Anywhere But Here (18 page)

He didn’t get to finish insulting me with that bullshit excuse, because Jeff stepped forward and put him flat on his ass in the gravel with one swing. I thought he might have knocked him out, but then Jeremy starting moaning and rolling on the ground. Shouts came from the house and then Josh and Matt and Mike were running up the drive.

Jeff stepped back to make it clear he wasn’t interested in a fight, but his buddies stepped forward making it even clearer they had his back if they were going to get one anyway. I wasn’t going to stick around to see how it ended either way. Tossing out a quick “Thank you,” I turned to leave before Jeremy could get back up. Something stopped me and I turned to Jeff one more time. “Hey.”

He looked over his shoulder.

“Where does he live?”

He knew who I meant and for a moment I thought he wasn’t going to tell me, then he finally spoke.

“South end. Pope Martin Road. Brick place with the big ass oak trees.”

I hoped that would be enough, because Matt and Josh had reached the end of the drive and were picking Jeremy up off the ground.

I don’t really know what I was thinking. Thanks to the alcohol, I wasn’t sure if I was thinking at all, but I repeated what Jeff had told me to the limo driver, who didn’t say a word about the bottle in my hand, or my tear streaked face. He just drove, which was all I needed him to do.

With the partition up, it finally felt like I was alone and I didn’t try to stop the tears anymore. They came hard and ugly. I choked back awful sobbing noises in my throat, alternately sucking in deep, painful breaths and pouring some of the gold liquid, which turned out to be tequila and burned a lot, down my throat. By my estimation, I’d had . . . way too much to drink.

I laid my face against seat, watching my tears pool and run across the leather, and waited for the ride to stop.

Eventually it did, and by that time the tears had dried up, but the hurt was still constricting my chest, making it difficult to breathe. When I sat up, the tequila merry-go-round started to spin.

“We’ve arrived at your destination, Miss.” The driver had opened the door for me and was probably wondering why I wasn’t getting out. I was just waiting for my equilibrium to settle.

“Are you sure you’re going to be alright here?” He offered his arm as I climbed out and eyed the place warily. Music could be heard pumping through the walls and there were a slew of characters on what passed for the front lawn, smoking and drinking. I left one party and stumbled into another.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine” I slurred foolishly before walking into the lion’s den. The very scary, run down, lion’s den, full of hungry, older lion’s who were eyeing me like I was a tasty, young gazelle. A drunk, vulnerable gazelle. I tried to keep my shoulders straight, my chin high and my eyes forward, and not think about how out of place I looked and felt. I stumbled several times in my heels and finally had to just kick them off and carry them, letting the gravel dig into my bare feet before I reached the sparse grass in front of the house.

I avoided getting to close to anyone as I bravely approached the porch, ignoring their jeers.

“This ain’t the prom, sweetheart,” one called and laughter followed. Ha. Ha. Ha. So clever.

I was second guessing coming here, but the limo driver was already pulling away so it was too late to run back now. I knew he was here. His car was pulled up beside the house, blocked in by the ten or so other vehicles. I stumbled on the first step and it creaked beneath my weight. I was afraid my leg was going to bust through the rotted wood. I grabbed hold of the railing and it wobbled too. At least there were only three steps, so the odds of me dying or breaking anything vital were low. I was pretty sure I was too drunk to feel it anyway.

Why do people enjoy this?

It was awful. I couldn’t see straight, think straight or walk straight, but somehow I made it inside where the music was louder and the air was staler with beer and smoke and other smells I didn’t want to identify.

“Woah, woah, woah, darling? I think you’ve stumbled into the wrong house.” A big guy with dark hair, dark eyes and lots of tattoos stepped in front of me, blocking me from going any further.

“I jusss need t’ ge’in therr.” I stopped moving but everything else didn’t and I had no choice but to reach out and grab this guy’s arms to keep myself upright.

He steadied me, putting one arm around my waist. “Cinderella here belong to anybody?” he shouted through the house and to the crowd outside the door.

“I’ll take her!” one guy shouted, but thankfully big guy ignored him and then my dizzy eyes landed on a familiar face.

I smiled, or I tried to smile but my face felt a little funny and I think my smiler was broken, or just drunk like me, but I pointed my finger, “Heeeyyy, I know you.” He was walking towards me and big guy.

“Derek, you know this girl?”

“Shit, yes, I’d guess she’s here for your brother.”

“She’s one of his?” He looked surprised, but I didn’t know who they were talking about.

“Lissssen, I don’ know yer brother,” I’m pretty sure I slapped his chest. “I jusss came to see Kellen, ‘s he here?”

