Love Bites

Free-Fall

The Mean Queen eatery was the best place in Sitka to grab a quick cocktail or delectable slice of artisanal pizza. I stared longingly down at my custom pepperoni, bacon, and mozzarella cheese creation, while Prue chewed idly on a Her Royal Highness slice, dressed in fresh basil, sundried tomatoes, garlic, Kalamata olives, and shaved parmesan.

We sat cramped together at a table by the window, the Three Lyns sharing it with us, while Katelyn's and Amberlyn's boyfriends, Roland and Jeremiah, decided to pig out on honey barbecue chicken wings the next one over. The entirety of the restaurant's current clientele were kids from our school, with the waitresses bustling to fill our orders.

I'd skimped on breakfast, had barely eaten lunch, but even now, as my stomach rumbled in anguish, I couldn't bring myself to take hold of the gloriously constructed dish in front of me for the presence that lied just beyond my plate. With my being squished in between Katelyn and Amberlyn, Prue sat across from Katelyn, with Ethan beside her and in front of me, while Heatherlyn moped into her iced tea next to him.

My order had been brought in a full ten minutes earlier, but I still hadn't moved a finger towards it. I knew Ethan wasn't looking at me, although just this morning he added a good third time to the two he'd glanced my way over the years—all right, maybe I was overdramatizing, but even with his attention off me, just being this close to him unnerved me.

"Ohmigod," Amberlyn moaned from my right, "this is so much better than those protein bars made out of wood and salt you're always shoving down, Heatherlyn."

The blonde tossed a withering glare to Amberlyn's plate. "Gross, Am, what're those things?" She was pointing to the slimy green toppings that were slathered over the other girl's pizza.

"Relish," she answered simply. "This is my Glory Without the Girth, baby. You got relish, tomato, chickpeas, horseradish—"

"Ew, God, Amberlyn, you're worse than my brother."

With a shrug, she dove right back into her creation, while I continued passing lustful looks down at mine.

"Didi, aren't you going to eat?"

I gave Prue a nod without looking up. Ethan hadn't been here when I'd ordered, and I hadn't anticipated his arrival until sometime after I'd managed to hollow out a good portion of the food.

But here he was, earlier than expected, and there I was, too embarrassed by my indulgent behavior to even meet his eyes—regardless of them being on me or not.

"I'm just trying to...take it all in."

Oh, for the love of—

"It's a real beauty," Katelyn piped in, missing the embarrassment of my response, and in turn sparing me from it. I was never more grateful for her cluelessness.

"Heh, yeah, well...thanks." I shoved down my apprehension and finally snatched my pizza to grab a bite. And it was Heaven. I only hoped Ethan wouldn't think me as much of a pig as Cortez was.

"So, who's ready for homecoming?" After only two bites of her smaller than the standard one person sized pizza, Prue pushed her plate away, shooting quirky looks at us from across the table.

"I've already got my dress. I just need to find the perfect shoes." Heatherlyn was back to sulking into her iced tea.

"Aww, no fair, Heather." Amberlyn whined. "We were supposed to go together!"

"I still need shoes. And accessories are a must, so you guys can come with."

Prudence passed Ethan a small, sultry look. "So, who're you planning on taking to this thing, Ethan?"

Please, no—no foreplay. Not at the table. Not in front of me.

As if thinking long and hard about something, Ethan stroked his chin in between his fingers, a look of false consideration on him. "I don't know," he said. "I was thinking about asking this really cute girl in Physics. She keeps dropping hints like 'Will you go to the homecoming dance with me,' and 'No, seriously, let's go to the dance together, Ethan.' So she might be into me, I don't know. Maybe she's just playing hard to get?"

Prudence gave his arm a dinky, little punch, smiling coyly at him. "We need a matching color scheme. Blue? Or maybe red? Anything but pink."

I cleared my throat and nudged Amberlyn in the arm with my elbow. "Sorry, I need to use the bathroom."

