I quickly picked up the spatula again and started shoveling cookies into the cookie case, double-time, acting as if I hadn’t heard a thing.
But then I heard another set of footsteps swishing up behind me, followed by Dave’s unmistakable voice. “What’s going on here? Anna?”
Immediately, Celia and Zack stopped their finger-sword fight and hustled back to their booth, where Zack’s parents were gathering up their trash.
I turned around. “I’m sorry,” I said. “That’s my sister. She’s just…” I trailed off, not sure what to say that would not make Granite-Ass even angrier at me than he already was.
Georgia, who’d been the one standing behind me in the first place, didn’t say a word. She just stared at my wrist, which I held out in front of me awkwardly, gripping the spatula in the air.
Dave’s face went stony and red. It was like watching someone build a brick wall right in front of you. His jaw moved outward a few times, and he took a giant breath in. I almost expected him to let the air out in a gale of screaming, but instead he just said very calmly, “This is not a place for you and your friends—or siblings, whatever—to mess around. I can’t have customers being bothered by a couple kids wrestling up front for the jollies of the cashier.”
“I kept telling them…” I said, but he held out a hand to silence me. He turned to Georgia, who was still staring at my wrist. I laid the spatula down on the pan and sank my hand as far as it would go into my apron pocket.
“This go on all day?” he asked, gesturing at me. “Is that why this store is losing money? Are your employees’ friends driving away all the paying customers while they drink free soda refills and act like this is their personal playground?”
“No,” I said before Georgia could even open her mouth. “No. We don’t play around here. Plus, my sister and her friend were here with his parents. They paid.”
Georgia reached over and put her hand on my arm. She didn’t need to speak for me to hear the message loud and clear: Don’t go to bat here. This is my fight to fight.
“I try to discourage them from chatting when their friends are here. But with this store being so close to the high school, I can’t keep the teenagers out. We’d go under. This,” Georgia motioned toward the dining room, “is truly a one-time thing.”
“Every time I’m here, Anna is gabbing with some friend or another,” Dave countered.
“Alex,” I mumbled, even though I knew he didn’t hear me. And even if he did, he’d never care enough to get it right.
“Dave, I really think we should be concentrating on these fall promos…” Georgia answered, letting go of my arm and ushering him back into her office. My arm felt cool where her warm hand had just been resting. I shivered.
Zack waved good-bye as they left, mouthing the word sorry to me, and I was left balancing a half-filled cookie sheet on the counter against my side, my other hand stuffed in my apron pocket.
I pulled it out and gazed at it. I was stupid to think the concealer would cover up the finger-shaped bruises there. I could still see them, looking rotten and black under a film of beige.
And Georgia could definitely see them. She was staring right at them. Staring right through the concealer and the foundation and the powder at the ugly mess beneath.
The question was… could she see through me?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
For a while I considered just marching into Georgia’s office and holding my wrist up and telling her everything.
After all, this was the sort of thing you would tell a mom, right? You’d show her the bruises and cry on her shirt and tell her you still love him and ask her what you’re supposed to do now. And she would give you advice and say she understands and tell you that you’re beautiful and this won’t define you. That it can’t, no matter what, ever define who you are.
But when I stepped into Georgia’s office to time out at the end of my shift, she was sitting there with a wadded-up tissue in her hand, and her voice was scratchy and her nose was stuffy and I realized that I couldn’t lean on her today because today just wasn’t a good day for her to be my mom, and if she really was my mom it wouldn’t matter because your mom is your mom no matter what kind of day she’s having. And as much as Georgia was like a mom to me, she wasn’t and never would be my mom, so she could have bad days off.
And then I thought of Brenda, and how it seemed as though she was always having bad days, and I felt sorry for Cole, despite everything, and could understand why he was so stressed and angry with nobody to lean on. And just like that, I realized that in a way, what happened yesterday had already started defining me anyway; I was making excuses for why he hurt me.
I’d heard the muffled shouts coming from behind the office door as I finished stocking the cookies. It went on for what seemed like forever. Dave’s voice, on edge, rising, falling, rising, falling, then answered by Georgia’s voice, steadily loud.
Then Dave stormed out, and a few seconds later I saw his silver Lexus squeal away at the stoplight, but before I could go back to the office, the dinner rush started and I was too busy to do anything but fill soup orders.
I heard a heavy clink as Georgia slammed the safe, and the creak of her office chair as she pulled herself out of it. And then she retreated into the kitchen, where she stayed until just a few minutes before my shift was over.
“I’m sorry,” I said, while I typed in my ID number to clock out. “I really did tell them to cut it out. I hope I didn’t get you into trouble.”
She rested an elbow up on the desk and palmed her forehead, then looked up at me, her red-rimmed eyes watery and weak behind her glasses. “You didn’t,” she said. “But I saved your ass. I probably won’t be able to again.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I mean, thank you. I…”
“Don’t,” she interrupted. “He’s just a fool. Don’t give him the dignity of responding to that shit. He doesn’t know the first thing about compassion.”
A tear slipped out from under her glasses, and she wiped at it with a tissue.
“Georgia?” I said softly. “Everything okay?”
