Just Listen

by Sarah Dessen

  “She’ll warm up,” I told her. “You know how she is.”

  We walked through the kitchen and out onto the porch to the keg, which was surrounded by a few older guys. “Hey,” one of them, who was tall and thin and smoking a cigarette, said to me. “Let me get you a beer.”

  “I’m okay,” I said, giving him a mild smile as I picked up a cup and filled it myself.

  “You two go to Jackson?” another asked Emily, who was standing off to the side, her arms crossed over her chest. She nodded, her eyes on me. “Man, these freshmen get hotter every year.”

  “We’re not freshmen,” I said as I turned away from the keg. A curly-headed guy was standing right in front of me now, blocking my path. I said, “Excuse me.”

  He looked at me for a second before moving aside. “Hard to get, huh?” he said as I stepped past him. “I like that.”

  I walked back into the kitchen, and Emily followed, shutting the door behind us.

  “Those weren’t the ones I was talking about earlier,” she said quietly.

  “I know,” I said. “Those guys are at every party.”

  We started back to Sophie, but a bunch of people had just come in, and the hallway was packed with bodies and noise. I tried to push my way through, only to get stuck about halfway to the living room, with people crammed on all sides of me. I turned my head, looking for Emily, but she’d been waylaid by a loud girl named Helena we knew from the Models who, from the looks of it, was yelling in her ear.

  “Excuse me,” some girl I didn’t recognize snapped as she pushed past me, her elbow cracking against mine. I felt a splash, then looked down to see beer—hers or mine, it was hard to say—running down my leg. Suddenly the hallway seemed even smaller, not to mention hotter. So when a space opened up to my left, I took it, turning into a small alcove under the stairs where I could finally breathe.

  I leaned back, pressing myself against the wall, and took a sip of my beer as people continued to push past. I was getting ready to go back into the throng when Will Cash walked by. He glanced over at me, then stopped.

  “Hey,” he said. Two guys passed him going the other way. One of them reached up, ruffling his hair, and Will made a face. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just—”

  He turned, then ducked under to where I was. There was barely enough room for both of us in the alcove—it was the kind of place for a small table, or maybe a piece of art—but I still tried to move to my left, putting some space between us.

  “Hiding out, huh?” he asked. He wasn’t smiling as he said this, even though I was pretty sure he meant it as a joke. That was the thing with Will. You just could never tell. Or I couldn’t, anyway.

  “It just…got a little crazy out there,” I said. “Have you, um, caught up with Sophie yet?”

  He was still looking at me, that flat gaze, and I felt myself flush again. “Not yet,” he said. “How long you guys been here?”

  “Oh, I didn’t come with them,” I replied as Hillary Prescott walked past. When she saw us, she slowed her pace, staring at us for a moment before moving on, disappearing around the corner. “I just got here…I got held up at home.”

  Will didn’t say anything, just kept staring at me.

  “You know how it is,” I said, taking another gulp of my beer as a bunch of girls passed by, laughing loudly. “Family drama and all that.”

  I had no idea why I was telling him this, just as I had no idea why I did anything I did around Will Cash. Something about him unsettled me to a point where I felt so tentative that for some reason I compensated by being entirely too open.

  “Really,” he said now, his voice flat.

  I felt my face flush again. “I should go catch up with Sophie,” I said. “I’ll, um, see you around, I guess.”

  He nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “See you.”

  I didn’t even wait for a break in the crowd, instead just pushing forward, bumping some football player who was passing and following him back toward the kitchen, where I found Emily leaning against the island, her cell phone pressed to her ear.

  “Where’d you go?” she asked, flipping it closed and slipping it back into her pocket.

  “Nowhere,” I said. “Come on.”

  When we got back to the living room, Sophie was still on the couch, but now she wasn’t alone. Will had joined her, and from the looks of it, they were having some sort of argument. Sophie was saying something, her face pinched, while Will seemed to be only half listening, glancing around the room as she talked.

  “Better not bug them right now,” I said to Emily. “We’ll come back. Anyway, I have got to pee. Any idea where the bathroom is?”

