Where the Staircase Ends (14 page)

Some days it took all my energy not to pick up the phone and dump Logan, and other days, like the ones when I found the drawings in my locker or the cute little text messages (“I <3 U”) on my phone, I thought I was pretty lucky in the grand scheme of things. It was nice to be wanted, nice to have someone who texted and wanted to spend time with me. And in those moments when I did think about ending things with him, I thought of the picture he drew of me, of the flawless, beautiful girl with the pensive eyes. What if Logan was the only person who would ever see me that way?

On the night of The Fields, Logan was in rare form. When I checked my phone there were six missed calls and seven text messages from him, all some variation of “Where r u?” and “WTF?”
and “Tell Justin hi for me.” Like he was my parole officer and I was supposed to check in with him every five minutes. It wasn’t my fault he decided to show up to The Fields on time. Who did that?

We arrived later than I told him we would, but that’s to be expected when you’re with Sunny. We had to park far down the road because all the good spots were taken, then cut across the freshly sodded grass to get to the party. It took an annoyingly long time because Sunny decided to wear four-inch stilettos that kept getting stuck in the grass. It required two of us to pull them free, and they made this awful
suck-pop
sound every time we yanked one loose from the wet ground.

“Can’t you just take them off?” I asked her, trying to hide my irritation. She gave me one of her WTF looks and released another heel with a
suck-pop
and an eye roll.

“No, I can’t ‘just take them off.’ It’s part of the look, and I don’t want to get my feet dirty. If you’re in such a hurry to get to the party, then by all means, go right ahead.” She waved her hand in front of her like she was dismissing me, and I pressed my lips together to keep from saying the thing I really wanted to say. Instead I meditated on my vow for the night:
be cool, relax.

Greg Younger’s truck was parked in the center of the main field, the doors open and the bass pumping loudly from inside the cabin. It sounded like one of the speakers was blown, so the music that poured out was a bass-y
thump, thump, thump
, with the occasional inaudible word that sounded a lot like
sex
, or
slut
, or some combination of the two. A group of girls had assembled a makeshift dance floor near one of the open doors, all of them giggling and bouncing to the rattling music. Tracey Allen hovered on the edge of the group, shaking in a too-tight black-skirt-and-top combination, and shimmying her shoulders at one of the girls in the crowd. I wondered if she was still dating pervy Mr. Thomas. It always amazed me how Tracey handled her reputation, wearing the gossip like a crown rather than drowning in the shame of it. It was almost as if she wanted us to keep talking about her.

“Isn’t it a little early for the skank patrol to be out?” Sunny asked as we passed the group, raising her voice to make sure they heard her over the
thump, thump, sex, slut
chorus.

Tracey scowled in response but kept dancing, mumbling something that sounded an awful lot like “stupid bitches” in our direction.

We headed out of the glare of the headlights to the crowd gathered around the keg, grabbing plastic cups from the stack on the ground and standing in line to get a beer even though we’d brought our container of vodka and OJ. No point in wasting perfectly good free beer.

Logan stood near the keg glaring at me the way my parents did when I missed curfew. His eyes narrowed and his jaw muscles twitched, reminding me of the Logan from the previous year—the one who loved a good fight. Sunny saw him and muttered an “uh-oh” to the other girls, motioning for them to steer clear of the drama that was clearly about to explode all over my night. They all mumbled some lame excuse about hitting The Ladies’ Room even though it was obvious they weren’t going there. The toilet paper was tucked safely in my purse, and Sunny would never dream of hitting up The Ladies’ Room without it.

I watched with growing apprehension as they teetered on their heels toward the group that usually hung out by the water tower after school, assuming Justin was somewhere in the mass of bodies clustering under the cloud of smoke. That meant Sunny would get to him first, and even though I told myself to stop obsessing and be cool about everything, it made me crazy to think he would see her in that dress before I even had the chance to say hello. Score one point for team Sunny.

Logan grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the keg. You didn’t need to be a genius to figure out he was pissed as a bee in a jar, so it was no surprise when whispers and curious stares followed us as we melted into the shadows of The Fields. He didn’t stop dragging me until we were behind the wooden frame of a partially finished house, out of earshot.

