Chapter 36 Rock Bottom
Thirty-Six
Rock Bottom
I dried my face on the front of my shirt and checked my phone. Mom had texted me.
MOM
Are you coming back?
No. I’ll wait for you in the car.
MOM
Are you okay?
I was going to type back that I was fine, but I wasn’t. I was far from that.
No
MOM
What’s wrong?
I’ll tell you when you get here.
MOM
Another recruit is testifying and then they’ll adjourn for the day. I’ll be there as soon as I can.
I turned on the car to warm it up, and while it was past my allotted time for drinking caffeine, I wanted a Red Bull so bad. I needed something, anything, that would give me comfort.
Resting my head on the steering wheel, I closed my eyes…and went numb. Almost like I was in a trance. I breathed in and out. In and out. Oblivious to time. Unaware of space.
A rap sounded on the window, and I jumped.
It was Mom.
I opened the door and got out.
“Hi, sweetie.” She gave me the biggest, strongest hug. Then her hands fluttered up to brush pieces of my hair aside. “Oh, honey, it looks like you’ve been crying. Should we talk in the car?”
I nodded.
She got into the driver’s side, and I went around to the passenger side. She blasted the heat, threw the car into reverse, and away we went. She paid at the attendant kiosk, and the next thing I knew, we were winding through the one-way streets of downtown Minneapolis.
“What’s going on?” she finally asked.
I cleared my throat. I needed to choose my words wisely. “Lately, I kind of sort of started hanging out with a guy at school.”
Her brow creased. “That’s great, Ade, but what does that have to do with this afternoon?”
I paused to collect myself, taking a deep breath and exhaling. “This guy, his name is Dallas. Dallas Reynolds.”
Mom frowned. “Isn’t that the name of the witness who testified today?”
I nodded.
She sucked in a breath, but still managed to check her rearview mirrors, toss a glance over her shoulder, and change lanes. After she was done, she looked at me. “That poor young man who lost his mother to cancer?”
“Yes. Him.”
“Did you know he was going to be a witness?”
“No.”
“Oh,” she said quietly.
I clenched my teeth. She wasn’t freaking out like I had.
Maybe I needed to tell her more. That he’d broken my heart. Actually, it was worse than that—he’d pulled my heart apart like monkey bread, and now it was sticky and getting all over everything.
Putting my face in my hands, I used all my willpower to keep myself from crying again, but I couldn’t control my trembling shoulders or my whimper.
She put her hand on my knee. “Sweetie, I’m so sorry. I hate seeing you this upset.”
I dragged my hands over my face. “He knew.” My voice sounded like cracking ice. “He knew exactly who I was and that he would be testifying against Dad, but he didn’t tell me.”
She placed both hands back on the steering wheel. “He knew?”
“Yes, and he didn’t say a word.” A flood was building inside me.
“That doesn’t sound very honorable, but, Ade, maybe there’s a reason he couldn’t.”
The waters were pressing against my heart, trying to find a way out. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe he signed a document that bound him to secrecy.”
“That can’t be true. If you watch any courtroom show or read any books, both sides know who’s on the witness list.”
“Maybe he just recently got subpoenaed and he hadn’t been able to tell you yet.”
“Impossible. We slept together last night.”
Silence filled the car interior.
“Then you’re not just hanging out with him.”
“Right.”
Mom stared straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel harder. “I hope you two are using protection.”
“Of course we are.”
“Should I take you to the doctor so you can get on the pill?”
“Mom!”
She flinched. “Sorry, I’m just processing over here.”
“Well, you don’t need to, because it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over between us.”
She glanced at me. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. He was a fraud. Just like me. Both of us trying to be someone we were not.
Because who was I kidding? Even if I could sleep, I was never going to be on any dean’s list. I was never going to have the GPA to get into upper division chemical engineering.
I was never going to be good enough.
An ache the size of a watermelon swelled inside my throat.
“Oh, honey.” Her hand was back on my knee and squeezing. “I know how horrible you must feel, especially with”—she cleared her throat —“how close you must be with him, but I think you should also look at it from his perspective too. He lost everything. First his mom. Then hockey.”
I rested my arm on the door and stared out the window. A tear slid down my cheek as I looked at the people on the sidewalk, going about their business, waiting at bus stops. I wiped it away.
Mom might be right about Dallas having suffered. But he hadn’t shared that pain with me, and because he hadn’t, he felt like a stranger. Like I hadn’t known him at all.