why you call it to-kill-ya.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a virgin, Scott?”
He turns to me with his brow raised and an incredulous look upon his face. “You do know I went out with Nicole for a whole six weeks, don’t you?”
“Not the kind of virgin I was talking about, but thanks for the painful reminder of the fact you ditched me for boob-a-skank,” I say, and snatch the bottle back.
“Yeah, well, I was an idiot.”
“No argument there.”
“So, what’s the deal with you and gigantor?”
“Who?” I feign innocence, or ignorance—I can’t remember which, because I’m drunk, remember?
“You know, prison-tattooed, scary-arse gigantic motherfucker?”
“Oh,
Scott raises the bottle and says, “To fucked up exes!”
“To home-wrecking sluts!” I salute as I take a swig.
Scott takes back the bottle and waves it in the air. “To wankers who don’t know a good thing when they have it.”
I snatch it back and say, “And to arseholes who break your heart,” before shooting him a dirty look and taking a long pull from the neck of the bottle.
By now my head is swimming. I’m pretty sure my fifteen minutes is up and I know I should get back to the party so Holly doesn’t worry, but I don’t feel like making the trek. I don’t feel like doing much of anything, actually, so I lie back on the grass and stare up at the stars.
“I like your to-kill-ya, Scott.” I hope he doesn’t notice how much I just slurred that sentence, and then I wonder why I care whether he knows I’m blind drunk or not. This fucker broke my heart, too. Granted, not as badly as Elijah, but he still did it. My inebriated brain at least has the sense to tell me that I didn’t love Scott like I love Elijah, and that just pisses me off and hurts my heart all over again. So I tell my heart to shut up by pulling Scott down beside me and pressing my mouth to his with a brutal, messy kiss.
It doesn’t take him long to catch up. In fact, within seconds he’s pawing at me and pulling me on top of him. His hand skims up under my shirt and palms my boobs. For half a second I close my eyes and pretend it’s Elijah’s hand. There’s one very noticeable difference though: either Elijah possesses some innate, supernatural ability to instinctively know how to please women or he’s had an awful, awful lot of practise, because Scott’s hand pushing and prodding at my boobs feels more like a breast exam than anything Elijah ever did.
I go with it, though, because it feels better than thinking about how miserable I am, thinking about how much I miss him, and thinking about the fact that, although it’s been a month, the pain hasn’t lessened any and I don’t expect it will.
Scott’s mouth covers mine with a sloppy insistent kiss, and suddenly I want to gag. He’s rock hard, pushing his hips into mine with bruising force, holding my hips down against him with one hand and my head with his other. I yank away, gulping in air as I raise myself up to a sitting position, but Scott’s stronger and he pulls me back down on top of him and then effortlessly rolls us so that I’m pinned to the ground by his body. I’m starting to see what a horrible idea coming out here with him was. I’m also beginning to realise just how much I must hate myself at this moment in my life to have absolutely no regard for my own safety or self-preservation. In fact, if Dharma had of walked up to me wielding a cute smile and a bottle of spirits, I likely would have tagged along behind him, too.
“Wait,” I say, as I attempt to sit up once more by shoving at his chest, but he pushes me down with a heavy palm splayed between my breasts. I’m feeling lightheaded and the pressure of him on top of me makes my tummy do weird flippy things, and not of the good variety. “Scott, stop. You’re hurting me.”
“Relax,” he whispers, nibbling on my ear.
Bile rises in my belly. I shove at him, more forcibly this time, and when he doesn’t move I lash out with my hands, gouging my nails down one side of his face. “I said stop, you arsehole!”
He sits back on his knees and presses his hand to his cheek. He’s bleeding. His eyes blaze with desire and hate, but I don’t give a crap. I waste no time getting to my feet and climbing up the embankment.
“Ana, get back here!”
“Fuck you!” I scream back. No sooner have the words left my mouth than I feel his arm slip around my waist and drag me backwards, down the embankment. His other hand covers my mouth and, even though I bite down on it as hard as I can, he gasps but doesn’t let go. I thrash and kick against him, all the while screaming into his palm as he lugs me further down the hill.
We’re not in the same spot as we were before. There’s no grass here, only a rocky patch of hard-packed earth. If we were in the same spot I’d consider using our abandoned tequila bottle as a weapon, but I can’t even see it—I can’t see anything on account of the dizziness and moonlight. Scott releases me—I don’t know why, I don’t question it—I simply run as fast as my uncoordinated body will take me. It’s not far enough though because before I can even reach the embankment he grabs my arm and pushes me to the ground. I hit the hard ground with a thud. Breath whooshes out of my lungs and my head lands hard enough that I feel both stunned and like I want to throw up my guts, all at once.
My vision goes dark. My skull feels like it’s been cleaved in half, like a watermelon. I think I feel Scott hovering over me. I try to lift my head but find I can’t. I can’t move without this roiling wave of nausea threatening to choke me. I feel his weight settle on top of me and hear him whisper, “I let you get away once, Ana. I’m not letting you get away a second time.”
“No.” I protest, but the blackness swallows me up completely.
I don’t know how long I’m out. It can’t be long because I wake to the tearing, searing pain of Scott pushing himself inside me. It’s so severe that for a heartbeat I’m stunned into stillness and then I begin to thrash—though I learn quickly that it only makes it worse. One hand is clamped tightly over my mouth and the other holds my arms down at the wrists as he unmercifully drives himself deeper and deeper inside me. I kick out with my legs, but there isn’t a whole lot I can do without causing myself even greater injury, so I merely lie there and wait for the right time to fight back as tears roll down my face to mix with the earth.
Every thrust inside me feels like a knife buried to the hilt. The burn and sting of tender flesh tearing, the crushing weight of his body against mine, I feel it all, until a short time later his rhythm lags. I think he must be close to coming because his eyes roll back in his head and I take that opportunity to use mine, like I should have in the beginning, and I head-butt him. It’s not as hard as I would have liked and it makes my own head throb horribly, but it’s enough to cause a distraction.
Scott tears his hand away from my mouth and cries out in a rage, “You fucking bitch!”
I scream for help. I buck and try to unseat him but all this works about as well as my head-butting skills because Scott uses his hands to hold me down and smiles, “You’re gonna regret that.”
He slams his elbow into my cheek and once again everything fades to black.
Chapter Twenty One
Elijah
I’ve been switching channels for well over an hour. The motel doesn’t have AUSTAR and what I can see of the screen is mostly just static fuzz, but I’m still watching it like it’s the most enthralling shit ever. I reach for the bottle on my bedside and swig back a mouthful of Johnnie Walker. Last week I spent so much God damn time drinking at the Sugartown Hotel that, when I wandered in earlier today to get some takeaways, the publican just handed me a bottle, took two hundred dollars from my wallet and I rode home with my new best friend Johnnie to make some bittersweet memories.
Somewhere between the microwaved meal and some fucking stupid Kleenex commercial with puppies, that weirdly has me thinking about Sammy, I think about how much I’m missing Ana. I think about how much it hurts to know that while I’m at work she’s right across the street from me and I can’t bring myself to cross the road, fall to
