***
Melissa looked up just in time to see Kevin returning.
“Here’s your Tylenol,” he said, extending a hand that held two pills toward her.
She accepted the medicine despite the fact that she did not, in fact, have a migraine headache or any other pain that a pill could cure. But before she put them in her mouth, she inspected the oval-shaped tablets. They did not resemble the ones she kept in her medicine cabinet.
“They look funny. I mean, don’t they usually have one red end and one blue end and the word ‘Tylenol’ written in the center?”
“Oh, yeah, all they had in the first-aid box was the generic stuff. Sorry. They told me it works just as well,” Kevin lied before adding, “Oh damn. I didn’t grab you a water bottle. You’ll have to just wait to take it at the kegger.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
Three hours into the annual bonfire at Harbingers High School, the fire waned and students began to disperse. As the crowd grew smaller and smaller, Melissa and her friends decided to leave.
Kevin informed Melissa, Alexandra and Daniella he would meet them behind the school at the entrance to the woods. Beyond the entrance was a trail leading to where the party was set. Normally, the trail would be tricky to navigate, but Daniella came equipped with a small flashlight.
Alexandra and Daniella walked ahead of Melissa and Kevin. He tried to take her hand in his. Melissa, uninterested in any type of advances, subtly rebuffed his gesture by putting her hands in her pockets feigning to search for a pair of gloves.
After walking along the footpath and arriving at the clearing, she and her friends found a large boulder to sit on. Kevin went to one of the kegs to get them each a beer.
“Ladies, your drinks are served,” Kevin quipped pretending to be a butler tending to his employers.
“I’m driving. None for me,” Daniella told him.
“Are you fucking kidding me? If I come home with this shit on my breath, my father will kill me. And then my brothers will kick your sorry ass,” Alexandra crudely affirmed.
“Suit yourself,” Kevin replied, handing a plastic cup filled with beer to Melissa. “More for us, then. Oh, Melissa, here’s you bargain-brand Tylenol.”
To placate Kevin and maintain the charade, Melissa accepted the pills and swallowed them with a swig of beer.
The clearing quickly filled with students. All held tall, red plastic cups that they had forfeited seven dollars apiece for so that they could visit the kegs an unlimited number of times. Each partygoer drank quickly to achieve intoxication as quickly as possible. The threat of patrol cars with their sweeping spotlights loomed ceaselessly, lending the gathering an air of urgency.
Melissa had barely finished her first beer when Kevin, beaming, arrived with another.
The alcohol was affecting her more than normal, going straight to her head. Without warning, she felt lightheaded and loopy. Her surroundings took on a fuzzy, indistinct quality. Muffled voices faded in and out.
Kevin spoke to her and his voice sounded as if it were echoing from the end of a long tunnel. “Wanna take a walk?” he asked.
“Are you crazy? I’m not going anywhere with you,” Melissa laughed loudly and felt less inhibited than she’d ever felt before.
The large smile he’d been wearing sagged. He looked over both his shoulders, checking to see if anyone had heard her. When he looked back to her, his eyes had hardened. “That’s cool, whatever. No walk,” he said tightly. “I’ll catch you later.”
Kevin walked over to a group of girls and began chatting with them.
“Holy shit! That was fucking awesome!” Alexandra gripped her elbow and gave a hearty shake, “I never thought I’d see the day when you’d grow a pair, but damn girl! You shot his arrogant ass down!”
Melissa wanted to tell Alexandra how she was feeling, that her inhibitions had melted away, and had apparently taken her ability to think straight with it. She wondered why the beer was hitting her harder than normal. Perhaps if her nerves would have allowed her to eat a bigger dinner, she wouldn’t have felt as loopy as she currently did. Earlier, she’d been excited about seeing Gabriel, too excited to eat.
Gabriel, she thought. He could be looking for her right now.
“I’m going to go back to the bonfire to see if Gabriel is there,” she surprised herself by announcing in a voice far clearer than she felt.
“We’ll go with you,” Alexandra offered.
“Yeah, we’ll come,” Daniella said.
“No, no, you guys stay in case he comes straight here,” she said.
“I don’t want you walking through the woods by yourself,” Daniella worried.
“Don’t be such a worrywart!” Melissa smiled. “It’s just down that path,” she pointed toward a narrow clearing. And there are people everywhere.”
Daniella knit her brow concernedly and slid Alexandra a glance. Alexandra shrugged.
“All right, just be careful and come right back, okay?” Daniella hesitated.
Melissa saluted her and said, “Yes, ma’am,” then she headed toward the path.
