Condescending

I stay crouched in the shadows behind the boxes. I can’t see anything, nor do I want to. But I can’t help hearing everything that’s going on between Kathy and Dirk.

“Not bad at all,” he compliments her. To me, his words sound arrogant. Or is that just because I think he’s a jerk?

A slap, a hand on skin. On her butt? Her cheek? I don’t know.

“Should we go back inside?” Kathy’s voice. His reply is a mumble, unintelligible.

A door opens, and the music from the club blasts out as if it had been searching for an outlet to unleash its full volume. Then the door slams shut, and all the sounds are muffled.

Shit, what do I do now? Follow them and pretend nothing happened? No way.

Just walking out isn’t an option either—how would I explain that I left without saying goodbye?

What have I gotten myself into? I’m caught in the middle. As if the situation wasn’t complicated enough already.

And now?

There were too many “ands”: Dirk and Dad. Dirk and Mom. Dirk and Kathy. Dirk and… me?

Was there ever an “him and me” to begin with?

I don’t think so. There’s nothing between us. At least nothing serious, and certainly nothing physical.

And yet I wish there were—somehow.

My eyes are burning. I don’t want to cry. I wipe the bridge of my nose with the back of my hand.

Scraping footsteps approach.

What? Who?

I make myself even smaller, frozen like a rabbit afraid the fox is approaching.

A box is moved. A large figure looms over me.

Dirk.

“What are you doing here?”

I squint up at him. The club’s exterior light shines directly behind him, turning him into a silhouette.

He phrased his sentence as a question, but I’m almost certain he knows exactly how long I’ve been sitting here and that I’ve been watching Kathy and him. I bite my lip.

He holds out his hand to help me up. “Come on.” The gesture feels condescending not just in the literal sense, because he’s taller than me and standing over me.

I decline his help and push myself up against the rough wall behind me as I stand.

“I want to go home.” My voice is a mix of childish defiance and embarrassing shame.

“Of course you do.”

His hand rests on my shoulder. I freeze for a moment and resist, before letting him guide me toward the gate leading from the backyard to the street.

A question pops into my head. “What about Kathy? She’ll be wondering where we’ve gone.”

“I’ll call her later. She gave me her number.”

As I buckle up in the passenger seat and he gets behind the wheel, I think: ‘Where are we going? Home?’