Social Lives (22 page)

Taking a long breath, she leaned back against the wall. How would she ever get through this day? From her backpack she pulled out her iPhone and sent a text.

Cbow: TF, you there?

Totallyfkd: Yeah. What's up? Still feel like shit from the weekend?

Cbow: Yeah. Hiding out in bathroom. Can't face everyone.

Totallyfkd: Yes you can. Didn't you listen to what I said? DH is a total prick. And so is the little weenie who drove you home. Can I tell you something? It wasn't your fault. It was the oc and the booze and maybe it was just him. He won't tell anyone. Watch and see. No one will know. Gotta get to class. You?

Cbow: Yeah, OK.

Totallyfkd: XO, TF.

Let it be true
, Cait prayed in the bathroom stall, the chatter of little girls surrounding her. She thought back one last time to those few minutes in his car, willing herself to see the expression on his face, the one she had initially read as embarrassment but then convinced herself was really anger.

The drive had been silent, the car twisting and turning through Wilshire's back roads on the way to her house. She had tried to make conversation, but Doug had been wasted. Holding on to the edges of her seat, Cait had watched the curves, the trees that were grazed when they were cut too close and the open black space as he cut wide and wandered into the middle of the road. There had been nothing left to do then but hold on and watch. Her life had been in his hands, a stoned tenth-grader eager to get rid of her and, maybe, disturbed by the bizarre intimacy they had all shared. There was no question he was wondering the same things she was. What were the others doing on their journeys home? What were they doing with the mix of sexual urges and the implied expectations that, if not met, would have repercussions come Monday morning? She knew what it had done to her that night, the ingredients frothing over like a shaken can of beer. She had wanted to make it home to her bed, safe, alone. She had wanted Doug to drive and drive to the edge of her property and then to want no part of her as she fled the scene. But that had not been the case.

Looking back, she was certain he had not planned it. His driving was almost frenetic, like he could outrun what the night had provoked in him. But in the end, he had made a sudden stop on a dark back road. He'd pulled the car to the side, as far from the road as he could manage, scraping it against the tree cover. He'd turned off the ignition and started to unbuckle his pants. He had not looked at her. He had not spoken. And with the fear pounding in her chest, she might not have heard it anyhow.

The bell rang. The warning. Classes started in five minutes. Cait exhaled hard as she pulled herself together. She was a lit fuse now, burning toward something that might ignite, only it never did. She wanted to ignite, to explode into a quick blast of flames that would burn off this energy and leave nothing but calm ash. Feeling like dead, gray ash would be better than this. Anything would.

The little girls scurried out of the bathroom, and when they were gone, Cait checked her face in the mirror. Her cheeks were bright red, the effects of adrenaline brought on by exhaustion, and her right eye had that subtle twitch,
the one that came only when she was facing something that terrified her. She'd felt it that night in the car, and seeing it in the mirror, seeing the evidence on her face, brought her close to tears. Still, she grabbed her things and headed for her locker on the other side of the school.

First period came and went. History. They were covering Europe, memorizing timelines of events that spanned hundreds of years. She wrote down the important points, the things that would surely be on the exam later that month. And she listened to the teacher expound his theory that these events had been links in the chain that eventually brought down an empire, all the while her knee bobbing up and down, then her foot, then a hand. She never stopped moving. All of this was bullshit anyway. Theory and conjecture about the unforgiving nature of human beings. Grudges that perpetuated war. She didn't need to study history to know about those things. Those lessons had been burned inside her from her own family history. And the history she herself was now creating—history that was waiting for her in second period.

The bell rang again.
Shit.
She lingered as long as she could, gathering her things.

“Is everything okay, Caitlin?” her teacher asked, looking up from his desk to find her still in the room.

Cait hurried then. “No. Just a little slow.”

“Ahh.” The teacher smiled. “Monday morning.”

Cait smiled back, then swung her backpack around her shoulder and headed for the door. If only Monday morning was all that was wrong with her.

How would TF know what Doug would or wouldn't do? Were boys that predictable? She, whoever TF was, hadn't been able to predict what the boy in her life had done—slept with her then never spoken to her again. Would that be Cait's fate one day? The irony was that Cait knew Billy would never have done that to her, but she also knew she wouldn't have given Billy a blow job in the school hallway. Maybe not at all. Maybe not ever. He hadn't provoked her the way Kyle had. Or maybe
provoked
wasn't exactly the right word. He hadn't
motivated
her. That's what Kyle had done. Motivated her to do something she didn't want to, that wasn't in the least way enjoyable to her. And even after everything that had happened over the weekend, the way he treated her, the things that went on around that coffee table and in Doug's car, she now found herself longing for a chance to do it again, and for no other reason than to be close to him. How could anyone teach her not to want that?

That was the reason for the anxiety that now returned as she emerged from history class and into the hallway. Seemingly distracted but acutely aware of her surroundings, she went to her locker. She didn't spot Amanda until she turned the corner for second-period math.

“Hey, you,” Amanda said, her voice full of insinuation.

Cait fought to remain casual. “Hey!”
Shit. Too cheery.
No one was that cheery on Monday morning.

Amanda sidled up to her and pressed her shoulder into Cait. “Soooo?”

A wave of euphoria swept in. Amanda said
Soooo?
only when she was looking for the story. Which meant she didn't have the story. Which meant Doug hadn't told anyone. TF had been dead-on right.