“What the hell, Taylor?”

I noticed for the first time he held a beer, the foamy surface sloshing over the top of the plastic cup when he moved. Logan wasn’t a big drinker, which was part of the reason he hated going to The Fields. That, and what happened to his brother last year. No one pressed Logan to drink, or argued with him when he tried to take their car keys away or lectured them on the dangers of drinking and driving. We kind of expected him to go all After School Special on us about drinking, so it was weird watching him take a big swallow from his cup and stagger slightly when he looked at me, his gaze unsteady. It made me nervous.

I smiled really big at him, trying to look like I was glad to see him so he wouldn’t know I was scared.

“Well, hello to you too,” I said, reaching my hand out to touch him. He swatted me away and gave my shoulder a shove. Not hard enough to knock me over, but hard enough that I staggered backward and spilled beer down the front of my shirt.

“What is your problem?” I asked, recovering and stepping backward so I was leaning against one of the raw pieces of skeletal wood framing the unfinished house. I wished it wasn’t there so I could put more distance between us. I didn’t like the angry look in Logan’s eyes.

“My problem?” he said, his voice rising above the crowd and music so the people down by the keg could no doubt hear us. “Where have you been, huh? Who’ve you been with? Don’t ask me what my problem is. I have every right to have a problem!” He took a step toward me and another swig of his beer, his glassy eyes wide and wild.

“I’ve been at Sunny’s, which is exactly where I said I’d be.” I gritted my teeth to keep from yelling because I suspected people were trying to listen in. The kids from my high school loved nothing more than a good bout of drama, and anyone who saw Logan drag me away from the keg would know something was up. “I can’t think of what your problem would be.”

He made this loud
hrmph
noise and wiped his mouth on the back of his arm, his eyes grazing over my head toward the crowd at the keg. Then he leaned in close, his mouth warm and his breath sour from beer. He closed his fingers tightly around my wrist. “You’re a fucking liar,” he whispered.

I tried to pry my wrist free from his pinching fingers, but he held me there and squeezed even tighter, shaking me so my beer fell from my other hand and splashed across the ground. I bit back a yelp, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was hurting me. Instead I smiled at him and held up my chin defiantly, even though I could feel tears prickling at the corners of my eyes from the screaming pain in my wrist.

“You’re drunk,” I said through clenched teeth. “We should get someone to drive you home.”

He grabbed the free hand that had held my beer and pinned it behind my back, twisting my wrist so a sharp jab of pain shot up my arm. I couldn’t help it; a yelp escaped my mouth and a tear slid down my cheek.

“Aww, does that hurt?” He sneered and gave my wrist another twist, this one so hard my vision blurred and my knees felt like they might buckle underneath me. Everything around me seemed to dip and swim in and out of focus. “Well, it’s nothing compared to the way you’re hurting me,” he said, shaking me again and pressing me back against the wooden frame.

I turned my face away from his and squeezed my eyes closed, bracing myself for whatever it was he was about to do. Normally I would have found something bitchy to say to him, something to let him know what an asshole he was, but the blood rushed in my ears, pulsing with the rhythm of the music spilling from Greg Younger’s truck, and I couldn’t think straight. Instead, I closed my eyes and waited for the blow that must be coming.

I heard his lips part as if he was about to say something, but he was cut short when Sunny’s voice sliced through the darkness. I’d never been so glad to hear her in all the time I’d known her.

“Enough with the make-out session,” she yelled as she carefully tromped toward us in her gigantic stilettos. She shouted it loudly enough so the people eavesdropping near the keg could hear, and then for good measure she added, “Jeez, get a room already! This is a family function, people. Let’s keep it clean.”

Logan released my arms and glared at the person standing next to Sunny. I collapsed against the house, my legs folding underneath me. I had to fight to keep the tears from flowing any more than they already were.

“What the fuck do you want?” Logan asked, ignoring Sunny so he could fix his steely gaze on Justin. His fists flexed and un-flexed at his sides while he gave Justin a look that could fry an ant without a magnifying glass.

“Me?” Justin asked, looking around as though there might be someone else hiding behind the shadows of the unfinished home. “I just came to see what everyone was whispering about.” To me, he added, “Hey, Taylor, when’d you get here?”

