10. Then
I t’s later than normal, just after dusk, as I bike home along the coastal road after work. Stacy had childcare issues and I couldn’t leave until she got in, but none of that matters right now—the air is balmy, the sky is striped in hues of peach and purple, and I’ve got a few minutes to myself.
I hum “Homecoming” as I pedal. Is it any good?
Danny would have come up with a better adjective than “sad” if that was the case, but Luke finally pushed me into playing it for everyone the other night, and they applauded when it was done.
“And here I thought Luke was going to be the most famous of us all,” Caleb said afterward.
I feel something inside me being freed a little more each day. I’m wondering, once again, if I can make a living with my voice. Right now, all I’m destined to become is Danny’s wife. I’m not sure it’s enough.
My brain spins with the possibilities: could I afford to live in LA? How would I support myself? How do you even go about getting discovered?
I’m so lost in my own thoughts that I don’t hear the catcalls until the car is nearly beside me.
Before I’ve even looked over to understand what’s happening, an arm is reaching out of a window to grab my shirt, which is wrenched so hard that the buttons pop open and the bike is pulled off balance, wobbling uncontrollably.
My heart slams against my ribs, and I jerk away in desperation.
He loses his grip on me, and I go flying onto the shoulder of the road.
A shocking, bruising pain shoots along my side from the impact, and gravel cuts into my skin, head to toe, the bike pedal slicing into my calf.
I’m stunned for a second, but when I see the car’s brake lights ahead, adrenaline shunts everything—pain, shock, outrage—to the back of my mind. Because those brake lights mean they aren’t driving off.
They’re coming back for me.
I didn’t want to deal with these guys on a bike, so I sure as hell don’t want to deal with them while prone .
I scramble to my feet. Every inch of skin screams in pain but I ignore it, stumbling desperately toward the dense trees across the road.
I slide from view just as they back over my bike and stop the car.
I don’t know if I should run or stay motionless, but my ankle is swelling and I’m not sure how fast I’ll be able to move anyway.
I reach for my phone, hands shaking as two guys get out of the car, scanning the woods for a moment with grins on their faces as if the whole thing is funny .
I crouch lower, making myself as small as possible, too scared to even call the police—they won’t get here in time to help me, and the sound of the keypad might give my location away.
Another car approaches. The guys glance at each other, and I hold my breath, my heart hammering, until they get back in the car.
It’s only when they drive off that the adrenaline leaves me and I collapse to the ground, suddenly shaking with cold though it’s a warm day.
My impulse is to curl into a ball and stay until it all feels better, but I’ve been injured often enough in the past to know that the longer I wait to move, the harder it will become.
I force myself to stand on shaky legs. My bike is fucked, and I’d probably be too scared to get it anyway, so I start to walk, hugging the woods just in case they come back.
I suspect my ankle is sprained, but I just keep moving forward, holding my shirt together, because I know how this goes.
If you stop to notice the pain, it’ll drag you under.
And when the tears finally begin to slip down my face, it still isn’t because of the pain.
It’s simply that no matter how old I get, no matter how safe I think I am, I doubt there will ever come a day when I’m not hit from behind by something, when I’m not limping off toward safety, wondering if I’m somehow at fault.
By the time I get home, the boys are back from surfing. It would be easier if they weren’t. Danny believes anything, but Luke won’t be so easy to convince.
I limp up the front steps. Get your shit together, Juliet. You can’t go in there and make a big deal of this.
“Juliet?” calls Donna as I open the front door. “That you?”
I take a deep breath. “Hi!” I call. “I’ll be there in a second! I just need to change.”
My voice wavers with something that isn’t normally there, something bright and false.
“Hurry for me, hon,” Donna calls back. “I’m in the middle of making this pie and the chicken needs to turn.”
You’re late is what she means, and I take in a shuddering breath.
Is this worth it? Is anything worth it? Today at the diner a woman told her son that if he didn’t study harder, he’d wind up waiting tables just like me.
Charlie called me a moron. Two gross old men asked me how much extra for a little sugar after their meal, and when I told them sugar was right there on the table they said, “That’s not the kind of sugar we’re talking about. ”
What’s on the other side of all this? What about any of this makes it worthwhile? Nothing. But how the hell would I ever make it in LA when I can’t even exist safely here ?
The sob I was holding in swells, choking me as I reply.
“Okay,” I call before swallowing, my voice too high and thin. “Just one sec.”
