Chapter Twenty-Three
“ V ,” he almost whispered. “Let’s go inside.”
I only nodded but made no move to get out. Luke hurried around to the passenger door and tugged my arms slightly. “I’ll carry you if you want,” he expressed sincerely, seeming unsure of how far to push me.
“I can walk,” I breathed, sliding off of the seat and onto the ground.
“Is your mom home?”
“Um, I’m not sure? The other car’s not here, so I guess not.”
My voice sounded off in my own head. Far away. I was mildly concerned I had a concussion, but I didn’t think he hit me that hard. He had hit me. I had never been hit by anything other than a misplaced arm in a cheer formation.
My feet followed Luke up the walkway to my front door, and my fingers made their way over the painful redness still present along my cheekbone.
“I’m gonna get you some ice,” Luke said, setting my bag on the floor. He hadn’t been to my house since my birthday party in seventh grade, but he didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable taking care of me.
“Um, yeah, that’s a good idea. I don’t…will it leave a bruise?”
His fingers gently brushed my jawline, tilting my injury towards him. “The ice should help. It’s not turning purple yet, so maybe not. You’ll know in the morning.”
He moved into the kitchen and found a bag of frozen peas and a dishtowel, handing them to me. His expression was kind when he looked at me, but his body was still tense. My gaze dropped to his hand to see that it was swollen.
“Your hand. You need ice more than me,” I offered.
“Nah, I’m fine. He just had a hard face. ”
I almost smiled, but that made my cheek hurt more. He positioned himself on the ottoman in front of me.
“Luke…” The only response he offered was a pleading look. I didn’t know how to say thank you for this. “Your timing was good. Today.” It was the lamest expression of gratitude known to man, but it’s what came out. He chuckled slightly.
“I think it could have been a little better,” he admitted, pointing at my current state.
“Maybe just a little,” I agreed.
“V, I think maybe we should call the police or something. I can call them, and I’ll stay with you, but you need to report this.”
“No,” I responded immediately. “Luke, no one can know that this happened. Please.” Tears started to form again, and their heat pricked at my eyes.
“If he tries to…Vanessa, I can’t think about what would have happened if I had left campus on time today.
I was in the library for a mandatory study session with the basketball team, and that’s the only reason I was there.
I parked at the edge of Lot D because…” he hesitated, then admitted, “honestly, I’ve been keeping an eye on where you park the past couple weeks.
I just had a feeling.” He shook his head.
“No one else was there, V. He needs to pay for whatever he was going to do. What he did do. He put his hands on you.”
His sea-green eyes searched mine for some form of understanding, but I couldn’t do it. I shook my head forcefully.
“You know how small this town is. You know who his parents are. There is very little in this situation that would go well for me.” I gripped my knees tightly into my chest. “Please,” I begged.
“Do you want me to kill him?” he asked, his tone giving away no hint of a joke.
My eyes softened slightly at his earnestness. “No, but thank you for offering.”
“I’ll totally kill him. Seriously. Dead. People would thank me.”
I laughed through my nose .
“You don’t have to stay and babysit me. If you need to go, you can.”
“Well, no, I can’t. My truck’s at school. And if it’s all the same to you? I’d rather not leave you alone anyway.”
“I’m a big girl, Luke,” I pressed, hating that I really didn’t want him to leave either.
“Yeah, it’s not really for you.”
I looked at him, confused.
“If I leave, I’m going to call Vader to find out where Zack lives. And you told me not to kill him. So, it’s probably better if I hang here with you for a while.”
“Well, as long as it’s for your benefit,” I agreed, knowing exactly what he was doing.
“Oh yeah, absolutely. Nothing to do with your safety. I mean, who cares, right?”
“Right,” I grinned, the ice finally taking the sting away. “Do you want to watch The Breakfast Club with me?”
“I don’t know what that is, but okay. Is it on the Food Channel ?”
My mouth opened slightly in disbelief. “Are you being for real right now?”
“Yeah, why?” I just shook my head and pulled him to his feet with his uninjured hand, leading him down the stairs to my new sanctuary.
“Whoa…This is your project? It’s done?” he asked, glancing around the room in awe.
“Yes!” I practically shouted at him. “That is the appropriate reaction to this room. Jesus. Thank you,” I finished.
