We break free. He draws a quick breath, and then he’s kissing me again. He touches my face gently, weaving his fingers as far as he can into my hair, loosening my ponytail. His hips begin to rock against mine.
I pretend it feels great, but inside I’m thinking it’s Aaron Dunning all over again and a huge disappointment fills me. Is this how it’s always going to be? It’s not like in books, where the girl gets so turned on that she loses control of herself. It’s not like getting hit by lightning. It’s actually kind of gross.
When he comes up for air again, I put my hand on his thin, angular shoulder. “Jeremy…”
He strokes my face. “You’re so beautiful. Do you know how beautiful you are?”
His voice soothes some part of me, reminds me why I came down here. He tells me I am desirable, that he has been hoping for a moment like this. I feel myself waver. “I don’t know if I want to do this,” I whisper.
“I’ll stop anytime you want me to.” He lowers his head, nibbling at my lip like a goldfish skimming bubbles off the surface of the water. His hand skims the hem of my shirt. “Stop?” he asks.
My mind whirls. He’s older than Aaron, more knowledgeable, more experienced, more able to teach me how to do this better—how to enjoy it. And that’s exactly what I want. I can’t think of anything worse than to be like this, stuck at this stage, missing out on all the great stuff people are always talking about. I start to think about Jalen and then I shut that image down. I’m moving on.
“No,” I whisper. “Don’t stop.”
I feel his smile before his lips begin the pulsing motion, pushing a little harder against mine this time. I don’t protest when his hand slides under my tank top and spans the skin of my stomach. His fingers slide back and forth, a lazy, stroking motion that moves so infinitesimally higher that I might be imagining it. But then the top of his thumb brushes the band of my bra.
“Stop.”
Immediately he withdraws his hand. Although it’s dark, I can just make out the black sheen of his eyes as he pulls slightly back from me. “Stop?”
I almost say yes, but then I tell myself that I’m ready for this. Ready to grow up, ready to be a different, better version of myself. More than ready—I need to do this.
He kisses me, and I tell myself it’s great. His hand starts the whole stomach-stroking move all over again. I concentrate on relaxing my abs and not slapping his fingers away. I tell myself that any moment it’s all going to change and become magical. I just need to relax.
His hand glides upward, and this time his thumb slides under the wire band of my bra. My heart skips and for a moment I think this is what I’ve been waiting for, but then some instinct takes over and before I even know what I’m doing, I grab his hand away.
“Stop.”
But Jeremy’s mouth has mine pinned and only an unintelligible whine comes out.
Things accelerate. Before I know what’s happening, his whole hand is under my bra and his hips are pushing against mine. I shove his shoulders enough to put him off–balance, and the moment my mouth is free I say very firmly, “Stop!”
He draws back, but his hand keeps moving over my breast. “Stop?” he coaxes.
“Stop.”
He hesitates a long moment and then starts to kiss me again. A little more fiercely, as if he can make me feel. I try to push him away, and he resists. I start struggling for real then, twisting my head, breaking our kiss, slapping at his hands.
He pulls back. I can’t see his face in the darkness, but I can hear him breathing, short and fast, and feel the quiver in his muscles, like electricity passing through him.
“You mean stop?” he whispers, and then squeezes my breast slightly harder. “Or do you mean stop?”
“I mean get off me!”
He doesn’t say anything, but I can hear his breathing growing louder, a little angry-sounding. “Okay,” he says quietly, but he doesn’t stop. Instead he squeezes my breast so hard that I cry out, and then with his other hand he pops my shorts open.
Suddenly a voice calls from above. “Paige? Paige! Are you down there?”
It’s Jalen. I’ve never been so relieved to hear anyone’s voice in my life. Jeremy abruptly releases me. I push my tank top down and scramble through the darkness toward the sound of Jalen’s voice.
