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She held out her hand as she stood, eyebrow raised. Resigned, I stood, but I didn’t take her hand as I walked out to the dance floor. I pulled my hands into my sleeves, and when I placed my hands on Jessica’s hips, mimicking those around me, no part of my flesh touched her. Not purposefully. Jessica put her arms around my neck, and I turned away from her, unsure of why I agreed to this. We moved slowly, circling. If this was dancing, it was lame.
“How come you never talk to anyone?” Jessica asked, looking up at me. I towered over her.
“I do,” I said as I looked around for Sorina.
“Not really. You talk to Kyrie. You talk to that scary girl from Romania. You don’t talk to any of the kids in the trailer park. Too good for them?”
I looked down at her, a feeling of dread washing over me. Then, before I could answer, I saw Deacon Rex by the punch bowl. His dark glasses turned my way, a small smile on his face as Mrs. Turner spoke to him.
I felt him everywhere, half expected him to whistle for me like a dog. I looked down at Jessica again, blinking my eyes. “I’m just … I don’t know.”
“Shy?” she supplied.
“I guess.” I knew the word, and how it painted me, but it wasn’t accurate. I just didn’t want to talk to people. I didn’t want a lot of friends. I didn’t even know how tobea friend. So I was starting small. And it wasn’t going well for the most part. Being a dick to Kyrie earlier proved I had a lot to learn about justbeingwith people, existing with them in a space that wasn’t tangled in religion, abuse, and horror.
Jessica groaned, then smiled. “God, you have no idea what that does to us girls.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re like this new kid all the way from California. Fucking tall, and you have those blue eyes and that voice. And you’re like, shy and shit. Everyone wants to know about you. See what’s under this.” She squeezed my shoulders and slid her hands forward as if to slip them under my flannel. I moved quickly, grabbing her wrists.
She grinned, raising an eyebrow. “Are you a virgin, Nick?”
“Nicholas,” I said, grinding my teeth, avoiding her question. I didn’t have an answer. I’d never fucked anyone. I’d never made love—whatever that meant—to anyone. I’d been used. My body was not my own, and it felt foreign to me.
Feltfrightening.
Each day away from the ranch was a reclaiming, a way to get back to myself. I wasn’t there yet. I still felt like I belonged to the hands, to the mouths, to the dark.
I dropped Jessica’s hands as the song faded out. I didn’t want her hands on me; I didn’t want her asking me intimate questions when she barely knew me.
Questions I was sure the Deacon could hear, somehow.
Jessica smiled again, leaning up on her toes. She brought her lips to my ear, and I could tell she was still smiling. “It’s okay, one of us will find out eventually.” When she pulled away, she winked at me, and I stared, jaw flexing.
I walked back to the bleachers just as Kyrie returned. Her brows were pinched, and she reached her hand to me. I pulled it away, running my fingers through my hair. “When does the ceremony or whatever start?” I asked, taking a seat.
Kyrie stared across the gym, watching Jessica join her friends.
“Soon. Nathan and I were talking about what to do if I win.” Kyrie sat on the bleachers, adjusting her hair and her cardigan. She always looked perfectly put together, but something was off about her as she stared across the gym.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Kyrie turned to me, answering as if I knew what the hell she was talking about. “He’s going to hug me and give me a kiss on the cheek. I wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”
“Oh.” I said, as I saw a flash of red across the gym. “Hey, I’ll be right back.”
The dance was in the older of the two gyms in the school. The newer gym was strictly for sport events, but the old gym was attached to the stage where school plays took place. The curtains were drawn on the stage, but I knew it wasn’t vacant when the curtain moved slightly.
I smiled as I walked across the gym floor.
* * *
No one stopped me or seemed to notice me as I snuck up on the stage. My fellow students moved around, laughed, and danced as the crowning drew nearer. And before I duck behind the curtain, I saw Kyrie take Nathan’s hand and lead him to the hallway where the nominees and their escorts would line up.
The lights in the gym, dim before, warmed as I slid away.
Sorina was sitting on the stage when I stepped behind the curtain, close to it, peering through a slit where the two curtains met.
