Chapter 22
I turnside to side looking at myself in the mirror on the back of the door. The dress I pulled out of the closet is a forest green wrap dress with long sleeves that falls past my knees. It’s probably the fourth or fifth dress I tried, but all of them were either too short or too tight. For some reason, I want Ford’s mom to like me, even if her opinion doesn’t mean anything to him.
A light rap against my door pulls my attention away from the mirror. I stroll across the room and open the door, then close it again. Shane doesn’t take the hint and comes in anyway.
“I owe you an apology,” he begins.
My eyes shift over to him, and my face says everything I refuse to verbalize. One look tells him how lame and underwhelming this is starting out.
He leans against the wall and tips his head back. “When I told you I was going to help you with Ford, I meant it, but then you were gone and he fell apart. I told myself it was better if you just stayed gone.”
“But you’re the one who called and brought me back,” I remind him.
“Please, you were miserable.”
I give him a pointed glare. “Let’s not pretend you asked me to come back here for my benefit. You wanted to ruin Ford’s relationship with Jen, and you knew bringing me back would do that. Nothing you’ve ever done has been for my benefit, and that’s okay. Ford is your friend, not me. It only makes sense that you’d be loyal to him. But, you didn’t even do that. You have to see now that I am what he needs, so why didn’t you do what was best for him and help us get back together?”
“I planned to, but I thought he was doing better with you gone. At least for a while. Your dad could have ruined Ford’s life. As it was he who put him in a situation that ruined his chances to play pro ball.”
I make a face. “Your apology sucks.”
“Yeah, none of that came out right. I guess I felt threatened by you. You’re the only person who has ever pulled his attention away from our friendship. I’ll admit I called you to come back for selfish reasons, but also because by then I could tell he was faking being fine. If he couldn’t feel something for someone as amazing as Jen, I knew he’d never get over you.”
I inhale slowly through my nose. “And yet you still didn’t do anything to help. You’ve backed him up for every lie he’s told about me, and what’s worse you let him believe them himself. What is the point of this apology? You don’t sound sorry. I’m not going to take him away from you any more than Jen has taken you away from him.”
“But you are taking him away. He’s following you to Seattle.” Shane is starting to get heated.
I toss up my hands. “You’re graduating too. Is there some reason you have to stay here? Cascade University has an excellent nursing program. Jen could finish her degree there since she has to go somewhere. You can find a job as an electrician anywhere. Who is stopping you?”
I pace back and forth. Now I’m the one getting angry. “You didn’t come in here to apologize to me, so what are you doing in here?”
“That’s a really fucking great question,” Ford’s voice booms from the doorway.
Shane jumps at the sound. “I did come to apologize, I just suck at it.”
Ford sweeps his hand out. “By all means then, continue.”
“Alright,” Shane says and squares his shoulders. “I am sorry I wasn’t a bigger help before. I should have called him on his shit, you’re right about that. I put up a half-hearted effort at best to keep my promise to you, and I’ve done very little to untangle all of the miscommunication I could see and the two of you were so twisted up in. Most of all, I’m sorry that when you called for help I didn’t listen to you and hung up.”
He finishes speaking and then stands there, staring at me. I don”t know what to say to him, so I say nothing. The growing silence is awkward.
Shane rocks back and forth on his heels. “Well…so…yeah. I guess that”s all I had to say.”
I purse my lips and pretend to be busy looking at the discarded dresses on my bed. What am I supposed to say? I forgive you? I”m not sure that I do. Am I supposed to tell him everything is all right? I don”t think it is.
Shane continues to stand there, waiting for me to say something, and the longer he does the harder it is to breathe. One minute I’m standing there, clutching a dress to my chest, and the next, I feel strong hands grab my arms. My fight or flight instinct is triggered and I struggle to get free.
“Shh, hey, Tessa, baby, it’s just me,” I hear Ford say from far away. It”s like there is a thick fog between us and it”s hard for anything to cut through it.
I continue to hear his voice, but the words don”t make sense. It”s just the rhythmic sound that soothes me. I blink, and the spots that filled my vision start to clear. It”s like the world comes back in a rush of sensation. Everything is too loud and bright.
“Why are we on the floor?” My voice sounds rough like I”ve been screaming. Seeing everyone standing in the hallway, outside of my room means I probably was. That”s extremely humiliating.
