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It was hard to sleep without running through it in her head, over and over. His nails were too long, scraping uncomfortably on her skin. She was already too warm, and his hot breath on her face made her cringe. She hated how he smelled, how he tasted when he kissed her, gritting her teeth against rolling waves of nausea and trying to force herself to enjoy it, to experience it.
She kept reliving those specific moments, when her focus was on the sensation, desperate for something that could make this tolerable for the rest of her life. It was nothing like she had imagined. Besides an uncomfortable stinging, it didn't really feel like anything. It wasn't mind-blowing. It didn't feel natural, or right. Surely this wasn't God's plan for her. Surely.
When Max was done they were both sticky and sweaty, and she knew she'd made a mistake. The dread she'd carried for her inevitable marriage had multiplied tenfold instead of dissipating, as she'd hoped. The only option was to move on like it hadn't happened, as if the worst ten minutes of her life weren't laid out in repititious horror in her future.
It took two full days of numb denial before she broke down crying about it in the school bathroom — the South Wing girl's room only had one stall with a working lock, and was mostly used by stoners and couples skipping class. While she normally wouldn't consider it, today she was willing to take the risk that it was occupied; she really didn't want to be caught crying, having no desire to revisit the bullying that had brought in middle school.
She was lucky. Locking herself into the one working stall she curled up on the toilet lid, wrapping her arms around herself and drawing her knees up to her chin. She felt stupid and dirty and used and so, so afraid that she had ruined her life for sex she hadn't even enjoyed. She was squeezing her legs to her chest tightly, overwhelmed and trembling.
Far too soon after she'd started to cry the babble of the hallway became audible, briefly, as the door swung open to admit what sounded like just one entrant. Grace swallowed, trying not to sniffle or breathe too loudly, leaning over slightly to peer under the door at ragged black Converse. She was hoping the person would just check their makeup or something and go away.
Instead, a bag thunked to the ground, and Grace heard a huff as the other occupant boosted themself onto the countertop, shoes disappearing. God, she hoped this wasn't someone waiting for a hookup. She thought she might die if she had to sit through that.
A smell began to permeate the air, artificially sweet, like cotton candy or bubblegum. It made her head sort of hurt, and tickled her throat as if it would make her cough. Perfume? Slowly, she used her arms to boost herself up so she was sitting on the toilet's tank, trying not to jostle the lid. She stood, trying to quietly peek over the edge of the stall's door, to see what was going on.
Even if the immense creak of the plastic underfoot hadn't given her away, she had underestimated both the stability of the seat and her own height. The plastic buckled under her feet and she threw her arms over the side of the stall to catch herself, leaving Stephanie Lauter, seated on the counter with vape in hand, staring at her. Shit.
"Grace? Are you... okay?"
She was crying again. Goddamnit. Of all the people who could find her here, of course it was Stephanie Lauter, the last person she should expect help from, someone she'd wronged over and over. But she was so scared, and Steph was... she'd know what to do. Surely.
"Can you help me?"
It was a deeply unpleasant situation that Steph found herself in. All she'd wanted was some nicotine before she continued hunting down the nerd who'd stood her up. She did not really want to help a sobbing Grace Chasity, who had probably lost her favorite bible or something, and she was about to excuse herself to avoid just that sort of menial task when Grace spoke again.
"I think I might be… pregnant? And I don't know what to do and I hoped maybe you did, not because you're, um, but, well… sorry. I don't know… who else would help."
Steph was caught off guard, prepared for literally anything but that. She wasn't sure she was understanding the situation, let alone the idea that she came above the average stranger on Grace's list of people who might help her.
She went with her most pressing question first. "Pregnant? Like, uh... like a Jesus situation?" Grace stared at her. "Like the Virgin Mary... ?"
Steph took the renewed sobs at the word 'virgin' to mean this was not the case, and really, thank god; she was far more qualified to deal with a regular stupid hookup than an immaculate conception. She didn't want to be here… but could she really abandon someone in this state, even if it was Grace Chasity?
She thought back to her first debrief, the older girls who had talked her through everything the morning after that first mistake. "Ugh...okay. How long ago did you…"
"Um. Saturday night." Two days was still within the morning-after pill window, but if they didn't have to go that far...