  “I thought I saw one over there,” she said, nodding toward a nearby hallway. “Come on.”

  There was a bathroom there, but also a line, so we decided to try our luck on the second floor. We were navigating a long hallway when I heard someone yell out my name.

  I stopped, then doubled back to an open door we’d just passed to see Michael Kitchens and Nick Lester, two seniors I’d spent all semester suffering through art history with, playing pool.

  “See?” Nick said. “I told you I saw Annabel!”

  “What do you know,” Michael, who was bent over the table about to take a shot, said. “And here I thought you were just hallucinating.”

  Nick turned around, then put a hand to his heart when he saw me. “No, it’s Annabel,” he said. “Annabel, Annabel, Annabel Greene.”

  “You promised when the year was over, you’d let that go,” I told him. He’d done some senior project on Poe and had bugged me with this line endlessly. “Remember?”

  “No,” he said, grinning at me.

  Michael took the shot, the balls splitting apart with a clank. “Nick’s drunk,” he informed us. “Consider yourself warned.”

  “I’m not drunk,” Nick said. “I’m just cheerful.”

  “Is there a bathroom in here?” I asked. “We’ve been looking for one everywhere.”

  “Right over there,” Michael told me, nodding across the room.

  “Come on,” I said to Emily, and she followed me inside. “This is Nick and Michael,” I said, handing her my beer. “And this is Emily. I’ll be back in a sec, okay?”

  She nodded, looking a bit nervous. “Do you play?” Michael asked her, gesturing at the table.

  “Kind of,” she said.

  He walked over to the wall, pulling off a stick for her. “Yeah, right,” he said. “You say that, and then you’ll beat me in ten seconds.”

  “She does have that pool-shark look to her,” Nick said. Emily laughed, shaking her head. “It’s always the quiet ones.”

  “Just go easy on me,” Michael said to her. “That’s all I ask.”

  By the time I came out of the bathroom two minutes later, Emily was holding her own. She was also in full-on flirt mode with Michael, who seemed more than happy to reciprocate. Which left me with Nick, who sat down beside me on the nearby couch and announced he had something to say.

  “You know,” he said as he took a sip of his beer, “since school is over now and all, I just think you should know that I’m aware of how you feel about me.”

  “How I feel about you,” I repeated.

  “Dude,” Michael called out from the right corner pocket. “Stop before you say something you regret.”

  “Shhh,” Nick told him, waving his arm. He turned back to me. “Annabel,” he said, his voice serious, “it’s okay that you have a crush on me.”

  “Oh, God,” Michael groaned. “I’m so embarrassed for you right now.”

  “I mean, it makes sense,” Nick said, slurring slightly as I tried not to smile. “I’m a senior. An older man. It makes sense you’d look up to me. But…” Here he paused, taking another swig of his beer. “It’s not going to work out.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well. It’s better to know now, I guess.”

  Nick patted my hand, nodding. “I’m really flattered, but i
t doesn’t matter how much you love me. I just don’t feel that way about you.”

  “Like hell,” Michael said, and Emily laughed.

  “I understand,” I told Nick.

  “You do?”

  “Totally.”

  He was still patting my hand, although, at this point, I was not sure he was aware of it. “Good. Because I’d really like, if you can get past your feelings, for us to remain friends.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  Nick sat back, tipping his bottle to his mouth. Then he brought it back down, turning it up. One drop fell out. “Empty,” he announced. “I need another.”

  “You really don’t,” Michael said, then winced as Emily shot the cue ball, knocking two of his stripes into a pocket.

  “How about a water?” I asked Nick. “I was just about to get one for myself.”

  “A water,” he repeated slowly, as if this was a foreign concept. “Okay. Lead the way.”

  “We’ll be back,” I said to Emily as I got to my feet, Nick then doing the same with considerably more trouble. “You need anything?”

  She shook her head, bending down for another shot. “I’m good,” she said.

  “Too good,” Michael said as two more of his balls disappeared. “‘Kind of’ play, my ass.”

