Filed to story: Love on the Sidelines (Natalie & Karl)
“I don’t think so.” Karl’s eyes narrowed and danger radiated from him like a miasma.
Smelling blood, the other kids surrounded us like sharks in a feeding frenzy. Casey and Cody appeared from the crowd and took up positions on either side of Devon and me.
“You heard her, kid. She doesn’t want to hang around with trash like you anymore.”
Oh, now that was going a little too far. Maybe I was mad at him, but nobody called Karl trash when I was around. I put my hands on Casey’s chest and shoved with all my strength. His arms windmilled and he sat down hard. “You shut up,” I snarled. “The only trash around here is you!”
While everyone was off balance from my unexpected attack, Karl grabbed me and shoved me behind him. “Get in the truck,” he hissed.
And leave him alone with these animals? Not a chance. I dodged around him, closed my fist, and swung at Devon, yelping when I connected with his chin. All hell broke loose. I have a vague memory of crawling between someone’s legs, over the rough gravel of the parking lot, and sinking my teeth into a thigh. Everyone was fighting, swinging indiscriminately at whomever was closest. I don’t know how it would have ended if someone hadn’t seen the cops tearing down the road toward us.
Kids scattered like puffs of smoke in a high wind.
I spit a piece of material from my mouth as Karl scooped me up, tossed me over his shoulder and ran for his truck. “Did we win?” I inquired from my upside down location.
“Just shut up, Natalie.”
He threw me onto the seat, scrambled over me, and peeled out of the parking lot, gravel spraying from beneath his tires.
“How about that,” I commented weakly, eyeing his cut, bloody lip. “You got new doors on the truck.”
“Are you out of your mind?” he roared. “I tell you not to be alone with your cousins and what do you do? You crawl in a car with them, get drunk, nearly get raped, and start a brawl.”
Miserably, I scrunched down by the door. “Why do you care what happens to me?
You hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
At least he wasn’t snarling now. “Yes, you do. You never talk to me anymore. You won’t even look at me.” A tear oozed from my eye and dribbled down my cheek. When he didn’t answer, I swiped it away, getting mad all over again. “See? You won’t even talk to me now. Well I’ve got news for you. You don’t own me and you can’t stop me from coming to the Burger Zone every night if I want to. I don’t need you around to take care of me. I’m not some damn baby!” My voice kept getting louder until I was yelling the last few words.
“That’s the problem,” he muttered, without looking at me.
But right then I developed a new difficulty. “Stop the truck.” He took one look at my face and whipped the truck over, slamming it into park. We were out in the country somewhere, on a gravel back road beside a field. I stumbled out and bent double as my stomach went into open rebellion. After what felt like thirty minutes of violent heaving on my part, Karl thrust an orange shop towel into my hand.
“Maybe you’ll feel better now.”
Better? The only way I’d feel better was if I died. “Where are we?”
“I don’t have my license yet. I’m taking you home, but we have to stay off the main streets.” He reached back into the truck, retrieved a bottle of soda, and handed it to me.
“Rinse your mouth out with that.”
I did, then leaned weakly against a rusty fender and pushed my hair away from my face. The moon was big and full, and a whippoorwill called from off to our right. “How did you know where I was?”
“I heard the Judge yelling at your mother for letting you go.”
“So you decided to come after me?” I glanced at him from under my eyelashes. He was leaning next to me, his hands shoved into his pockets.
“Yeah.”
If I hadn’t been half-drunk, I’d never have said what I did then. “I’ve missed you.” He looked down at his feet. “I’ve missed you, too.” I turned toward him, tears streaming down my cheeks again. “Then why are you treating me like this? What did I do wrong? If you’ll tell me, I promise, I’ll never do it again.”
Awkwardly, he put his arms around me and pulled me close. “It wasn’t you,” he rasped. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It was me.”
“I don’t understand!”
“I know you don’t, and I should have explained before.” With a lot of false starts and hesitation, he told me about his father, how he brought women home with him all the time, how he treated them. His chin rested on top of my head as he talked.
“I promised myself I’d never do that to any woman, act like she was a piece of meat, just someone to use and then forget about. But I started getting all these strange…feelings whenever you touched me. I kept telling myself you were only a kid, and as long as I believed it, everything was okay. I could control it.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “That day in the cellar, I wanted…” His words halted. “I didn’t want to stop. It scared me. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Natalie. I’m not going to let anything hurt you, not even me. I figured I had to stay away from you for your own good.”
I leaned back and stared up at him in amazement. “You mean to tell me you put me through hell because you got horny?” Okay, so I was a little more than half-drunk. And still mad. I stepped back and took a swing at his head. He stepped under it and grabbed my arms.
“Damn it, let me go!”
“Not until you settle down.”
“I can’t believe this,” I yelled. “Did it ever occur to you that I might have something to say about it if I thought you were going too far? Or were you planning on raping me?” From the expression on his face, it hadn’t occurred to him that I might not simply fall over and spread my legs. “What kind of person do you think I am? I thought we were friends, I thought you knew me.”