She rises, and I pause, her words sinking so deep I can’t breathe.
In a fog, I climb to my feet.
“What, am I supposed to treat you like glass because you have a dead brother?” she bites out. “I’m supposed to make an exception for your behavior, even though a toddler has better fucking manners than you do?”
I clutch the flag in my fist as she advances on me and backs me into a tree.
“I swallow your shit,” she growls, her cheeks flushed, “because you’re not important enough to spare an effort, but I’ve reached my limit. I’m tired of hearing that I’m not good enough. That I deserve to be treated like garbage, because of who I am or where I come from or who I want to be with.”
I blink away the tears, steeling my jaw.
“That I can’t have that. Or that’s not for me, or I’ll never have that life,” she continues. “A lifetime of being told I’m wrong for your world. Of not seeing myself in your school hallways and represented in your town.”
“You won’t find what you’re looking for in the back seat of your car either!” I grit out.
She nods, looking like she has more to say, but deciding that it’s not worth it. She looks at me, several breaths passing before she drops her gaze and murmurs, “Or at Marymount, I guess.”
I narrow my eyes. “What does that mean?”
She’s been there almost four years. She’s all of a sudden realizing she doesn’t fit?
She meets my eyes again, swallowing and sounding calm, her anger suddenly gone. “It means I don’t have anything to prove. I don’t know why I ever thought I did. Especially to you.”
Because…because what happened in the locker room wasn’t one-sided. She felt it, too. “Because you want to touch me,” I tell her.
She scoffs, tears glistening in her eyes. “Is that what this is about?” she inquires. “Don’t think what happened in the locker room was real, just because I kissed you back. I was angry and full of a lot of steam to blow off, and pretty much in fucking shock too, but I don’t want you, Clay.”
No?
“You’re like vanilla,” she says. “I mean, yeah, it’s ice cream, but it’s not really an option when there are other choices that taste better.”
She turns away, and I grab her, but instead of yanking away from me, she grabs me back and presses me into the tree, its bark digging into my back.
She glares.
“Don’t say that,” I whisper.
“Why?”
“Because I can’t…” I don’t know how to explain. “I can’t… I can’t…”
I don’t want you. I can’t want you. It’s just…
So I say the only thing that I do know for sure. “I can’t leave you alone,” I tell her.
That’s all I know. I need to feel it again.
My hair falls in my face, but I can smell the remnants of her watermelon lip gloss. “Ask me to touch you.”
Please. I want her to want me to touch her. I won’t force her like last time. Ask me.
But she just shakes her head slowly, and I don’t know what it means.
I place my hands on her waist. “Ask me.”
But just then, a low hiss pierces the air somewhere behind her, and we both freeze.
My pulse echoes in my ears, and I peer over her shoulder as she turns her head, both of us spotting a glowing pair of eyes low to the ground about ten yards away.
“Liv.”
“Shhh.”
She still holds me pressed to the tree, but both of us are too afraid to move. I resist the urge to push her behind me. Alligators can’t hear outside of water, but they have great night vision. I might not be Swamp, but any Floridian over three years of age knows the basics.
“Don’t leave me,” I beg.
She grew up out here. I don’t know what to do.
“When I say,” she tells me in a hushed tone, “run back to the path and follow it as fast as you can. They don’t move quickly outside of water, but there could be more. Don’t zig zag.”
“Huh?” Why?
But she doesn’t wait another second. “Run.”
“Liv!” I gasp, not ready.
She grabs my hand and we pound the mud, the reptile slithering into view, growling and hissing, and I can’t not look back. I scream, and Liv crashes into me, falling.
It advances, moving right for her, and she scurries back, trying to get up until it’s damn near snapping at her feet.
“Ah!” My lungs drop to my feet, and I cry out, grabbing her and hauling her up. “Oh my God.”
We run, stomping through the mud and jumping over fallen logs, and I take her hand, not letting her go until we reach the paved road, the streetlights shining overhead. I dart my eyes all around us, making sure we’re safe.
“Did it hurt you?” I ask.