Stupid ass , I cursed to myself, thinking of Zack’s blasé response to my design.
“Well, you clearly feel strongly about that,” Luke laughed. “It looks cool in here. I mean, there are sort of a lot of pillows, but I like it.”
“I do like pillows,” I admitted, scouring the built-ins for my DVD. “Here we go,” I announced, popping the movie into the player and turning back towards him. “Come, sit,” I requested, sinking into the low-backed sofa.
The squishiness of the pillows calmed me, and I tugged a pink and gold one to my chest. He fell into the space next to me and stretched his long arms along the back of the couch.
“I like it. It’s comfy,” he declared. “Are you going to be a decorator or something?” I slowed at the question, not sure if he was joking or not.
“Like…in life?” I asked cautiously.
“Yeah, in life, I guess. Do you go to school for it, or do you just do it? Or intern? I don’t know.”
“There are design schools.”
“Okay, are you being vague for a reason? Do you wanna transfer to one or something?”
“Who knows? Probably not. It’s hard to get a job as a designer.”
“Well, I would hire you,” he mused.
I didn’t continue on, afraid to sound na?ve about being on HGTV or something, but my heartbeat did make itself known at the compliment.
“So…I take it this is a movie. Is it about breakfast? Because that sounds lame.”
“Just shhh. It’s not lame. Don’t say that.”
It was becoming easier to pretend we were just hanging out and forget that the whole reason he was here was because I was assaulted in a parking lot an hour before.
No. Don’t go back there , I scolded my brain.
I felt safe with Luke there, and The Breakfast Club could only bring happiness, so I let the hurricane of reality fade to the outskirts of my mind. Silently, I forked over the frozen peas for his hand, and this time he didn’t argue.
“Do you need water or anything? I have snacks…” I trailed off, suddenly aware that I was being a terrible hostess, which was not like me. Not that this situation is particularly normal in any wa y.
“I’m good. No worries,” he assured me, nudging my shoulder slightly with his outstretched arm.
I leaned back against the cushions and draped my stocking clad feet across his lap. The non-awkwardness of the situation was beginning to weird me out. The opening scene was finally up on the screen, and I let myself be transported to Shermer High School.
“Vanessa,” my mom’s voice sounded softly. I was too comfortable to possibly wake up.
What time is it? I wondered. I lifted one eyelid.
“Hmpf.”
“‘Nessa, I need you to wake up.”
My mom never called me Nessa… since I was about seven, anyway.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, now concerned.
“That’s what I was going to ask you.” My mom’s brown eyes were glimmering with worry, her mouth drawn in a tight line. The events of the day started to make themselves known in my head.
“Oh.”
“Yes. Oh. I just took Luke back to his car.”
“Luke? Oh god, I fell asleep? What did he say?” I would kill him if he spilled his guts to my mom.
“I’m really more interested in what you have to say. What happened today? I promise I’ll just listen. Please tell me the truth.”
I swallowed hard, my throat sticky from crying. “I don’t… I don’t think I can.”
My mother’s eyes teared up at my admission. “I know that…things between us aren’t easy most of the time, but I need you to believe me when I say I’m on your side.”
I began to play with my hair instead of answering, contemplating just letting all of it out.
The whole truth. How stupid I’d been, how gullible and na?ve.
There was no way my mom could let me get through all of it without an “I told you so.” I sighed, expecting a lecture, but my mom just sat with me, quieter than she’d ever been.
“Can you tell me if you’re okay?”
“Yeah. I think I am.”
“Vanessa. Are you really okay?”
For some reason the addition of the extra word and emphasis made my breath shake. No, I was absolutely not okay. I shook my head, unable to get words out properly. I breathed as evenly as I could.
“What did Luke tell you?” I needed to know how angry I was with him before continuing.
“Not much. There was a fight, and he’s worried about you.” Unsure if I believed that was all he said, I proceeded with caution.
“Zack, ah, he wasn’t super pleased when I told him we were done.” Speaking was painful as my throat tightened to try to keep my sobs in. “He…he grabbed me, and he was just so angry.”
Even as the truth tried to force its way out, I knew if I confessed it all— that he’d hit me—my mother would call the police. It took physical strength to keep it in.