“Nothing to report. I was lucky to get home alive. He was wasted,” Cait lied. “And you? I saw you leaving with Kyle. . . .” She tried to sound as though she was happy about it, as though she had been waiting all weekend for the exciting news of what might have happened between Amanda and the guy she thought about day and night.

Amanda shook her head, pretending not to care. “Victoria lives farther out. Rules of the road. I'm sure we'll hear all about it today. She probably fucked him right there on South Ave. She's such a slut. Anyway, it was an awesome party.”

Cait nodded as the words sank in. It was as she had suspected, and dreaded. Kyle and Victoria. It was twisted and wrong, but the need inside her was profound, and it now had her praying that if Kyle had slept with Victoria, he would move on. Back to her.

As the rest of the day unfolded, the relief grew with every confirmation of Doug's discretion. Although
discretion
was a generous word to describe what was holding him back from talking about that night. It was embarrassment that now bred the silence. She could still see his expression when she'd leaned across the cup holders toward his lap. The expression he'd had when he closed his eyes and thought about something else, someone else, porn stars, or Victoria Lawson. Who could know what entered a guy's mind in those moments when his body failed him? His words had been harsh.
Suck harder!
He'd held on to her head by fistfuls of her long, delicate hair, thrusting her onto him, then finally pushing her off. His face was flushed with anger and sexual frustration, his dick limp as an old stalk of celery—all of it melding together into desperation. She was wiping her mouth, settling back into her seat,
totally confounded as to what she should say, and far too wasted herself to feel the disgust that would attack her after the long journey home.

“That didn't work,” he'd said, rubbing himself. The sight of it had been shocking.

“Sorry.” Cait had tried not to watch as she sat beside him, expecting him to zip his pants and start the car. But that was not what he'd had in mind.

Reaching across to her seat, his hands were up her skirt and on her panties before she knew what was happening. There was no explanation given, and none needed. He was climbing over awkwardly, but somehow managing to maneuver himself on top of her and recline the seat as though it was all well rehearsed. As though he had done it a hundred times before. And it was more than apparent that he'd expected her response to fall into line.

She'd felt his dick, hard now, against her thigh, then the weight of him over her as he struggled to get the panties down and off her legs. They were below her knees when she tried to move, and she could feel them like a rope tying her legs down, rendering them useless. But she'd started to struggle then, from a place deep inside her. It came from her body, not her mind, this reaction that had her holding on to the panties with one hand, pushing against his chest with the other. She got them up above her knees, freeing her legs to move. And they had done just that. She thrust one into his gut, crossed the other over her chest to add some muscle to her resistance.
Push!
She could still feel the strength of the reflex that had been so powerful, it sent him flying back to the driver's seat. Then came the door, shoving it against the trees and thick brush that were keeping it closed. She'd squeezed out that door somehow and started to run, through the bushes and into the yard of a stranger. Seven miles from her home. Seven miles she would walk in the cold, her body covered in sweat and blood from the scratches. And her head filled with the sound of his laughter as she ran away.

“Cait?” Amanda's voice pulled her back.

“Yeah?”

“Math? The bell?”
Duh.

She hadn't heard it, but was quick to catch up. Smiling as though it were any other day, Cait followed her friend into the classroom and felt the wave of adrenaline finally, mercifully, leave her.

 

 

 

 

 

I
T WAS HARD
to remember.

Wrapped in Barlow's arms, feeling the hot breath from his sighs against her neck, Jacks searched her memory for the feeling.
Bliss. Lust. Abandon.
After seventeen years of marriage to the same man, the memories of new love were hard to come by.

Sighing seemed right, less from the sexual pleasure than from the deep bewilderment at needing another person in the midst of a marriage, and the risk they were taking with lives that were so carved into stone.
Yes
, she thought.
There should be sighing.
For David, for Rosalyn, and for the children who were being dragged along on this path of deception.

She wrapped her arms tighter around his back, moved with him as though he were her fantasy, her passion. Wasn't that how it had felt? Wasn't that how her body had responded so many years ago, to David and the lovers who'd come before him? It was long gone, and in the face of the profound fear at being discovered, it was hard to remember.

Barlow pulled away and threw himself back onto the pillows. His skin was glistening with sweat as he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Jacks was there, right on cue, looking over him with a warm smile.

This part wasn't so hard to manufacture. She held genuine affection for
Ernest Barlow, with his long wavy hair and cute rounded face that seemed not to have changed since the day she met him. He was like a mischievous boy, and it was impossible not to be drawn in. Always moving, always joking, his charisma was born of a manic energy, and a neurotic insecurity that his outrageous success had done little to eradicate. She knew him. She saw him. She just didn't feel about him the way she was now pretending to.

He shook his head as he had been doing lately, and ran his hand through her hair. Then came the look, the sad resignation that what they had between them was like a poison that grew stronger with each of these afternoon encounters.

“What are we doing?” he asked, just as he had asked that first time in the wine cellar.

“I don't know,” Jacks answered as she lay down upon his chest. But, of course, that was a lie.

“We should get going,” she said after a few minutes, her voice filled with regret.

She lifted her head, but he reached for her, pulling her back down for one last kiss. It was soft and honest, and it made her body tense. How could she be this person? She thought about the letters, how they had stopped coming. Red was looking into it, and she couldn't help but hold out hope that it was true. That maybe it was over, maybe David had found a way. Maybe this could be the last time.