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They descended on me in a barrage of blows. I blocked what I could, but there was only so much one man could do against five. The only thing that saved me was someone shouting by the door, calling for a teacher.
The five boys scrambled out. Knowing a teacher was coming, I ducked into the first stall, locked the door, and sat down. A few seconds later, I heard the door burst open.
“Everything all right in here?” asked a male teacher.
“Just fine,” I said. “I’m having stomach issues, and the lacrosse team thought it was hilarious.”
The teacher stood there a few seconds, then left.
I exited the stall and looked at myself in the mirror. I had a black eye, and my lip was already swelling up. But what hurt the most was my right hand. Why hadn’t anyone ever told me how much it hurt to punch someone? I had only ever been on the receiving end before.
Shame immediately overwhelmed me. There was a reason I had never been in a fight before, aside from light roughhousing with my brothers. Cruel, small men used violence to prove their point. Men like my father. He was everything I despised in this world, an example of what I never wanted to become. By punching Mark, I was proving that I was no better than the man I hated.
It was worth it, I told myself as I exited the bathroom. The thump of the music was louder now, and most of the students were out on the dance floor.
“I thought you were getting me punch,” Stacy Hendricks said as she approached. “Liam got his date some punch, and… oh my God!”
I grimaced at her. It must have been a gruesome sight.
“I can’t dance with you while you look like that!” Stacy exclaimed. She had the audacity to look angry at me. Like she was the victim. “Ugh. I’m going to go dance with Mark Thompson. I should have asked him to go with me.”
“If you think I look bad, you’ll definitely not want to dance with him,” I said.
Stacy sniffed loudly, then stormed off to her group of friends.
I turned back toward the dance floor. The mass of students shifted, and for a brief moment I caught a glimpse of Alyssa. She was dancing with Liam. She even looked happy.
In spite of everything, I smiled. Whatever I had sacrificed tonight, it was worth it.
2016
My party was already a raging success, but I still paced around the kitchen nervously. Not because I was worried my dad would find out. I had long since stopped caring about his opinion. I was nervous because there were at least a hundred people at my house, but the one person I wanted to see was absent.
I had dropped lots of indirect hints about the party. I made sure to mention it to all of Alyssa’s friends. I even told Kyle that he had to come, and that he should bring Brandi. That was a surefire way to make sure Alyssa came.
Now, I felt like a big idiot. I had been afraid to invite Alyssa outright. Even now, as a grown-ass man who was going to Auburn next month, that girl managed to make me feel confused about everything. What if I invited her and she said no? That rejection scared me more than my dad finding out about the party and beating me with his belt.
The doorbell rang. From the kitchen, I could see the door and the windows on either side. One of them looked like Brandi. I rushed to the door, then paused to make sure I looked cool and collected.
Alyssa waited on the other side. Her smile was bashful, like she was trying to hold back around me. Or maybe it was my imagination. No, there was definitely something there. I was wearing only my bathing suit trunks, and it was impossible not to notice the way her eyes raked over my body like the caress of a woman’s fingernails.
I casually told them to make themselves at home, and then I returned to playing host. I downed another beer for liquid courage, and the buzz it gave me made the party pass by in a flash of events.
I politely flirted with Kathy Walker, Aiden Walker’s sister who was home for college.
Liam showed up, a surprise that made my entire summer.
Alyssa and I teamed up to have a chicken fight in the pool. I tried to play it cool, but the physical contact had me buzzing even more than the beer.
We shared a moment after the game in the pool, our bodies close and intimate. But as I tried to draw closer, she pulled away. When we left the pool, I politely avoided staring at her ass.
I heard a noise upstairs. Darren was harassing Alyssa in my brother’s room. The dank smell of weed filled the air.
For just the second time in my life, I threw a punch. It was satisfying, but the same shame from prom last year immediately accompanied it, tainting it like a layer of mold on a birthday cake. Adrenaline surged through my body—I was instantly sober.
Darren sneered up at me. “You’re going to pay for that.”
Alyssa looked confused, but I knew exactly what he meant. Darren’s father was on the board of admissions at Auburn. He was probably the reason I’d been accepted in the first place. Move-in day was just a few weeks away, so it was probably too late for him to do anything.
