a cigarette. “Our lives are over,” he says. “Fucking over.” He breaks into a squeaky rendition of “Good Riddance” by Green Day while Violet tries to talk to him.

  Drummer ignores them both and stares at me, his body swaying. “What are you dressed up for?” His bloodshot eyes take in my tight skirt, skimpy top, and tangled, curled hair. His eyebrows crinkle in confusion.

  “I was out,” I answer.

  He sucks in his lower lip and eyeballs my body so hard I start to squirm. “On a date?” he asks.

  I look away.

  Drummer grabs my arm, pulls me closer. Our eyes meet and his jaw muscles clench, his nostrils flare. Justin’s scent is all over my clothes, and I wonder if Drummer can smell him. He lifts his chin like a child. “Mo’s in trouble and you’re out meeting dudes?”

  My mind reels. “Fuck you!”

  “No, fuck you!” he shoots back. Violet glances over and then turns back to Luke, who’s crying again.

  I drop my voice to a low growl. “I’m tired, Drummer. I want to go home, but I’m here. I dropped everything for you assholes.” Tears flood my eyes.

  He comes to his senses and releases his tight grip on me. “Sorry. I’m just worried about Mo.” He takes a closer look at my smeared makeup and messy hair. “Are you okay, Han? Did somebody fuck with you?”

  I suppress
my budding hysteria. Yes, somebody fucked with me. Or maybe I fucked with him. I’m not sure, so I close my eyes and swallow past the hard lump in my throat. “I’m fine, I’m worried about Mo too.”

  Drummer tucks me tight against his body, and his voice rumbles from his chest. “She’s going to be fine, Han. We all are.”

  God, how can he say that? I feel queasy. “We really messed up, starting that fire.”

  “I know.” His smile is quick and half-hearted. He pushes back his gold-tinged hair, and his eyes seem to change colors in the light like polished crystals. He’s wild and beautiful, and I can’t imagine him, or any of us, living in a tiny cell with a narrow, barred window and, worse, sharing that cell with a real criminal. My heart beats harder, my breathing quickens. Everything, everyone, is falling apart.

  He takes my hand. “Calm down, Hannah.”

  My guts unravel. My chest grows tight.

  He rubs my back. “Breathe with me.”

  I focus on his heartbeat, his slow, steady breaths. In the distance, Violet is trying to calm Luke the way Drummer is trying to calm me.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he says. It’s a ridiculous promise, but I let myself believe it. He wants to protect me as much as I want to protect him, and I soften against his chest. He tucks his palms around my cheeks and brings my face to his. “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.” We’re so close I can feel his breath on my eyelashes. This intimacy is nothing new, but everything has changed. I’m losing him—if not to prison, then to Violet, and if not to Violet, then to college.

  I’ve never tried to kiss him before, not for real, but I’m running out of time. My heart climbs out of its pit. “Drummer?” His name is a breath, a prayer. Ignoring his confused expression, I lean forward and kiss him, grazing his inner lips with my tongue.