she was really, really tired – which she is, but not in a way Wade Pike would understand. When she flared up at him he got over-solicitous, which he always does. He still thinks that Jessie, who had it all scooped out at nineteen – thank God she would never be pregnant – isn’t really upset when she gets mad at him, it’s only P.M.S. which, OK, it’s a little late for that. She was out of the car and halfway across the courtyard before he could open the door for her.
She needs time and space to sort out the sorry about running into Walker, which at the moment is overriding the glad. She sent the desk clerk home and slipped into the office, where she can keep an eye on the front desk and the entrance, in case.
It doesn’t take long to figure out what the matter is. Memory has been rolling in from so far off that for a long time she didn’t hear it coming. Now it hits with all its terrible freight, and mashes her flat.
The tastes, the sounds, the crap they were all drinking that lost, bad night come back in on her, everything rank and sour and so sudden that she shudders. The pain is old but still fresh. Her mouth fills with the taste of mingled snot and blood the way it did when it happened; she feels the cold, hard sand behind her head and under her bare back and she can feel wet sand creeping into her crotch as she gasps under the weight of the sleek, arrogant, angry bastard grinding the sand deeper into her most private part, and before anything she feels the humiliation.
She was never sure which ones ran off and which ones stayed to watch.
A high school sophomore. Stupid kid, what was she thinking, crashing the seniors’ houseparty when it wasn’t even her year, and they couldn’t see her for dirt? Lord knows she was pretty enough, stacked and sexier than those fucking Barbie cheerleaders, and with people who didn’t know, she could easily pass for older which is how she got in the door in the first place, but she was too young! The trouble was, Mollie Regan knew her from church and she never liked her – jealous, Jessie supposes, that woman was still stuffing her bra when she was old enough to afford implants. Jessie blended in fine, she was dancing with Billy Pouncey when Mollie spotted her. Ms. Head Cheerleader dug those purple fingernails into her arm, hissing, ‘You don’t belong here,’ and yanked her off the floor, which is how she ended up out on the curb in the middle of the night.
Her own damn fault for crashing, everybody knew houseparties were for seniors only and it didn’t matter how cute or sexy you were. She was sitting on a cement sea turtle out there on Coquina Alley waiting for Billy or some other boy to come out that she would consent to ride home with in exchange for a little of the one thing Jessie did best. But then Chape’s brand new Jeep came along, filled with sophomore boys scoping the scene like it was their senior year and they were the killer dudes laying waste and pillaging the maidens, come what may. Six first-string players from the FJHS Tarpons riding around drunk as bastards, acting like they ruled the world which they did, in a way, rolling to a stop at the sight of her.
‘Girl, you want a ride?’
Stupid, she thinks now. Stupid, heedless little bitch.
Stupid ever to get in any car with Brad Kalen, never mind who else was along. The boys were all loaded but so was Jessie, so what else is new? Besides, she recognized the car which was Chape Bellinger’s sweet sixteen present before she saw Brad was behind the wheel. She thought it was Chape stopping for her which, given who he was and given where Jessie came from, was an honor. Plus, given how late it was, she could use the ride. But Brad was driving, with Chape out cold and insensible, wedged in the back behind the bench seat, which was full of guys. Brad gunned the motor, laughing. ‘Are you getting in or what?’
He was a little heavier set than most even back then, but he was also a year older than them. Back then he worked out and Jessie is here to tell you that he oiled the biceps and the