Page 153 of Ominous: Part 1
Then he’s back on his side of the car, and while I stare at the veins of his hand, clenched around the steering wheel while he drives us out of my neighborhood, I can at least use my brain again.
“Good morning to you, too, baby girl.”
“Stop calling me that.”
He doesn’t even look at me as we come to a stop at the exit to the trailer park, but I see his stupid smirk. “You like it.” He doesn’t say it accusingly. It’s just a fact, rolling off of his tongue, like the sky is blue and the grass is green.
He’s wrong though. I don’tlike it.I’m obsessed with it. No one has ever called me that before. Not a single person has given me a term of endearment like it, no nicknames aside from the first initial of my birth name. And even “E” is just lazy shorthand, something with no thought. Boys have said “babe” in exasperation, and Amanda would call me “dude” every other sentence, a habit I almost didn’t even hear, it was so ingrained into her vocabulary, much like nobody bothers to track their friends’ breaths.
But I am not foolish enough to think I’m the first girl he’s ever said it to, and as immature as it may be, right now, with my fading anger, I don’t want to be to him what anyone has ever been before.
“I don’t,” I insist.Lie.“I don’t want a throwaway term you’ve used on all of your other girlfriends.”
This time,he looks at me.
And it isn’t until thelookI realize what I’ve said.
His smile has pulled higher and my heart sinks as he leaves my neighborhood, shifting gears with ease, as if I didn’t just almost ruin this.
“I didn’t meanIwas your girlfriend.” I nearly choke on the word, sweat slimy beneath my arms even with the full blast of A/C. I want to open the door and hop out of the car, but he’s going over the speed limit, I’m sure, based on the purr of the engine and the fact he’salwaysgoing above the speed limit. Even the backs of my thighs are sweaty, though, uncomfortable beneath my skirt and—
“You didn’t?”
“No,” I manage to say, keeping a forced, cool detachment in my voice. “It was just a passing remark, a slip of the tongue.”
There’s a pause between us. Silence, save for music playing low and the hum of his car.
Even though I don’t want to, I watch his hand as he downshifts, the engine kicking back, and I jolt forward in my seat a little.
Then he’s turning, and I look up, realizing we didn’t head toward Trafalgar.
We’re entering the state park a couple of miles from my house.
My stomach twists into knots. “I can’t skip class.” It’s the first thing I think to say, and as irritated as I am about the detour, I’m grateful my transgression is being neatly avoided. “What are we doing here?”
He keeps driving, down a dirt road, thick forest on either side of us, blotting out the sun. He swerves around divots in the path, slowing and maneuvering deftly over holes and big rocks. Despite the fact I really can’tmiss class, I’m momentarily silenced enough to take in the tall trees, shielding the warm day, a coolness even from the interior of his car as he pulls onto a gravel lot, backing up by glancing over his shoulder, his taillights reflecting on glass over a map of the park.
I see a lot of blue, and something relaxes in my chest.
He puts the car in park but doesn’t turn it off as he looks at me.
“A slip of the tongue?” he repeats my words back to me, and I feel as if I’mdrenchedin perspiration.
“Yes.” I don’t think twice about sticking to my defense.
But with my answer to him, I didn’t expect him to look soangry.A muscle in his jaw moves as he stares at me, and his fingers curl tighter around the wheel.
“You’re saying you’renotmy girlfriend?”
“What the fuck do you want?” I bypass his question, the way he does with all of mine. I’m still angry. I still want him to beg me. He doesn’t get to do this… thisdeflectionshit all the time. “Why did you come to my house?”
“Why did you let Dom kiss you?”
For a second, I’m shocked into a disbelieving silence. And then, “You’re joking, right?”
He shakes his head once, never looking away from me. “Do I look like I’m joking?”
I throw up my hands. He is unbelievable. “You were ignoring me. You were mad about what the hell ever, with your dad, and you were all overherin the pool and—”