She stepped out from where her chair boxed me in to let me through, pizza tip still shoved in her mouth, and I was quick to make my way down the aisle towards the girl's lavatory until a tall, tan body stepped in my way.

"Cortez," I greeted flatly, spotting what looked and smelled like a straight shot of whiskey in his flimsy grip.

"Wha—? Oh, hey, the Goddess of Love! Glad you could meet me here."

It was clear to me that he was already as plowed as a driveway.

"I didn't come to meet you, Cortez. How did you get your hands on the booze?"

His lips gave a slow, snake-like curl. "That new tapster is even more of a slutty dunce than Katelyn."

I gave a girlish tut of my lips, brushing past him for the door and dodging his attempt to grab my arm.

"H—hey, c'mere, Dolce. C'mere."

I had the mind to ignore him so I could make it to the tiny sanctuary of a bathroom stall and sulk again, but the feel of a sharp yank at my arm stopped me and twisted me back to face him. Within seconds, his slimy, booze-driven lips were on mine.

I tore away, spatting at the floor. "What're you doing?" I almost yelped at the pain shooting up my shoulder. "Let go!"

Cortez was quick to slam a hand over my mouth. It amazed me that in a place as teeming with a pizza-stuffed populous as this, we could still be left so completely isolated.

"Shh, I ain't gonna hurt ya, Dolce. Relax. I just wanna talk." He cupped the back of my head with his other hand and raised me up to meet his face, taking in a long predatorial sniff of my hair. "Mmm, that's good. See? Nice and easy."

When his hand snaked onto my breasts, I reeled my leg back and slammed the toe of my sneaker into his shin. He released me with a yelp, cooing at his injured limb as if it was a scared child.

"Whataya do that for?" he slurred in between pained hisses. "Uncalled for, man. Just...Uncalled for."

I forgot all about using the restroom and speed walked back to our table, yanking my backpack from my chair. "Can we go?" I asked—more like demanded of Prudence. And I'm sure this was more than enough to get her attention, but she may have also zeroed in on the deplorable job I was doing in keeping the tears from spilling.

"What—yeah, sure," she said, looking to the rest of the table. "C'mon, we're going. I wanna make sure I catch that rerun of Dream Heelz since I missed it last week."

I knew Prue was curious, but I was grateful that she decided not to question me right there in front of everybody. As always, I avoided any eye contact with Ethan, though this time I could feel him watching me.

"You doing all right, Dodie?" asked Amberlyn, as she came to stand next to me to put a hand to my shoulder. The last thing I wanted right now was to be touched, and I stepped away, keeping my head ducked, aiming for the door.

"Fine," I grumbled.

It was a rare occurrence whenever any one of Prue's lackeys took notice of me, especially so solicitously, and I knew I'd feel bad later about blowing her off, but right now, all I could focus on was getting home. Even with all its problems, home right now seemed like the true sanctuary compared to this place.

"Heeeey, you guys leaving so soon? This is supposed to be a party!" Raj Anand called from the back of the restaurant where he and the remaining pack were seated, surrounded by stacks of pizza trays and mounds of glazed chicken wings. There wasn't a salad in sight.

"We'll see you guys tomorrow, Raj," Ethan called back. "I'm gonna take Prue and her friends home."

"Smell ya later," taunted Julian McKnight from his place beside Raj with what looked to be a pizza piled high with stinky cheese in his hand.

"I feel like imma throw up," Roland grumbled with a hand pressed onto his abdomen. Katelyn was quick to coddle her boyfriend, unhelpfully patting his neck as if he were a stray dog.

"Aim in that direction," said Jeremiah unhelpfully, pointing loosely at Jessica Buler, the girlfriend of Brody Sanderson. She was currently lip-locked with the willowy ginger across from her, while Brody was nowhere to be seen.

Me, Ethan, Prue, the Steinbeck Brothers, and the Three Lyns exited the restaurant and squeezed into Ethan's Honda, a red Odyssey on loan from his parents. We were back on the road in less than a minute. Soon, the stillness of the van was torn through by a roaring belch executed by a queasy looking Roland.

