Paint My Body Red

by Heidi R. Kling

Bile rose in my gut. My heart raced, and I felt like I was going to pass out. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  Sarah’s smirk matched Ty’s when she looked at this other girl, Keoni, for confirmation. Believe me. I would’ve loved to have grabbed them by the elbows, yanked them into the girls’ bathroom, and confessed everything. Guilt, pleasure, pain, embarrassment—talk about what happened the other night. How I never knew I could feel so many mixed emotions for a person at once. How he equally repulsed and compelled me. How I both needed and was repelled by his touch.

  But what if they knew? The truth? The real truth. And it spread around? I’d be so embarrassed, so ashamed. To be attracted to your stepbrother is bad enough, but to actually act on that attraction? Having sex with him? Especially someone who already had nasty rumors tied to him that I was pretty sure were true? I was way over my head and I was sinking fast. That had to be taboo in pretty much every culture. Then again, breaking cultural taboos seemed to be our school’s theme. What would another one hurt?

  I sighed, disgusted with myself.

  “You’re not going to the bathroom. You’re going to catch up with your brother, aren’t you?” Keoni said. She wasn’t being mean; she was joking. They weren’t mean girls. Neither of them had ever had a boyfriend. They didn’t even know what they were saying.

  I had to get their minds off Ty and me. A shaky laugh escaped my lips, grateful for the shame-hiding darkness. “Hey, Matt Jansen looks pretty hot tonight.”

  Keoni’s black bob moved when she nodded. “He was in Chess Club with me in sixth grade. I always volunteered to be his partner, but I don’t think he knows I exist.”

  “Why don’t you ask him to dance, K?”

  “No. Way. He’s so popular.”

  I searched the strobe-lit space for Ty.

  “Why don’t you ask him, Paige?”

  I didn’t see Ty, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. In the crowd. Watching me. Checking to see if I was looking for him.

  I spotted him sitting up high in the bleachers watching me.

  I needed to prove to my friends there wasn’t anything going on between Ty and me. Prove to Ty he couldn’t control me. Didn’t own me. Couldn’t manipulate me or embarrass me in front of my friends.

  “Fine,” I said.

  Matt Jansen was standing with a couple of his friends by the snack table. I didn’t really think he was hot. Matt wasn’t my type. Nice enough, sure, good looking enough, but nothing between us chemistry wise. But when he caught my eye as I checked him out, he set across the waxy gym floor with a curious eyebrow lift.

  “Don’t look now but he’s coming over here.”

  “Cool,” I said.

  Matt was a water polo player, same as Cornell. His blond hair, green eyes, and confident body language screeched “player”. Rumor had it he’d screwed the entire cheerleading squad. Twice.

  “Hey, Paige,” he said. Now Matt was strobe shadows in the dark.

  “Hey, Matt,” I said.

  “I like your dress.”

  I glanced down at my strapless baby doll dress, my strappy heels.

  “Thanks. I like your…” I scanned down over his popped collar polo shirt, tan pants, and shiny white—“shoes,” I finished.

  “Oh, these old things?”

  Wing tips.

  Matt also golfed professionally on the weekends and had since he was six. Once in fourth grade I remember him telling me he wasn’t allowed to climb trees because an injury could “ruin his golf game.”

  He was essentially the opposite of my type.

  But the simple fact that Matt wasn’t Ty made him worthy of tonight’s attentions. So when he cocked his head and asked, “Want to dance?” it was easy to reply, “Sure. Why the hell not?”

  I ended up in the back of Matt’s car.

  It was the last place I wanted to be, but I had to prove to Ty and my friends that there was nothing going on. I had to prove to Ty that I wasn’t his. He couldn’t demand anything of me. He couldn’t have sex with me when I was asleep.

  Ty was still sitting on the top row of the bleachers when, hand in hand, we left the dance. He watched us, glaring.

  Matt had a flask, and I leaned back against the leather seat and took a huge gulp. It burned my throat like hellfire. I liked the burn, liked the way it numbed me. Made me wade half in and half outside this horrific reality. Matt’s eyes were red, watery, his smile as weak as my convictions were strong.

