I hopped off the bed and picked up my Bread Bowl uniform pants off the floor. I headed to the dresser to get a shirt, fuming.
Celia was quiet while I dug for a shirt and clean underwear. Then, just as I turned to go into the bathroom to get ready for work, she said, “Are you really going to marry him, Alex?”
I turned. “Zack told you?”
She nodded. She was still standing in her pissed-off pose, but her eyes were big and moist. Even though she was in high school now, she suddenly looked like a little kid. “He told me some other stuff about Cole, too. Is it true? He hurts you?”
A million images and thoughts and memories crossed through my head all at once, nearly knocking me down under the weight of them.
Finally, I shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I answered. Probably the most honest thing I’d said in a long, long time.
“Well, you have to do something,” she said softly, then turned and left the room, shutting the door quietly behind her.
I dropped my clothes on the bathroom floor, then unfolded the piece of paper that had fallen off my nightstand when I picked up the magazine.
I cannot swallow your squared eyes
Sightless of my shrinking heart
My caving chest
Shoulders to the polished floor…
My poem. How did it get on my nightstand? I didn’t remember putting it there. I read it, even though I had it memorized by now, my chest feeling heavy and full, remembering the day that Cole sang it for me that first time on the curb at The Bread Bowl. A sob escaped me. I wanted that moment back so badly.
I lifted my eyes to the top of the paper, sniffling. I’d still never titled it.
I turned and rummaged through the vanity drawer, pulling out an old eyeliner pencil. Leaning over the bathroom counter, I scrawled “Bitter End” across the top. Cole was right—that title was perfect.
Then I wadded up the poem and threw it in the trash.
Straightening up, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I stared at my eyes long and hard—looking for that lost, empty look I’d seen in Mom’s eyes in the photos. Was it there, in my eyes, already?
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The one good thing to happen to me all day was that Dave had already been at The Bread Bowl and gone home again. Georgia was in the lightest mood I’d seen her in since he’d started hanging around, and Jerry seemed happy, turning up the kitchen radio and singing along when there weren’t any customers in the dining room.
I needed some lightening up myself. Craved it. So I joined in, singing along up front, joking with Georgia, even making some ugly little dolls out of cauliflower and calling them the Granite-Ass family.
Georgia had good news. Lily had been accepted into a progressive program for special-needs kids, and Georgia was convinced it would be the best thing to ever happen to her daughter. We grazed off the chocolate chip cookie tray to celebrate.
It was like one big party, and I was in a partying mood. Bring it on.
Which was why I was so caught off guard when the girl whose order I was ringing up suddenly took a hold of my wrist and pulled my arm toward her, bending down to look at the underside of my bicep, a stricken look on her face.
I jerked my hand away, my face getting warm. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place where I knew her from.
“What’s…?” I asked, but before I could get the whole sentence out, she spoke.
“You’re still with him?”
Honestly, at first I had no idea what she was even talking about. Then it occurred to me. She was looking at the pinch marks on the back of my arm, the lowest two of which barely showed if the short sleeve of my uniform pulled up just a few inches. Cole had pinched me yesterday, hard enough to leave marks, saying he was “just playing” and that I should “lighten up a little. Not everything is an after-school special.”
“You’re still with Cole?” she repeated, pointing to my arm.
And suddenly I knew where I’d seen her before: the movie theater.
Maria’s kind of a psycho, Cole had said. Nuts.
“You’re that girl from Pine Gate,” I said, and she nodded. “Maria, right?” The man standing behind her shifted his weight impatiently and sighed.
“Cole’s ex-girlfriend,” she said, glancing over her shoulder as if she expected to see him standing right behind her. “You’re still dating him.”
The guy behind Maria cleared his throat.
“I’ve got customers,” I said. But as I said it I knew, at that moment, I didn’t want Maria to leave. I had questions. I wanted answers. Things that didn’t make sense back at the movie theater when everything was good between Cole and me—they were now making perfect sense. She’d looked like she wanted to bolt back then. She’d looked… afraid.
Maria’s kind of a psycho had been Cole’s explanation. Her parents are friends with my parents. Used to be, I mean. Why “used to be,” Cole? Why in the past? I knew the answer now, I thought.
She started toward the other end of the counter, where Jerry already had her order on a tray.
“I get a break in fifteen minutes,” I said. She nodded and headed to a table in the back by the patio entrance.
When the line finally died down, I called to Georgia that I was taking my break and rushed to the dining room. Maria was done eating but was still sitting, sipping her drink and reading a paperback.
“I’m not really supposed to talk about it,” she said, without looking up from her book. I pulled out the chair across from her and sat down. She slipped a piece of paper into the book to mark her spot and stuffed it into her coat pocket. “Part of the lawsuit.”
“I don’t know anything,” I said. “He said your parents were friends.”
She gave a sardonic chuckle. “Not so much,” she said. “More like my parents wanted the money to pay the hospital bills after he broke my arm.”
Without thinking, I grabbed my wrist, the one he’d held so tightly in the tutor lab. She looked grim.