I bury my face into his neck. He has me on his lap, cradled against his chest. I realize now it must have been his hands on my arms. The way I was starting to breathe, he probably thought I was about to faint. It”s actually a pretty decent assumption.
“That”s it. Just keep breathing for me. You scared the shit out of me, Vixen.”
“We”re going to be late.” I have no idea what time it is, but I still really want his mom to like me. Not because she”s my stepmom, but because at one time she meant something to him.
Ford”s finger tips up my chin. “I don”t want you to worry about that. Besides, I already called her. I told her we were going to be late, but we can cancel.”
“I don”t want her to hate me,” I admit quietly.
“You know I don”t give a shit what she thinks, but she”s not going to hate you,” he reassures me.
“I probably look like a mess now,” I worry.
Ford leans forward and kisses me on the forehead. “You never look like a mess.”
He helps me stand up, and his large hands smooth out my dress. He takes extra care smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles around my breasts and ass. I know he”s trying to distract me, and it”s working. He winks at me, and I roll my eyes at him.
I playfully shove him out the door of my room. “You inside a bedroom is a dangerous combination. Let”s go while I”m still wearing a dress.”
Shane steps forward when we make it to the living room, and I flinch. It”s not like he”s ever threatened me or done anything to hurt me physically, but right now, I can”t disassociate him from my trauma.
Ford maneuvers me behind him and jabs his finger toward Shane. “You and I are going to talk later, but let me give you the CliffsNotes version right now, stay away from Tessa. Don”t try and talk to her. No more apologies. Just leave her alone.”
“Come on Ford, you know I would never do anything to hurt her,” Shane begins to explain.
Ford doesn”t want to hear it and waves him off. Shane starts to try and say more, but Sin steps forward and blocks the way.
“I think it”s best if the group social ends right now. Everyone who doesn”t live here or isn”t dating someone who lives here needs to go home,” Sin decrees.
Almost everyone shrugs it off. Ted says something about going to Carlo”s bar, and I know they”re just going to relocate. Shane, however, glares at me on the way out.
“Well, if he didn”t hate me before he certainly does now,” I mumble.
“Yeah, well he can get fucked.” Ford’s body is rigid next to mine, and I can feel the conflict pulling him in two different directions.
I turn to face him and put my hands on his forearms. “He is your best friend. I won’t get in the way of that.”
He grabs my waist and pulls me closer. “I want you to listen closely, nothing and no one is more important to me than you. My friendship with Shane is not your responsibility.”
Ford spins me back toward the door and guides me forward. “We should go if we’re going to do this.”
Mercifully, the restaurant Camille chose isn’t out in Ocean Bluff. It isn’t like there aren’t plenty of other places in Playa that don’t trigger panic attacks. Ocean Bluff is more insidious for me though. While I was living there I was numb to it, but now that I’ve been away the thought of stepping foot in my old neighborhood floods my body with adrenaline.
Ford holds my hand on his thigh, he doesn’t say anything, but the way he squeezes my hand every few minutes betrays his nerves. Otherwise, we”re silent on the long trip down the hill from Sin and Raven”s house.
It”s almost poetic when he pulls his old, well-used truck into the parking lot of a fancy restaurant. He slides it in between two foreign cars, and it stands out as much as I feel like we do. I have a hard time remembering that this used to be my world. I”m not sure I fit in then either though.
The ma?tre d’ seats us the moment we come in. Camille is just as lovely as I remember her, she stands and hugs her son, though Ford refuses to drop my hand. We sit and look at the menus and the same uncomfortable silence that existed between us in the truck falls between the three of us at the table. I know this isn”t a problem between Ford and I which means this is an issue with his mom.
I squeeze his hand and hope I silently communicate my apology for pushing him to accept her dinner invitation when he so clearly doesn”t want to be here.
The waiter comes back and Ford orders for both of us. That isn”t something he habitually does, and I realize that the food he ordered can be prepared and brought out quickly. He does not plan to linger through this dinner long. Camille, having acclimated to this world, orders herself a Ni?oise salad with the dressing on the side.
After the food comes, and our conversation stays mainly on surface issues, Ford is able to relax. There”s no discussion of old memories, because they don”t share any good ones. Camille and I don”t talk about my dad because I don”t talk to him. We all know that she is not going to become a big part of our lives, and I do feel silly for putting so much importance on her opinion of me.
I breathe a sigh of relief when the waiter comes around with the black envelope containing the check. We made it through the entire meal, and now we can go on to Seattle without any guilt that we didn”t fill some kind of familial obligation.