“Luke saw us and laid him out. I don’t know where Zack went after that.”
My mom only nodded, several tears making their way through her lashes. Something about our current connection made me turn into a child again. I just wanted to be told that everything would be okay.
“Has he done anything else…or made you…?” It took me a minute to catch up to what my mother was asking.
“No. He didn’t…no.”
The relief she let off was palpable.
“What do you need?”
The question threw me. I had no idea what I needed. A time machine, maybe. Then I could prevent all of it. He wouldn’t have a starring role in a memory that I couldn’t get back, and I could be fighting with my mom about my midriff showing, or how much I spent on magazines .
“I don’t know. I just don’t want to feel like this.”
That realization, that I had no way of fixing it, the pain in my chest, it was heavy, and the dam finally burst. My mom hugged me in a way she hadn’t since I was small, tightly and protectively.
“I know…” my mother repeated to me until my breath evened out. “Vanessa… I have to ask you something, and it is important that you’re honest, even if you don’t want to be.”
I just looked at her with trepidation, wondering if she knew more about that afternoon than she’d let on.
“Were you safe, with Zack?”
I stared at her blankly, unsure of how to take that question.
“I’m not asking to get you in trouble. This is more important than that. I need to know if you should see a doctor.”
“Oh,” I breathed, the reality sinking in that she and I were having a safe-sex talk. “Yes, we were safe.”
I was fairly certain that my body temperature was at a dangerous level from my discomfort trying to convince me to crawl out of my own skin to get away from this conversation.
“Okay. Good. We should still make an appointment, but we can talk about that later.”
The suspended moment in time we’d been sharing was over, and a new feeling settled over us. It was as if, in the time we’d been sitting there, my mom went from seeing me as a kid in need of reprimand to a young adult in need of a confidante. It was unfamiliar but not unwelcomed.
“Do you want pancakes for dinner?”
“I’m not really hungry, to be honest. But for breakfast tomorrow?”
“I can do that,” my mom promised, moving to get off of the couch. “And Vanessa?”
“Yeah?”
“You show up to class tomorrow looking like a Miss America contestant, okay? He’s not worth the heartache, and he needs to know that,” she advised .
I almost snorted through my nose at the image of me walking the halls with a sash and a crown.
Class was a million miles from my thoughts, but I nodded to acknowledge my mother’s comment.
My body relaxed for a few minutes, and I foolishly began to believe I was okay.
It was all fine until my mind found its way back to the vomit-inducing thoughts of our last “date.”
It pissed me off even more that the first time I was really able to sit in my beautiful new basement was forever going to be marred by this disgusting day.
With difficulty, I hauled my butt up the stairs to take the hottest shower I could stand. There had to be some sort of layer of Zack scum on me that needed to come off. I stayed in until the water ran cold.
Once in my room, I promptly took my purple dress and buried it in the garbage can.
Never again .
Not wanting to stand in front of a blow dryer, I braided my hair tightly and found the largest pajamas I owned.
Only after I was wrapped in a sweatshirt and blanket did I stop the slight tremor in my hands.
I even dared to pick up my phone, wanting to ignore it, but knowing I would never sleep wondering what people were saying.
I only had two messages, both from Luke.
LUKE: Hey, I just wanted to make sure you were alright. I wanted to wake you up when your mom got home, but I thought maybe you should sleep?
LUKE : Just let me know you’re okay.
Well, it might have been a miracle, but it appeared that the Fox Falls rumor mill hadn’t gotten ahold of this one yet, which meant I could sleep for now and deal with whatever I was going to face at school later.
V : I’m okay. Thank you—for a lot of things, but also for not giving my mom a play-by-play.
LUKE : I’m not gonna say I didn’t want to. But I guess you’re welcome. Do you want me to pick you up in the morning?
As tempting as it was to take Luke up on his apparent desire to be my personal bodyguard, I did not love the added layer of feeling helpless on top of everything else.
V : Thank you, but I think I’ve gotta be all right on my own. I’ll see you on campus though.
LUKE : Okay. If you change your mind…text me. See you tomorrow.
V : See ya.
My brain was beyond the point of exhaustion, and I was asleep before my eyelids had time to flutter.