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Voices blend over us from the deck. Calls for us to stop. Questions pointed at Dana. What is she doing here? Why are they chasing me? If she answers, I can’t hear it over her brother’s grunts and my own painful groans. And her voice. Low. Strained. Wheezy.
Fuck.
I hurt her. Again.
What was I thinking, taking her home with me?
What was I thinking doing… any of this?
The cries for us to stop get louder and louder until a pair of thick hands grabs me from the back and hoists me out of the pile.
“I said, that’s enough!” my father’s voice echoes through the neighborhood.
I stumble as he pulls me up and drags me away from the twins. Ben is still on the grass, his hands up in a defensive surrender. Alex is up, but he’s locked in place by John Kirby’s iron arms. He tries to wiggle free, but John doesn’t budge.
“Knock it off!” he shouts. Alex finally relaxes and frustratingly raises his hands. “You done?”
“Yes,” Alex says.
“You done?”
“Yes, sir!”
John releases Alex, who immediately helps Ben up off the grass. Dad lets me go and I keep a wide berth away from the twins.
My mother steps down from the deck. “Honey, you’re bleeding,” she says to me. “Let me see.”
“I’m fine,” I mutter, but I let her check the stinging cuts on my brow and lip.
“Now, what is going on?” my father asks, the question clearly for everyone here.
Silence.
“Dana, what are you doing here?” John asks. “You’re supposed to be at the Beta Kappa house.”
She takes an audible breath, but she doesn’t answer. She merely stands still with her bag hanging over one arm. Her dress is zipped up now. Rose must have gotten it.
“She was with Connor!” Alex answers, spitting on the grass. “In his room.”
“We found her in his closet,” Ben adds.
John Kirby glares at me. I feel so small beneath him. I always have. But especially now. “Is that true?” he asks.
I look at Dana, my concern for her growing as she wheezes again.
“Hey.” John lurches forward and taps my shoulder, hard. “Eyes up, kid.”
“John,” my father says, a word of warning. “Don’t touch my son like that.”
“You’re lucky that’s all I’ve done, Junior.”
“John!” Rose says from the deck, her arm wrapped around Dana’s. “This isn’t?—”
“My daughter was here all night and I want your son to tell me why,” he says, his eyes locked on me.
“Dad, stop it!” Dana says, speaking up when I stay quiet. “I was with him because I wanted to be. That’s all you need to know.”
“No, what I need to know is why my daughter isn’t where she said she’d be!”
