I continued to stare at her, at her body. Like yesterday morning, small sticks and dry leaves lay tangled in her hair. But unlike yesterday, dark spots were now crusted across her cheeks, her hands, her forearms. Crimson and brown. Blood.
The sobbing ceased. She turned her face sideways and watched me, too. Her side heaved with each breath, and her one visible eye drooped with fatigue. The lid began to close. I crept forward from where I lay huddled until I was on my hands and knees. I inched forward even more, crawling over her with my arms anchored on each side of her torso. I liked the way my shadow fell across her bare body. I used one hand to push her onto her back. I wanted to take her in. She grunted and strained to lean forward. I pushed her back again. And again. There was nothing sleepy in her expression anymore, but she finally lay still, tolerating me as a bitch would her whelp. Anna’s nipples were very pink and I saw a small line of moles running down her stomach. I reached out and touched one of her breasts. I’d never felt anything like it before. It was warm, very soft, with real weight to it.
The pounding of my head made me unsteady. I sat back and winced. Whoosh. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. All at once. Colored dots danced before my eyes. I thought I might faint.
Something in my breathing alarmed Anna. Before I knew what was happening, she moved right beside me, gripping me tightly. She was very strong. I didn’t fight her this time. I couldn’t. I crumpled in her arms and my face felt wet. I ran a hand beneath my nose. Ribbons of snot flew everywhere. Was I crying, too?
“Anna,” I squeaked. “Anna, I—”
“Hush,” she said, and a sour waft of her breath came at me, like something familiar and recent. She held me close.
The slurred words she panted in my ear were familiar, too.
“It’s okay, Drew. I promise. This, tonight, we’ll just keep everything between us, all right? I know you like me. You don’t want to get me in trouble. So you and I, let’s both forget that any of this ever happened.”
chapter
thirty-one
matter
I’ve reached the highest point I can. I’m at the peak, a craggy cliff that looks down onto the smoldering bonfire and smoldering party and out over the woods, toward the sleeping school, the sleeping town, the sleeping state.
I stand on all fours. I open my throat to howl.
Nothing comes out.
I try again. I consciously will my body to give rise to my voice. To let me sing with every need, every desire, every lament that writhes and simmers within my molecules, every bond that holds me together and every action that tears me apart.
No howl. Instead I hear breathing, my own. And I hear the scrabbling and fear in the steps and voices of the two who have followed me. I don’t get why they’re here. I want them to leave. If I change, I won’t know who they are. I won’t be able to discriminate their goodness from my badness.
I will hurt them.
“A w-wolf?” I hear Jordan say from the shadows beneath me, at the base of the rock, and I know Lex has told her what I shared with him last spring in that miserable hospital room. We never talked about it after that. Lex was put on probation and moved to a freshman dorm, where the rules were stricter. I was left alone.
“What does that mean?” she asks.
“Well, hmm, given the current situation, it means he’s really fucked up. He thinks … he thinks he’s going to change into one.”
“He really believes that?”
“Well, what the hell do you think? That he’s just up there naked on that rock for shits and giggles?”
“No, I, I, it’s just so…”
“So what?”
“It’s so sad.”
Lex makes a funny sound. Like he’s being strangled.
“We should help him,” Jordan says. “Get help for him.”
“No way.”
“Why not?”
“That’s his choice. To get help. You can’t force somebody to do that.”
“What if he hurts himself?”
“We can’t stop him.”
“What if he hurts someone else?”
“He won’t.”
“He already has,” she insists.
“That was dumb. I told you, he thought Penn was going to rape you or something. And maybe he was. He was coming after you, you know.”
“Has Win gotten into fights before?”
There’s a long pause. I’m sure Lex is thinking about how I attacked him in the biology lab.
“Just once,” he says. “That I know of.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
My knees quake. Of course I know what he’s talking about. It’s just so not what I expected him to say. He wasn’t there.
Lex speaks: “You know Win plays tennis, right? He’s like a prep legend.”
“He told me he doesn’t play anymore.”
“He really said that?”
“Yup.”
“Crazy,” Lex mutters, sounding stunned.
“What happened?” Jordan asks.
“He beat the crap out of the assistant coach.”
“He did?”
“Yup. Broke his wrist, I think. Maybe a rib, too. Guy didn’t come back after that. I didn’t see it, but everyone said that one minute they were just talking to each other and the next Win went after him. No warning or anything.”