My arms and legs shake so badly I’m afraid I’m going to fall backward, off the ladder and down into that pit. Jalen calls my name. I see his face almost lost in shadow, peering down. He stretches out his arm. When I get close enough, I grab onto it, and he pulls me up the last two rungs.
“Are you all right?” he demands and asks the question twice before I manage to nod. “What happened?”
His gaze moves over me, and even in the gloom of the chamber, it must be obvious to him—my swollen lips, my disheveled hair, and oh, God, my shorts undone. He reaches for me, but I rush past him holding my shorts closed. The light slants through the chamber’s entrance. Misjudging the width, I scrape my shoulder on the masonry frame, but I hardly feel it. All I want to do is get as far from the ruins and what just happened as possible.
TEN
Paige
All night I lie in bed and think about Jeremy’s hands on me. No amount of time in the shower can wash away the bruises that circle my left breast—reminders that when you play with fire, you get burned.
At breakfast, I can barely choke down a cereal bar. For once I’m glad that my father is too preoccupied with his newspaper and coffee to notice that anything is wrong. We ride to the cliffs with the car stereo tuned to a news station. I look out the window, alternating between the dread of facing Jeremy again and the fantasy of telling my father what happened and him somehow making things right.
As we make the long climb up the series of ladders bolted to the cliff wall, I give myself a pep talk about not letting Jeremy see that he’s hurt me, that he’s changed me in any way. Maybe I gave him mixed signals, but that didn’t give him the right to hurt me. And the more I think about it, the more I think he knew exactly what he was doing. It makes me mad, and I think about telling. But I’m not exactly thrilled about the idea of showing everyone my breast and then trying to explain what happened. I did flip-flop, after all.
All my worrying is for nothing, though, when we get to the top. Jeremy isn’t in the ruins—probably hoping to avoid me as much as I want to avoid him—and I spend the morning staying closer to my father than I have the entire time I’ve been here. If he notices, he doesn’t comment.
Jalen, however, keeps looking in my direction. He knows something’s wrong, and I can see him trying to figure it out, making the connections between Jeremy’s absence, the baggy T-shirt that replaces my usual tank top, and the way my eyes slide away from his.
Mid-morning, when we break, Jalen walks in my direction, but I see him coming and run. Everything is different now. I don’t want Jalen to like me, not like I used to. I don’t want him to see me at all.
At noon, I meet Emily at our usual spot on Whale Rock. We take out our lunches, but I can’t bring myself to take a single bite. Instead I think about Jeremy, and in this fantasy, I’m pounding my fists into his thin, evil face, and blood pours from his long, elegant nose.
“What’s with you today?” Emily complains, setting her water bottle on the rock. Today she’s wearing a light-blue tank top with a deep plunge. I bite my lips, barely able to keep from snapping at her to cover up for God’s sake—to stop dressing like a stripper. To stop dressing exactly as I did twenty-four hours ago.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said and you have these black craters under your eyes. Did you and your dad fight?”
“No.”
I look down at my sandwich and feel sick. When I glance up again, Emily is chewing her sandwich and looking at me thoughtfully. “It’s got to be your dad. What’d he do this time?”
“Nothing.” I try to fake a smile. “I’m fine.”
Her face twists as
she studies me. I can tell by the expression in her eyes she doesn’t believe me.
I lift my sandwich to my mouth and try to make myself eat.
“Then, what?” Emily pushes a bag of Doritos toward me. “Have one.”
I push the bag away. “I told you. I don’t feel well. It’s too freaking hot to eat, anyway.” I spit out the word “freaking.”
Emily puts down the Doritos. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m just sick of one-hundred degrees. Why do we even sit in the sun?”
“What happened to your hands, Paige?” Before I can stop her, she takes my hand into hers. “And why are your hands and knees scraped up?”
“It’s nothing.” I pull my hand away. Truthfully, I don’t even remember hurting them, although those scratches weren’t there when I climbed down into that chamber with Jeremy.
