Page 95 of August Lane
“No, she doesn’t. And even if she did, I don’t want her.”
“But you’re going out with her Saturday.”
“It’s homecoming. I’m doing her a favor.” He wanted to tell August the whole story, but he didn’t want to betray Jessica’s trust. “I owe it to her” was all he said.
August balled her trash up and stood. “Why do you care so much what people think of you?”
Luke remembered what Jessica had said, how he needed to convince everyone he was fine. “Because I have to.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You don’t understand, August.”
“Explain it to me.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Try!”
“Because I should!” Luke shouted. “Because it matters. Who are we if no one gives a shit about us?”
August pushed past him, rushing to the door. Luke grabbed her arm. “I was four when Ava started locking me in a closet as punishment. She’d spank me raw and then shove me inside to cry myself sick.”
August looked horrified. He clung to her as the story spilled out of him. He’d never told anyone. Not even Ethan. “After a while, I realized it was the only time she didn’t put her hands on me. So I started liking it. I’d seek out that dark when I knew she was mad about something. I still do, like that night you found me at the fair.” He looked around the dressing room. “You like this place for the same reason. Because it feels safer than what’s out there. But this is the closet you let those people put you in. It’s your prison.”
August stopped speaking to him. He tried confronting her in the hallway, but she would dance around him, avoiding his eyes. In English class, she sat on the opposite side of the room. As the week went on, he grew more desperate, writing sloppy, rambling apologies and stuffing them in her locker. She stopped coming to the dressing room, which hurt more than being ignored to his face. She’d found a new place to hide and he wasn’t invited.
By Saturday, he was a wreck. The homecoming theme was Motown, and he was supposed to be Smokey Robinson, but the bridal shop had only two suits left. One was too big, and the other was too small. He’d chosen the big one, and the result was clownish and childlike.Jessica’s corsage was white carnations, flowers that screamed lazy and last minute.
Shane rented a limo with a fully stocked bar. His parents were so hands off they’d probably handed him a credit card and looked the other way. Once inside, Luke grabbed a bottle of something and poured a shot without reading the label.
An hour later, he was gone. His body was a shell, and his mind was liquid, flowing toward the barrage of energy that greeted him at the gym. The dance was voices, bodies, and heat, and Luke was into it for real, not just pretending. He danced with Jessica, bumping and grinding, but didn’t actually see her because clarity was unnecessary. They were all just existing inside a sweaty, feverish realization that all this was fleeting. They got drunk and high. Jessica made out with her teammate in the bathroom. Shane got rejected by the homecoming queen and cried about it on the dance floor. Luke climbed onstage with the band and sing-shouted nineties covers until he was hoarse.
They’d been immortal these last four years. Tonight, they partied like they were dying.
Luke fell asleep when they returned to the limo. He was shaken awake by Jessica, who coaxed him toward the lobby of a Holiday Inn. “Why are we here?” he asked her.
“Because everyone else is,” she said, which was always enough for her. Jessica would miss the rapture if all her friends were going to hell.
“Oh,” Luke said. He needed a bathroom, and checking into a hotel room was one step closer to relief.
Thankfully their room was a double. Jessica laid on the bed in a cloud of purple taffeta. Luke shucked off his shoes. He groaned when his head hit the pillow.
“We could fuck if you want.” Jessica sounded bored by the idea, annoyed that she had to offer.
“I don’t want.”
“Because of August?”
He ignored the question. “You still have that Hennessy?”
“You drank it all. You drink too much.”
“You should mind your own business.”
Jessica sat up and stared at him. Luke started to apologize, but she cut him off before he could finish and said, “I like it when you’re mean. It’s hot.”
He sat with what she said, thinking about how hard he’d worked to be liked. To be accepted. Then he thought about August and how eager she was for kindness. How little of it they’d both had in their lives. “I think you’re spoiled,” he told Jessica. “I think you’re surrounded by people who love you, and you take it for granted.”
