“Uh, hello? Jack, do you need another drink for courage or something?” Max asked. Someone bumped into me and spilled booze on us, and Toby shoved them.
“Asshole!” he yelled. “These sloppy kids. No one knows how to hold their liquor anymore.”
“Yeah,” I said, watching Jess shake her hips to the pulsing beat.
Look at the woman.
Max started to say something else, but I pulled away and began moving over to her. She was swinging her hips so hard she nearly tripped. I grabbed her arm.
“Oh shit, thanks, Jack!” she said. Her face was red and flushed, her eyes watery and a little faraway. I led her over to the leather couch in the center and helped her into it. She slumped onto my shoulder, letting her arms fall across my chest. From the other end of the room, Toby made a dick-sucking gesture with his mouth. Max was laughing, his Adam’s apple bobbing to the beat. I turned away.
Jess was breathing heavy. “You okay?” I asked her.
She nodded, lifted her face up, and looked at me through her hair.
“Mm, yeah,” she said groggily, resting her head on my shoulder. “Everything’s super cool.”
I watched her belly move up and down as she breathed, studied the way the light hit her face and curved down her lips. I tried to imagine touching her, what it would feel like, how it would be. A little part of me tried to hold back, but I pushed it aside, letting the drunkenness fully take over, and leaned in to kiss her softly on the cheek.
My lips lingered there for a moment. Her skin was surprisingly soft.
She blinked at me sleepily, all doe-eyed and gentle, and yes, she was pretty, and maybe this time I could feel something. I leaned in closer, pressing my lips to the corner of hers and letting my hand rest on her shoulder blade. Then she jerked away suddenly, like I’d done something wrong.
I could feel Toby watching me, could see him moving closer in my peripheral. Why couldn’t she just cooperate, for one second? Play drunk and oblivious like she had with that guy she’d let feel her up a second ago? What was so wrong about me?
I stroked her cheek with my finger and ran my hand down the small of her back to her exposed bare leg, feeling the soft skin and the warmth of her body. She mumbled, “Jack, what are you doing?”
“This,” I whispered in her ear. I pulled her towards me and kissed her. She froze for a moment. My hand crawled up her thigh. I’d hooked up with girls before, more or less, but I’d never touched them. I’d always just let them touch me. Would it burn my fingers, would it hurt? Strange thoughts circled my head, but they somehow made sense. I touched her under her dress and she gasped, then grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand away like I’d tried to bite her.
With our faces so close, I could see her eyes were dark and bewildered. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, and then it was like a light had been flipped on and I could see again. A hot wave rolled over me from head to toe, and I knew then that I could never take this back.
“What’s wrong?” she mocked, recoiling from me. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
It was like being socked in the stomach. “Me? There’s nothing wrong with me. You were all over that other guy just a second ago. What, am I not worthy enough, Jess, to touch your body? I know you know how many guys have been staring at your ass in that tiny dress all night. You haven’t exactly been telling them to fuck off.”
The slap landed harder than I’d expected. It took a moment for me to register the pain across my face, I was so numb with drunkenness. She got up from the couch and stormed off, and I didn’t go after her. I just sat there, feeling the shame and anger burning right through me. I punched the couch and pushed through the mass of bodies that now felt suffocating, refusing to make eye contact with Toby and Max. I just wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere and never come out.
I spotted Toby follow Jess down the long hallway. I knew he was going after her, but I didn’t move to stop him.
23.
I didn’t deserve to get out of bed. I deserved to lay there all day, my stomach pitching, my head pounding like someone was banging a steel drum inside of my skull.
At around noon, Mom crept into my room and pushed back my hair, feeling my forehead. She came back a little while later with hot soup, and when I moaned and rolled over, refusing to touch it, she just patted my back and left it on my nightstand.
I didn’t stir until my phone buzzed hours later. A text from Connor, asking if I wanted to meet downtown.
I sat up too fast and the whole room tilted forward. I sprinted to the bathroom, trying desperately to puke up the bile I could feel inside of me, but nothing came out, not even when I stuck my fingers down my throat. So I splashed my face with cold water, brushed my teeth, gulped down three aspirin and gelled my hair as best as I could. I still looked like shit. My eyes were hollowed out, my face bloated and puffy from the alcohol. Fantastic.
My stomach growled from hunger, but the soup was too cold to eat by then.
I deserved it all. After leaving Jess in the lion’s den of the party, I had drunkenly biked the four miles home to my house, bearing all the cuts and scrapes and bruises on my legs to prove it. Then
