Page 95 of Fade into You
We walk faster, but he’s keeping up with us, laughing, his friends lagging behind.
“No, I’m just curious, how do you even have sex without a dick?”
I stop walking and turn around to face him, feeling all the blood in my body rushing to my head, making me dizzy, fearless. “I don’t know, how doyouhave sex without a dick?”
His friends start howling, keeling over with laughter now.
And before I have a chance to silently congratulate myself for getting that out without stuttering, Jessa’s shouting at me, pulling me away again. “Bird, come on!”
“Oh please, you couldn’t handle this,” he yells, and I glance back to see him grabbing himself, then giving me the finger.
“I seriously doubt that,” I say, but I let Jessa lead me down the sidewalk anyway.
“Fuck you, you fuckin’ bitch!”
“Fuckyou!” I scream back at him.
“Shut up!” Jessa hisses at me, then yells over her shoulder, “We’re leaving!”
“Yeah, listen to your little girlfriend. Get the fuck outta here, dykes!”
I try to stop again, but Jessa yanks me forward so hard I stumble. “Keep walking, Bird,” she says under her breath. “Shit! Don’t say anything else. Where are the keys? Get them out now,” she demands. My hands are shaking with rage, but I find the keys. Jessa snatches them from me when we get to the lot, looking behind us every other step. “Hurry up,” she says. “They’re fucking following us.”
She unlocks the passenger door first and practically shoves me in, locks it from the inside, then slams it shut. Then she’sracing to the driver’s side. I lean over to unlock it for her, because, yes, they are following us. One of them throws a full cup of coffee, and Jessa slams the door just as it explodes all over the side of the car. One second earlier that hot coffee would’ve landed in her face.
“What the fuck?” she yells through the window at them. She grabs her hand and shakes it out quickly, pressing it against her jeans for a moment. I see the wet spot, and then that red welt already rising to the surface of her skin. They burned her.
“Oh my god, are you okay?”
It takes her a couple of tries to start the car, but she gets it going and even though they’re standing right at the front bumper, yelling unintelligibly, she taps the gas and the car lurches forward, makingmescream and makingthempound on the hood of the car before they scatter.
She peels out of the parking spot and keeps looking in the rearview until we’re all the way off campus.
“Jessa?”
She’s gripping the steering wheel, staring straight ahead.
“Jessa?” I say, louder.
She turns onto the main road and we drive down the street we walked along last night, past the stores and the beautiful theater, marquee now blank.
“Jessa!”
“Bird, just give me a damn minute to get us out of here, all right?” she yells at me.
Neither of us says anything until she pulls into a gas station several blocks away. She parks at a pump and lets her head fallagainst the steering wheel for a second before looking at me.
“Are you okay?” I ask her again.
“No, are you?”
“No.” I’m not okay. I’m mad and scared and can’t stop shaking.
“Bird, that could’ve gone so fucking bad. You can’t do that.”
“I was trying to stand up for us! I mean, did you hear what that asshole was saying?”
“Yes! And I wanted to punch him in the face, but not when there are three guys and just us. Okay? You have got to use your head!”
