He unbuttons her jeans. With her weight braced against the tree, his mouth against her throat, he works his fingers between her legs until she is stifling her cries, her eyes shut, her head tipped back. As soon as he’s done, a familiar feeling of shame floods through her, the need to not be touched or seen. She turns her face away.
She remembers coming back from homecoming. Her date kissed her goodbye. Did more than kiss her, leaning in, opening his mouth to slip his tongue between her lips. She kissed him back, delighted by the novelty of it, even if she had no interest in the boy himself, who had all the substance of damp cardboard. Her father saw.
He didn’t say anything. But the next day he asked her to bring him one of his guns, saying he needed to clean it, and then he spun the cylinder and sighted casually down the barrel at her and mentioned, as if out of nowhere, that he’d rather his daughters be dead than be whores.
Three weeks later she went out again with the same boy and she leaned his car seat back and fucked him in the parking lot behind the gas station, all of their clothes still on. She’d always assumed it would hurt, but it didn’t. She didn’t even bleed.
“My turn,” Logan whispers in her ear. His hand goes to her shoulder, pressing down.
She shakes her head. “Not right now,” she says.
“Come on. I made you feel good. And I know you can tell how much I want you,” he says, pressed against her.
She doesn’t mind them—blow jobs. The name is ridiculous and so is the act, but it’s fine. Faster than sex, at least, and she doesn’t spend the whole time trying to think of something to make herself excited, make herself come, because he’s always so sulky when he knows she didn’t. But everything is turning sour in her mind and her stomach, and his touch feels filthy with grit, feels unbearable.
“Not right now,” she says, and shoves him away. Not hard. Not weakly, either. He steps back, spreading his hands.
“Whoa. No worries,” he says, and she reminds herself that Logan has never pushed, only ever asked. He takes out his flask, offers it to her. She accepts, drinks deeply. It’s warm in her hand, like the grip of the revolver when her father handed it back to her.
“Turns out it’s still clean. Don’t need to do anything about it yet.”
“Maybe you’d rather go down on Nina after all,” Logan says with a smirk.
“Fuck off,” she says.
“I’m just saying. I wouldn’t mind having a front-row seat, if you wanted. I bet she’d be up to it.”
“Shut your fucking mouth already,” Juliette snaps, panic rising in her throat like bile. Does he know? Can he tell? He can’t know. No one can. Not until she gets away, and she can’t get away until Daphne is out of the house, because Emma doesn’t understand how the rules work, that someone needs to keep Mom and Dad happy so that they don’t realize that Daphne is strange in a way that they haven’t quite noticed and will never understand.
He gives her a look. “What’s up with you tonight?” he asks. He reaches out to touch her cheek; she slaps him away.
“Don’t touch me.” He knows he knows he’s going to find out—
“I’m just—”
“Don’t touch me! Leave me alone! Fuck off!” she yells, shoving him hard in the chest, and then to her horror she bursts into tears.
Logan, baffled, stares at her.
“The fuck did you do, Ellis?” Nina asks, storming out of the house.
No, no, no, not her, Juliette thinks. Nina and Logan are shouting at each other. He throws up his hands. Nina stalks past, yells something at him that Juliette can’t hear over the sound of her own sobs.
Then Nina has her arms around her, shushing her. “What did he do? Are you okay?”
Juliette shakes her head. He didn’t do anything. He didn’t do anything, but she can’t seem to stop crying.
“Come on,” Nina says. Holding Juliette close, she walks her away from the house. Nina guides her to a toppled log. Juliette realizes they’re next to the road. “I parked a little farther along. I’ll go get the car, you stay here. I’ll take you home. Don’t move.”
Juliette nods miserably. Embarrassment is beginning to overtake the roil of emotions. She can’t think. What is she doing?
She still has Logan’s flask. She takes another drink. Her eyes feel gummy. Logan is never going to talk to her again, she thinks, and finds she doesn’t care. She wishes she knew what he gave her, what they’re supposed to do to you, because she can’t tell which parts of what she’s feeling are her and which are chemicals and whether it matters. She’s alone. Nina isn’t there.