  Nick and I only made it about halfway down the hallway before he announced he’d changed his mind. “Too tired,” he said, plopping down next to a bedroom door. “Need to rest.”

  “Are you okay?” I asked him.

  “Dandy,” he replied. “You just go get that, that…”

  “Water,” I said.

  “Water…and I’ll meet you right here. ’Kay?” He sat back, his head bonking the wall. “Right here.”

  I nodded, then continued on to the stairs. On the way, I stopped to look down at the living room below, which was now considerably more crowded. Sophie was gone from the couch, as was Will, which I figured was either a good sign or a really bad one.

  Downstairs, I located two bottled waters, then stopped to talk to a few people. When I got back to the hallway, Nick wasn’t there. I figured he’d headed back to the game room. I was just about to do the same when I heard a voice.

  “Annabel.”

  It was soft and faint. I turned. There was a bedroom to my right, the door slightly ajar. Handy if you were stumbling or, even worse, puking. Poor Nick, I thought. I stuck one water in my back pocket, opened the other one, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  “Hey,” I said. “Did you get lost?”

  As I stepped over the threshold into the dark, I had my first prickling sense that something wasn’t right. It was just how the room felt, like the entire space around me was unsettled. I stepped back, reaching for the knob, but I couldn’t find it, my fingers only touching wall. “Nick?” I said.

  Then, suddenly, I felt something bump up against my left side. Not furniture, or an object, but something alive. Someone. It’s Nick, I told myself. He’s drunk. But at the same time I started moving my hand behind me, faster now, searching for the light switch or doorknob. Finally, I felt the knob. Just as I was twisting it, though, I felt fingers closing over my wrist.

  “Hey,” I said, and even though I was trying to act casual, my voice sounded scared. “What’s—?”

  “Shhh, Annabel,” a voice said, and then the fingers were moving up my arm, over my skin, and I felt another hand on my right shoulder. “It’s just me.”

  It wasn’t Nick. This voice was deeper, and not slurring at all, each syllable enunciated perfectly. As I realized this, I panicked, my hand gripping tighter around the water bottle in my hand. The top popped off, and suddenly I felt cold seeping into my shirt, onto my skin. “Don’t,” I said.

  “Shhh,” the voice said again, and then the hands were off me. A second later, they covered my eyes.

  I jerked forward, trying to pull away. The water bottle, now half empty, fell from my hands, hitting the carpet with a dull thud, and his hands grabbed me by my shoulders, hard. I kept wriggling, trying to get loose and turn around, toward the door, but my hands were flailing in empty air. It was like the walls had slid back, out of reach; there was nothing to hold on to.

  I could hear myself gasping, my breath beginning to sputter as he locked an elbow around my neck, pulling me up against him. My legs came up off the ground and I started kicking them, making contact with the door once—bang!—before he dragged me backwards a couple of steps. Then his other hand was moving around to my stomach, pushing aside my shirt, and thrusting down my jeans.

  “Stop it,” I said, but then his arm—warm, and smelling of sweat—was covering my mouth, blocking the sound. His fingers were sharp as he pushed aside my underwear, going deeper and deeper, his breath now hard little bursts in my ear. I was still trying to get away, squirming, even as his fingers probed farther, and then he was inside me.

  I bit down on the skin of his arm, hard. He yelped, then yanked his arm off my mouth, pushing me forward. As I felt my feet under me, I reached for the wall, trying to get my bearings, my fingers only barely raking some solid surface before he grabbed the waistband of my jeans and turned me around to face him. Instinctively I put my hands out in front of me, shielding myself, but he pushed them aside, roughly, and then I was down.

  In a second—it seemed impossible he could move so fast—he was on top of me, his fingers fumbling open the snap of my jeans. I could feel carpet beneath me, scratchy on my back, as I tried to push him away, the smell of wet suede filling my nostrils as he put one hand on my chest, his palm flat against my skin to hold me down, and began pulling down my jeans with the other. I was digging into the floor with my elbows, putting all I had into rising up, but I couldn’t move.

