“Whoa, people must really love Monty Python,” I observed as Millie fanned out her blanket in a spot equidistant from the screen and the taco truck. She smoothed down all four corners, making sure it was perfectly straight.
“I still can’t believe you’ve never seen this.”
When we were comfortably sprawled out, I emptied the contents of my bag until our makeshift feast was scattered across the quilt in streaks of sugar and chocolate.
Millie ripped into a bag of sour gummi bears and stuffed four into her mouth at once. “I love these,” she said with swollen cheeks. “Even though I’m not allowed to eat them.” She grinned, revealing tiny slivers of jelly that were now anchored to her invisible braces.
I laughed at her, and felt good about it. Since the night I fell for Nic, I had been tormenting myself with questions and wallowing in self-pity, which was doing more harm than good. I had to stop before I drove myself insane thinking of things I knew I couldn’t change.
I broadened my smile and then felt it falter at the sudden look on Millie’s face.
“But I thought he was out of town,” she mumbled, her voice was unnaturally subdued.
“Huh?” I followed her gaze and squinted into the growing crowds. “Who are you talking about?”
“Robbie Stenson. He’s here.”
I poured all of my concentration into the back of Robbie Stenson’s stupid round head. Even though I still couldn’t remember anything from that night, I felt angry just looking at him. It was like my skin was burning at the memory and my brain was struggling to catch up. Beside me, Millie’s raucous laughter was buzzing in my ears. She was blissfully glued to the movie.
“Why aren’t you laughing?” she asked.
I scanned the screen, where a bunch of British knights were harping on in comical French accents. Strange. “I’m distracted.”
“What are you trying to accomplish by staring at Robbie’s head like that?” Millie shoveled another handful of caramel popcorn into her mouth. “Are you trying to make him explode with your mind?”
“I don’t know.” I scrunched up my face in an effort to find the memory that was hovering just outside my realm of consciousness. “I’m trying to remember.”
Millie stuffed another handful into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Don’t,” she said, letting sticky kernels spew across the blanket. “Just try and forget about it. You’re here to unwind, remember?”
I did my best to follow her advice, but still, something wasn’t right …
After almost an hour, the screen blackened to text, which signaled a short intermission. “Taco?” I offered, feeling the need to stretch my legs.
“If you insist,” Millie replied, reclining. “Get me two, please.”
I brushed the crumbs off my clothes and walked across the grass, taking my place at the end of the taco line; soon after, I was wedged between a girl with bright pink hair and an overweight man.
“This register is open!” a pubescent voice shouted. A slew of people from behind me parted and shuffled into a second line, and suddenly I was standing almost side by side with Robbie Stenson.
He glanced at me and then quickly looked away, but not before I caught sight of the yellowing bruising around his eye sockets and along his thick jawline. What the hell happened to him?
The register chimed and the line moved forward, taking me with it. Robbie caught up on his side; he was swirling a red cup in his hands, making the liquid slosh back and forth. He lifted it to his lips, smacked them against it, and began gulping down its contents greedily. The more I saw the red cup bobbing back and forth toward his mouth, the more I fixated on it.
Then it all came flooding back to me.
I remembered going into Millie’s parents’ room and coming face-to-face with Robbie Stenson. I spilled some beer on myself — wasn’t that what he had said? But he had been holding two full cups in his hands. And he told me he hadn’t even been drinking. I grimaced as the memory of the sweet, fizzy liquid glided into my mind, reminding me of how he had urged me to drink it and how, as we sat on the bed, I had become uncomfortable with the way he watched me. And then everything in my memory went dark. I realized, just as the register rang again — echoing the alarm bells in my brain — that Robbie Stenson had drugged me that night and then orchestrated our walk home together so that he could assault me. There was nothing innocent or naïve about it.
And worse, I felt sure that if Luca hadn’t intervened when he did, things would have gone from bad to awful.
The line pushed forward.
“Move,” the fat man behind me whined, but I couldn’t move. I was rooted to the spot. “Hey, come on.” He prodded me.
Bile rose in my throat. Beside me, Robbie was shuffling forward, dangling the empty red cup back and forth in his hand. It had become a pendulum hurling explosive memories at me, one by one, and before I knew what I was doing, I was shoving him out of the line.
“What the hell?” His stocky frame stumbled sideways. He tripped and landed on the grass, clutching at his ribs.
“How could you?” I lunged again, but this time he was prepared. He pulled himself up and backed away from me, away from the crowds. I followed him.
“What the hell is your problem?” he spat through gritted teeth.
“You tried to assault me!” I hissed.
“No, I didn’t,” he returned so evenly that I might have doubted the memory if it wasn’t pulsating against my brain. “I was walking you home when your boyfriend beat the crap out of me for no reason. You’re lucky I didn’t report him.”