I know he wouldn’t have raped me. He wouldn’t have dared—not with me being the daughter of his professor. But there was a moment I could feel him struggling for control of himself. Almost like a line he’d reached where, if he crossed it, there would be no turning back.
Standing, I leave my garbage on the rock and follow a stony footpath along the bank of the creek.
Emily scrambles after me. “Wait up. Where are you going?”
“Nowhere.” I walk faster, head down, hugging myself like I’m cold even as the sun burns down on my neck. I hear Emily’s feet on the gravel behind me, but I try to shut her out. If the trail were wider, I would run and run and run. And still not be able to get away from this thing inside me.
Emily’s fingers curl around my arm, and she pulls me to a stop. “What’s going on?” Her green eyes are wide and worried. Despite the sweat plastering her hair to her face, she still looks beautiful. “Why won’t you talk to me?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Paige…”
“I just want to be alone.” Actually it’s the last thing I want, as I am the person I want most to avoid.
“Talk to me.”
“I’m fine.” My voice sounds like a girl with a thousand things wrong.
“Then what happened?”
“Nothing.” But the word sticks like a fist in my throat. I clutch my hands and will myself to hold Emily’s gaze.
“It’s your dad, isn’t it? What did he say this time? I screwed up last time, but this time I’ll take your side no matter what it is. I promise.”
I grab the hem of my boxy, ugly Rutgers T-shirt and twist it together. I only brought this shirt because I wanted my dad to see it and be reminded of the life he left behind. I never dreamed I’d be wearing it to hide in. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
Emily touches my arm. “I’m good at keeping secrets.”
I look up. Our gazes meet. In her eyes, I see the truth of her words—of the secrets that bind us together in a way that nothing else ever will.
“Come on. Let’s go sit down.” Emily leads me to a slab of red rock that forms a natural step rising from the creek. “Start at the beginning.”
I’m reluctant. How do I start? What is the beginning?
“You can tell me,” Emily coaxes. “Whatever it is, I’ll help you—even if it’s a smoke monster.”
Just mentioning our childhood nemesis loosens my throat a little. I remember the night we tried to conjure up a man in a village who had died the day before. Only in my version—in this game—he wasn’t just a spirit, but something far more powerful. A monster formed of smoke, coming at our call to snatch us back with him into the world of dead people. We sat terrified, watching the flames burn down and promising each other we wouldn’t let go of the other no matter what crawled out of the smoke.
I wonder if I can trust her, and then realize I need to trust somebody.
“Yesterday, Jeremy asked if he could kiss me and I said yes.” I hug my knees, trying to stay objective, to see it as a movie I saw rather than something that really happened. “It was okay at first, but then I asked him to stop.”
Emily’s brow furrows in concentration. “And did he?”
“Yes. But then I changed my mind and let him kiss me again.”
She nods. “That happens sometimes. It’s okay.”
“But then I told him to stop again.” I hesitate because the details now are getting a little fuzzy. I remember how I felt much more than what I said or how many times I said it. “But then he started to kiss me again and I could tell he was trying really hard to get me to change my mind. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but I didn’t want him to keep kissing me.” I can feel myself getting furiously hot, as if the temperature inside my body is ten times stronger than the heat of the sun. “So I told him to stop.”
Emily takes a deep breath and puts her arm around me. “And did he?”
My throat closes. It was my fault. I see that clearly now, and it takes me a moment to loosen my throat enough to speak. “Sort of. He said okay, but then he did this.” I look around, confirm we are alone, and then lift up my T-shirt. Peeling back the edge of my bra, I let her see the red and purple bruises on the outside of my breast, the scratches lower on my stomach.
She leans closer. “God, Paige,” she says, drawing back. Her eyes flash with anger. “No wonder you were so upset. What a jerk.”
I wipe my nose with the hem of my shirt and try to force the question that haunts me out of my throat. “I know I gave him mixed signals.” I pause and grip my hands together. “I want to know…and I want you to tell me the truth…was it my fault?”
“Of course not,” Emily explodes. “How can you even think that?”