  I heard him unzip, and then he was back on top of me. I tried to push against his shoulders, throwing every bit of my weight against him, but he was so heavy, pressing into me, pushing one of my legs up—this was really happening—and then, just as I felt him on my leg and twisted myself one last, desperate time, I saw something: a tiny sliver of light, falling across us.

  It was like a thread through the dark, and in it, I saw a bit of his back, freckled; the fine blond hair on the arm that was thrown across me; the tiniest bit of dark pink suede; and then, just before he pushed off me, his eyes, blue, the pupils widening, then narrowing, then widening again, as the light stretched wider. And then he was scrambling to his feet.

  I sat up, my heart pounding, and pulled up my pants. Somehow, I was able to focus on zipping them, as if this, now, was the most important thing in the world. I had just gotten it when the light overhead clicked on, and there, standing in front of me, was Sophie.

  She saw me first. Then she turned her head and looked at Will Cash, who was now sitting on the bed behind me. “Will?” she asked. Her voice was high, tight. “What’s going on?”

  Will, I thought. I had a flash of his arm covering my mouth, his hands over my eyes, then another of him earlier, standing so close to me in the alcove. It’s Will.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged, then ran a hand through his hair. “She just…”

  Sophie stared at him for a long moment. From the hallway behind her, I could hear laughter, and I had a flash of Emily and Michael still playing their game. Still waiting for me.

  Sophie turned to me. “Annabel?” she said, then stepped forward, into the room, her hand still on the doorjamb. “What are you doing?”

  I felt like I’d been shattered, everything that had just happened a fragment, no part of a real whole. I got to my feet, smoothing down my top over my stomach. “Nothing,” I said, the word coming out in a gasp. I tried to swallow. “I was—”

  Sophie cut her eyes back at Will, and even though she hadn’t interrupted me, I stopped talking. He stared right back at her. Not a flinch. Not one. “Somebody,” she said, “had better start explaining this. Right now.”

  But nobody said anything. Later, this would strike me as so surprising, that at that moment I was actually waiting
for someone else to define this, as if I hadn’t been there, had no words for it at all.

  “Will?” Sophie said. “Say something.”

  “Look,” he said, “I was waiting for you, and then she came up here…” He trailed off, shaking his head, but kept his eyes on her. “I don’t know.”

  Sophie turned her attention back to me, and for a moment we just looked at each other. She had to see something was wrong, I thought. I shouldn’t have to tell her. I wasn’t some other girl, like the ones we’d driven around looking for all those nights. We were best friends. I honestly believed that. Then.

  Her mouth pursed. I watched the lips come together. “You slut,” she said.

  It seemed so stupid, later. But I actually, honestly thought I’d heard her wrong. “What?” I said.

  “You’re a goddamn whore.” Her voice was rising now, still shaky but gaining strength. “I can’t believe you.”

  “Sophie,” I said. “Wait. I didn’t—”

  “You didn’t what?” she said. Behind her, I could see shadows, stretching forward across the opposite wall of the hallway. People were coming, I thought. People were hearing this. People would know. “You think you can just fuck my boyfriend at a party and I won’t find out?”

  I felt my mouth open, but no words came. I just stood there, staring at her, and then Emily appeared behind her in the doorway, her eyes wide. “Annabel?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

  “Your friend’s a slut is what’s going on,” Sophie told her.

  “No,” I said. “It’s not like that.”

  “I know what I saw!” she screamed. Emily, behind her, stepped backwards. Sophie leveled a finger at me. “You have always wanted what I have!” she said. “You’ve always been jealous of me!”

  I felt myself flinch. Her voice was so loud it was like it was shaking my bones. I was so confused, and scared, and even though through everything else, I had not cried—how had I not cried?—now I felt a lump begin and then swell in my throat.

  Sophie pushed through the door, taking two big strides until she was right in front of me, and the room seemed to shrink—Will, Emily, everyone else disappearing from my peripheral vision—until it was just her narrowed eyes, her finger still jabbing, so much anger and fury.