I struggled. My fists landed against Leif’s chest, but he pulled me closer. He kept kissing me, the thick slime of his mouth coating my chin. I jerked away, rolling my shoulders to the side, trying to escape. But everywhere I went he found me, his breath hot and musty on my skin.
So many things had been stolen from me: my mother, the house with the blue shingles where I had taken my first steps, those finished canvases stacked against the classroom wall. But this was the most painful of all, the control ripped from my grasp. No, he seemed to say, with each urgent grope. Even your body is not yours.
Tears escaped my eyes, forming shallow pools in my ears. He kissed my neck, his hands roaming the length of my body. I was drowning. Fear surrounded me, growing so that I was left with no choice: I had to take it in. My chest bucked, my feet seized. I was choking on my own panic.
Somewhere, far above the surface, I heard the murmurs of voices. “What’s going on?” someone asked. “She was yelling.” The bright light of a flashlight beam settled first on my legs, then on my wet face, and finally on Leif, his eyes in a half-closed daze.
“You monster,” Caleb growled. He picked Leif up by his underarms and heaved him into the side of one of the shelves. Metal boxes clattered and fell, sending hundreds of matches skittering across the floor.
Aaron and Michael appeared in the doorway, their flashlights illuminating the darkness. Leif struggled to his feet. He plowed forward, landing his shoulder into Caleb’s rib cage. Caleb winced in pain as he slammed against the wall.
“Enough, Leif!” he cried, but Leif threw another punch, landing hard in Caleb’s jaw. I folded myself into the far corner of the room, trapped.
Leif staggered to the side, his movements loose from all the alcohol. “Come on, you’ve always wanted to lead,” he slurred. Strands of black hair hung in his face and I wondered if he’d gone to sleep at all, or if this whole time he’d been downstairs, working through the last of the tin cans. “So be the leader, Caleb. See how you like it.”
Leif gestured wildly at the doorway. The commotion had awoken the rest of the boys and they huddled together, straining to watch. Kevin pulled on his cracked glasses, as if unsure of what he’d seen.
Leif circled Caleb, his arms out at his sides. The person who had sat next to me on the bench, swaying with the music, was no longer here. Something had taken hold of him, something terrifying and primal. “Come on,” he urged again, lunging in Caleb’s face. “Now’s your chance to be a man.”
Caleb sprung forward. In one swift motion he grabbed Leif’s arm, twisted, and pushed him to the floor. Leif fell hard, his cheek meeting the wood with a horrible whack. A pool of blood spread out underneath his face and I could see, even in the dark, that his lip had busted open.
“She wanted to be with me.” He spit blood as he spoke, covering the floor in spatter. “Why do you think she was sitting with me before? Why do you think she was talking to me? She wanted me. Not you—me.” The certainty in his voice was tinged with anger. I slunk back against the wall, afraid even now, with his body limp on the floor.
Caleb turned toward me, his face wrought with confusion. “Is that true?”
My hands trembled violently and tears streamed down my face. What Leif had done was wrong. And yet . . . I had sat beside him on the piano, playing for him. I had allowed his shoulder to press close as he spoke of his family. I had let his hand squeeze mine. Had I given him some unspoken invitation? Had my kindness seemed like something more?
“I don’t know,” I said, covering my mouth with my hand.
“You don’t know?” Caleb asked. His grasp tightened around Leif’s arm, pushing him farther into the ground. He glared at me from under his brows, the lightness I had loved about his face disappearing. I wanted him to stop, to look away, to give me just one moment to think.
But he just stared, waiting for an answer. I started to sob, my chest rocking as I lost myself in each waterlogged breath.
“Eve! What happened? Are you okay?” Arden pushed through the crowd of boys and ran to my side. She held me up, gasping at the slight rip in my sweater. “I heard the noise and—” she paused, noticing Caleb’s face. He shook his head from side to side, a nearly imperceptible movement, but a constant, unmistakable no.
He stood, leaving Leif on the floor, the black puddle of blood beneath him. Then he pushed through Michael and Aaron and down the stairs, not looking back.
“Caleb!” I yelled, sobered by his sudden absence. The crowd parted and I followed him out the door, but when I reached the bottom of the stairs there was only stale air and the crunch of garbage beneath my feet. The rest of the storehouse was dark as I felt around, looking for the entrance. “Caleb!” I called again.
Finally I spotted the glowing woods, just visible through the front door. There, out in the clearing, Caleb was climbing onto his horse, a black figure under a star-spotted sky.