I shift my weight to my other leg, my eyes still scanning the room for Emery. She’s trying to enjoy the party—I should just go. I don’t want to ruin her night by making her feel like she has to keep checking up on me.
Adam nods too slowly, like it’s too difficult to comprehend everything I’m saying. “I want to show you something.” He grabs my hand and pulls me away from the wall. “You’ll like it. I promise.”
We turn down the hall and into one of the rooms. I try to pull my wrist away. “I don’t think we’re supposed to go in here.”
But he pulls back insistently. “It’s cool. It’s cool.”
It doesn’t feel cool—it feels intrusive and like I’m going to get yelled at by the owner at any minute for being in their bedroom and oh my God why are we in a bedroom?
All my joints go stiff, like they’ve been fused together with liquid iron. Every part of me wants to object to this—especially when he closes the door—but I am paralyzed with the fear of making Adam uncomfortable. Confrontation of any kind is my nightmare.
He flicks the switch on the wall, and a rainbow-colored chandelier made of uneven pieces of sea glass lights up the room. An unlit candle near the door makes the room smell like lilac. It itches my nose and reminds me of my grandma’s house. Maybe I should tell Adam about my grandma—how she lives with three cats and how she once tried to feed me a can of crushed sardines and fed the cats macaroni and cheese. I think maybe it will distract him enough to make him let go of my arm. Maybe it will even make him forget why he brought me in here in the first place.
Adam wanders to the side of the bed, pulling me along behind him like a mindless puppet, and shuffles his hand around the end table.
“This room smells like my grandma’s house,” I start, but Adam turns to me and waves a remote control in my face.
“Do you like Family Guy?” he asks, turning the mounted television on, releasing my hand, and throwing himself onto the patchwork bed. He pats at the space next to him. His eyes are half closed, like he’s about to fall asleep.
My eyes dart from the edge of the bed, to the flashing images on the TV, to the door separating us from a herd of loud strangers. And Jamie Merrick.
But Jamie is with his friends, and his friends are the strangers that are giving me an anxiety attack.
I sit on the bed, a foot away from Adam, with my feet dangling over the edge.
Only ten minutes pass before Adam starts to snore. I contemplate leaving, but with Adam asleep, I almost feel alone. Alone is good. Alone feels safe.
Something else is on TV that isn’t familiar or particularly funny, so I look for the remote. It’s still in his hand, draped across part of the mattress like a body part on a mannequin.
Adam’s chest rises and falls, and there’s a deep rumble starting in the back of his nose.
I reach across him; I’m sure I can grab the controller without waking him. Just as my fingers clutch around the plastic, his eyes open and his hand closes around my wrist.
Startled, I pull back, but his body lifts toward mine like we’re magnetized somehow.
His eyes are heavy and bloodshot. The night has weakened the product in his hair, so the blond waves have gone wild and soft. When he opens his mouth, he smells sour.
“Has anyone ever told you that you look kind of like Princess Jasmine?” He grins—the grin that is supposed to be charming but isn’t. “I don’t know why I never noticed before. You’re really pretty, you know that?”
His words trigger something.
I am eight years old.
The oxygen empties from the room. My eyes won’t focus on anything for very long. They jump from faded paint on the wall to frayed edges on the quilt cover to a David Letterman bobble-head on top of a stack of magazines, on top of an old record player.
Adam runs his fingers along my arm. My mouth is twitching.
There are stars on the ceiling.
My eyes search more of the room. Keep looking around. Keep thinking.
The blinds are bent in the left corner. There’s a half-empty container of orange Tic Tacs on the nightstand. An unopened package of peppermint candy next to it. A receipt behind the trash can.
He’s closer to me now. His breath makes my eyes water.
I want to reach for my stuffed rabbit, but I’m frozen.
I’m frozen now, too. I can’t move. I can only think.
Think. Think. Wrappers. Blinds. Triggers. Bed.
Oh. The bed.
The stars shake, the rabbit shakes, the bed shakes.
I’m remembering what I don’t want to.
I need to keep thinking about anything but the bed.
Adam puts his lips against mine. I feel sick. It feels sick. He tastes like ash and rotten fruit. He’s trying to shove his fat, slobbery tongue into my mouth, but I pin my lips shut because I don’t want to do this at all.
But why can’t I move?
Everything is shaking but me.
My breathing quickens, and Adam mistakes it for enjoyment. He grinds his teeth against me like we’re supposed to mold together, but it feels like two pieces of metal that are shaped all wrong for each other. His fingers close against my head like he’s squeezing my skull. Is kissing supposed to feel this aggressive?
I don’t know, because I’ve never been kissed before.
I’m too scared. Everything is shaking and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.
I’m too scared to move. I’m scared of the embarrassment. I’m scared of what acknowledging any of this says about me. I feel completely out of control, and my body feels like it’s made out of lead. I don’t know how to change this.
I’ve felt like this before.
I melt into myself, my limbs stiff and my mouth closed, and when Adam is finished trying to smother me with his alcohol breath, I watch him lean away from me.
“Man, I’m so hungry right now.” He half chuckles and stares off into space, probably imagining a sandwich. He lets himself fall back to the bed, our magnetic pull severed.
I lunge for the door.
CHAPTER SIX
Walking through the hallway feels like I’m walking through a mirrored tunnel in a fun house. The walls don’t stay up the way they’re supposed to. I’m dizzy, and it makes me feel weak.
I squeeze the bottom of my shirt in my hands and try to ignore the pounding in my chest.
I need to get to the front door. I need to get to my car. I need to go home.
“You’re still here,” Jamie says when I emerge in the living room. It’s not hard to spot him because he’s like a unicorn among donkeys. Nobody else is anywhere near as beautiful. Even the girl sitting on the couch next to him—with her perfect side braid and about five layers of lip gloss—gets lost to the blur that surrounds him. “I thought you went home already.”
My mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls. It’s too hard to concentrate, so I just shake my head.
His smile fades a little because he’s studying me. Everything about me shifts—my eyes, my feet, my hands—everything about me screams something isn’t right.
“I thought you didn’t drink,” he says, and his smile returns a little bit.
“I’m not—” I mumble. “I don’t—” I try to swallow the cotton away. “I’m going home. I don’t feel great.”
“Did you drive here?”