  “The dance was kind of weird wasn’t it, considering all that’s going on?”

  His comment surprised me. I thought it’d be more like, “Ready to do it?” More like Ty. He was all I knew.

  “The school dance committee thought it would be a good thing. Normalizing.”

  “Do you think it was normalizing?”

  He was tipsy. Vulnerable. He wanted to chat, bond even.

  I didn’t. I took another chug from the flask. Vodka?

  “Cornell was a good friend of mine.” Pause. “God.” He ran his hands through his thick chlorine-blond hair. “I can barely say his name without feeling sick. I just don’t understand why he did it? Sure, he had girlfriend troubles and parent issues, but who doesn’t? That’s just life…high school LIFE, you know? I just…I miss him. And putting a bunch of stuffed monkeys around isn’t going to change that. Isn’t going to make that go away, you know?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  My head was light. Reality drifted away.

  “Yeah, so am I,” he said. His green eyes filled with tears. “You’re smart, Paige. You’re one of the few girls here who is both smart and hot. You know that’s a rare combination. And you seem really cool, too, and funny…I like that…”

  Matt was also drunk. He must have pre-partied pretty hard.

  “Thanks,” I said. I eyed the door handle. I could still get out of this. Go back to the gym, find my friends, go home.

  No, this was better. If I did it with this daft water polo player, I would erase the evidence of Ty. The trails he left all over my body like snail slime. The ones that made me sick with guilt, like every bit of pleasure we stole in the beginning was bought with the blood of our classmates, and now that he wasn’t accepting no for an answer, had birthed my shame. I couldn’t live like that anymore.

  This water polo playing guy I’d known for most of my life but didn’t really know at all, slumped into my side and nibbled drunkenly on my ear.

  I took another gulp out of the flask.

  “Did you lose any friends?” His voice was wet and needy.

  “Not really,” I said.

  “You’re lucky.”

  “I guess.”

  “I wasn’t so lucky.” He talked and talked and talked while he awkwardly fondled my chest. The alcohol was catching up to me. Soon, I was so drunk the car spun upside-down and flipped even though we hadn’t moved out of the parking spot. My head bobbed as I struggled to see straight. Tried to listen.

  “You’re a mess,” I slurred. “A confused mess. Don’t worry, we’re all a confused mess.”

  “Why did they pick a jungle theme for prom? Why not ocean or fantasy land or New York, New York? It’s a metaphor, right? It’s a JUNGLE OUT THERE. Right? Right?”

  Maybe I should tell him about Ty. Tell him that he raped me in my sleep. That I wanted him before, but now I want to toss him onto his bed and pour lighter fluid all over him and burn him down and the house, too. That Ty’s the only person that understands the banshee part of me howling into the night. This horrible boy that I used to desire and now detest. That I stood outside my mom’s door, crying, with my hand limply shaped like one about to knock, but couldn’t do it, because what in the world would I say? I’ve been having sex with Ty, but when I decided to stop, he didn’t want to? I could’ve, yes, but she wouldn’t have done anything. She would have either ignored me, pretended she hadn’t heard me, or sent me off somewhere. I couldn’t leave. I had to graduate from school. In the end, I peeled off my bed sheets, stormed down the stairs, an
d shoved them into the backyard garbage bin.

  Kids were dying. My sordid sexual relationship with my stepbrother wasn’t death.

  But I didn’t say anything to the polo player. I sat there, nodding, while he rambled on and on. When I couldn’t listen to that kid for a second more, I grabbed his hand and stuck it all the way down my shirt. I needed to get on with this and get home.

  His response was immediate.

  He struggled into a condom and climbed on top of me. While we were sort of doing it—I couldn’t feel much down there on his end, which confirmed the rumors I’d heard—I stared over his shoulder at the heels of his scuffed white dress shoes, his golfing wing tips, resting neatly on the backseat floor and thought about how, as a kid, he should’ve opted for tree climbing over golf. How his shoes needed a good cleaning.

  As promised, later that night, Ty came to my room.

  He stumbled into my room, drunk, wobbling like the freaking Scarecrow after Dorothy freed him from the stand, a monologue on his lips.

  This time I’m ready.

