“C’mon, babe. Don’t be that way.”
Hayden slides around, pinning her against the car with his hands, down low by her hips. The casual observer would see a couple just playing around, but Ella is suddenly terrified. The parking lot is half full now, but most of the other kids are too busy trying to beat the traffic out the gate to get to their after-school jobs to notice that anything weird is going on. A few people are watching, avid as vultures, and Ella locks eyes with a senior in her trig class named Beth, hoping the older girl sitting on the stairs will ask her if she’s okay or step in to chat or something, but Beth’s eyes slide down to her phone.
“Hayden, let me go.” She hates how high and tremulous her voice is.
“Let you go? We’re just talking,” he says, smooth and sweet. His eyes are lit up in a way that would be mischievous if he didn’t have her pinned and she didn’t want so badly to be very, very far away from him.
“Whatever this is, I don’t give my consent,” she says, remembering what she’s been taught, what they talk about in health class.
“I don’t need consent to stand here and talk to my girlfriend.” He innocently holds his hands up before shoving them in his pockets, but he doesn’t move, and even though he’s not a lot taller than her, Ella is very aware of his size, of the wiry strength in his muscular arms when he’s playing baseball or in the weight room or lifting his partner during the dances in the musical. Her heart is thumping a thousand times a minute, and he just looks so calm and confident, as if nothing could ever touch him.
“Sorry, but I don’t think I’m your girlfriend anymore,” she says with as much determination as she can muster. “It’s not you. It’s me.” She spins in place to open her door, but she can’t, because there’s not enough room, nowhere to go. He spins around, too, sliding to lean against the door, his body now blocking the handle.
“Last I heard, it takes two to make that decision,” he counters, slouching lazily, eyebrows up.
Her escape cut off, Ella doesn’t know what to do. She glances around the parking lot again, desperate for any help, but no one is watching, no one except Beth, who looks like she’s low-key recording the whole thing on her phone from the steps.
“Help,” Ella mouths silently, but maybe Beth is too far away to see it on the screen, because she doesn’t do anything, doesn’t say anything or come over to help or tap on her phone to call someone. She just sits there, staring at her stupid screen.
“Help,” Ella says, a little louder, not quite a shout, trying to project her voice while sounding calm.
“What did you say?” Hayden hisses. “You’re not going to make some embarrassing scene, are you?”
Ella wants to shrink into herself. She squeezes her eyes shut, a million scenarios running through her head, the computations of a prey animal trying to escape.
“Look, do you want to just go somewhere alone to talk about it?”
Hayden’s voice is soft and gentle and sweet, and Ella knows that voice all too well.
She’s heard it in her kitchen a hundred times.
Instead of turning around or answering him, she takes a deep breath and bolts.
Or tries to.
Instead, one of Hayden’s big boots is there, and she trips over it and goes sprawling. Her head cracks into the SUV next door and she barely catches herself on her hands, the asphalt cutting into her palms. Her fallen keys are just a few inches away, and she grabs them, clutching them for dear life. Her vision splinters into little pinpricks, her head reeling and aching and stuffy. Hayden’s hand is fisted in the back of her shirt, almost as if he could’ve caught her but was a second too late.
“Whoa. Are you okay?” he asks. His big hands wrap around her shoulders to help her up, and she’s so dazed she lets him pull her to standing. She puts a hand on her car to steady herself. Hayden runs his thumb down her temple, his palm cupping her cheek like it’s a basketball. “Poor girl. You’re bleeding.” But he doesn’t sound sorry. “I’ll drive you home. Where’re the keys?”
Ella shakes her head, her fingers shaking around her key ring. She can’t get in the car with him. Everything is wrong.
She steps away from him, one step and then another, but she’s slow and clumsy now and he snags her arm easily and yanks her back.
“I told you. I’ll drive, we’ll talk. Just get in the car.” The soft, reasonable tone of his voice is vastly different from the bruising grip he keeps on her arm.
She tries to yank it back, barking, “No!”
He doesn’t let go. He leans close, as if they’re sharing a secret. “Ella, you’re making a scene. People are staring.”
“I don’t care.”
He jerks her arm toward him, grabs her other arm, too, his fingers biting in. “Well, I do!”
Ella is breathing hard now, her heart pounding in time with her head. Her stomach goes cold and her feet want to run. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Mx. Alix is explaining fight, flight, or freeze and an adrenaline drop. Knowing what it is doesn’t make it any easier to move. Shaking her head, she wrenches her body away from him with everything she has until she stands on her own.
“I said no!” she shouts. “No! Don’t touch me again!”
She hears the slap before she can really process what he’s done.
When she puts her hand to her cheek, it stings.
No one has ever slapped her before.
Her jaw drops. Her brain rattles like a maraca. She can feel the tiny balls of stone on her palms from the parking lot asphalt, pressing into her now swelling cheek.
He slapped her.
He hit her.
And he must realize the weight of what he’s done, because suddenly he, too, looks terrified.
“El, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. I can get a ride home from someone else. Or drive you or whatever. Just don’t tell anyone. Just don’t…just…you make me so crazy, baby.” His desperation raises his voice, makes him seem like a spoiled little boy, and she can’t remember why she ever liked him at all.
Ella swallows the lump in her throat and lets her hands drop to her sides. She can’t remember if the car is unlocked, so she fumbles for the right button on her key fob. He’s not blocking the door anymore, just standing there, so she clicks the button once, gets in her car, closes the door, and locks it.
“I’m sorry!” he screams, his voice high and shredding. “I didn’t mean it!” His fist slams into the car roof to punctuate his harmlessness.
The car is on now, and she puts it in reverse and backs up, daring him to stop her. He doesn’t, he can’t, he just stands there looking much younger and smaller than he did a few moments ago. There’s a satisfying thump as she rolls over his backpack.
“I’m sorry!” he screams again, now in her rearview mirror.
As she drives past Beth on the stairs, the older girl holds up her phone and silently points to it.