Under the Dusty Sky (Holloway Farms)

as he drove away from me last weekend…again. I have too many guys in my life with too much power over me.
    “ Hey D,” I mutter and lean on his shoulder.
    “ What’s up, Gracie?” he asks and hands me a bottle with a clear liquid. Vodka. I hate the stuff, but I need to kill all these feelings. I grab the bottle, watching Lacy narrow her eyes at me from across the fire, but I take a swallow anyway, wiping it off the corners of my mouth. It scalds my insides as it slides down my throat and settles its burn in my stomach.
    “ Easy, Killer,” D says and takes the bottle. “Something wrong?”
    “ Everything.”
    D touches my lower back and slips his hand under the hoodie so he’s running his fingers along my bare spine, a motion that would have led to make-out-session-necessity a couple weeks ago. But this time? Nothing. Absolutely nada. The only thing I feel is my stomach lining being eaten by alcohol.
    He leans into me and presses his mouth to my ear. “You wanna talk about it?”
    That’s guy code for hookup.
    I nod against his face, and he bites my earlobe playfully before taking my hand and pulling me up. I must have taken a much bigger haul on that bottle than I thought because I wobble slightly when I stand. The buzz of rarely ever drinking takes its hold on me, and the feelings start to fade just a little. I lace my fingers with Dermott’s and don’t look back because I know between Lacy and Brandon I’ll be charred to ash by their glares.
    We leave the way we came in and make our way to the bleachers, totally cliché but so totally private. Halfway across the field, D wraps his arms around my waist and kisses my neck with that hunger. There’s nothing slow about him. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it’s not like Ben.
    I shouldn’t be thinking about Ben right now. I pull the vodka from D’s hand and take another burning gulp.
    Now that D’s hands are both free, he reaches up and unzips my hoodie all the way.
    “ Dermott!” I hiss. “You can at least wait until we get there.”
    He bites down on my shoulder. “No, babe. Actually, I can’t.”
    I giggle from the alcohol and spin around in his arms, wrapping my own arms around his neck. He walks me backwards to our destination, and at the exact second we disappear behind the metal and wooden stands, D grabs me by my butt and hoists me up so my legs wrap around him. He presses me against the metal bars, and his mouth crushes mine. D’s a great kisser, his hands, his mouth, his tongue all work together to accomplish exactly what they need to, but as he kisses me and I rake my hands through his hair like I have so many times before, I still feel nothing. All the hot aching need I used to feel when we’d ‘talk about stuff’ is gone. I press harder into him, deepening the kiss. The movement becomes wild. The kiss is desperate. I clutch his shirt in one hand, a fist full of hair in the other. The harder I kiss him, the more urgently he returns the gesture.
    But there’s nothing.
    I mean, it feels good. He feels good. But I wish he was someone else. All I see is Ben.
    My eyes snap open, and I place my hands on Dermott’s shoulders and push. He leans back, really breathy and grinning.
    “ You stoppin’ me already, babe? Usually we get a little further than this before you decide to put on your purity ring.”
    He laughs, and I glare. I hate the purity joke. Like being a virgin means you’re automatically pure, that the other stuff we do is separate and apart from my virginity. Lacy is a thousand times more pure than I am, and she’s not a virgin.
    “ Seriously?” I ask and lower my legs to the ground. He steps back. His angles, his build, those lips. I should feel it, but I don’t. Like a leaking tap, cold drops run down my spine as the realization washes over me, and Ben’s image floods me again.
    He’s not Ben. I step out from behind the bleachers, and D grips my hand, pulling me back to him.
    “ Gracie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a prick about it.” His eyes plead with me, and I’m stabbed with guilt. D’s a nice guy. This vodka is not doing a good job of stopping the feelings. I lean down to pick up the bottle from where I dropped it. I squeeze his hand and take a swig.
    “ I can’t, D. We can’t do this anymore.”
    I turn and leave. When I’m a few steps onto the field, I hear a loud curse and a bang that reverberates through the sky from whatever Dermott kicked or punched. The noise makes me spin and plop