hot tub. There were kids in each.
Zoe turned to me. “This house is fricking amazing.”
“Yeah,” I agreed through clenched teeth. The house was gorgeous.
“Hey, there’s Anna and Caitlin. Want to go say hi?”
“Yeah.” I meant it. I was happy to see the two of them, and not just because there was safety in numbers.
The two girls looked just as happy to see us, and they immediately started talking about how they’d been practicing what they learned in class.
“I think my mother thought we were killing each other,” Anna joked. “We almost busted the lamp in my room.”
I laughed. I was glad they came. Having them there eased my anxiety. That anxiety came back, however, about an hour later when I saw Drew Carson hovering around the girl I’d recognized as a junior earlier, who was now so drunk she could barely stand up.
A hot prickly sensation ran up the back of my neck, followed by a shiver of ice down my spine. For months I’d thought about what I would do in that very situation. I’d imagined myself walking up to him and beating him stupid. I imagined myself being the girl’s savior. Once, I even imagined myself going full-on Kill Bill on them. Never had I imagined myself just standing there, frozen to the spot and shaking with anger. How could I just stand there and not do anything?
I couldn’t. With my can of soda in hand—because I was not about to set it down—I started walking toward them. Zoe, Caitlin and Anna were right behind me. Zoe said my name, but it sounded like she was talking to me from the far end of a tunnel.
What was I going to do? Smash my soda can into his face? Kick him? At that moment he hadn’t done anything wrong. Of course that was the moment I remembered Gabriel telling me I couldn’t fight all four of them.
Suddenly, my path was interrupted by Jason. I hadn’t even seen him approach. One second I had my sights set directly on Drew, and the next Jason was there, blocking me.
“You okay, Angie?” I heard him ask the girl.
“She’s had too much to drink,” Drew said with a smirk. “She just needs to lie down for a bit. She can use your room can’t she, Jay?”
I froze. This cannot be happening. Drew could not be planning to rape this poor drunk girl. Even though I knew him to be the worst kind of monster, I couldn’t believe how easily it seemed to come to him.
“Actually,” Jason said, glancing at me. “I think Angie needs to go home. I’m going to put her in a cab.” He took the girl by the arm and pulled her away from Drew, who had a stupefied look on his face.
The girls and I exchanged glances as Jason steered Angie past us. He had his cell phone to his ear. I heard him ask for a cab.
Drew had been cock-blocked by one of his best friends. His face twisted into a combination of anger, petulance and disappointment. It made me smile.
I followed Jay and Angie, needing to make sure he actually did send her home and didn’t take her upstairs instead.
I stood at the opposite end of the hall, near the stairs, and watched. Jason held the girl up, and when the cab arrived, he took her outside and put her in it. I moved closer to the open door so I could watch him pay the cabbie and close the car door.
He spotted me before I could duck away, so I stayed where I was rather than run, as I wanted. I watched him step inside the house, closing the door behind him.
He looked at me. “Did you follow me to make sure I sent her home?”
“Yes.” I had no trouble meeting his gaze.
His fists clenched at his sides. “I. Am. Not. A. Monster.”
I tilted my head as I looked at him. “Are you trying to convince me of that?” I asked. “Or yourself?” And then I turned on my heel and went back to my new friends. Just because he’d sent one girl home didn’t mean he and his friends didn’t have another victim picked out.
And it didn’t change what he’d done to Magda.
Jason began drinking shortly after our little chat. Every time I saw him he had a drink in his hand. As the evening went on, he became more drunk and obnoxious. More like Drew and his other buddies. The four of them were laughing and being loud, and despite that, girls still flocked around them. It disgusted me.
“What’s up with him?” Anna asked.
“Me,” I said. “I watched him put a girl in a cab earlier because I wanted to make sure he actually sent her home. He saw me. He knew why I was watching.”
The three girls stared at me. I thought maybe they thought I was crazy or paranoid. Zoe spoke first. “You followed him alone?”
I nodded. “To the door, yeah.”
Her face flushed, and I didn’t think it was because she was too warm. “Are you mental? So all that stuff about traveling in groups doesn’t apply to you? Are you, like, Wonder Woman or something? What if he had grabbed you?”
I frowned at her. “I would’ve punched him in the throat.”
She shook her head. “You should’ve taken one of us with you.”
“I didn’t think of it, okay? I’m not used... It’s been a little while since anyone has cared what I do.”
The three of them exchanged glances. I shifted uncomfortably, not sure if they pitied me or thought I was lying.
“Don’t do it again, okay?” Zoe gave me a beseeching look. “If you don’t want to take one of us with you, at least let us know where you’re going so we can find you if you don’t come back right away.”
I nodded. “Okay. We’ll make a deal right now that whenever we’re together we’ll stay together.” But really, how often would we be together? It wasn’t like we were best friends. No one could replace Mags.
The girls smiled, and the heaviness inside me lightened a little. I wasn’t sure how to feel. Responsibility to another person was something I hadn’t had for months. And wasn’t Magda going off on her own one of the things that upset me so much? If she had told me where she was going, maybe I would’ve been able to help her. Instead I’d gone looking for her too late and found her in a bedroom, passed out with her panties wrapped around one ankle and condom wrappers on the floor.
I didn’t want anyone to ever find me that way.
I stuck close to my new friends after that. We all stuck together, moving as a group. I met a few more people who I didn’t really know that well and talked to some that I did. It felt weird, being social. Zoe told every girl we talked to about the self-defense course. A few of them seemed interested, though a couple wrinkled their noses at the idea of violence. I didn’t bother trying to convince them that the class was about protecting yourself rather than hurting someone. They obviously didn’t think anything bad would ever happen to them. I wasn’t going to be the
