Jon and Julie had gone to town that day to get the bags of food they were entitled to. They’d been walking home when the weather turned bad, and they’d run for shelter into one of the many empty houses on the road.
The house was furnished. People left or died, but the houses stayed the same.
They put the bags down and began to kiss. They’d been kissing for over two weeks. Twice, when Julie was certain they were alone, she’d let him touch her breasts.
Alex had been talking for as long as they’d been in Pennsylvania about taking Julie away, but somehow it never seemed to happen. Tomorrow it was going to happen, though. Maybe it was because everybody was leaving, but Jon felt desperate. He’d be left alone with Mom and Matt and Syl while everyone else was going to have a chance to live with other people. He was trapped.
It wasn’t enough to kiss, to touch. He was almost fifteen, and his life was over, and he’d never known a woman. This was his last chance, his only chance. He loved her. She had to let him just this once.
Julie broke away from him. “No,” she said. “Jon. No.”
He couldn’t understand why she was saying that. She’d said she loved him when he’d touched her breasts. She must want him as much as he wanted her. This was her chance as much as it was his.
But she fought him, shouting for him to stop. Which he wouldn’t do. Not then, their last day, his last chance.
Julie was tough. She clawed at him, tried kneeing him. But Jon was six inches taller, thirty pounds heavier, stronger, better fed. It was a fight he was bound to win, but he didn’t want it that way. He loved her. Didn’t she know that?
“I love you, Julie,” he said, convinced that would make her quiescent. You told a girl you loved her, she’d agree to anything. That’s what the guys at school had always said. You said the magic words, and the girl was yours.
But Julie didn’t seem to understand the rules. She didn’t say, “I love you, too,” or “Oh, Jon, Jon,” or not talk at all, but still let him have her.
Instead she kept trying to get away. The harder she tried, the angrier he got, the more he felt the need to make her his.
For three years this had been his memory of Julie. Her frantic cries for him to stop. Her struggle to escape.
Since he’d moved to the enclave, Jon had never taken a grubber girl by force. The other guys did without a second thought. That’s what the girls were there for.
But Jon wasn’t a rapist. Not in White Birch, not back in Pennsylvania. He didn’t rape Julie, no matter what he had led Sarah to believe. He’d wanted Julie more than he’d wanted anything in his life, but he’d honestly believed she wanted him, too. He did love her. He would have stopped.
But Julie didn’t know that. Somehow she broke away from him and ran outside, into the storm.
Jon had followed her, intending to calm her down before she went home and told everyone what he’d tried to do. Dad and Lisa loved Julie like a daughter, and Mom—well, Mom would have taken Julie’s side. He had to talk to Julie before she ruined his life.
Once Jon got outside, he realized the only thing that mattered was getting Julie indoors to safety. The rain had turned to hail, the wind was tornado level, and in the distance Jon could see a funnel cloud.
“Julie!” he screamed. “Julie! Come inside!”
But she didn’t listen, or if she did, she was more scared of him than the weather. She was a city girl. She didn’t know the power of a tornado. All she knew was Jon was taller and stronger and didn’t know what “No!” meant.
He managed to grab her just as the twister bore down. He flung Julie to the ground, lying on top of her, a human cross.
But Julie wiggled out from under him, not realizing that he was trying to protect her. She fought to stand up, but the wind pushed so hard against her that it bent her over.
Jon faced the same battle. It was a slow-motion chase, like in a cartoon, the wind a wall against which Julie and Jon struggled to free themselves.
“Hold on!” he shouted, grabbing hold of a tree. But Julie didn’t hear him or wouldn’t listen. She kept trying to run.
Then the wind got her. It lifted her and threw her down against the ground.
He held on to the tree until the wind lessened. Only then did Jon go to her body.
She’s dead, he thought. She’ll never tell.
But only her body was dead. Julie’s mind was still alive. The terror in her eyes screamed of life.
She was completely helpless now, Jon realized. All she had was her mind and her fear.
“No,” she said to him. “Jon, no.”
He stared at her. All their friendship, all their love, had died along with Julie’s arms and legs. She’d run into a storm and the storm had killed her, and still she feared what Jon would do to her.
“Julie, it’s all right,” Jon said, knowing it wasn’t, it never would be. “I have to get help. I have to find Alex and get help.”
“I can’t move,” she said. “I can’t feel anything.”
“I know,” he said. “But I have to go. They don’t know where we are, Julie. I have to tell them where you are.”
“I’m scared, Jon,” she said. “I’m so scared.”
He wanted to pick her up, hold her in his arms, comfort her. But he’d lost the right to touch her.
“I’ll be back,” he said instead. “Pray, Julie. Pray.”
He brought Matt and Dad back to her. Alex was missing, Miranda hysterical. Charlie was dead, and Lisa and Gabe were trapped.
Julie had lingered for two days. He’d never gone to see her, to beg forgiveness.
But she never told. Maybe it was because Alex didn’t get back in time and Lisa couldn’t get out to see her. The only people Julie saw in those hours before she died were his family, his father, mother, brother, sister. And none of them indicated to Jon that Julie had told them anything.
She’d said she loved him and she did. She protected him when she wouldn’t allow him to protect her. She’d faced her death bravely. Perhaps she even forgave him.
But Jon could never forgive himself. He hadn’t raped Julie, but he’d killed her.
The rain fell on him, but it couldn’t wash away his sins. Nothing could. Julie would haunt him for the rest of his life. She controlled him in death as she never had in life. She was his hell.
PART TWO
Chapter 8
“I don’t believe this,” Mom fumed. “I spent three hours waiting to get into the store yesterday, and I forgot to buy soap.”
“We can live without soap for a week,” Miranda said. “Don’t worry about it, Mom.”
“We can’t live without it,” Mom said sharply. “Not with all those chemicals you work with. It’s dangerous enough for the baby. You’ve got to wash them off you whenever you can. No, I’ll go back. Maybe the line won’t be so long today.”
“Mom, it’s always worse on Sunday,” Miranda said.
“I’ll go,” Jon said. “Soap and what else?”
“I hate it when you go,” Mom said. “It’s taking advantage of the system.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” Alex said. “And it’s the one advantage we can take. Thanks, Jon. I don’t think we need anything else.”
“I’ll go with you,” Carlos said. “I could use a breath of fresh air.”
“Good luck finding some,” Alex said.
Jon didn’t blame Carlos for wanting to get out. The tension was palpable. Mom’s outburst about soap had felt like a volcano spewing steam.
“The market’s about five blocks away,” Jon told Carlos as they began the walk. “Mom does the shopping Saturday afternoons because her school day ends at noon.”