Push and Shove: The Ghost Bird Series: #6 (The Academy) (56 page)

Jade’s hand withdrew from my underwear, clamping down over my mouth.

A wash of color faded in and out across my eyes. It was hard to focus. It reminded me of when I had woken up from fainting, that state between being asleep and waking up.

There was a rush at the door of the stall, like someone pushing at it. “Who’s in there?”

That was a simple question. “Jade.” I mumbled from behind Jade’s fingers.

And suddenly my legs gave away, my knees buckled. Despite Jade trying to hold me up, I slunk down. My legs didn’t want to work. Or I didn’t want them to work. It was hard to focus on reasons. Why were the walls moving? All I knew was, I was on my butt on the tile, and I was crying with my eyes open.

The bathroom stall door opened. Jade squared off and rushed at Karen. Karen fell back, but caught hold against the brick and shoved her shoulder into Jade’s chest. Jade fell out of my view. Karen ran after her.

I started to get up, but when I tried, my body shook so hard from sobs I couldn’t feel. My whole body tingled and was numb. The moment a thought entered my mind, like calling the boys, or making sure Karen was okay, the thought slipped away. I couldn’t focus. What I really wanted to do was cry but I already was, and it wasn’t good enough.

Karen returned in what felt like an hour later, but I was sure that was wrong. Time was broken. Karen stared hard at me and then knelt, grabbing my arm.

I pulled back from her. I didn’t mean to, but my muddled mind couldn’t take it. I didn’t really know her. I was naked. I needed her to go away. I needed to cry. I needed one of the boys.

Nathan’s name caught on my lips. I don’t know why, probably because he was the last one I saw. I heard my voice calling out to him, in such a terrified sound that hearing it caused me to convulse with sobs all over again.

Karen let go of me, stepping back and holding out her hands. “Okay, okay. I’ll go get Nathan. Hang on. Don’t move. Don’t go anywhere.” She spotted my phone on the ground, and picked it up. The screen was shattered. She stabbed at the surface.

She was calling someone. This was good. This set my raging emotions to still a little. I wanted to cover myself. I grabbed at my gym shirt, pulling it to my body. Getting it over my head was too much at the moment. The best I could do was use it as a shield.

I’d broken my phone. Victor...

“Nathan? It’s Karen. Sang’s hurt. We’re... No, it was Jade. She won’t tell me what’s wrong with her, but she’s crying. I can’t get near her. She won’t let me.”

Karen continued to talk and I tried to follow. When she started a sentence, I was with her, but by the end, I forgot what she said at the beginning for the whole thing to make sense.

Another broken hour-minute seemed to pass.

“Sang?” Nathan called out.

“Over here!” Karen stepped out of the stall. “She’s here.”

My face was overheating, as all I could focus on was that I was naked. I hated it. I hated Jade so much. I hated that Nathan was going to see me like this. This made me cry harder.

But when Nathan’s face floated into my vision, his serious blue eyes were the only things I could see. He cupped at my face. “Sang,” he said, though I think he was shouting. Volume was hard to detect. “Look at me. Calm down. What’s wrong?”

“Jade,” I said. It was all I could get out before I forgot what he asked me.

“Jade attacked her,” Karen said.

That was right! I nodded my head harder and hiccupped on a sob.

Nathan tugged at the shirt I was clutching. I resisted, not wanting him to see, but he knocked my hand out of the way. I watched his eyes instead, but he focused hard on the shirt. “Help me get her clothes back on.”

I knew this was what I wanted, but for some reason, I really didn’t want Karen. I didn’t understand it. Maybe it was because I knew Nathan better.

It took every ounce of focus I had to resist pulling away as Karen held up my arms while Nathan tugged the shirt onto my body. He fixed the torn bra up over my breasts quickly before he pulled the hem of the shirt down. For some reason, I was okay with this. He had touched my breasts, but it was fine. This was Nathan. Nathan took care of me.

I wanted to kiss him.

When Nathan picked me up by the waist. Karen fixed my shorts so quickly I didn’t have a chance to protest.

Nathan lifted me and I was dizzy, but I was in his arms.

It was going to be okay.

––––––––

T
he whole world spun. In the car, I was leaning so far back, I could only see blue and trees as we passed. I heard Nathan’s voice. No Kota. No other boys.

