Page 63 of What Rough Beast

“You’ve seen a lot more of me than this.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

His voice is measured, even, quiet, not what I expected. He’s blushing, and . . . dear God, is he going to cry?

“No,” I say. “I don’t want to talk about the worst thing that’s ever happened to me with the person responsible for it.”

“Ava, I didn’t drug you,” he says. “I found you like that, and I—Sorry, you said you didn’t want to talk about it. I’ll stop.”

It’s his turn to look away, the light catching his perfect stubble, glinting off the tears that he’s not allowing to fall.

“I heard—” My voice catches, and I clear my throat. “I heard Murphy’s voice, and I woke up, and you were there. What was I supposed to think?”

“Exactly what you thought,” he says, nodding. “I would have, too.”

“If you were a girl, you mean,” I bite back. “But you’re not, so you don’t have to worry about shit like that.”

“You’re right, I don’t,” he says evenly, holding my gaze.

I look away, back to the parking lot, where my car sits. I could leave right now, if I wanted to. But something is making me stay, and I don’t know if it’s the blush that won’t fade from his cheeks or the tears that won’t fall from his eyes but something about Micah Harding won’t let me leave this table.

“I know what happened,” he goes on, carefully. “I know who drugged you, and I’ll tell you who and why and anything else you want to know.”

There’s only the one thing, and it rolls in my empty gut, working its way out of the pit.

“Was I raped?”

“No,” Micah says immediately, shaking his head. “No, I swear to you, Ava. That did not happen.”

“Okay,” I say, looking away as I start to cry. “Okay.”

Then he’s shoving napkins into my hands, and I’m giving some back to him because he’s crying, too, and we’re both just sitting in a gas station terrified of each other and not knowing what to do next.

“Look at me, crying in public,” Micah says.

“It’s like fourth grade all over again, huh?” I ask.

And he looks at me and smiles, and I smile back, and then we’re both laughing a little, and he reaches across the table and squeezes my wrist. And I let him.

“It’s like just being a human,” he says.

And then I’m crying harder because we’re not a girl and a boy anymore, and I don’t care about his jawline or my hair. We’re just two lost people that were found, not knowing we were already right in front of each other.

“Nice job on the Brimley knockout,” I say, wiping my face.

“He’s a dick.” Micah shrugs.

“Massive dick,” I agree. “Although it’s probably actually quite small.”

Micah snorts, looks me right in the eye, but his gaze slips, wandering over my face, studying me. I’m doing the same thing, tracing the jaw, the curve of his lips. We’re a girl and a boy again, but I can’t have hope, or anything resembling it. Because I know what the world does to hope, and weak things struggling to stay alive; it smears them across pavement, shears off their limbs, exposes their insides, and leaves them to die. I look away again; Micah lets go of my wrist, pulls his hand back.

“What is it?” he asks.

“I . . .” That one letter can barely make it out. The thing that says me can’t move into the air between us, because the world is a dangerous place, made for men. But I’m a girl who says what she thinks—or, I used to be. Maybe I’m still in there somewhere, past the pit, under the parts that fell into it. Maybe the girl who uses words to speak the truth can use her lips and tongue and teeth again. Maybe there are words to put between a girl who was harmed, and the boy she thinks hurt her.

“I don’t trust the world,” I tell Micah. “And I don’t trust you.”

“I knew it wouldn’t be easy.” Micah takes a deep breath and exhales shakily. It moves across my knuckles, the red, healing ridge of my impaled hand.