Page 26 of Tulips and Lost Time

I’m not, and I never have been, insecure about my choices in life. But fuck, I’m realistic enough to know I can’t go toe to toe with the linebacker.

I glance up at his voice, the splintered wood on the park bench grabbing onto my shirt so the crackle becomes audible even above the din of traffic and a regular week in this town. A couple of blocks one way, garage employees bang away with their work, the impact wrenches buzzing into the air, and the clatter of tools hitting the floor, a racket we hear even from our house. A couple of blocks the other way, Main Street hums with cars puttering by and businesses doing… business.

Whatever it is they do to get through a day.

And here I am, with a notebook balancing on my knee. A pen clasped between my fingers. And a fucking douchebag meandering closer with fire in his eyes.

I don’t get up. Don’t even feign to respect him or his approach. I merely firm my lips and wait.

“You’re all alone today, Lenaghan.” He rubs his palms together; he’s a regular Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz. “Your friends aren’t around to make you brave, huh?”

A long, drawn-out sigh rolls through my chest. It’s not like I didn’t know this day was coming. His stare downs in the hall were becoming tedious. His shoulder-checks, constant. His bullshit on school grounds was becoming less subtle and more noticed. So I knew things were escalating. Though I figured in the middle of the park, in the middle of the afternoon, was a low risk kinda place to be. “Pretty sure I was alone that night at the lake, too.” I lower my pen and scan his ugly face. “I mean, Kari was there. But I don’t consider her muscle, so to speak.”

He whistles, loud and blistering in my ear. But of course, that’s not even the worse shit that’ll happen to me today. Because the rest of the football team steps out of their hiding places and surrounds my place on the bench.

Maybe not the whole team. But six guys. Seven. Could be eight, though I don’t intend to look over my shoulder to confirm.

“Ah…” I click my tongue, though my heart thunders in my chest. I can throw hands with enthusiasm more than finesse, and usually, that keeps me out of trouble. But me versus our high school JV team? “I see what’s going on here.”

“You see now?” Beaterman stops a few feet from where I sit, his eyes hooded and hideous, leering down at me. “Feeling brave today, Drummer Boy?”

“Dunno.” I carefully close my book and place it on the bench to my right. Then I drop my leg and set both feet on the ground. “Feeling kinda rapey today, Beaterman?”

His face burns red, anger making his fists ball tight. “I was just talking to her!”

“At night, hidden behind low hanging branches, with her top coming down at the side… annnnnnd, she’s just a kid.” I glance to my right, to a dude I know to be the quarterback and leader of his friends. “He had no business taking Kari Macchio anywhere alone. Especially at night.”

“Says you?” Packer growls. “Luca fucking Lenaghan. The dude who has run through half the team’s sisters already?”

I gulp and cast my gaze over to Manny Paige—his sister is Julie. Then to Carter Day—his sister is Tara. Hernandez—his sister is Gloria. By the time I reach Tyler St James, I know I’m fucked.

“Every moment I have ever spent with a girl has come with consent.” I drag my focus back to Beaterman and glower. “Always my own age or older. You have no reason to even go near Kari Macchio.”

“And you probably shouldn’t have come to the park alone.” A flat palm slaps the back of my head until bells ring in my ears and a deep buzzing saws in the base of my skull.

I swing forward with my attacker’s momentum, slamming my knee to the ground in front of the bench and twisting to find whoever the fuck is throwing hands.

“You don’t get to bang every other chick in the school, then lay claim to the one you haven’t, bitch.”

Shoes scraping against loose gravel draws my focus back around. My neck swivels faster than is probably safe, but then a heavy boot slams against my ribs, lifting me from the ground a couple of inches and moving my bones until I think they might puncture my lungs.

But anything that goes up—according to Miss Caine in third period science—must come down.

I drop back to the ground with a thud, my knees hitting the edge of the concrete platform the bench was built upon and my lungs heaving for fresh air. But Beaterman lays his foot into my gut again, stealing whatever oxygen I thought I’d scraped together.

Then more join in.

Motherfuckers kick me in the back. In the kidneys. Thighs. My brain vibrates in my skull, and a deafening bell rings in my ears. Dust and dirt stirs under shuffling feet, filling my mouth and nostrils so it becomes damn near impossible to breathe.

I peel my eyes open, just in time to catch Beaterman’s size ten Nike flying at my face.

Fuck.

“Hey!”

Beaterman’s foot catches the side of my jaw when I turn, the solid kick cracking my neck and leaving my brain swirling as I consider a life in a wheelchair. But then feet start moving again. Half a dozen sets, thundering against the patchy grass as the football team runs away and others, friendlies, sprint in my direction.

“Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit!” Marcus’ voice is first. The panic in his tone. The fear that grips him as his trauma takes over and the thought of losing people is, literally, his one and only fear. He skids onto the dirt, his knees slamming into my stomach cause more damage when his momentum is simply too fast.

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