He pulled a joint from his pocket and lit up, exhaling a cloud of thick smoke that unraveled as it rose to the ceiling. “You’re gonna need a hit or two of this.”
I took a really long hit.
“I asked her if she was okay, if she wanted to talk, and she said sure, and we ended up talking for a few minutes after class. Well, mostly I just listened. She told me that something had happened with Toby, something really upsetting, and she felt like she couldn’t trust anyone anymore. I could tell she could barely trust me, but she needed to tell me, you know? She needed to talk to someone.
“And I just nodded and waited for her to go on, and then she told me that she’d been at his house over the weekend, and they’d started making out or whatever, and then she’d told him she didn’t like him like that. She didn’t want it to be serious or whatever. And then he’d like…gotten really aggressive with her, started feeling her up, even though she was begging him to stop and was crying and really, really scared. And he kept trying to…you know. Maybe he was trying to rape her, I don’t know. She said he was holding her hands down so it was hard to move. But eventually she kicked him hard enough and got him off of her and got away and…shit, I don’t know if I can tell you this. If I should. It’s really personal, you know? But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. And so I said, you know, Jess, maybe you should tell someone else. Like your mom or dad or something. I didn’t know what else to do.”
No, I thought. No no no no no no.
It was a good thing we were near his bathroom, because soon I was running to it and puking up hot coffee. It burned my esophagus on the way back up. Connor patted my back and made me finish the joint.
I was shaking and I couldn’t stop. That was why she’d been so upset lately. Because of Toby. I wanted to hit something, someone, anyone. I wanted to find Toby and chop off his dick and feed it to him and hear him cry and beg and scream.
And it was my fault, too. I’d started all of this. If I hadn’t touched her like that at the party, if we hadn’t had that falling out, Toby never would have gone after her, and they probably never would’ve started talking or hanging out. And he probably never would’ve—
“I didn’t know what to do,” Connor said again. He sounded small and helpless, like he was about to start crying. “I wrestled with it for days, trying to think of what I’d want someone to do if it were me. I couldn’t handle telling you. I know how much you love her. I just didn’t know what to do.”
“I’m going to kill him,” I said. “I’m going to find Toby wherever he is right now and beat his ass to death. No. I need to call her. I need to call her right now.”
“Jack!” Connor said. “Oh God, I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”
“I’m glad you did.” I reached for my phone and dialed Jess’ number, and it rang, and rang, and rang, going straight to voicemail every time.
I left a message. “Hey, it’s me. Connor told me about what happened with Toby. And it’s okay if you’re mad at him for telling me, and still mad at me, too, because honestly, I don’t blame you. But I want you to know that I’m here for you. And if you don’t want to talk to me, that’s okay, too. I just hope you’re alright. I’m sorry, Jess. I’m so, so sorry.” I hung up and tossed the phone across the room.
Then I was sobbing. Deep, ugly, heaving sobs.
Connor wrapped his arms around me and let me just cry for a while, cry snot and tears into his pillow. It felt like I’d cried more in these last few days than I’d ever cried in my life. And then he asked me, gently: “What’s one place around here that makes you feel really calm? It can be anywhere. Wherever it is, we’ll go there. Right now.”
49.
Sunscreen smells like childhood, like sticky-fingered freedom. The burning sun and the coolness of the chemical water, so cerulean, the tinkling of the ice cream truck’s Spanish folk tunes, a call to action for kids to beg their parents for spare change…
I remembered all of this as I sat there on the cracked concrete with Connor at the edge of the pool, our feet dipped in the shallow water. The freeway roared softly behind the towering bushes that enclosed the tail end of the community center. Crickets and road noise, the smell of gasoline mixed with chlorine, bright sun—that’s what Burro Hills feels like in the summertime. I could feel it coming, the subtle shift in seasons, days stretching languidly, shadows falling longer and later.
We sat there in the stillness, watching the ripples across the water’s surface. The Xanax was kicking in. Connor had given me several from his own huge prescription bottle, one I’d never seen before. I didn’t ask about it, and he didn’t elaborate. It didn’t matter. Already it was easier to breathe, like time was slowing to a crawl.
I put my hand on his and squeezed his fingers. I didn’t know if it was the drug or the deeply-rooted fatigue that made me feel so alive and frazzled and somber all at once. The smell of chlorine, the crickets, the peacefulness of it all…it was all starting to come together in a strangely lucid way.
I stood up and stripped down to my boxers, then plunged into the pool. It was warm from the sun, but cool enough to feel