"Oh man, I've got, like, this ranch, milky Hawaiian thing going on, right now." Roland pressed a hand to his mouth just as another belch rang loose, stinking up the whole car.

"Ugh, BRO, keep it in until we get outside!" Jeremiah screeched, joining the rest of us in fanning the stench from our faces. "Someone, anyone, please, open the windows, let this mustard gas out! I'm begging you!"

Ethan was quick to oblige, while Prue hastened to cover her nose with the sleeve of her jacket. "That's what you get for hogging down those two large pizzas with two strawberry milkshakes, dumb-ass," she sniped to Roland with another wave of her hand. "I mean, aren't you lactose intol—?"

WHAM!

The next few seconds after that were complete chaos. Seemingly from out of the sky, a large, bundled mass crashed onto the windshield of the van, shattering the glass, and prompting Ethan to veer off the road.

Katelyn's heart-rendering scream was the first to cut the night air like a knife, but she was far from alone. Everyone was in hysterics as Ethan struggled to realign the van before it crashed just shy from the hastily approaching tree line that would've ensured our demise.

"OH, MY GOD! OH, MY GOD!" Prue was screeching, voice drowning out the others.

The van tipped dangerously to the left, the mass on the windshield sliding down but becoming entangled by the wipers. I hadn't realized that I'd closed my eyes until I felt the van go deadly still, the hood of it no more than half an inch from a large, old oak.

"Is everyone all right?" Ethan turned to face us from the front. The only response was our continued guttural breathing. "Prue?" he asked, reaching for her shaking arm.

"I'm...I..." Prudence was as well as the rest of us.

Ethan gave her arm a gentle squeeze, and I almost cried out of the sheer ache in me to be held, even if it wasn't by him. More than anything, I wanted Uncle Liam. Heck, I'd even take David or Sheri.

"Heatherlyn, Amberlyn, Katelyn? You girls OK?"

They weren't much better off, as far as I could tell, but were at least uninjured and breathing still.

"Jeremiah, Roland?"

"We're good, man," said Jeremiah, turning to his little brother. "Roland?"

"f**k," Roland squeaked, managing only to give the front windshield a trembling point, before scrambling from the car, and finally losing his recently consumed dinner onto the grass. It was enough to make my own stomach churn. Jeremiah left the car after him, as Ethan turned to the back of the van again.

"Didi?"

At the sound of his too quiet, too gentle voice, I looked at him for the first time, feeling only terror in place of my usual burgeoning infatuation.

"Are you all right? Were you hurt?" As his eyes began trailing my body for injuries the way they had for Prue, I could only nod my head, speech seeming like a foreign means of communication.

"Oh..." Heatherlyn's blue eyes were watery, bloodshot, which I'm sure matched my own exactly. She was pointing at the front windshield the way Roland had moments ago. "I can't believe—no, it can't be."

Ethan was next to exit the vehicle, and I followed behind him, Prue following behind me. Seeing as how she'd been positioned in the front, she saw what had crashed into the van before I could, and let out another ringing scream.

"Shhh, baby, I know, I know!" Ethan rushed to pacify his terrified girlfriend, while I finally caught a glimpse at what had us all in a pitted condition.

The bundled mass that had landed onto the windshield was, in fact, a bloodied body, lined in silk. The poor man's face had been partially melted off, eyes indolently opened to stare blankly back at us, and his entire abdomen completely hallowed out from any of the internal organs. I would've screamed too, had I been able to find my voice. As grisly as this was, it was nothing compared to the realization that I'd seen this man somewhere before. I knew him.

Prue was now crying through quivering hands, as Amberlyn and Katelyn joined us at either side. With one look, Amberlyn toppled to her knees, dark eyes fixed onto the corpse's blank stare.

"It's not—no, he isn't—" she rambled through shakes of her head. "Oh, my God...Oh, my God! Mr. Davenport?"