“I got her.” Derek pulled me away from big guy. He would take me to Kellen. “Let’s find you somewhere to sit.” He started to steer me over to the couch, but I didn’t want to go over there. Kellen wasn’t on the couch. Just a couple mean looking guys I didn’t want to sit by.

I pulled out of Derek’s arms. “No. Where’sss Kellen?”

“You just sit down and I’ll go get him.”

“Nuh uh. I know better. You jusss wan’ me to sit here and be dumb like I don’ know whass goin’ on. I’ll go find him on my own.” I turned and stumbled toward the back of the house.

“Shaeleigh, don’t go back there.” Derek was following me and we were attracting attention just like before.

“Why? Cuzz he’s screwing Daisy too?”

“What?”

I shoved his chest. “D-ai-sy. She’s a bitch.” I jabbed my finger in his face as I said bitch and then spun around to continue my search for Kellen.

Somehow I located the bedrooms. The door to the first was wide open and there was no one in there.

“Come on, Shaeleigh, you don’t need to be back here right now.” Then he shouted, “Kellen, you might want to get your ass out here!”

But Kellen must not have heard him because he didn’t get his ass out here.

The next room had a pink door.

I snickered, “Thass not his door.”

Which left doors number three and four, but everyone knows three is the magic number, so I twisted the handle and pushed it open before Derek could stop me.

“Kelle–” his name died on my lips. I closed my eyes, sure that I couldn’t be seeing the same thing twice in one night, but sure enough when I opened them again, I found myself reliving my most embarrassing moment from an hour ago. My hand flew up and covered my mouth that had fallen open.

A naked Kellen leapt up from the bed and not Daisy screeched, “What the fuck! Get out!”

I spun around, too fast and fell into the wall opposite his room. Derek cringed, “I told you, you didn’t want to come back here.”

Pushing myself off the wall, I bolted for the door, not even thinking about the fact that the limo was long gone and my clutch with my phone was still back in Mike Fisher’s kitchen.

This was such a mistake.

A big, stupid mistake.

Kellen

October 17

Senior year . . .

“Where are you going?” Natalie looked pissed as I hurriedly pulled on my boxer briefs so I could chase after Shae. What the hell was she even doing here? She was supposed to be at the dance, living out her fairytale with the golden boy. Instead, she was here. At my house. Standing in my fucking bedroom moments ago like my fantasies somehow conjured her. I sure as hell wasn’t letting her get away without finding out why.

“Get her the fuck out of here,” I told Derek and then went after Shae, tearing out of my room in nothing but my damn skivvies. Eyebrows shot up, a few drunk laughs followed me through the house and then my brother jerked his head toward the door, a smirk on his face. I wanted to knock it off, but didn’t have time.

Shae’d made it as far as the front lawn by the time my bare feet hit the cold, rough wood on the front porch, but she’d run into fucking Duncan.

“Where are you trying to go in such a hurry, baby doll?”

I was going to break his damn hands if he didn’t take them off of her. She was shaking like a leaf and everyone standing around thought it was somehow fucking funny. I hated my brother’s lowlife friends.

“Duncan!” I yelled, taking the steps. “Remove your fucking dirty hands now, before I do it for you.”

He took a step back, lifting his hands in the air. “Hey, didn’t mean no harm.”

Sure he didn’t.

“Shae,” I called her name softly, holding my hand out to her, but she wasn’t looking at me. She had her arms wrapped around her waist, holding a pair of sparkly shoes in her hand, eyes shifting all over the place, taking in the leering faces that wanted to get their little piece of her sweet ass, but that wouldn’t be happening. “Shae.” This time she reacted to the soft command in my voice and turned slowly, still holding herself tightly. Her eyes were so fucking sad and scared. Her cheeks were bright pink, either from the cold or the humiliation that was making her lips quiver and her eyes fall to her feet instead of meeting mine. I went to her, placing my hand gently on her back.

“I got you,” I whispered.

“I juss wan’ to go home,” her voice broke so softly.

“I’ll get you home. I promise, but first I need you to come inside with me.”

Her eyes lifted and met mine guardedly. “Don’ you,” sniff, “need to get back to,” sniff, “yer frien?” Between her sniffles and the alcohol slurring her words, I would have smiled at how adorably pitiful she was if it wasn’t for the devastation so obvious on her face. Whatever was making her so sad, I just wanted to make it go away. I wanted to take that broken look out of her eyes. I didn’t know how, so I just pulled her in close and tucked her into my side. “The only person here I care about right now is you.”

