CHAPTER FOUR

I open my eyes, and I'm in Vivian Chase's backyard again. This time, she's not wearing a two-piece. This time, she's not wearing anything.

She smiles at me and spreads her legs. "Hey there, Nathan. Do you want to come inside?"

I look down and see that I'm also naked. A certain part of my body is very eager to take advantage of Vivian's offer.

The next thing I know, she's in my arms. I can feel her body wrapping around me, whispering in my ear, "Yes, Nathan. Oh yes. Just like that, baby."

She kisses me, and I feel a tremor run down my body. When she pulls away, she says, "Oh yes. You like that, don't you, baby? Does that feel good?"

"Yes, Vivian. Oh yes."

She giggles and says, "I'm so glad you let me see more of you."

She pulls my lips to hers again. Our movements grow feverish, and my heart begins to pound as we near the end.

"Hey, pool boy."

I open my eyes. I'm not with Vivian anymore. Instead, I'm in the Kensington's backyard. Lila stands in front of me. She's dressed in her underwear, and the sight of her like that is just as powerful as the sight of Vivian without hers.

She smiles at me and folds her arms over her chest. "If you're going to stare at me like that, you might as well do something about it."

I look down and realize that my body is just as excited as it was a moment ago. I look up at Lila, and she's walking away, letting her hips sway and looking over her shoulder at me.

"Come catch me, pool boy."

I run after her. She laughs and begins running, too. I nearly reach her when she dives forward. I hear a splash and look down to see her in the pool. I frown a moment, confused. Weren"t we just running away from the pool?

I stop wondering when she lifts her bra over her head and tosses it to the side. The rippling water obscures the view when she takes her panties off, but it doesn't take much for me to imagine what she's revealing.

"Come catch me, pool boy," she repeats.

I dive in after her, and this time, she lets me catch her. She laughs when I pull her close and kiss her hungrily on her lips, her neck, her shoulders, her perfect, taut breasts.

"Slow down, Nate. There's no need to be in such a hurry."

I try to slow down, but I can't. I grab her hips and pull her close, desperate to reach the conclusion of my efforts and feel us connect the way Vivian and I connected only minutes ago. She laughs again and wraps her legs around me, helping me.

"Okay, then," she teases. "If you insist."

She pulls me in, and I moan as the sensations start. Then I catch something out of the corner of my eye. I look to the left and cry out.

Vivian Chase is watching us, still naked, her arms crossed over her chest and a teasing smile on her face. I start to stammer an apology when Lila laughs and turns my head to the right.

A chill runs through me when I see Julian and Clara Kensington also watching. Julian has his arms crossed, and he's smiling his slightly contemptuous smile. Clara is holding a cocktail glass in one hand and a needle in the other.

"What the hell?" I cry out.

I try to push Lila off of me, but she squeezes her legs around my hips and moves more urgently on top of me. The combination of pleasure and mortification is nauseating.

"Please," I whisper. "Please stop."

"Relax, buddy," a final voice says, and I realize that the security guard is here too.

So are the Chos and the Patels and the Van Huycks. Every person I've met in this neighborhood is gathered around the Kensington's pool watching Lila ride me like it's the last night of her life.

"I told you," Lila says, "Everyone spies on everyone here."

Her face changes from a teasing smile to a primal, almost predatory snarl. She grabs my hips and slams her own hips down onto me hard and fast, her eyes boring into me with something that looks almost like hate.

All thoughts of pleasure are gone. I scream and struggle, trying to pull away from her, trying to get out of here, but I can't move. I can only close my eyes and wait for it to end.

"Oh God! Oh no, no, NO! Annie!"

I open my eyes again, and I"m no longer in the Kensington"s pool. I"m no longer naked, either. Lila"s not here, and neither is Vivian or any of the others.

I"m on a sidewalk in Encino. My sidewalk. The sidewalk in front of my old house. I"m not nineteen anymore, either. I"m ten years old, and I"m staring at the body of my sixteen-year-old sister. Her pretty brown hair is caked and matted with blood. One side of her face is smashed in, and her left leg is twisted awkwardly, torn and broken from the impact with the sports car that hit her at ninety miles per hour.

"Annie!"

That's my mother screaming. She's younger now, ten years younger, but she looks twenty years younger. She's beautiful. Even more beautiful than Vivian Chase, though I don't think of that beauty the same way.

She won't be beautiful for much longer. Five weeks from now, she'll take her first drink. She won't stop drinking. Two years later, my father will divorce her. I'll cry and beg him to stay, and he'll look at me like I'm dirt stuck to his shoe and won't bother to answer me. Two years after that, Mom and I will be evicted from our house and move to the shitty apartment in Cudahy where we live now.

Six months after that, I'll come home from school to find my mom on a bender. She'll look at me with contempt and hate and say, "I wish it was you."

***

I wake up and sit bolt upright, crying out. I sit still a minute, hoping my mother didn't hear.

Of course, she didn"t. She"s still drunk. She won"t hear anything for the next twelve hours.

There's moisture on my face, and I can't tell if it's sweat or tears. Probably both.

I roll out of bed and fall to my knees, clasping my fists and putting my head down on the mattress like I'm praying. I'm not praying. I decided a long time ago that if God was real, He didn't give a shit about people like me.

My heart pounds in my chest, and I breathe huge gulps of air. I feel like I'm drowning. My body shakes, and my mouth feels clammy and dry at the same time.

"God," I whisper hoarsely, still not praying. "Oh God."

It's a long moment before the shaking calms down. I try to remember what I was dreaming about, and to my dismay find the images—all of them—just as clear as they were when they occurred.

I try to forget what I was dreaming, but I can't. The images run around my head in circles, refusing to release me.

But one thing can release me.

I lift my eyes to the closet and feel a rush of mixed fear and desire course through me.

Desire's the wrong word. This is more like desperation.

I tear my head away and sob softly, clamping my hands in front of me and squeezing hard enough that my palms turn white, and my fingers turn a bright shade of red.

"Please," I whisper, "God please."

But God doesn't answer my prayer. I still see my sister's body on the pavement in front of me, and when I open my eyes, I continue to see it, lifeless, mangled, just like the family she left behind, just like the life I'm forced to live.

It won't matter if I get out of this apartment. It won't matter if I get out of Cudahy. It won't matter if I end up living in Autumn Downs or Beverly Hills or the Palace of Fucking Versailles. I'll never escape the memory of Annie's body lying broken in a pool of her own blood.

But I can numb the pain. I can push it away. I can find relief for a moment.

I make one last effort to stay strong. "God, please."

God remains silent.

I sigh, and the strength leaves my body. My hands unclench, and I collapse onto the bed for a moment. Then I stand and walk toward the closet and the relief that waits hidden inside.