Robin Wasserman - Girls on Fire

“Since when did you turn into a fucking pyro?”

“That’s the plan, Dex. In or out?”

“Either you’ve gone truly insane, or you think this is all a big joke, and either way, fuck you.” I snatched the lighter out of her hands. “This stays with me.”

There was a feeble laugh. “I wasn’t actually going to do it. Jesus, Dex, learn to take a joke.”

I believed her; I didn’t believe her. I was tired of trying to figure it out.

“Just making sure there’s still a little Hannah in my Dex,” she said. “Where would I be without that little voice telling me, No, don’t do that, Lacey, that’s dangerous?” It was the sorry, pinched way she said it, like a bank teller rejecting a loan.

“I’m not your fucking conscience.”

She must have seen it then, how angry I was, how drunk and how done. “Come on, Dex. Come on, it was a joke, I’m sorry. Look, this was a mistake. This party. This week. Everything. Let’s erase it. Start again. For real this time. Burn our lives to the ground—” She held up a hand to silence me before I could object. “ Metaphorically. Let’s really do it this time, Dex. Get away. Go west, like we planned.”

“Now?”

“Why not now?”

“I’m grounded,” I reminded her.

“Exactly. You’ll be grounded for life when your mother figures out you were here. Fuck her. Fuck all of them. Let’s go, Dex. I mean it.”

“Tonight.”

“This minute. Please.”

For a heartbeat, I believed her, and I thought about it. To jump into the Buick, aim ourselves at the horizon. To begin again. Could I be the girl who dropped everything and walked away? Could I be Dex, finally, forever?

Could I be free?

One heartbeat, and then in the thump of the next, I hated her for making me believe it could happen, because what could this be but another test, some wild dare I was supposed to shoot down, because — hadn’t she just said it? — that was my job, the wet blanket on her fire.

“Enough bullshit,” I said. “I’m going back to the party.”

She shook her head, hard. “No. Dex. We have to go .”

“If you want speed off into the sunset, you do it, Lacey. I’m not going to stop you. I’m going to have another drink. I’m going to have fun .”

“You don’t have to decide about leaving for good, not in the next thirty seconds, I’m sorry, that was crazy.” She took my wrist, squeezed hard. “But at least let’s get out of here. Please.”

It was the second time she’d said it to me in one night, and possibly in all the time I’d known her. It shouldn’t have felt so good to shrug her off. “I’m staying. You go.”

“I’m not leaving you here by yourself.”

That was when I understood. She didn’t want me to be Dex, untamed and magnificent. That was her job. I was to be the sidekick. I was to keep my mouth shut and do as I was told, spin and leap and do tricks like a trained seal. I was to obey and applaud when appropriate. I was to be molded, not into her image but into something less-than.

Could I be the girl who walked away?

“Please. Go,” I said.

“It’s not my job to watch out for you,” I said, “and vice versa.”

“I don’t care what happens next,” I said. Maybe, finally, I was the one administering the test — maybe I was lying and maybe I wasn’t.

Lacey believed me.

She left.

HOW TO DANCE LIKE NO one is watching. Or dance like everyone is watching, pale flesh jiggling as you grind against denim and polyester and lacrosse muscles and twitching dicks. Writhe in your Docs and jerk to the beat beat beat of the hip-hop blast, and let a hand find its way past a thin cotton waistband and stick its finger into your warm and wet. Wrap your arms around the closest body, press lips to neck and nape and groin, laugh along with and louder than, and if it feels good, do it. Put your hands on yourself, and rub and stroke, let yourself moan. Think, look at these faces, my friends, look at their love and look at me shine. Don’t think. Straddle something, a chair or a body, lower your weight onto it, ride ’em cowboy, ride it hard while they pour beer on your head and you raise your face to the stream and your tongue to the sour splash, then, because they call for it, lick it off yourself, and off the body, and off the ground. Note the heat of skin, the fire that courses beneath, the salt of sweat and tears. Slice your palm on the splintered edge of a broken glass and smear yourself with blood. Let the floor fall away and the horizon spin. Suck at flesh and whirl in place and throw your hands up in the air. This is how to party like you just don’t care.

L ook at yourself , LACEY HAD said, the first time she laced me into the corset, turned me to the mirror, made me see. It’s like you were born to wear it.

Do you see now, Dex? she had said.

I saw: A girl’s face, made up with drastic colors and lips pursed in mock defiance. Romance-novel cleavage and black lace. Hair with streaks of icy blue and leather cuff bracelets that whispered tie me up, hold me down .

Look at yourself , Lacey had said, but myself was gone.

I thought: I look like someone else, and she is beautiful.

YOU. GIRL. WAKE UP.”

I did what I did best and followed orders, waking up slow and in pain, fuzzy mouth and throbbing head and a cavernous feeling like I hadn’t eaten in days, though the thought of food made every organ want to fling itself from my body into a putrid puddle at my feet. I woke up cursing and squinting, wishing someone would turn out the sun. Weeds beneath me, jeans and shirt damp with dew. Strange shirt; a stranger’s shirt.

An alien landscape: Stretch of overgrown lawn, drained pool, fringe of trees. Dingy white siding, broken windows, stained patio, crushed cans of beer.

A man, his foot nudging my thigh, his face in shadow, gold badge glinting in the dawn.

“That’s it. Get up now.”

When he touched me, I screamed.

The effort of it nearly made me pass out again, as did the tilt of the world as he dragged me vertical. Then the noise of his words, security guard and trespassing and, he kept saying, trash, trash, trash , but it wouldn’t come clear, whether he meant the empty cans and the broken glass and the used condoms or simply me.

The party was long over; everyone was gone. They’d left me alone. They’d left me out with the garbage.

Standing set my insides to sloshing. Thinking was hard, like a toddler unsteady on chubby feet.

“Get in,” he said, and there was a door with a sedan attached to it and a leather backseat and the thought of a moving car made me want to die.

“I have my bike,” I said.

He laughed like a dog.

“Are you a cop?” I said. “Am I under arrest?”

“Just give me your address.”

Don’t get into cars with strange men, I thought, and asked if he at least had any candy, and then I was the one laughing.

Maybe I was still drunk.

Lacey would have said: Skip the name, rank, serial number. No identification, no address, no consequences. He would have to dump me by the side of the road, and then I could sleep.

I couldn’t remember the night.

I couldn’t remember enough of the night.

I remembered hands gathering me up, I remembered floating in strange arms, chandeliers overhead and then stars, and laughter that wasn’t mine. I remembered fingers tugging at zippers and lace, a voice saying leave her over there , another saying turn her over so she doesn’t drown in her own puke , all the voices chanting puke puke puke and my trained-seal pride when I performed on command.