"I guess you're probably not on birth control, but you did use protection, right?" Grace wiped her eyes and gave her an odd, baffled sort of look; she continued, "like, a condom or something?"
Grace, if anything, looked even more confused. They sort of watched each other for a minute, waiting for the other to elaborate; finally, Grace broke the silence. "Like... the bird?"
"No, Grace, like... a rubber? Latex? Contraceptive?" She examined Grace's face, trying to figure out how she'd gotten to eighteen without learning what a condom was. "Did you, like, skip sex ed?"
"My parents had me excused. I learned plant reproduction instead," she sniffled, pursing her lips before adding, "I did take the sexual health course at Camp Idontwannabang, though. Twice."
"Great. You can be another shining example of how well abstinence-only sex ed works," she sighed, rubbing her face. That made things harder. "We need to talk to the guy you slept with, Grace, so we know if he has any diseases or… maybe there was a contraceptive you weren't aware of?" She could hold out hope.
Grace looked at her with the most heartbreakingly pathetic eyes, then, and Steph knew it was bad . "Who was it, Grace?"
In the smallest voice she'd ever heard, barely recognizable as Grace Chasity, she murmured, "I don't want to tell you."
"It sucks, but I need to know to help you." Please let me help you, crossed her mind, uninvited. She waited.
Finally. "Max."
" Jägerman?" Came out of her mouth, unbidden and louder than she'd expected. This was not the correct reaction, clearly, as Grace immediately burst into tears again.
"Sorry, shit, sorry. It's fine, Grace, it's okay," she was patting the girl's shoulders sort of awkwardly now. "He wasn't, uh … He didn't, like, force you or anything, right?" She didn't really think Max was capable of that, but...
"No, I … I said yes." She kept her eyes down, looking ashamed, rushing to explain through her tears. "I know it was stupid, I just. He was … he wanted to, and I thought…" She swallowed, audibly. "He's going to tell everyone. My family…"
Oh, Steph's heart was really aching for this girl. Her first time was bad, but it hadn't been a life-altering situation for her, just a harsh lesson. She woke up sore and hungover, got chewed out by her dad for staying out all night, and bought her first contraceptives. She wished it would be so easy for Grace, and she wished she could offer more than the emptiest reassurances.
"I'll talk to Max, Grace. It'll be okay."
She felt like she'd outgrown climbing through windows, so she used the back door. As kids they'd been sneaky for survival, but Max's dad spent most of his time out of the house these days, and tended to be paralytically drunk whenever he did hang around. It could still be troublesome if he was home, but he was no longer the terrifying figure of her childhood.
He was nowhere to be seen when she entered, though, so she let herself in, following a familiar path through the kitchen and down the hallway.
She had decided on the walk over that she was going to kick Max's ass until he swore an oath of silence and got an STD test (since Grace was apparently not allowed within fifty yards of any Planned Parenthood in the state). She would be getting Grace a Plan B and hoping beyond hope that she wouldn't have to smuggle her into an abortion clinic she'd picketed before.
She opened the bedroom door without knocking. Max was reclined on his couch, eyes closed, shirtless in wrinkled jeans. She rapped on the doorframe loudly, and he made an irritated noise.
"Hey. Heard you have a fun weekend."
She'd suspected that he was stoned, given the ashtray close at hand and the smell lingering in the air, and the redness of his squinted-opened eyes confirmed it.
"What happened to 'hello'? Or, 'I'm coming over today'? A little warning would be nice."
"What did you do?"
"It seems like you already know, so I'm not sure why you're yelling at me." He closed his eyes again, and Steph felt her frustration flare.
"You're such a piece of shit, Max. Did you even use protection? When's the last time you got tested?"
"English class, last week." He had seemingly accepted that she wouldn't let him sleep and picked up another joint, rifling around his messy table for a lighter.
"Not what I meant. Protection?" He rolled his eyes. "Max, you dunce, do you want to be a father at nineteen?"
"Steph, cool it, I'm not stupid. She can't be pregnant. She wasn't even on her period."