“I take it he’s still twisting arms?”
I don’t know why, but I moved mine to my lap, hidden under the table.
“I’m not the first,” I whispered.
“No,” she said. “He also used to hit this girl at my school, Jillian, when he was dating her. She dumped him, and he harassed her for a long time. They had to get a restraining order. I didn’t know any of this until after, you know.” She held up her arm.
“So that’s why he moved here?”
She nodded. “None of it was in the papers because we’re all minors. But, you know, people talk. And pretty soon everybody knew about it. Some of the guys would say things to him. Threaten him and stuff, you know.”
I sat there, stunned. It had never occurred to me that I might not be the only girl Cole had ever tormented. There’d always been that doubt, that part of me that insisted that he only did this because I was so difficult to live with. That he only did it because I pushed him, I asked too much of him, I didn’t respect him enough.
“I can’t believe it,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper.
“Listen, I don’t know you, and if you want to stay with him, that’s your business. But I thought I should tell you, since I saw the bruises on the back of your arm, that it’s only going to get worse. I thought he really loved me all the way up until I was in the ER. I actually still cried when my parents made me break up with him. He was always so sorry. So romantic about it. Did he put roses on your car?” When I didn’t answer, she nodded. “Yeah. But he’s going to kill somebody someday, and if I can stop it from happening to you, then maybe I didn’t live through the most horrible time of my life for nothing. Hopefully the counseling the judge ordered him to get will work.”
I sat, stunned, my mouth open. A judge ordered the anger counseling. Cole wasn’t going because he wanted to get better for me. He was going because he had to make up for what he’d done to Maria.
She stood, picked her purse up off the f
loor, and pulled a set of car keys out of her coat pocket. I picked up her tray.
“Good luck,” she said. “If you stay with Cole, you’re going to need it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see how much my mood changed while I was on break. I came back dazed and emotional, not wanting anything to do with Jerry’s songs or Georgia’s celebrations. I threw away the cauliflower Granite-Ass family.
All I could think about was that Maria wasn’t the only other one. He’d beaten not just me but other girls. Which meant Cole had a problem. And so did I, if I was going to stay with him.
My God, what was wrong with me that I was even considering staying with him? Girls. Plural.
The dinner rush was long and busy, thankfully distracting me, but as soon as it was over, I was left with the thoughts in my head again. Images racing. The times he made me feel small. The times he scared me. The times he hurt me.
And he’d hurt Maria worse.
He’s going to kill somebody someday, she’d said, and I almost immediately thought of his fingers digging into my neck so tightly while he punched me with his other hand.
And look at all I’d lost, being with him. Celia hated my guts. I’d let Shannin down. The grandmas knew something was up, for sure.
And then there were Bethany and Zack, the brother and sister who’d always understood me before. Suddenly they were a duo. A clear duo, telling me to stay away, forcing me to choose. And what had I chosen?
He’s going to kill somebody someday.
I’d even hurt Georgia, leaving her alone on the patio when she’d tried to reach out to me.
And then it struck me: Georgia. Of course.
I needed to talk to Georgia. The secret was out now. Maria knew. So did Zack and Bethany. Probably Zack’s mom. They’d even told Celia. Soon Dad would know, too, and what would I say to defend my decisions? How would I convince them I still needed this boy? How could it possibly not be over for Cole and me now?
I needed to tell Georgia. I needed to cry on her shirt and have her tell me it was okay and it wasn’t too late and this still wasn’t going to define me.
I moved super-slow on dining room cleanup after closing, to give Jerry plenty of time to get the kitchen cleaned and prepped for tomorrow. I swept carefully. I washed the windows. I filled each salt and pepper shaker painstakingly. I loaded up the condiment bar with napkins and half and half and little packets of mustard and horseradish sauce.
By the time I was done, Georgia was standing at the front counter, staring out into the dining room, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Wow,” she said. “Geoffrey isn’t going to have to do a thing in the morning.”
I didn’t say anything, just shoved stock back into the cabinet under the condiment bar.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s close up.” And then, when I still didn’t respond: “Earth to Alex. Come in, Alex.”
I closed the cabinet, and slid down to the floor. Just like that, it was as if an avalanche had fallen onto me. As if I were buried under feet of mud and rocks and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move.
All I could do was cry.
Months of pain and heartache and confusion and secrets, all pressing me down to the floor. That lump I’d worked so hard to keep down in the pit of my stomach finally broke loose.
“Hey,” I heard Georgia say, and then heard her footsteps coming nearer. “Hey,” she said again, crouching down next to me. “What’s going on? Something happen?”
It was one of those cries that felt like it had no end—like the breath had been stolen out of me. And when I finally managed to make my lungs move again, I gasped loudly, a torrent of tears coming out of me in raw, ragged jags.
“Honey,” Georgia said, but she trailed off, easing her bottom down onto the floor next to me and putting her arm around my shoulders.
And I let her. And I leaned into her. God, I needed her. I turned my face into her shoulder and clutched her arms with clawlike hands and melted and melted until there was nothing of me left.
