“Leave me alone.”
There was a brick on the pavement that didn’t seem to belong to either of the buildings flanking the alley. I scooped it up.
“I said stop it,” Saranne said. “Please, don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?” the second man said. “I thought you wanted to party.”
“No,” Saranne said.
Neither of the two men saw me approach. Neither heard me until I spoke.
“Get away from her.”
One of the men moved to intercept me.
“What do you want?” he said.
I spun counterclockwise, my right arm extended, and fired the brick into the man’s chest, throwing almost underhanded, thinking Dan Quisenberry, the best of the submarine pitchers. The brick caught him high and drove him backward and down onto the pavement. There was a thud and a low moan.
“Jesus,” the second man said.
He released Saranne and stepped back.
“She wanted it,” he said.
“Then why did she say no?”
“She, she—”
He brought his arms up to protect his head, so I drove a forefist deep into his solar plexus. The blow knocked the wind from him, causing him to clutch his stomach, double over, and fall to his knees. There was retching, but he didn’t vomit. Pity.
I took Saranne by the shoulder and led her toward the light at the far end of the alley.
“What are you doing here?” she said.
I glanced back at the two men. They helped each other up and retreated to the front of the alley.
“What were you thinking?” I said. “Did you want them to hurt you?”
“Does it matter?”
“Saranne—”
“People treat me like a whore. My father treats me like a whore. I might as well act like a whore.”
“Why? To justify their expectations? To prove them right?”
Saranne thought that was funny enough to laugh over.
“McKenzie, you want to protect my virtue. Well, now you know I don’t have any.”
“Then why did you say no to those two? Why didn’t you let them rape you?”
The question caused Saranne’s face to freeze. Or maybe it was the word “rape.”
“You don’t need to be the town slut, you know,” I said.
“What else can I be? If that’s how people are going to treat me, what else can I be?”
“Have you ever read The Scarlet Letter?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Hester Prynne had a child by a man not her husband, so the people in her town—we’re talking about seventeenth-century Puritans here—they shunned her and forced to wear the letter A on her bosom. Yet she was the most virtuous character in the book. She not only refused to rat out the child’s father, she protected him. Over time people began to respect her. They began to see her not as the person they thought she was but as the person she actually was; as someone they could go to with their problems, as someone they could trust.”
“That’s just a book.”
“Hester was a hero because she refused to be the person the townspeople expected her to be.”
“It’s just a book, okay?”
“You have, what, another year of high school? Tough it out, Saranne. Do that, then you can leave Libbie, go where gossip can’t reach you; go to college, go anywhere. Your old man, he isn’t going to live forever. Who is he going to leave his businesses to, his grain elevator and restaurant and crap? When you come back, if you decide to come back, you’ll be the one in charge. Or you can just sell it off.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“No. It’s simple, but it won’t be easy. Especially during that last year in high school.”
“Like you know.”
“Listen. I’ll tell you the only thing I know absolutely for sure. Living well is the best revenge.”
“Yeah, right. I’m out of here.”
I didn’t blame Saranne for dismissing me. I probably sounded like one of those TV phonies like Dr. Phil.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” I said.
“Whatever.”
We walked back through the alley. Saranne didn’t speak again until we were nearing the entrance.
“The Scarlet Letter. Who wrote that? Hawthorne? I think it’s on the reading list next year.”
I was pleased to hear that they still taught the book in high school.
“Read it,” I said.
“Well, I have to, don’t I?”
“I suppose.”
We were rounding the corner of the alley onto the sidewalk when she spoke again.
“McKenzie, there’s something I want you to know. No one else believes me, but I want you to know because, well, just because. I didn’t have sex with Rush. He wanted me to. He tried to. He put his hands on me and he said things to convince me that it would be all right, but I wouldn’t let him. The truth is, I’ve never—I haven’t slept with anyone. Ever. Only no one believes me.”
“I believe you,” I said.
Saranne said something else, but I didn’t hear. Her words were drowned out by a kind of swooshing sound, followed by a crunching blow against the back of my skull. The world turned a dazzling red-orange and then faded quickly to pitch black.
CHAPTER NINE