"... Tell me you're joking, Max." He just blinked at her. "Jesus Christ, you are the dumbest motherfucker I've ever met, Jägerman." She rubbed her face. "Okay. Whatever. Have you told anyone?"
"I might have mentioned it in the locker room yesterday. And at Pasquali's after. And in homeroom this morning, standing on top of a chair. So… not really, no."
"This isn't funny, Max, she could be in real trouble with her parents if it gets back to them."
"Seems funny to me. She deserves it — she's awful, you know that. Pull up some carpet, Slaughter, I like you better when you're stoned." He gestured at her with his newly rediscovered lighter.
Steph was taken aback. "Why are you being suck a prick about this? Just tell everyone you lied, who cares."
"No. If she wants to act like a whore, she can wear the scarlet dress after." He looked pleased with himself, testing his lighter and raising the joint to his lips.
"What's gotten into you lately, Max? Nobody deserves to lose their family. You know that," Steph plead.
She knew that Max was not the same kid she'd grown up with, but it was hard to keep it straight sometimes. He'd been kinder, once, suave and charming in ways that didn't inflict terror. She could never be afraid of him, but this level of cruely was alarming, revealing itself in more and more of his relationships until Steph could really only ignore it because he wasn't treating her that way.
"Just say you lied. Please."
He squinted up at Steph, removing the unlit joint from his mouth. She kept her face as neutral as she could. "Why do you even care, Slaughter? I thought you hated each other."
"I— we did, but she's really messed up about this, Max. I just feel bad for her, and because it was your stupidity that landed her here, I feel responsible for it, too." She sighed. "Why her, Max? You have your pick of the school, and you just had to choose the person who would be the most fucked over by it."
He was silent a minute longer, studying her face. "Slaughter," he said, finally, a shit-eating grin beginning to emerge, "are you jealous? "
"What?" She gawked at him.
Max had a knack for clocking people's feelings; for the most part he just used this to elevate his bullying from "harsh" to "violently targeted", but he'd known Steph for so long that she sometimes felt like he could read her mind, and she hated it. It wasn't fair how easily he could pick up on things she wasn't even aware she was feeling.
He had clearly found whatever he was searching for in her face. "Oh my god, you are . You're not mad that I slept with her, you're mad because I slept with her . That's hilarious. No, I'm not taking back my claim so you can pretend you hit that first. Sorry, Stephie"
"That's not — ugh! Fuck off , Max." God, she was pissed. His mocking tone and the diminutive of her name were making her think very seriously about hitting him, despite their considerable size disparity. She settled on leaving before her self-control failed her, and turned to do so.
"Hey, Slaughter, stay!" She paused, looking back at him. "I wouldn't have done it if I knew, I swear! She had that whole sexy-forbidden-fruit deal going on. I didn't mean to steal your catch… not that I think you had great odds anyways," he winked at her, still grinning. "She was pretty into my masculine energy, if you know what I mean."
She decided not to dignify that with a response. "Get tested. Text me your results." She huffed her way out of the room. She'd need to figure out how to convince everyone he'd lied, or else Grace would…
Ah. There it was again, that little tug in her stomach, dragging her to help a girl she didn't even like. Shit.
It was exhausting that Max had always known Steph better than she knew herself, and he was right, as usual — she wasn't asking herself why she was helping Grace, she was just doing it. She shouldn't care. They weren't friends, weren't even friendly; Grace had thrown away any good-will they'd had when she started avoiding Steph after she was outed. She'd spent the better part of her highschool years avoiding the girl's preaching like the plague.
She knew it wasn't just pity dragging her past these reservations, though. Where righteous anger once flared there was now something familiar, long-buried embers flickering to life when Grace Chasity crossed her mind. The girl was vulnerable, like a wounded animal, desperate and pathetic and Steph felt bad for her. She wanted to protect her — an idiotic, dangerous desire. The urge to keep people safe made her do stupid things, and she knew that the last person she needed to take a bullet for was Grace Chasity. If she couldn't get a hold on that feeling, she decided, she'd have to stay out of the Grace-Max buisiness. For her own well-being.