We stayed like that for a long time, and when I felt so spent I was almost dizzy, Georgia began to speak.
“I’ve been suspecting,” she said. “He’s been hurting you, hasn’t he?”
Again, a long pause. I suppose she was waiting for me to say something, but I couldn’t. All I could do was sit in my dark rubble and wait.
“The little son of a bitch,” she muttered. “How bad has it been, honey?”
I turned my face to the side, the air cold against my nose, but I still didn’t open my eyes.
“Damn him,” she said. “I knew I should have done something. Alex. Honey. Talk to me, okay? You can trust me. I’ll help you. I’ll do whatever you need me to do. But you need to tell me what’s going on.”
She looked down at me—I could feel the movement—but I couldn’t make myself open my eyes. Couldn’t make myself admit that, yes, she was right. Couldn’t make myself admit that I now knew that I should have stayed on the patio with her that night. Should’ve let her warn me about him then.
“You’ll think I’m stupid,” I said.
This time when she moved, she moved her whole body, holding me out with her arms so I was forced to sit back and open my eyes. Her face looked haunted, ashen, as if she were just coming back from the dead.
She shook her head. “That’s what he wants you to think. But I know you, Alex. You’re not stupid. You’re just caught up in something too big to handle on your own. Let me help.”
She stretched up, pulled a napkin out of the dispenser above us, handed it to me, then got another and dabbed the corner of her eyes with it. I held the napkin she’d handed me in my lap and blinked.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said, tears starting anew, but softer and less desperate this time.
“You get away from him now while you still can,” she said. “You tell him good-bye.”
“What if I can’t?”
She reached over and touched my arm. “You love him.”
I nodded, wiping my nose with the napkin and folding it into a tiny square.
“Oh, honey,” she said, reaching over and pulling me in again. “I know,” she whispered. “I know.”
We talked for another hour, Georgia heating up hot cocoa just as she’d done before, and pulling two cookies out of the cookie case for us. Only this time instead of sitting on the patio, we stayed on the floor in front of the condiment counter, our backs leaning against the cabinet.
I told her everything that had happened. I told her about the spillway and his promises. I told her about the time he punched me, and about my tooth and the pinches on my arms. I told her why Bethany and Zack never come around anymore and how I felt as if I’d lost my best friends. And I told her how nice he always was afterward—giving me flowers and apologizing and telling me he loved me, and how a part of me believed him and felt sorry for him. How even when I was in pain, I was still in love with him.
And I told her about the photos. And about Colorado, and how I wanted to go there to find my mother’s spirit, and how I couldn’t explain it any better than that, and she said she understood. And I told her that I always thought of her as my mother, and she cried a little but laughed, too, and said, Well, then I order you, young lady, to get away from this boy or you’re grounded.
And by the time we washed our mugs and swept up our cookie crumbs and turned out the lights and locked the door, leaving the place sparkling for the morning shift, I had decided.
It was time to tell Cole good-bye.
CHAPTER FORTY
Georgia had ducked back inside to leave a note for the opening manager about some report Dave needed written up by day’s end, and I went on ahead of her, pulling my hoodie around myself.
My nose felt clogged and my eyes scratchy, and my chest hurt. And I was scared. But still I managed to feel better than I had felt in a long time. As if a weight had been lifted off. I was going to d
o what needed to be done forever ago. I would be honest. I would be unforgiving. Unflinching. I could do this. I was strong. I would do this. Next time I saw Cole I would know exactly what to do.
But I didn’t get a chance to prepare.
I rounded the corner and there, leaning against my car, was Cole.
“Have a nice party?” he said, and already I could tell by the tone of his voice he was pissed. “Took you long enough. Been waiting forever.”
“I had to close,” I said, edging up to him boldly—more boldly than I ever had before, even though I was so scared I was shaking. Even my voice trembled.
“I saw you talking to Maria,” he said. “Earlier.”
I shivered harder. How long had he been out here? My mouth moved as I tried to form words, but I didn’t know what to say.
“Let me guess what you two were talking about,” he said. “The weather?” He laughed bitterly at his joke. I pulled my car key out of my jacket pocket and thumbed the locks open. He grabbed the key out of my hand and pushed the button to lock the doors again.
“Cole,” I said, “give me my keys. I’m going home.”
Quickly, his arm darted out and grabbed the back of my hair. I made a noise, but he only pulled me in harder, twisting my head back so I’d look directly into his eyes.
“That bitch tell you a bunch of lies about me?” he asked.
I tried to shake my head. “No,” I said. “We were just talking. Let go.”
Immediately, I hated myself for going right back to that place of just saying anything, doing anything to make Cole happy. As if Georgia and I had never talked at all. As if nothing had changed. For a despairing moment I thought I’d never be able to tell him good-bye. That we’d always come back to this place—Cole with the upper hand, always.
Cole let go of my hair, glaring at me. “Liar,” he said. “You’re such a fucking liar, Alex.”
Inside, I rallied my strength. I had to do this. I had to tell him good-bye. Stand up for myself. Stand up for my future.