Page 24 of Rowdy Boy

For maybe the first time in my life, I’m excited for school to start next week. At least then I’ll have somewhere safe to be during the day. Access to the cafeteria. Freedom to move around the halls of Hampton High without constantly glancing over my shoulder.

School. Clinton’s. Rhett’s house. My Jeep.

I’ll have a solid safety net around me soon. But I hate that I need someone or something to catch me in the first place. What I need is an exorcism to expunge Joe from my mind.

I finish my joint, flush the roach, and flick on the ceiling fan to thin out the musk. He’ll smell it if he comes up here. I’m less worried about his reaction and more concerned about my reaction time if he comes at me while I’m high.

I check the lock on my bedroom door again, then make sure the bathroom door from Joey’s side is locked so he can’t get in that way. I flop onto my unmade bed and stare at the patterns stamped into the ceiling. If I look at it long enough, the raised design inverts and shape-shifts before my eyes. Crazy to think my ceiling can go both ways. It’s like bisexual plaster. I bet the ceiling never tried to come out, only to get shoved back into the closet. Wait. Can a ceiling get put into a closet if closets already have ceilings?

Doesn’t matter. The point’s the same.

When images of that night start to replay in my mind, I feel nothing. I’m used to the show by now. Might as well settle in and get comfortable.

I tried to look it up online once—tried to figure out why my brain insists on recalling one of the worst nights of my life word-for-word when I let myself be still or go quiet.

It’s called catastrophic thinking. It’s like having a nightmare while you’re wide awake. Often it’s the first indicator of a panic attack. But my body never lets it get that far. It just replays the same memory on a loop until I pass out from exhaustion or do something wild to spike my adrenaline and clear my head.

The memory always starts the same. It always starts at home.

Never mind that I was on campus that night when I shouldn’t have been. Or that Rhett came to my rescue, then let me drive his Audi so I could regain some semblance of control. I never see the moment of impact. I don’t recall much about being at the hospital.

No. Even with all those memories to choose from, my brain gifts me with the same trauma over and over again.

Joe and I are in the kitchen. We’re standing just a few feet apart. Nothing but his loathing separates us. The memory always starts with him spitting in my face…

“You disgust me.”

It takes me a second to realize that spit didn’t just fly from his mouth in anger—my dad intentionally spat on me.

My instinct is to recoil, but I freeze. How the hell do I react to that? I’m no longer feeling the effects of whatever was slipped into my drink tonight, because Rhett waited. He fucking waited. Forced me out of the driver’s seat, positioned himself behind the wheel, then waited almost three hours before calling his parents to say he’d been in a car accident, even though he was clearly injured and needed medical attention. He fucking waited.

I shouldn’t have been on campus. He told me to meet him in the field house. I went willingly, eagerly even. He’s older than me and hot as hell. I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. But I never expected him to come on that aggressively… to be that rough. He didn’t even mind my resistance at first. Probably because he knew it wouldn’t last after I drank what he gave me.

His misstep was underestimating my sense of self-preservation. I’ve been dodging fists from my dad for most of my life, so I knew how to get myself out of the danger zone. That, and he underestimated my best friend. How quickly he came to pick me up. How good and strong and steady he is in a crisis.

Rhett saved me tonight. He came as soon as I called. He found me in the parking lot where I was hiding behind the salt shed, and he got me out of there as quickly as he could.

No one but Rhett knows I was roofied tonight. Or at least, no one knew until now.

I just told my dad what happened. And why.

I tried to tell him everything.

I told him I’m bi.

I told him I was roofied.

I told my dad what he tried to do.

And his response was to spit on me.

I would have rather he hit me.

I stand before him, shaking. Fucking trembling. I consider running up to my room. Or hopping in my M3 and driving back to the hospital to be with Rhett. But apparently my dad’s not done.

“What the hell does bisexual even mean?” he sneers.That’swhat he’s fixating on. Not that I was drugged. He’s moved closer now—closed some of the distance.

My body subconsciously shifts forward, desperate for comfort. Desperate for love. His eyes track my movement. A second later, he takes two steps back, intentionally putting space between us.