She was the same woman Clyde had met in the hospital earlier. She struggled to put her tits back in her bra even as Clyde buckled his pants. Josh had stopped hitting Daniel, and hovered over him with a gaping mouth, confused by the distraction. Clyde looked incensed, which Daniel knew to be his default face.
“Shit,” Josh said.
“Worse than that,” Daniel responded. “That’s my stepdad… ex-Marine.”
Josh let Daniel go and backed up a few steps before turning and running off. What a pussy, Daniel thought. He rushed over to Katie, who was still out cold, and patted her face. She had a dark purple bruise where Josh hit her. Even with welts, she is beautiful, he thought.
“Katie, wake up,” he whispered in her ear.
Clyde got out of the truck. “What the hell are you doing here, boy?”
The day’s events had yet to catch up with Daniel’s stepfather, but the boy realized catching Clyde in his extracurricular activity was enough to warrant a beating. Clyde wasn’t stupid or drunk enough to do it in the middle of the street, in front of Daniel’s friend whose father had some influence in the town… at least he hoped. He realized how silly he was earlier thinking that Clyde had attacked Katie. If she would only wake up.
“Katie,” he repeated, tapping the back of her wrist lightly.
“Boy…”
“You know, Clyde,” Daniel said, trying to keep the fear from his voice, “most dads would be proud to see their kid hold their own against someone bigger and older than they are.”
“First off, runt, you wasn’t holding your own. You were getting the shit kicked out of you. Second, you ain’t my kid.”
Katie groaned. She stirred, then opened her eyes. Clyde stood his ground. The woman staggered from the truck and joined them. They were both two sheets to the wind and would be adding a third before calling it a night. Daniel turned cold as he read the hospital name tag on her blouse: Conklin. That’s why she looked familiar. He’d seen her in a photo in the principal’s office. Clyde was banging Conklin’s daughter.
The principal’s animus toward him took on new dimensions. Clyde’s actions, his lusts, greed, and poor character even polluted Daniel’s sanctuary at school, the one place he had never had to worry about his stepfather. His collection of havens was shrinking. Clyde was his bane in an almost biblical sense. A new chapter had to be written for any possible future to exist. For the first time, Daniel feared Clyde less than the prospect of extricating him from his life. He should have ratted the bastard out to the sheriff earlier. It wasn’t too late to go back and lodge that formal complaint. Rita would have to live with the consequences of her own lies. Penny would have to endure a house full of strangers. Daniel had had enough.
He helped Katie to her feet. She leaned on him for support, favoring her uninjured arm. “I’m going to take Katie home,” he told his stepfather.
He picked up his bike and wheeled it by the handlebar while supporting Katie with the other arm. Daniel held his breath as they inched away. It felt like they were backing out of a lion’s cage. Daniel hoped Clyde’s lust for Conklin’s brat was greater than the taste for his blood. After a few minutes they were around the corner and out of view. The boy sighed in relief.
“You ought to go,” Katie mumbled.
“I’ll see you home.”
“No. My dad already thinks badly of you on account of being Clyde’s boy. Here I am, welt on my face, no panties, bleeding between my legs, and smelling of liquor. I don’t want to go home like this. I’ll go to Samantha’s house and clean up. Her mom works ’til seven.”
“Your wrist is broken.”
“I’ll go to the emergency room after I clean up-say I took a spill on my bike. I need to clean up. I don’t want to walk in looking like a…” She paused. She couldn’t get the word out. “No one has to know.”
Daniel restrained his surprise. He simply asked, “You’re not pressing charges?”
Her eyes locked with his. “ No one will ever know.”
“Katie, what about the next girl Josh…”
“GODDAMN IT, DANNY!”
“Okay. Okay.”
They walked in silence until they came to the fork that split their destinations.
“You know I don’t have feelings for you the way you want me to,” Katie said.
“Yeah.”
“I do love you, though. More today than ever. You’re a true friend. You’re my hero.”
Before Daniel could think of a response, Katie kissed him on the mouth. It was warm and lasting, or appeared to be. She tasted his lips before pulling away.
She moved on and never looked back. Daniel had the strangest sensation that he’d never see her again.