Page 92 of You’re No Better

I can do this.

I drink as much of the liquor as I can swallow, and then Daniel is taking me by the wrist to pull me up from the table, push me against it, nudge me until I’m sitting on it. One of the legs is uneven. It wobbles.

That’s what I focus on. The table wobbles, the light is too bright, and I kiss him. He doesn’t kiss me—I kiss him. There’s a difference. It means I’m the one who started it. He’s still holding my wrist and his fingers rest right against my pulse and I wonder if he can tell it’s slowed to a sluggish murmur. Daniel is needy. His mouth is heavy and rough.

And when I’m done, because I decide when it’s done, because I’m in control and I’ve given him enough, I break away.

Daniel doesn’t let me.

He chases my mouth with his and bites my lip like he’s—like he’s punishing me for stopping. One of his big hands moves from my face to my shoulder, my arm, my hip.

I try to break away. Again. With a snort, so I sound derisive, unimpressed, not scared. Anything other than scared.

He grabs my leg.

“Okay,” I say, struggling to keep up, face pressed against his for the time it takes me to catch my breath. “Okay. Hold on.”

His hand is under my skirt now. My heart is thudding so hard in my ears I can barely hear. Isn’t he scared of me? He’s supposed to be scared of me. Everyone else is.

“It’s fine,” he says.

“I didn’t say you could touch me.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I—”

Daniel says, “You’re fine,” which translates to You didn’t specify, or That doesn’t matter. And he’s right. I didn’t specify. I didn’t draw lines in the sand. I didn’t tell him he couldn’t. I didn’t tell him he could, either.

He says, “I’m not your dad.”

And it all gets stuck at once. Everything the Gore Goonies said about whether or not I wanted Dad to touch me, to hurt me. Each time Mom watched Dad and me together, wondering. The finger I pointed at Dr. Reich. William Campbell’s hand reaching out to snap my bra one more time. My hand around Alyssa’s throat, my hand too close to the cuts on Felicity’s thighs. Fantasizing about everything that happened and everything that didn’t. It doesn’t matter which is which. My brain can’t tell the difference.

I choke, “Stop. Stop.”

He doesn’t. His belt is undone and he’s pushing me back against the table.

I don’t remember putting Felicity’s switchblade in Daniel’s stomach, or pulling it out in one long swipe, but the blade is there, and then it’s out, and there’s a big red line across his shirt and I’m holding a bloody knife.