Page 254 of Ominous: Part 1
“I wonder if he remembers you,” she’s saying, and my heart feels like it’s literally flipping over in my chest.
I don’t fight her, and I don’t ask questions. It was a long time ago. But he stayed over for an entire year afterward. One of those nights was when I had my first panic attack. When I got my heart medication.
I know his name.
“Zachary,” Manda calls, and I watch my white Keds splash into a shallow puddle, soaking the sides of my shoes, but I don’t remember making the decision to get them wet. Water pools all around us, thin ribbons of pink laced through it alongside white bubbles.
“Zachary Richard.” She snaps his name then, the spray of water hitting glass almost as loud as my friend’s voice.
I’m still staring at the ground. At thin tires.
The smell of cleaners and water is bright in a way scents can be.
“Do you remember Eden?”
I lift my gaze to the car, the leather seats inside. The center console. The steering wheel. I think of fingers threaded through my hair, and how he groaned as he moved over me, frozen in my bed. How he lied to me and said my brother was busy. No one would care.
His hands all over me, the smell of his breath, like nicotine and some sort of meat. Hotdogs.
“Oh, shit,” Zach Richard says, and the force of water against a window stops, steadying to a small drip upon the ground.
I glance at my phone, just to remind myself it’s still in my hand. Eli’s name lights up on the screen, another message coming in after the last unread one.
I smile to myself, and Manda drops my hand. When I pick my head up, she’s tucked under Zach Richard’s sinewy arm, a gray muscle tank showing off most of it, cargo shorts giving me a view of his knees and the hairs on them, stuck to his skin from sweat or the carwash.
Zach Richard spins the faded black cap on his head backward, tufts of lanky brown visible beneath it. He’s only a couple of inches taller than Amanda, and he looks a little like a string bean, but he didn’t feel that way, back then.
His hand rests on Manda’s ass, but he releases her to move toward me after he drops the black hose in his hand, just letting it fall to the wet cement without a care in the world. Amanda is smiling, her arms crossed as she fingers a strand of her hair, but there’s something distrustful in her smile.
It’s directed at me.
Zach opens his arms for a hug. “Shit, you’re all grown up.”
My legs feel weak, like my knees are trembling, but I don’t look down to confirm. I just keep my arms by my side. There’s a pain in my chest that could be from my racing heart or my bad memories. Instinctively, I press a hand over it, feeling the warmth of my own skin, the too-fast pulse. I didn’t think I’d need my medication here. Familiar things don’t scare me. Except, apparently… they do.
“How does Sebastian beat the boys off of you, huh?” He’s still coming closer, and I glance at his dirty sneakers, the hair along his ankles, over the top of his white socks.
My phone slips from my hand, and I step back, water splashing up my shins, dizziness making me feel unsteady on my feet, my mouth parting open, a gasp ringing in my ears.
I reach for the phone, swiping it up, checking the screen for damages—a small scratch, nothing else, Eli’s texts are still there—and wiping the damp corner on my shirt.
Richard’s arms close around me.
My face is pressed to his chest. I smell his sweat, and cologne, something choking. I can’t think through anything, much less how to push away or speak.
“Don’t move. God, you feel so good. Let me fuck you.”
I didn’t speak. Thankfully, he didn’t try.
His fingertips press at the base of my spine. “God, I just can’t get over it.” He’s saying other things, about how I didn’t grow much taller, but I look like a woman, and how is Sebastian and how come he never answers his calls.
He finally pushes me away, holding me at arm’s length.
I meet his gaze, the color lost on me in this moment, because I’m not really seeing much of anything.
A slight frown graces his lips. “You okay, baby doll?”
Baby doll.
