“This whole thing has been very disturbing for me.”

“I’m sure it has been,” he says. “Disturbing, that’s a good word.”

He stands up. Moves toward me.

“I have a fever,” I tell him. “You’d better stay away.”

I head for my bedroom, and hear him walking away past the marijuana plants that line my father’s shelves.

He’s left my house and gone to jerk off, I bet. Jerk off in the front seat of his cruiser. I’m in my bedroom and he’s imagining me here. A little girlyworld of Maybelline and heartthrobs Scotch-taped above pink pillows. Really, it’s a bare room of white walls and Justine’s books and skirts scattered all over the floor.

I try to sleep, but sleep’s not easy when you’re on speed. I guess the cop never left because now he’s knocking on my door. I ask him to leave; I tell him I’m too hot to talk. Fuck. He says we must, but I won’t. Just laughing at the thought of him banging down the bedroom door of a teenage girl. He imagines it pink and soft. He has no idea.

IN THE BUSHES WITH THE BURNOUT BOYS

I GUESS all this shit started when I was in the bush. I loved the bush. Behind our school, it was like some tangled, rising creature, hands reaching skyward; a thousand savage, skinny fingers. Evergreens and Scotch pines twisting with blackberry bushes and dead oaks. Mornings before school, I used to head into it with my stupid Swiss Army knife. Hack and chop a path leading into a clearing. And at lunch hour, I’d bring the burnout boys in.

I’m not making this up: the burnout boys all had one-syllable names: Bryce, Bruce, Dean, and Dale. They were only a bit wayward, but they thought they were real rebels. Bragging as they brought out their plastic baggies of mushrooms and weed.

May: the bush was rainsoaked; we were whacked around as we went in. I lifted branches back, holding them so the burnouts could enter. We sat on the ground, in a dry place, hidden from the concrete slab of our school. Here, the mountains faded from view. The blue sky went white.

It began to rain again, the pale, common May rain. I sat down on the dirt, lay back with my hair on a broad, mossy rock. The air smelled great at this moment—it smelled like rot and rain and Christmas.

Bryce drove his red pickup truck to the bush and opened the front door. Twelve o’clock: the Power Hour. Burnouts loved the Power Hour. Heaven. For them. They know every word. They sang along, pretending guitars were in their hands. They sang the Lemon Song to me.

Squeeze me baby so the juice runs down my leg.