“Because even before we went down into that chamber, I was kind of flirting with him. And he asked me if he could kiss me.”
Emily rubs the back of her neck and shakes her head. “You get to say no. You get to change your mind. There’s no point where you can’t tell a guy to stop. He hurt you, Paige. That’s wrong.”
I close my eyes, remembering the rage building inside him. How he punished me for being a tease.
I start to tear up, and Emily whispers that it’s going to be okay, but I know that isn’t true. I’ve messed up again. Not just with Jeremy, but with the idea of starting over, of making myself more competitive for college and destroying the pieces of myself that I didn’t like. You can’t change who you are, no matter how much you want to.
Emily and I sit like that for a long time, and when I finally sit up, she keeps a supportive hand on my leg. “We need to tell your father what happened.”
I look up, wipe my eyes. Is she serious? “No way.”
“You think he won’t believe you?” Her face tightens with determination. “Paige, just show him your bruises.”
“I’m not showing him anything.” I put more space between us. “And he’s the last person I want to know.” I swipe my eyes, angry at how they keep filling up. “I just want to put this behind me.”
Emily frowns. “He’s your dad. He needs to know. If you won’t tell him, I will.”
I draw back, surprised. Didn’t she just hear me? A rush of anger shoots through me. Why does she have to always take his side? “I thought you were good at keeping secrets.”
Emily doesn’t flinch. “This is different. The freak needs to pay for what he did. He deserves to be thrown out of the program. The next time I see him, that’s exactly what I’ll tell him.”
“Don’t say anything to him!”
“The hell I won’t. I’ll tell him to turn himself in to your father and apologize to you.”
I give a bitter laugh. “He’ll never do that. Besides, it’s his word against mine.”
“You have bruises.”
“He’ll say that we were fooling around and it got a little rough.”
Her eyes narrow. “He hurt you,” she says, “You told him to stop.”
“He’ll say that I said that before when I really meant the opposite.”
“Anyone who sees those marks will believe you. Besides, you’re underage.”<
br />
She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t see that it isn’t just exposing the physical marks, it’s also the embarrassment of everyone knowing what I did, having to go to my father for help. “Like I want to flash my boob to the world.” I glare at her because it’s better to feel angry than helpless. “You want to be my friend? Stay out of this.”
“Your dad will understand. He’ll help you.”
“My father and I are not exactly on close terms. He’ll think it was my fault, anyway.” I lace my voice with as much sarcasm as possible. “Kids should be allowed to divorce their parents if they want.”
“Forget about the divorce. Tell him or I will.”
“You can’t do that. I don’t want you to do that.” A line of sweat rolls down my back. Another chases it. I find myself pointing my finger at her. “You tell anyone and we’re finished.”
She looks at me with fierce green eyes. Every inch of her tanned face is lined with determination. “You’re my friend, Paige. My best friend. Maybe the only one I’ve ever had. I can’t just do nothing.”
ELEVEN
Paige
The rest of the day I worry that Emily is going to tell my father and this whole thing is going to blow up. I can’t imagine anything worse than explaining what happened in that chamber. I think of how showing him the bruises would be as humiliating as getting them.
I text Emily a couple of times, begging her not to say anything, but she doesn’t reply. I station myself at my father’s side, hoping that if she tries to talk to him, I can intercept her. I wish I’d never told her.
I’m relieved when my father and I leave the park a little earlier than usual. He needs to make a stop at his office at the university and promises that we can pick up pizza for dinner. He doesn’t seem to know anything is wrong. For once I’m grateful he’s so clueless.
The drive to his office takes about thirty minutes. All of them he spends on his cell, talking at length about the restoration efforts. I watch the scenery flash and play games in my head. If my father hangs up before I count to ten, I’ll tell him the truth. But it doesn’t matter how many times I count in my head, he doesn’t hang up. As we pull onto the campus, I feel the urge to talk to him fade.
Bone Deep Page 6