  “You just don’t get it, Paige. I’m sorry about last night but I’ve lost everything…everyone is gone and it’s that sound of the train whistles and the horns and the screams, and it’s all I hear over and over and over in my head. The only time I don’t hear it is when I’m in here, in here with you, and only then it stops for even a few minutes”—he held out his hands for emphasis—“and I get that you think I’m pathetic, and I know I shouldn’t be in here and I feel pathetic, too, I do, I do. Don’t you think I can’t see how you see me, how you look at me? But when I’m with you, it’s the only time I don’t hear the horns and the screams.”

  “Ty, you are a liar. You are a date rapist. I never should have gotten involved with you.”

  “No. No. Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true and you know it. Get out of my room or I’ll tell my mom, Ty. I swear. I’ll scream.”

  “I can’t see you with other guys like that.” He moaned into the darkness. “Please don’t do that to me again. I don’t know what I’ll do if I see you with him again. Please, Paigy, please.”

  “Get out of my room and go to sleep, Ty. I’ll sleep with whomever I wish. We’re done.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Now

  Bright lights, screaming train whistles, and drunken breath on my face roar through this nightmare of darkness, and I’m screaming. But it isn’t a train or Ty that rips me from my dreams—it’s Jake, gently shaking me awake. Because I’m too delirious to stop myself, I throw my arms around his neck and he holds me like that, soft but strong, on top of my sleeping bag until I’m not scared anymore.

  “Thanks, Jake,” I whisper into his neck after a while. “I’m okay now.”

  “One of these days you’re going to stop thanking me,” he says back, low and weighty, before tucking a piece of my hair, damp with sweat, behind my ear. He may have even kissed my cheek, but that would be too sweet and perfect for even a dream to muster.

  The ride back to the ranch is relaxing and slow. Anna rides in front, and Jake and I lag behind, chatting, mostly side-by-side. He points out various things on the trail. An eagle’s nest clustered in the top of a tall pine, erosion from last winter’s storm, one of his favorite fishing holes. He doesn’t ask me anything about home, honoring what I said last night, and I appreciate that he doesn’t push.

  We stop for lunch, and he spreads peanut butter between two pieces of wheat bread. “Want jelly?” he asks.

  “Sure, if you have some.”

  Nodding, he opens a little packet with his teeth and squeezes the purple blob onto the creamy peanut butter. “Unfortunately, it’s the packaged stuff.”

  “It’s fine. Every day can’t be an Anna Original. You brought wheat bread?” I observe with a surprised grin.

  “I did. You don’t like the white stuff, health nut,” he teases.

  “That’s so sweet.”

  He wrinkles his nose, blowing it off like it’s nothing. “You know what they say about California…”

  But it is something. He was thinking about me, and not just in the How Are You? kind of way, but also in the I Listen To What You Want, I Pay Attention To What You Need way, which makes me feel light.

  “Did you run this store-bought grape jelly by Anna?”

  “Huh?”

  “Well, the mere fact that it’s not strawberry could offend her.”

  He laughs and leans in, breathing lightly in my ear. “Between you and me, I’m getting damn sick of strawberry.”

  Our eyes meet and we laugh.

  “What are you two giggling about?” Anna tosses us a harsh look but her eyes are light.

  “Nothing,” we say in unison. Then laugh some more.

  When we get back, Dad is sitting at the kitchen table having his smoothie with the aid. After initial greetings, he types, Looks like you three had a good camp out?

  “We did,” I say, and tell him all about it.

  After, he types, It makes me happy to see you happy.

  I look up at Jake, who is a big part of the reason I’m so happy, and guilt rattles through me.

  I shouldn’t be happy, not with him suffering so badly. Not with…

  Dad notices my uneasiness and types, It’s okay to smile, Paige. You’ve always had a beautiful smile.

  “Thanks, Dad,” I say. Then I notice a page opened in the Jackson Hole Gazette. “What’s this?”

  I scan the words.

