Authors: GP Joyner
“I…I…I didn’t know he…he put it in…he put it in my drink,” she said, stuttering, ending with a sob. Geon’s eyes sparked angrily and he released her, advancing on Mike.
“You son of a bitch,” Geon muttered, hands closing into fists. “What the hell is wrong with you? Need to drug girls to get them to want you? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Man, this isn’t any of your business,” Mike responded, but Sally could see fear working its way into his eyes. “You know your sister’s so uptight, I just thought…”
He never finished his sentence. A sickening crack seemed to fill the air as his face whipped around to the side, bright red blood dripping from his nose. Geon held his fist in one hand, massaging the knuckles.
“Sick son of a bitch,” Geon muttered, then grabbed Sally’s hand and led her away, pulling her through the crowd. She looked back; Mike was holding his nose in both hands, yelling something that she couldn’t hear over the noise.
When she hit the fresh air, she immediately started to feel a little better. The confusion in her mind cleared, the anxiety starting to mellow, her tingling limbs steady at her sides. Geon dragged her along to the side of the barn, where couples leaned against the wood siding making out or smoking. He sat her down, crouching beside her.
“How do you feel?” he asked, the genuine concern in his voice surprising her. She felt that same radiant warmth she’d felt earlier, the strangely pleasant sensation she’d been experiencing returning in a slow wave.
“Uh,” she said, still trying to find a way to make her thoughts into words. “Weird. Okay. Weird.”
“Yeah, that’s normal,” Geon said with a sigh. “Man, that prick…”
As though the dream she’d been living in for the past half hour suddenly became reality, she thought of Mike’s face whipping to the side.
“Did you break his nose?” she asked in a small voice, curling her knees up to her chin.
“I hope so,” Geon said, his own voice low and angry.
“Oh,” Sally squeaked, trying to tamp down the restlessness growing in her limbs.
“Do you want to go home?” Geon asked, reaching out to hold her shoulder in a gesture that was surprisingly tender. When he touched her, Sally felt a sudden bloom of emotion in her chest. She tried to will it away, afraid of it. She nodded, then shook her head.
“I don’t…I don’t know…” she said. Geon nodded and sat down beside her. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, spreading that strange warmth she’d felt. Sally sighed, and found the experience so pleasurable that she did it again.
“Do you remember that time when we were ten and wanted a dog? And we knew Todd and Jillae would never get us one, so we decided we’d ‘find’ one and have it follow us home?”
Sally giggled, the memory vivid.
“That poor terrier…”
“Well, I mean, it
was
outside, and it didn’t
seem
to belong to anyone…”
“We made it sick feeding it hot dogs trying to lure it home!”
“And threw the collar away!”
“Oh, we were such little jerks,” Sally said with a laugh. The laughter felt good. All the anxiety and fear were being swallowed up by other feelings. Good ones. When was the last time she and Geon had talked like this without fighting? It seemed to be forever…
The sound of footsteps threw Sally off for a moment, the world blurring together strangely, and a shard of panic ran through her again.
“What happened?”
She recognized the voice as Tyler’s; he was Geon’s best friend, and while Sally was far from his biggest fan, she was at least comfortable with him.
“Her asshole boyfriend slipped her some E,” Geon explained. Tyler’s face suddenly loomed large as he crouched down beside them.
“Lucky,” he said.
“Get outta here, bitch,” Geon growled. “You wouldn’t like it much if you’d never done it before and didn’t know you were taking it.”
“True,” Tyler said. “Well, how ya feeling, Sal?”
“Um…okay…I guess,” she said, the panic subsiding again.
“Good enough to party?”
“Come on, dude,” Geon said, irritation in his voice.
“Here,” Tyler said, holding out a cup of beer. “I got this for you.”
Geon took it and indulged in a few big gulps before passing it to Sally, who considered denying it but felt thirsty once more.
“It’ll help you calm down,” Geon said. “I mean, you should really just go home but…”
“Mom and Dad will know,” Sally said, her hand shaking as it held the cup, new fear gripping her heart. Geon sighed.
“Well, we’ll wait ‘til your feet are back on the ground and I’ll take you home,” he said.
For the next two hours, Geon sat with Sally, helping her ride through the intermittent waves of sensation and ecstasy and fear and panic. Friends of both parties drifted around, saying hello or checking on Sally, bringing drinks for Geon. Some of Sally’s friends encouraged her to get up and dance or try to enjoy herself, but she felt safest with her stepbrother, who still seemed to radiate a strange warmth that other people lacked. Finally, she began to feel the drug’s effects waning, and struggling to her feet she yawned.
“Better?” Geon asked, rising to join her. Sally nodded; she
did
feel better. At least, she felt a bit sleepy, and the world seemed bathed in a pleasant, pastel glow instead of the searing neons she’d been seeing earlier.
“Ready to go?”
Sally nodded again. Suddenly, for the first time that night, she wondered what had become of Mike. Had he gone home to nurse his broken nose? As she walked past the barn entrance, where music still came in blasting beats, she got her answer. Mike was standing just inside the entrance, locking lips and grinding with Jess, who seemed nonplussed by the bloodstains on his shirt – or the fact that his nose was set at such a strange angle. Following Sally’s eyes, Geon steered her away.
“Motherfuckers deserve each other,” he growled, pulling Sally towards the road. He’d parked his Camaro on the street halfway between Jess’ and the barn. As they moved away from the lights and sounds, Sally looked up and gasped.
“Look at the stars!”
The small town was far enough away from a city to offer a fairly good view of stars, but here, a mile outside of town, the stars shone in full bloom, opening out across the sky in every direction. At the party, Sally had been too caught up in keeping herself even to notice; now, she was startled and amazed. Geon stopped pulling her down the road for a moment, and they stood hand-in-hand gazing upwards.