I could swear I saw her flick the tiniest of glances at my wrist. She stood up, took a deep breath, dabbed at her eyes again, and said, “You like hot chocolate?”
She didn’t wait for me to respond. She pushed past me and I followed her out of the office and back up front, where she poured two cups of hot chocolate and carried them out through the dining room and outside to the empty patio.
“I’m taking a quick break,” she called to Clay, the new hire, just before letting the door swish shut behind us.
It was getting dark on us already. The lights on the outside of the building were on, and moths fluttered around them manically, bumping into them repeatedly, as if they thought if they could fly hard enough into just the right spot, they might make it through that light after all.
It had finally started to get cold in the evenings, and I was wishing I’d brought a hoodie with me. The breeze seemed to whip right through my polo, and before I even sat down I was shivering.
Georgia set the mugs on a table and pulled out a chair—the same one Bethany had been sitting in on the day we first saw Cole here. Georgia used her hand to wipe off a couple of stray leaves, then moved around to the other side, did the same, and sat down.
“Whoo, winter’s gonna be here before we know it,” she said, picking up her mug and blowing across the top. I thought maybe I could see steam float away when she did that, but probably that was just me feeling cold and thinking it was colder than it was.
“Feels like it’s already here,” I said, easing down into the chair and wrapping both hands around my mug. “Thanks for the hot chocolate.”
She waved me away. “Lily loves the winter,” she said, looking out over the highway at the rush-hour cars lined up at the stoplights, their headlights lit and their windows dark. “But, oh, it’s such a pain, trying to get her from place to place in all that snow and slush and ice in
a wheelchair. I’m not ready for it already.”
“How’s Lily doing in school?” I asked.
Georgia smiled. “Aw, she loves it this year. Has a great teacher. Just great.” She was silent for a moment, sipping her hot chocolate. I followed her lead and took a drink of mine, too, and was instantly warmed. The shivering died down a little, and I took another.
“You know,” Georgia said at last, “one thing about winter is you can hide a whole lot of flaws with all those big, bulky clothes.”
I stopped in midsip and looked at her over the top of my mug. She was still staring out over the highway, her forefinger wrapped in the handle of her mug.
Without thinking, I set my mug down and rested my hands in my lap. “Uh-huh.” My voice was quiet and uncertain.
Finally she snapped out of her highway trance and leaned back in the chair, patting her neck. “I can wear turtlenecks and hide this damn turkey gobbler I’ve got going on.”
I giggled. “You don’t have a turkey gobbler,” I said, even though, now that she said it, I could totally see that she did.
“Girl, just you wait. You’re beautiful now, but eventually you’ll turn forty, and next thing you know you’ll be gobbling and hiding behind the couch come Thanksgiving.”
We laughed, and I sipped my hot chocolate again, picturing Georgia with a big set of tail feathers.
“Just make sure,” she said, interrupting my thoughts with a very serious tone, “that you’re not hiding things that shouldn’t be hidden.”
The giggles rushed up on one another and died right there in my throat—a stagnant stockpile that created a lump so huge I thought for sure Georgia could see it on the outside.
“I don’t know what…” I said, my voice sounding all strangly coming around that lump. “Like what?”
She reached over and grabbed my hand, which I’d absentmindedly rested on the table again. My wrist actually didn’t look bruised under the concealer in the dark. It looked like a perfectly normal wrist, and had it not been for the way her eyes looked liquid and searching, I might have denied that anything was there. Instead, I just swallowed.
“Is he hurting you?” she said, her voice low and urgent.
And once again I had this thought that I’d finally been given my chance to come clean about what had happened between Cole and me. I finally had my chance to talk about it. To get my advice. To cry because I still loved him and was worried that he was so mad he’d never come back. And cry even harder because I knew how that made me sound and I so didn’t want to be that girl, the one everyone pities because she is too stupid to stop loving an abuser.
But once again, saying those things felt like trouble. I knew that I was going to work harder than hell to keep this from ever happening again. And if I spilled it all out now, then when he came around, everyone would hate him and I’d lose him for sure. The lump surged forward—pulsating and begging to be let out—but I couldn’t break it loose. I had to keep it down in there, undulating and safe.
I shook my head.
She closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath. “You sure?” she asked. “Because that doesn’t look like a door slam to me. That looks like fingerprints.”
Once again, my wrist felt as if it were on fire, only this time the fire spread up my arm and into my face, and I was sure if I opened my mouth again, everything would spill out of me in a rush. I pulled my hand out of hers and stood up, the backs of my knees pushing the chair back on the patio with a loud grating sound.
“I’ve gotta go,” I said. And before Georgia could so much as argue, I bolted back through the restaurant and out the doors I had come in through at the beginning of the day.
I was digging through my purse for my keys and concentrating so hard on getting out fast, before Georgia could come after me. I was almost all the way to my car before I saw Cole leaning against it.
In an instant, my fingers went numb and I dropped my keys on the ground. I bent over to pick them up, my heart beating so hard it felt as if it was going to pop right out of the top of my head. I was hit with a rush of emotions—so many of them, I wasn’t sure what I was feeling at all.