I have only taken one limping step toward the stairs before Luke marches out of the kitchen, staring at me with rapidly darkening eyes. I grip my shirt tighter, and his gaze follows the motion.
“What the fuck happened?”
“Nothing,” I whisper, wiping my face on my shoulder. Pull it together. Pull it together. “I fell.”
He is frozen in place. “Don’t fucking lie to me. What happened?”
Donna peeks into the hallway, her eyes going wide as she wipes her hands on a dishtowel. “My goodness, hon, you’ve got gravel stuck to—” Her eyes fall to the blouse I’m holding together. “Oh, honey.”
Danny crosses the room and places his hands on my arms.
I suck in air at the contact. “My arm,” I whisper.
“Sorry! Sorry,” he says, releasing me. “What happened?”
I glance from him to Luke. I want to lie about this, but I guess the ripped shirt gives it away, and Luke always seems to know when I’m lying anyhow. “Some guys tried to pull me off my bike on the way home. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fucking fine,” growls Luke. “You’re limping, you’re scraped from head to toe, and they ripped your goddamned shirt.”
Donna winces at the language he’s using but doesn’t say anything. “Do we need to call the police, sweetie?”
I shake my head quickly. “No. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“The hell it wasn’t,” Luke says.
Maybe he’s right, but the police aren’t going to do anything. They’ll probably assume I’m at fault, and who knows…maybe I was. Maybe I should have changed into different clothes before I biked home. Maybe I shouldn’t have been singing. Maybe I shouldn’t have been biking in the first place.
“I’m fine. I am. I had to leave the bike. I think the frame was bent.”
“The boys will go get it,” says Donna, placing a hand on my good elbow. “And I’ll help you get cleaned up.”
Donna leads me toward the stairs and Luke just stands there, watching me go, fighting some impulse I don’t understand before he finally stomps away.
* * *
Donna has to get tweezers to pluck the gravel and glass from my skin. I bite my lip, bracing my thighs and digging my nails into my palm to distract from the pain.
“That’s the worst of it,” she says at last and I release a long, relieved exhale. She turns on the shower for me but hesitates when she reaches the door to leave.
“If…it was worse than you implied downstairs, you can tell me,” she says. “No one else has to know.”
My eyes well. She thinks I was raped, and she’s willing not to tell Danny if that’s the case. I believe her too. “It really wasn’t worse. They barely even stopped the car.”
She looks at me for a long moment, uncertain. She probably thinks that if it was as simple as it sounds, I shouldn’t be so upset. And maybe she’s right. Maybe it’s just that I haven’t always been this lucky, and the memory has stained me. I can’t seem to wash it off.
Danny and Luke are both in the kitchen when I get downstairs. Luke rises and Danny, watching him, follows suit. I thought the scrapes looked better once I was out of the shower, but Luke’s face says something else entirely.
“Hey, hon.” Danny gingerly reaches out an arm to touch my good side. “Feeling better?”
“Good as new,” I tell him.
I look over to where Donna is working, trying to figure out what she needs.
“Don’t,” Luke growls.
“I can just—”
“Juliet,” he says, and his voice is commanding in a way I’ve never heard it, “ sit .”
“Yes, hon,” Donna urges, “of course. Get off your feet.”
I limp toward the table and Luke walks around to my side.
“Change places with me,” he demands. Because from his seat, on the far side of the table, it would be difficult for me to jump up and down throughout dinner.
I open my mouth to argue, and his eyes darken so dangerously that I do as I’m told.
“What was the car like?” he asks.
I glance up. Even if the Allens believe the world is fair, I know the truth and I suspect Luke does too.
People lie. People will save themselves first, always.
I could know the make, the model, the license plate.
I could ID a mole on the guy’s inner right thigh and have his skin under my nails and he’d still say it was an accident or a misunderstanding and everyone would believe him.
“It doesn’t matter. Even if I knew who they were, they’d deny everything and say I fell off my bike on my own.”
“I know that,” he says. “I just want you to tell me what you saw.”
“It was a silver car. Small. I have no idea what make. Surfboards on the roof.”
“Did you see any of them?”
I close my eyes. “I only remember the one who grabbed me.” Another stain in my memory. His eyes were so…cold. He saw me bleeding, he saw my ruined bike and ripped shirt and he was still laughing. “He had a pierced eyebrow. A tattoo on his knuckles. That’s all I remember.”