It was amazing how friendly and honest the question sounded. Anyone else would have thought he was genuinely curious about when I arrived, but it was clear he understood what was happening by the way his mouth was set. The corners that were usually turned up in an is-he-or-isn’t-he-grinning smile were pressed down in a drawn, flat line. I’d never seen him look so serious.

Logan looked back and forth from me to Justin like he was trying to solve a riddle, his brow furrowing as he drained his beer and tossed the empty cup on the ground.

“A few minutes ago,” I answered. “I came with Sunny.” I aimed the last sentence at Logan, wanting to replace all four of the words with
asshole
for his benefit.

“Can I get some toilet paper?” Sunny asked, walking toward me and linking her arm through mine. “I need to go to The Ladies’ Room. You grabbed some before we left my house, right?”

I nodded solemnly and pulled the roll of paper from my purse, holding it up for Logan as further proof that I was at Sunny’s and not wherever it was he imagined me to be. Sunny gently took my arm and pulled me away from the back of the house frame.

“Come on, let’s get out of here before I wet my pants.”

Justin said something to Logan, but Sunny shuffled me away too quickly and the words were lost in the din of the crowd and the music. I could only make out the muffled sound of his voice, an undeniable edge to whatever it was he said to Logan.

“You okay?” Sunny whispered once we were out of earshot. I nodded and ran my fingers underneath my eyes to wipe away any mascara that might have run. My arm throbbed and my wrist was red and achy. It took everything I had not to break down and cry right then and there, but I didn’t want to be one of those girls. There were always a few at the end of a night at The Fields, boo-hooing into their empty beer cups over some drunken drama usually involving a guy. I didn’t want people to think I was one of them. I didn’t want anyone to know what had happened.

“Don’t worry. Most people are already too drunk to notice you guys were fighting. And anyone who did now thinks you guys were just mugging down,” Sunny said as she squatted behind the back of the house that was our designated restroom. Then, because she could tell I needed a good laugh, she added, “ARRRRrrrr you sure you’re okay?” in her pirate voice, hooking her finger and squinting her eye at me for emphasis.

A cluster of Sunflowers stuck out among the weeds behind the house. They looked out of place in the darkness, like bright smiling suns that didn’t know it was nighttime. I felt like they were faking it for my benefit and for a second I thought about picking one and taking it with me. Instead, I took inspiration from them and looked back at Sunny with a forced smile.

“I need another beer.” I rubbed my wrist to get the feeling back into it. “I dropped mine back there.”

Sunny nodded and looked at me like she wanted to say something else, but instead she reached her hand out for the toilet paper and said, “I could use a topper too. TP, please?”

The crowd had swollen to twice its usual size when we emerged from the back of The Ladies’ Room. It seemed like our entire high school was at The Fields that night, hundreds of bodies silhouetted against the various car headlights that took turns lighting the center field. Even douche-waffle Brandon Blakes was there, looking lost and uncomfortable as he stared into a full cup of beer and watched the makeshift dance floor awkwardly. I’d never seen him at The Fields before; I always assumed he spent his Saturday nights taking practice SAT tests.

Someone brought two more kegs, which was a good thing because the first one floated not long after Sunny and I got back from The Ladies’ Room. We joined the growing line of kids waiting to fill their plastic cups, Sunny surveying the crowd with distaste.

“If I knew it was amateur night, I would have stayed home,” said Sunny, her eyes resting on Brandon. She gave him a hard glare from underneath a row of spiky black lashes. “Just stay away from the stereo, okay Brandon? Nobody wants to listen to your homo show choir bullshit.”

Brandon’s cheeks flared red. When he caught my eye I quickly looked away from him, not feeling much like coming to the defense of someone who always had it out for me in class. Although, to be fair, I wasn’t really in the mood to come to anyone’s defense right then.

We filled up our cups and elbowed our way out of the mass of bodies around the kegs.

“Don’t we have rules against letting the riff-raff come out here?” Sunny asked, taking a swig of her beer and glancing around at the swelling crowd like she’d smelled something sour. “This place has gone to shit. Come on, let’s find our people.”