“Real nice,” Geon agreed, and while Sally expected to hear a hint of sarcasm in his voice, she was surprised at his genuineness. In fact, now that she really thought about it, everything Geon had done that night had surprised her. Where was the cold, callous, screw-it boy she’d come to know? It was almost like they were children again except…except…
You’re not children anymore,
she thought.
You’re a man and a woman…
One of the effects of the drug that Sally had tried to ignore was that it made all her senses heightened, her body feeling like it was made of the very same stars that stood above them. Ever part of her body was alive, and throbbing with sensation, from her fingers to her toes and…everywhere in between. Blushing now, she realized that even just holding Geon’s hand made that heat travel down through her veins, tickling her in her most sensitive places…
“Let’s go,” she said, surprised at the low, thick voice that came out when she spoke. She dropped his hand like it was too hot to touch; Geon looked at her, and she thought she saw some sadness or…something…in his eyes. But it was dark, and she wrote it off as the final effects of the drug.
“You’re okay to drive home?” she asked as they approached his car.
“More okay than you,” he said, and Sally had to admit that was true. When they got in, he turned on the radio, a song playing that Sally had never heard before – but which she liked quite a bit. At the barn party, all the noises had blended in together to create a deafening cacophony. Here, she could appreciate the silky feeling of the music, each beat seeming to ignite a new rush of blood to her head. They drove home without speaking.
When they parked, Sally offered up a quick prayer of thanks that the lights were off, meaning her parents were in bed. They snuck into the house like burglars, closing the door with the quietest click behind them before slinking up the stairs. It was only when Sally had her hand on the knob to her room that she realized, once she walked in, she would be alone. Alone with her body and her thoughts…and that raised up the jagged fear that lingered in her stomach. Turning quickly, she whispered into the darkness.
“Geon,” she said, seeing the faint outline of his body at the door to his own room. She sensed when he turned, the whites of his eyes standing out in the darkness. “Please…wait…come hang out…for…awhile…”
There was a long pause. A moment where neither moved. Then, Geon crossed the carpeted hallway, and Sally opened the door, clicking on the light, which seemed too bright. She moved across the room, turning on the softer pink light on her desk before returning to turn off the overhead light.
“Uh,” Geon said, looking around her room. Sally realized he hadn’t stepped foot in there for years. “How long do you…”
“Until I fall asleep?” she asked, too quickly, feeling immediately embarrassed.
I’ve already ruined his night…now I’m asking him to be my personal teddy bear until I fall asleep…ugh.
She sat on the bed. In the glow of the pink light, her golden blonde hair seemed reddish, and Geon’s hulking figure seemed all too large. He joined her to sit on the bed, and they fidgeted awkwardly, neither used to the other after all the years of fighting.
“I’m going to lie down now,” Sally finally said, and curled over onto the far side of her bed.
“Uh, okay,” Geon said. “How will I know when you’re asleep?”
“Um…I don’t know…I’m not very tired…” Sally said, her body
feeling
tired but her mind racing, more awake than she could ever remember being in her whole life. “You can…you can lie down, too, if you want.”
He grunted. But a moment later, she felt his weight shift, and the bed lilted slightly as he lowered his body onto it. Moments passed; minutes or hours, Sally couldn’t tell.
“Geon,” she finally whispered. “What…what happened? Why did you…change? I mean…tonight was…it was like…you were yourself again.”
There was another long pause, and Sally regretted having asked in the first place. Just because he’d taken care of her all night, talking about their old memories, didn’t mean they were close again all of a sudden. But then he sighed.
“Because you were always so good,” he said. “I knew, the minute we entered high school…I could never keep up with you. You got all the good grades and did all the good shit and I…I guess figured, if I wasn’t going to be the good kid, I should just be the opposite.”
Sally was shocked. Never in a million years had she thought that Geon was acting out because of
her,
because he was insecure. She thought…well, she didn’t know what she thought. Turning to face him, she wondered what to say. Should she apologize? But what for?
“Was…was there anything I could have done?” she asked. “To make things better for you?”
When his face turned to hers, she could see his white teeth gleaming in the dim light.
“Yeah, you coulda become a pothead like me,” he said. “You coulda failed all your classes and took up the life. You coulda ruined your whole future. Then maybe I would have gone straight.”
Sally propped herself up on her elbow, considering this, although she knew he was joking.
“Well, you know, I only…I only did
so well
to make up for you, I think,” she said, admitting a truth she hadn’t even known was true. “I mean, Jillae and Dad…I thought, they need
one
good kid to make up for…”
“To make up for the bad one,” Geon said, his tone lower, the smile disappearing.
“No, I mean, no, Geon, you’re not
bad,
we love you, I love you,” Sally said, once more realizing the truth of her words only when she said them. She
did
love Geon. He was her brother, no matter what.
And as they’d grown older, she’d kept on loving him and…and then tonight that love felt so much more
real,
it felt like…she thought of his lithe, bulky body protecting her against the side of the barn, thought of all those feelings she’d been ignoring all night, thought of the afternoons she spent listening to him with other girls and hating it…hating it so much because…because…
Before she could finish her own thought, she felt herself leaning in to him, finding him in the pinkish glow, covering his lips with hers and falling, falling into them, her mouth opening and her tongue falling into his mouth, dancing with his, her nerves all aligning in perfect symmetry as love and something like it burst inside her. Geon’s hand came up to cup her cheek and he kissed her back, his lips closing around her tongue then opening again, his fingers burning on her flesh as he pulled her close.
“Shit, Sally,” he suddenly said, pulling away with a start. “This is wrong. You’re still rolling. You don’t know what you’re doing…”