“Hang in there, Sang,” Nathan said. He repeated this a lot. “Stay with me.”

“I know that,” I said. My brain gears had slowed a little, the panic started to subside, but just a little. Probably because I was with Nathan, and that meant everything would be okay. I had to spill everything I knew. “Jade.”

“I know it was Jade, sweetie. What did she do?”

“I swallowed a pill. I didn’t mean to.”

“What pill?”

I didn’t know but something Rocky said clicked. “Maybe JH14.”

“She had it?”

“Jade had it.”

“So it was a pill? Don’t cry any more, Sang. If it’s the same stuff North took, it’ll go away.”

I didn’t realize I was still crying. I lifted my hand, touching my face, feeling the wetness on my cheek. “She pulled my hair. I didn’t mean to swallow the pill. I couldn’t stop her. She touched...” I knew what I wanted to say, but saying it made me rock back again with sobs.

“What did she touch, Sang?”

My hands slid over my body. In my dazzled mind, showing felt easier than talking about it. I covered my breasts with my arm, my legs crossed and I shoved a hand over my crotch, as if shielding it. I told myself over and over that this was how I should have stopped her.

“Hang on, Sang,” he said. “I’m taking you home. We’re going to stay there. Dr. Green is on the way. I was going to take you to the hospital, but he said to take you to your house. I told the others. They’ll find Jade.”

Another broken minute-hour later, Nathan stopped the car in front of my house. He opened the passenger door, and caught me as I leaned out, trying to get out myself. He lifted me until I was cradled into him. I got dizzy again until I was planted on the rough orange couch in the family room.

Nathan hovered over me. He placed a hand on my forehead. "How’re you feeling?" he asked.

"Dizzy," I said.

"Was it just one pill?"

"It felt like it. She shoved it into my mouth with her tongue so I'm not sure..."

Nathan's eyes went wide. "She did what?"

I tried telling Nathan everything. It was hard because I lost focus a lot, but when I paused he would ask the right question to guide me back. “I think she might be the one who drugged Marie.”

"Shit." He roughed his fingers over the side of his neck. His eyes swung this way and that and it made me too dizzy to follow. “Don’t worry, Sang. We’ll get her. We’ll figure it out.”

I didn't like this. I didn’t want him looking so lost like he did now. Now that we were home and the school and Jade was behind us, I didn't want to think about it anymore. Nathan was here in front of me. I wanted the memory and the taste of Jade to disappear. I caught Nathan's hand, guiding it to my mouth. "I don't care anymore," I said.

Nathan grunted. "You do care."

I wanted to prove him wrong. I took his forefinger and nipped at the knuckle. I opened his palm, breathing in the Cypress and leather. I kissed his palm, slowly. I did it again. Kissing was awkward for me, not just because of inexperience, but also my sudden lack of coordination.

Nathan tugged lightly at his hand. "Stop, Sang. We shouldn't do this now."

I groaned. "It's the dumbest rule ever."

"What are you talking about?"

"No one will kiss me." I couldn't believe I was saying this out loud, but my lips wouldn’t stop. North once said the same thing, about having no control over what you were saying. "You were going to and you always stop. Is it because I'm just a friend? We can sleep in the same bed and bite fingers but we can't do anything else? Or is it really the rule? You didn’t want to break the rules?"

"Peanut?" Nathan sat on the edge of the couch, hovering over me until his face was close. "What are you saying?”

Was I slurring? "I know there's some rule. You can't kiss me. At least on the mouth. It’s stupid.”

Nathan's eyes, which had been so dark before, took on a lighter glow. "Are you telling me you want to?"

"I thought you did. Am I wrong? Or do you really get into trouble?"

"Sang," Nathan pulled my hands into his. "It’s not... It’s complicated..."

I leaned up, following his lip movement and zeroed in on his mouth, kissing him.

I tried to move my lips like Dr. Green had done. I kept my lips pressed to his, not wanting to give him a chance to escape. I’d do it first if that’s what Dr. Green said I had to do.

Nathan’s hands slowly released mine, and slid up to frame my face. He held me still for a moment. His lips puckered against mine, but it wasn’t like Dr. Green. He just stayed still.

And with a strong and steady tug, he drew my head away.

“Not now, Sang,” he said, the tone of his voice deepening. He traced his fingers along my cheeks.