There should be some kind of lesson in letting your guard down. Nothing good in my life ever comes from being at ease in public.
I sense him before he”s even close. It”s like a sixth sense I”ve developed over the years. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and my stomach churns. Under the table, I reach for Ford”s hand. I know he can feel my fear, because my nails dig into his skin.
He looks at me questioningly.
“Let”s go,” I mouth.
I can feel that darkness descending on me again. Now is not a good time to lose it. I cannot show weakness, not now, not around him.
We”re too late though. I hear the sound of his custom leather shoes as they strike against the tiles. Even his footsteps are pretentious. His hands fall on my shoulders and squeeze.
“So the prodigal daughter returns. You”ve been in town for a while. Were you ever going to get in touch with me?” my father asks.
I shake his hands off. “Wasn”t planning on it. In fact, we have to be going right now.”
As usual, he doesn”t listen to a word that I say. Instead, he pulls out a chair from a neighboring table, swings it around, and joins us. “Stay, have a drink,” he insists.
“We really can”t. We”ve got finals coming up and a study group that we need to get to,” Ford lies.
We do have finals, they”re pretty much a cakewalk so there”s no study group needed. At least not for us. I know people like to throw around the stereotype of athletes being nothing but dumb jocks, but Ford is actually pretty brilliant. My father knows this, which makes a study group a believable excuse.
“You have time for one drink. I”ve been keeping track of you both, and your grades are fantastic,” he boasts as if he had anything to do with our success.
I clench my teeth so hard I”m afraid I might crack a molar. It doesn”t matter how much time has gone by or how much distance I have put between us, I”m still conditioned to follow his orders when I am in his vicinity. I hate myself for it. It feels weak and pathetic.
Thankfully, Ford has no such problem. He pushes his chair back. It screeches against the tile drawing stares from the nearby diners. My father clenches his fist on top of the table. He dislikes negative attention. No, Wendell James has always needed to have a pristine reputation, even if he has not earned it.
Ford holds his hand out for me and mine shakes as I reach for his. I”m almost out of my seat when my father grabs my other hand and starts to pull me back down. Once again, I”m in the middle of a game of human tug-of-war, only this time Ford knows he”s playing it.
“A moment of your time please, daughter,” my father says it as if it”s a question, but it”s really a command.
I smile the plastic smile I perfected over years of interactions with him, even as bile works its way up my throat.
“I see you have decided to defy my orders. Did you think there was a time limit?” my father hisses under his breath.
I look up at Ford, last time fear made me jump at such a threat, but this time I”m putting my faith in him, trusting that he knows what needs to be done to get us out of whatever situation my father cooks up for us. I”m also putting some faith in myself, because losing him hurt way more than letting go of a secret.
I lean closer and whisper a threat of my own. “I wonder how that reputation of yours would hold up if your society friends knew the real reason you ran my mother out of town when I was thirteen. I”ve been through worse than you now, and you don”t scare me anymore. You come for me, and I”ll make you disappear.”
He turns his face to mine, and I see that he does not for a moment believe that I am a threat. “Don”t make claims you can”t back up, little girl,” he warns me.
I smile and let him see that I fit in with the rest of the pretty monsters, as Sin sometimes calls us. “It”s not a threat or a claim, those things are just words. I have seen things old man, done things you can”t even imagine.”
I lower my voice, so only he can hear me. “Once you were the thing I was scared of in the dark, you try and do anything to Ford or to split us up, and I will send you a nightmare in the dark. There’s a ghost I know who likes to play with sick fucks like you. I might just send him anyway. It”s your turn to go to bed every night in fear.”
I keep it together as we walk out of the restaurant, and as soon as we get out of the front doors, I rush over to the bushes and lose everything I ate at dinner.
Ford comes and rubs my back. “What can I do?”
“Get me out of here,” I beg him.
“Yeah, I”ll take you home,” he agrees.
I shake my head. “Not back to Raven”s house. Take me to Seattle.”
“I”m sure we could take our finals early. We could be out of here in a couple of days,” he promises.
I nod. “Thank you.” It”s not enough. I know he wants an explanation, and I”ll give him one, but not right now. And the great thing about him, he”s finally figuring out when to just sit with me.
This time I welcome the silence on the ride up the hill. And as he holds my hand, all I feel is comfort and love.