  TENTATIVE ENTRY FEES

  Bareback Riding…………..$50

  Saddle Bronco Riding………$50

  Bull Riding………………….$50

  Mini Bulls……………..$25

  4D Barrel Racing………..$30

  Pee Wee Barrels……..$10

  Calf Roping………..$35

  Breakaway…………$30

  Team Roping

  #1……………$40

  #8……………$25

  Mutton Busting…….$10

  “Jake? What’s this?” I follow him into the kitchen and set the flyer down on the counter. While I’m waiting for his answer, I pour myself coffee, choosing, from the neatly lined up rack, a navy blue mug with GOD BLESS COWBOYS written in bold text. Jake opens the fridge and pops open a cold can of Diet Dr. Pepper.

  “Rodeo entry fees.”

  “Oh.”

  “The real prize money is in the bulls,” Jake says into his already halfway empty, sloshing can.

  I remember what Anna told me about the way Jake’s dad died.

  “Bareback and saddle isn’t as dangerous, Jake, and the money is still good,” Anna says from the other end of the kitchen where she’s tossing dirty clothes from our camping bags into the washing machine.

  “Not good enough.”

  “It will have to be.”

  “What are you guys talking about?” I can’t help asking.

  “The entry application for Nationals. Jake wants to ride the bulls. We both know it’s too dangerous.”

  “The money is good, Paige,” he says to me, ignoring Anna.

  “Saving the ranch kind of good?”

  He smiles a bit, turning to Anna. “She gets it.”

  “That’s because she doesn’t understand the danger the way you and I do. The way you and I should.” Anna wipes her palms on her apron, looking at him pointedly.

  “Jake rodeos already, doesn’t he? That’s what he said anyway.”

  “He rides wild bucks, like that Maverick we have out in the corral now. It’s still dangerous, but not as dangerous as the bulls.”

  They named that gorgeous, fiery horse Maverick? Ugh. “What’s the difference in prize money?”

  “Depends on which round we get to,” Jake says. “Could be enough.”

  “Enough to save the ranch?”

  “Could be. If we can talk Anna here into letting me enter.”

  “Why does…” I stop myself before Anna’s eyes do.

  She answers anyway. “We’re family. We
have to agree on this kind of thing. We promised Jake’s mama, after what happened to his daddy, no more bulls.”

  Jake grits his teeth and flashes Anna an annoyed look, shaking his head a little like that was a ridiculous thing to promise. “Wish you’d stop using that as an excuse.”

  To break the tension I say, “I used to barrel rope when I was a kid. It was fun. We had a little practice space outside in the corral. Remember, Daddy?” I cross back over to the circular table and sit down next to him.

  You were great, he types. Jake and Anna join us around the table, Jake’s chair scratching the linoleum when he scoots in.

  “Maybe I can enter something,” I say, mostly to get Anna and Jake off the obviously tender subject of bulls.

  That would take a lot of practice, Dad types.

  “Jake can help me,” I blurt out. “You can help me, right, Jake?”

  Jake meets my eyes over the lip of his can to see if I’m being serious. When he sees that I am, he nods.

  “On Maverick?” I ask, still hating the name.

  “The mustang you’ve been giving apples to all week?”

  Anna sighs. “Is that where my apples been disappearing to? And I was all set to make apple pie, too.”

  Jake and I exchange a smile. The shadows from a moment ago vanish. “Well, one of my goals this week is to start breaking her in. But I don’t know if she’ll be ready to enter rodeo. Or if you’ll be ready to ride.”

  “I’m getting pretty comfortable on Blue.”

  “Sure, but comparing Blue to that ‘stang is like comparing Anna’s apple pie to jalapeño peppers. She’s got bite in her.”

  “I want to try.”

  “Well, there ain’t no harm in you watching,” he says, looking to Anna for approval. She nods, shrugs, and wanders back into the kitchen mumbling about stolen apples and stubborn cowboys under her breath.

  The horse Jake wants to break is anything but fragile.

  Golden red and strong, with a white mark on her forehead that sets her apart, she is completely different than Old Blue. Her eyes are wild, her body lithe and muscular in a way that tells me she only eats enough to keep her strong. When Jake quietly approaches her, the wild horse paws at the dirt, and blows air through her nostrils so hard I can almost see the smoke. She paws at the dirt again, looking at Jake like she’s going to pierce a hole in his chest if he makes the wrong move.