She began walking through the woods along what she thought was the path. Voices of party-goers began to fade and the canopy of trees above her seemed to hover lower than before. She turned, looked behind her and realized nothing looked familiar. Brush pulled at her ankles where it hadn’t on the way in. She narrowed her eyes, squinting against the deepening darkness, to get her bearings, but could not. Everything had assumed a fuzzy, muddled quality. Her heart began to race frantically. She wondered what was happening to her, why everything looked blurry, how she’d gotten herself turned around on a path she knew well. Beer had never affected her as it appeared to be now. A voice sounded from behind her and her heart made a mad leap to her throat.
“Hey, if you wanted to get me alone, all you had to do was say so,” Kevin’s voice said nearby. “You don’t have to play these games, you know, making me follow you and all. I saw that look you gave me before you walked off.”
“I didn’t give you a look. I didn’t even look at you,” Melissa snapped.
“I said enough with the games, Melissa. You know you want me. Stop with the tease routine.”
Melissa spun to face him, to shout every curse word she could think of, but felt the world tilt violently. She stumbled, the woods suddenly spiraling.
“Whoa,” she said and shot both arms out to her side to grip something, anything. “I think I need to sit.”
Kevin rushed to her side and grabbed her waist. She supposed she should have felt grateful for him being there to help, but she did not. Her skin crawled at his touch. A strange feeling, a warning, whispered through her and made her shiver.
“Let me hold you. You’re shivering,” Kevin said embracing her as he seated her atop a moss-covered fallen tree.
But quickly, his embrace progressed to something else entirely, something unwelcome. He began kissing her neck, tightening his hold on her. Melissa, despite feeling inexplicably hazy, stiffened.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” she protested.
He did not respond. Instead, his lips moved from her neck to her mouth.
“Stop it!” she said and tried to shove him, but her arms felt as if they were moving in slow motion.
He continued to kiss her, but she did not kiss him back. He persisted, his lips flattening hers, suppressing her ability to speak.
Melissa panicked. Her arms and legs were uncooperative. Her responses were sluggish. She felt as if she were moving against a current of water. She fought against it, and after a lot of effort, managed to bring her arms between their bodies. She tried to push him off of her with the heels of her hands, but her effort was ineffective. He did not let go. Rather, he moved his hand up under her shirt and under her bra. Anger replaced her wooziness and she tried to fight, to resist him. She struggled and pushed harder with her hands to unpin herself, but
to no avail. Kevin leaned on her with all of his weight, slammed her back against the felled tree and positioned himself on top of her.
With her heart slapping against her ribcage, Melissa turned her head and tried to scream, but Kevin covered her mouth with his. She shoved at him, tried to force his body back and off hers. But he did not budge. Her attempts to free herself proved fruitless. Tears singed her cheeks as the gravity of what was happening became clear.
In the distance Melissa thought she heard Daniella and Alexandra faintly calling her name.
Flooded with terror and adrenaline, her mind reeled. Scattered thoughts failed to present a defined escape, but she knew she needed to keep fighting. She writhed and twisted and turned her head from side to side. Screams escaped each time she turned, but all he did was grope at her more aggressively.
She thrashed and wriggled, fought him as best she could with limbs that refused to help, and brought one hand from between their bodies. She clawed at his face, hoped to gouge an eye, but missed. Her effort did distract him long enough for her to free one leg and bring her knee up between his legs. She thrust it as hard as she could and landed it squarely against his crotch.
Kevin released her immediately then cursed and fell to the ground clutching his groin. She paused as a wave of dizziness and nausea washed over her. She steadied herself and attempted to run but was halted as Kevin seized her ankle. She fell to the ground on her hands and knees.
He dragged her back toward him before rolling her over and slapping her across her cheek. The blow stung, disoriented her into temporary silence and submission. Her face throbbed.
“You little bitch!” he spat.
Melissa regrouped quickly from the unexpected strike. Instinct compelled her to continue fighting. She flailed and scratched once again, this time marking Kevin’s face with a bloody scrape. His hands immediately went to the area just below his right eye, felt where her fingernails had broken the thin skin and pulled them back to inspect them. He screwed up his features in anguish at the wet and reddened fingertips he retrieved. Melissa saw Kevin’s preoccupation with his injury and attempted to seize the opportunity. She twisted more forcefully, resisted his weight atop her and struggled and fought as hard as she could. But her exertion was useless. He outweighed her by more than a hundred pounds.
Seeing his blood, Kevin flew into a fit of rage. A flash of what she could only describe as hatred flickered in his eyes before he raised his hand to her again. From high above his head, he brought the back of his hand crashing down against her face. A blast of white-hot pain exploded from her cheek and her ear rang deafeningly. Over the incessant ring in her eardrum and the intense pain emanating from her cheek, she heard Kevin shout at her.
“No more of your fucking games!” he screamed spraying spittle at her as he began tearing at her jeans unbuttoning them. “I will not be dicked around anymore. This can go one of two ways. You can let it happen or things will have to get rough!”