I started to sniffle, the tears starting up again. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want me to. It broke through all those fears I’d been hanging onto. No one really wanted me.

Nathan’s eyes darkened. “No, Peanut. I don’t want to kiss you like this. You’ll hate me later.”

“I don’t hate you. I don’t.” I repeated, determined to prove it to him. I never wanted him to think it was possible that I could.

Nathan drew me up. I was dizzy for a moment as he shifted me. I closed my eyes, and when he finally settled, I found myself tucked into his lap while he sat on the couch. He cuddled me in his strong arms. He kissed my forehead gently.

“I don’t hate you, either,” he said. “I want my little mermaid Peanut to go out to dinner with me, to see a movie she wants to see, and make out in the back row like we were meant to. I want my Peanut to smile when she kisses me. Not crying. Not after what Jade did.”

I trembled at the thought of Jade. I snuggled into him, finding comfort in burying my face into his shoulder. “I don’t want to go to school anymore.”

“We have to go to school, sweetie.”

“I don’t want to.” I rubbed at my body, at places where no matter how hard I rubbed, I couldn’t stop the images. “I can’t make it stop. I can’t...”

“I know,” he said. He brushed some strands of hair away. “You keep feeling it, don’t you? Her hands? Where she touched you?”

I swallowed a thick wad of emotion, nodding into his shoulder. It was true. Every moment I wasn’t fighting it back, I felt Jade’s fingers between my legs. I felt her ripping my bra. I felt her lips on mine. I wanted to run hot water over myself, to scrub away all feeling. A creeping sensation swept over my spine, and all I wanted to do was to tear my skin apart, to not feel it anymore. “I want it to go away.”

“I’m so sorry, Sang.” He swallowed, too, and when he pressed his cheek to my forehead, I felt something wet. A fresh tear traced from his face, and blended with mine along my skin. “I tried to keep you safe. After McCoy disappeared, I never thought anyone else would touch you.” He sighed heavily, his hot breath against my skin. “But it’ll get better. I swear it. You may not know now but...”

“How do you know?” I asked, the drugs making me blurt the question I never would have asked on my own.

He was quiet for a long time, to the point that my loopy mind didn’t even recall asking him anything. His palms pressed into my back, drawing me in so tightly that I found it hard to breathe. “My mother was sexually abused by her father growing up. She buried it, and she married my father who abused her, too. She used to tell me she could still feel them, even if they weren’t around. Every hit. Every touch. And then one day she found the courage to walk out.”

My breathing slowed, listening to him. “She left you...” I said, trying to understand why this sounded like a good thing to him.

“I wanted to hate her for so long. She left me with someone who would do the things he did. But I try to understand it. She broke away from everything to stop it. That’s the point. She found her way to break out of it.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” I cried. This was the worst ever. I shoved my face so hard into his shoulder, and gripped at his shirt until one of the buttons popped. “I wish everyone would stop telling me I’ll leave.”

“No, Peanut...” He pulled back so he could face me. He dropped his head until his forehead touched mine. “Look at me, sweetie. You’re staying with me. Sorry, I don’t know how to explain it. I mean maybe you’ll not forget, but it gets easier. Remember how my dad used to beat up on me?”

“He still does that,” I said.

He swallowed. “Yeah. Yeah, he still does it. But do you see how I’ve changed? He used to hit me and I hated it, but I got past it. Now I pity him. You’ll do the same thing. You’ll hate her for a long time, but I know you. You bounce back.”

“Nathan...”

“I’ve worked too hard to get that smile looking like I want, to let it all go to pieces now.” He gripped harder along my body, at my back and side as he held me close. His voice became raspy and a growl echoed on every last syllable. “You’re so much better than they are. You’re so sweet and caring and I want to save that piece of you. Who you are. I don’t want you to turn into an empty shell like my mother was, or change into something worse.”

I wanted to hang onto those words. I wanted to promise I wouldn’t.

I couldn’t stop staring at his handsome face. Even through his tears and the concern, through the darkened blue, those serious eyes. This was Nathan. The silent ninja. He’d saved me so many times.

And even now, he was trying to save me. From others. From myself.

The answer to that was something I felt stirring inside me. Urges swept just under the surface, seeking out a release.

I kissed his cheek.

“Peanut,” he said softly. He gripped me tighter, but he didn’t stop me.