Page 60 of Distortion
I hear laughter behind me and see a group of girls coming out, Laurie and Jolie are among them. They burst into laughter as they go past me. One of them pushes me off the sidewalk, with a whispered ‘kid killer’ and I almost faceplant into the ground, but I catch myself and whirl around. I don’t know which one of them it was.
I stop myself from moving, keeping the impulse to retaliate deep inside.
It’s hard, but I reel it in and turn to the car. The guys are both watching me. There’s anticipation in their faces. They think it’ll happen now.
They’ll be disappointed.
I assume I’m sitting in the back seat, but Blake doesn’t move.
‘How am I supposed to get in?’ I ask.
‘You wanna go in the trunk?’
‘Pardon?’
‘This is an F-Type, Daisy,’ comes Shade’s impatient voice from inside the car. ‘No back seats. Just get in the damn car.’
I shake my head blankly. ‘Where?’
But Blake taps his thigh and gives me a grin.
‘No,’ is my automatic response, and I flinch.
My body goes hot and then cold in the space of five seconds and I suddenly feel like I can’t breathe. I hear Crewe’s bored drawl in my head.
Is correction necessary, Marguerite?
No.
I step toward the car, making myself put one foot in front of the other, trying not to think of how I’m going to be sitting on someone’s lap. Blake’s lap.
I turn and gingerly sink down, clenching my eyes shut,my whole body tensing as I feel him under me. His arm goes around me and pulls me to him and my undignified squeak makes him snigger.
‘Ugh! She’s still wet! And not the way I like.’
I don’t get the last part.
My eyes are still shut, and I feel his arms moving around me. He’s getting the seatbelt, I realize when I feel it slide around me tightly, squishing me into his body despite my efforts to stay as far apart as I can.
‘Safety first, shut-in,’ he says.
Tears sting my eyes as I keep my head turned away from them.
Fuck, am I really crying again? Am I really going to let these assholes win?
It’s only today, I tell myself. Tonight they’ll go off to do whatever it is they do, and I’ll be able to stay in my room alone.
It’s only today. I can do it for a few more hours. There were days when The Heath was worse.
I can do this.
Blake
She’s very tense.I notice that first because of the way her body stays rigid and how she tries not to touch me in this small seat. It’s hilarious. I snap the seatbelt into place and get more comfortable, reaching out to close the door once I’ve made sure she’s in. Her hands are resting on the tops of her thighs. She’s staring out the window.
The second thing I notice is the cold seeping through myclothes. She’s still quite damp from the river, and she’s freezing.
Maybe Mav was right.