“Hey,” he said, pushing off from the side of the car as I stepped down off the sidewalk. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I had a meeting with my manager,” I said, stopping a good distance from him. I tried to pull off cool and uninterested, but I was certain he could see my chest heaving in and out under the force of my heartbeat.
“I know,” he said. “I saw you.”
Are you spying on me now? my mind echoed from our earlier argument, but I shooed the thought away. There was only one way in and out of The Bread Bowl employee parking lot, and that required you to drive past the store. He probably just drove past us when he got here.
Unsure of what to do next, I took an awkward step toward the driver’s side door, punching the unlock button on my key. The blinkers flashed yellow against his forehead, making it look like the edges of my bruises. Again I pushed those thoughts away and tried, with whatever faltering grip I had left, to hold on to my take-you-or-leave-you attitude.
But finally, the leather of his jacket creaking, he moved forward, cupping my cheeks with his hands.
“Alex,” he breathed, then pulled me into a hug. I tried not to react—to just stay stiff—but I could feel myself thawing. I couldn’t get that hug from Georgia. I couldn’t get it from anyone. Not Bethany or Zack or even my dad. But I could get it from Cole. And it didn’t matter what he’d done—being enveloped felt so good, no matter who was giving it out.
I leaned into him. My body felt hungry up against his, and for the briefest second I could imagine that nothing had ever happened and that everything was good now. Everything was perfect. Even though I knew it wasn’t.
He pulled away, his hands sliding down my arms. He stopped at my hands and pulled them up, turning them over to inspect my wrists. He stared at them, dropping my good hand and tracing my hurt wrist softly with his forefinger. He lifted it and kissed it, gently, tenderly, once, twice, three times.
“My Emily Dickinson,” he whispered, and when he searched my face with his again, I could see sorrow in it, just like before at the lake. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “My Alex, I’m so, so sorry.”
I pulled my arms away from him and stepped back. “You should be,” I said, my voice ragged. “You just assumed I was screwing around on you. You didn’t even let me explain.”
He reached for me again, but again I stepped back, determined to let him know how I felt about everything that had happened. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I should have… you’re right… it’s just… God!” he turned and kicked the wall of The Bread Bowl, cramming his hands into his jacket pockets. “It’s just my parents. Brenda’s put herself in the hospital again. And my dad… you’d think the whole freaking world was basketball. And you told me you weren’t going to let Zack touch you anymore. I just… I can’t deal, Alex.” He lurched toward me, grabbing my arms and pulling me into him. I could feel his frustration running tight through his body. He wrapped himself around me, burying his face in my neck. “You understand,” he said. I could feel his breath on my neck, giving me goose bumps. “I know you understand. You’re the only one who does. Please forgive me, Alex. Please. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Tears—of relief, sadness, understanding—started falling down my face, wetting both of our cheeks as they brushed together. “I swear to you, I’ll never hurt you again,” he said into my hair. And then he turned me so that my back was against the car, and he kissed me like I’d never been kissed before, his hands rushing all over me, like he was assessing that all the parts were present and accounted for, unbroken, undamaged.
After a long time, he pulled back. He ran his hands through his hair, then wiped them across his messy face, which was covered with streaks of my mascara. He used his thumb to wipe my cheeks, so gently I could barely feel them against my skin.
“I’ll neve
r hurt you again,” he whispered, and I believed him.
This was nothing, I convinced myself. I could fix it. We could fix it together.
I was so glad I’d rushed out of The Bread Bowl before I told Georgia the truth.
I would tell nobody. What had happened would be our secret. He and I would share it alone. Another reason that he and I had to stay together. We already shared so much. This was just another piece of us that we—and only we—owned.
I could feel my body relaxing as he pulled me tighter against him, as if he were holding on to a life preserver, whispering and dropping kisses into the hairs at the nape of my neck. And more than anything, I was glad that I hadn’t told anyone what had happened between us.
An hour later—my lips numb and sore from all the kissing, my eyes tired from all the crying—I knew I’d done the right thing by keeping this a secret. I was all Cole had. I understood him. And we would work through this together. I didn’t feel guilty at all for leaving Georgia sitting on the patio alone.
It’s just… I didn’t expect her to still be sitting there when I drove by on my way home, her eyes on Cole’s car following behind me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I was still carrying the coffee that Cole had brought when he picked me up for school, and I almost spilled it on him when Bethany bounded up to me.
“Guess what?” she said, practically bubbling over. “Guess what?”
“What?” I said, jerking my arm away from her flailing hands to save my coffee.
“Watch it,” Cole snapped, pulling back, like he was being hit by a scalding tidal wave or something. Funny how Bethany’s presence could wind Cole tight like that. Just minutes ago he’d been standing at my door, grinning over a steaming coffee, kissing me after I sipped it, smacking his lips and saying, Mmm, sweet! And the coffee’s tasty, too! and making me giggle. He’d just been joking with me in the car, squeezing my knee and putting my name into dirty limericks, making plans for all the things we’d do together over Christmas break. And now he was snapping at us like he’d woken up on the wrong side of the Earth this morning.