She let out a shaky breath and her whole body slumped against mine. She let me lead her back inside, through the party and to my room. Derek had done what I asked and gotten rid of Natalie so the room was empty. I kicked the door shut behind us and walked her over to my bed, but when I tried to get her to sit, her arms wound around her stomach again and she shook her head profusely. Her eyes were squeezed shut as if she was trying to block something out. Tears leaked from the corners.

I took her shoes from her, setting them down, and then took her in my arms, unable to help myself. “Please tell me what’s wrong, pretty girl.” Her body shook softly and I felt her tears wet my chest.

Someone did this to her. Hurt her, and I only needed one guess as to whom. I was already planning all the ways I was going to hurt him, but right now I just needed her to talk to me, to tell me what I could do to make it better, besides kill the asshole responsible. I didn’t know what to do but keep holding her. I was afraid if I let go, she would crumple to the floor. We might have stood there for five minutes or twenty, I don’t know. I would have stood there all night holding her if that’s what she needed, but after a while the tears and the shaking stopped, and after another minute or so, her chest swelled as she pulled in a deep breath and then softly pushed against my chest.

I gently pressed my forefinger against the underside of her jaw, tipping her chin up. “What happened?”

“I’m such an idiot, an’ you were right, an’ yer pro’lly loving every second of this told ‘ya so moment.”

“Believe me, I’m not loving anything about seeing you like this. Now, can you break down what happened for me?” I sat down on the bed and took her hand, trying to tug her down beside me, but she just looked at the bed and shook her head again, pulling her hand free of mine.

“He–he . . . I saw–” she couldn’t even get it out, her voice was so shaky, but I needed zero clarification on the “he.” I knew this was Jeremy’s fault, and I could take a stab at what he’d done.

She sucked in a deep breath and started again. “He left the dance early to go to Mike’s party. I was s’posed to stay and clean up the dance, but Principal Miller said we could come back for clean up t’morrow, so Cammie and I left for the party. Jeremy was already entertaining himself with Daisy when we showed up. I walked in on ‘im with her.” She turned her head away from me as another tear slipped down her cheek.

“And then I drank a lot and told the driver to bring me here, and I don’ know why, but here I am and I shouldn’t be here and I pro’lly ruined yer night now too, and I should juss go home,” she was hiccupping little sobs now, “but I don’t have a car or a phone and I’m really drunk and I’ve never been drunk before and I feel awful, like I juss wanna die.”

“Hey, hey,” something inside me was cracking as I stood. “Come here,” I curled my fingers gently around her elbow and she let me draw her close again. “I’m so sorry that you walked into what you did here tonight, with my brother’s friends and me and that girl, but you here is far from ruining my night. Everything else we’ll figure out.”

“How?” Her eyes were so big and shiny with tears. I wished I could give her some answer that would make it all better, but I didn’t know the first thing about comforting a girl. I’d made enough of them cry that you’d think I would, but I’d never cared before like I did right here in this moment.

“I don’t know,” I told her honestly. “But we should probably start with trying to sober you up.”

“And you should get dressed.” Her eyes dropped to my bare chest and lower, and then she quickly flicked them back up to my face. “Yes, you should have clothes on.”

“Okay.” I found a pair of athletic shorts and a clean tee to throw on. “That better?” I asked with a grin.

“I need to pee,” she blurted.

“Okay,” I tried not to chuckle. “I’ll show you where the bathroom is and then I’m going to grab some food to help with Senor Tequila.”

“Senor Tequila is not my friend.”

“Don’t worry, everyone learns that lesson the hard way at least once.” I steered her into the hall and to the bathroom. I flipped the light on for her and started to close the door when she stepped inside. Something made her gasp and I yanked it back open, prepared to kill a spider, hoping it was that and not the overall state of our bathroom that disgusted her, but it turned out it was neither. She was staring at the mirror and crying again as she started tearing off toilet paper and wiping furiously at her eyes, which caught mine in the reflection.

“I’m such a mess. This is so embarrassing. I look like a hideous horror movie reject. If they saw me now they’d take my crown away.”

I relaxed. No spiders to kill. Just a girl, a beautifully sad girl, who was probably too drunk to even care how dirty the bathroom was, but not too drunk to have a girly freak out moment. I grabbed her hand with the wadded up tissue and pulled her away from the mirror. “Shaeleigh Bradford I’m going to say something and I need you to listen real carefully. Are you listening?”

She nodded weakly.

