Page 4

But my dick had other plans or—more accurately—no plans. Even once she had her shirt off, the only hard thing in my pants was loose change from the condoms I bought—condoms that I should have donated to some of our tent neighbors, at that point. I still gave it my best, thinking maybe that if we rolled around for a bit and stuck our tongues down each other’s throats that might start my engine.

But the truth is that making out is only really awesome if you’re into it. When you are, you don’t notice things like scars and pimples. When you’re not into it, you spot the scar along her wrist and wonder if she’s the one who put it there, and how long ago. You see a scattering of acne on her shoulder blade and think maybe she doesn’t have anybody she trusts enough to ask to pop them. At least, that’s what I think. I saw all the things that might mean she’s fragile, and maybe it was a good thing that my dick was on hiatus, because if it hadn’t been . . . like I said, I’m no saint.

So now Cassie Bradley thinks that I’m the greatest guy in the entire world, because instead of ignoring it when her eyelids got heavy, I asked her if maybe we should slow down. She’d teared up, and I thought she was going to start crying on me, which I wasn’t exactly thrilled about. She was pretty fucked up after Murphy Ricks dumped her a couple months ago, but not before letting the whole football team know that she gives excellent head.

When not even that thought could rouse my super-absent sex drive, I’d offered to pop her back pimples, and I’m sure her exclamations of “Ouch!” and “Not so hard!” only added to the mystique of Micah Harding. I’m pretty sure that me and Cassie are the only people that didn’t get laid last night, but neither one of us is going to admit that to anyone. And while she probably woke up this morning with a little hope that not all males are assholes, I woke up with a belated hard-on.

On the dresser, my phone buzzes with a text from Ethan.

How was the head?

All head is good head.

5/5 would do again

And in some ways, I did have a five-out-of-five night—mostly because I passed out for nine hours and didn’t have to be the victim of my own mind during that time.

Same

Under that, Ethan sends a full-frontal POV shot of Hailey Wagner, his girlfriend, wearing absolutely no clothes and clearly very proud of herself. Which, she has reason to be. Ethan—and Hailey, for some reason—think it’s hilarious to send me nudes of her, and some of them are totally saved in my hidden photos, because I’m a dude. And yeah, sometimes I feel bad about that because Ethan is my best friend and I’m a human. But not badly enough to do a purge.

It might not hurt to have a comeback ready for when Murph gives me shit about hooking up with his ex, but I doubt that’ll happen; he’s mostly been avoiding me since the night we found Ava Germaine. Murph had literally tripped over her legs as we were headed to the back field to smoke. He went down hard and yelled, “What the fuck?” Then he went completely quiet when he got the answer to that question.

She was passed out cold, limp as a rag doll in the corn stubble. I don’t know who drugged her, I don’t know who pulled her shorts down, and I don’t know how far they took it. All I know is that the second thing Murph said was “Yeah, I’m out,” and took off at a sprint that has never shown itself on the football field but apparently makes an appearance when finding a comatose girl in a cornfield.

I dragged her up to the house by her arms, too far gone to even think about carrying her. I couldn’t just walk away, not with most of the football team running around lit. Murphy wasn’t a hero for leaving me to handle it, but at least he hadn’t told me to head on up to the house and he’d catch up later. I’d like to say that none of the guys would have, but I’m also afraid that would make me a liar.

I got her up to the yard and put her under a tree, then I sat with her, because in the yard wasn’t a whole lot better than out in the field in terms of her safety. I checked the scores and clicked around Rock Bottom—usually it’s rb/girls or rb/girlsgirlsgirls—but I didn’t feel quite right looking at that with one passed out next to me. Especially with her shirt hiked up around her armpits. I tried to straighten that situation out, and that’s when I saw the blood.

Her back was all tore up from being dragged through corn stubble. And while I didn’t hurt her in any other way, that was definitely on me. So were the bruises forming on her arms. By then Ava had started to stir a little, and I had sobered up a lot—enough to know that a girl who comes to bloody and bruised with a dude she doesn’t know real well sitting next to her probably isn’t going to assume he’s the one who saved her ass. In fact, she’ll think the exact opposite.

So I got the fuck out of there.

But her eyelids had flickered before I went, delaying a little because I wanted to make sure she was actually okay. She’d opened her eyes, and they’d locked on to mine, confused.

“What . . . ?” she said, the one word coming out scratchy and thick.

I took a few steps back as she found another word, formed a question I didn’t want to answer. I ran before she finished, her weak voice barely reaching me when she asked, “What happened?”

Because something did happen to Ava Germaine.

But whatever it was, I didn’t do it.

Four

Ava

Right and wrong used to be a lot clearer to me: other people were wrong, and I was right.

Because I live in Bethington now, and because the other people in question tend to be athletic boys from good families, right and wrong have kind of gone out the window, leaving room only for jokes. Because it’s funny when Ethan Brimley scrolls through extremely hot chicks on Instagram and loudly declares who he would or would not fuck. Because it’s funny when Murphy Ricks ate the pizza I ordered and left by the dumpster for Carl, the only homeless person in town. And because it’s funny when Micah Harding was so drunk at prom that he started asking female teachers to dance with him, and then actively cried when he got shot down.

Okay, that last one actually is kind of funny.

But what’s not amusing in the least is that when I yelled, “But none of them want to fuck you,” across the room at Ethan, I got a detention. Also not exactly hilarious is the fact that Murphy’s aunt owns the pizza place, so she tried to mollify me by making another pizza for Carl, not understanding that the problem wasn’t the dietary needs of a homeless man, but that her nephew is an absolute piece of shit. And equally not giggle-inducing is the fact Micah got a ride home from prom in a cop car. But not in the back, because his dad is the sheriff.

In Bethington, these things are not inherently wrong. What is wrong is pointing out toxic behavior and calling out misogyny. Because that’s what I did. Every time. I didn’t post vague statements on social media “to whoever needs to hear it.” I didn’t side-eye them in the hallway, and I didn’t mutter my comebacks under my breath. Instead, I tagged them in my posts, stared them straight in the face in public, and let them know exactly what I thought at an easily discernible volume.

And people don’t like that. They don’t like it enough that I woke up under a tree in Ethan’s yard a month ago bleeding and very unclear on what had just happened to me. I still am, to be honest, which is where the gray area between right and wrong expands, and I can’t seem to spot a red triangle with a caption above it reading YOU ARE HERE. Becca—the only friend I managed to make in six months—has a very solid opinion about where I’m located on the Map of Right and Wrong. Which is why my last text to her—Hey, can you talk?—has been sitting on read for three weeks.