“You could have walked here in a hurricane, slipped and fallen in the mud, rolled through poison oak and then been attacked by a chupacabra and you’d still be beautiful. It’s not about how done up your hair is, or that glittery shit around your eyes, or how amazing you look in that dress. Or the way you smell like peaches and vanilla mixed with tequila and sweat that makes me think about ways besides dancing that would make your skin smell that way, minus the tequila and the dress, and before you freak out because I said you smell like sweat, you need to know how fucking sexy I think it is and not at all gross, because you don’t smell like a dude at a gym. You smell like I want my sheets to smell every fucking day, but none of that makes a damn bit of difference, because you could strip all that away and it wouldn’t change a thing. Your kind of beautiful can’t be touched. It starts in your eyes and it’s soul fucking deep, Shae.”

She was blinking fast, those damn green, soul piercing eyes shimmering with more unshed tears. “Then why did he do it?”

“I’m afraid I might have to take the blame for that one. I must have hit him one too many times and turned his stupid brain to mush.”

She hiccupped a laugh that quickly faded into something sad again. “I’m serious. Why wasn’t I enough for him, and why didn’t I see it?”

“Because you’re the kind of girl who wants to believe people are better than they truly are, so when something goes wrong, you look for the fault in yourself. The reason you can’t find it is because it’s not there. It’s all on him, Shae, and I don’t know why he did it other than Jeremy Black has been handed things his whole life so I’m not sure he recognizes the value when he’s given a true gift. I doubt if he really knew what he had, but I promise you this, if he doesn’t now, he’ll realize what he lost.” And he was going to regret it. I was going to help him along with that.

She gave me a half-hearted nod.

“Then use the bathroom, but no more crying in the mirror. I’m going to go find something for you to eat and bring it back to my room, okay?”

I left her in there and then came across Derek in the kitchen while I tried to scrounge up something from our bare cupboards.

“Natalie’s gone,” he informed me.

“Thanks man.”

“Yeah, now you want to tell me what she’s doing here?”

I popped a couple pieces of bread in the toaster. It was about all I could offer her that might do any good. “Quarterback fucked around on her tonight of all nights and she finally caught him. I think the near fifth of tequila I’m pretty sure she consumed after that is responsible for her showing up here.”

“And what are you going to do with her?”

I arched my brow and cocked my head at him. “What exactly do you think I’m going to do?”

“I don’t know, man, that’s why I’m asking. I know that girl does something to you, but–”

“Just stop. You don’t know shit, and I’m not going to do a damn thing but make her some shitty ass toast and try to keep her from throwing up, which I suspect it’s already too late to do anything about, but I’m still going to try, because she’s been miserable enough for one night.”

The toast popped up and I spread a little butter over it before tossing it on a plate and filling a large cup with cool water to take back to her.

“And Black, what are you going to do about him?”

I stopped in the doorway and glanced over my shoulder. I didn’t need to tell him what I planned to do, he could see it on my face.

“Just be careful you don’t take it too far. You’re eighteen in a week, Nash.”

I acknowledged his warning with a nod, and while he had a point, it wasn’t going to stop me from making sure Jeremy knew just how bad he fucked up this time.

I nudged open the door to my room with my foot and saw Shae sitting on the floor, her knees tucked up to her chest, her head resting against the edge of my bed, eyes shut and most of the makeup that had been smeared around them was washed away. She opened her eyes and lifted her head when I shut the door.

“Hey, what are you doing on the floor?” It was bad enough that she was here in my little dump, but she sure as hell didn’t belong on the floor, drunk or not. I set the plate and glass on what passed for my nightstand, and then tried to help her off the floor. “Come on, let me help you onto the bed”

She shook her head, but all it took was one little tug to pull her to her feet.

“You don’t want to sit on the bed?” I reasoned slowly.

Another shake of her head confirmed it and I tried to work out in my head what her issue was. It only took a second for the issue to click. Her eyes dropped timidly and her cheeks were even more flushed than they’d been a moment ago.

“Because of what you walked in on?”

She still wouldn’t lift her gaze, but I knew that was the reason. I should have put it together sooner. The covers were already shoved to the foot of the bed, but I pulled back the sheets and yanked them from the mattress. I tossed them in the hamper by my door. I told Shae I’d be right back and went to retrieve a clean set from the cupboard in the laundry room, just off the kitchen.

Shae was nibbling the toast and sipping the water when I returned and remade the bed with the fresh linens. This place might be a shithole, but Trin and I did our best to keep it relatively clean and in order, but I couldn’t help the hot shame that crawled up my face when I noticed Shae casually inspecting my room. It was the first time in a long time I actually let myself feel embarrassed by where I lived. I’d been inside her house and could only imagine what she thought of mine.