15. Alison #2
“This doesn’t change what I told Ryan,” Darla says. “Bleeding, cramping, pain, pressure, anything wrong — you call me immediately.”
“I will.”
“Good.” She takes one last look at the screen. “Because right now, that is one very stubborn little baby.”
Cat smiles through the last of her tears. “Obviously. Look at the parents.”
“Excuse me?”
Becca laughs against my shoulder. “She isn’t wrong.” I look at the screen again. At our baby. And for the first time since Thursday night, the fear in my chest loosens. Just a little.
“Can Ryan see?”
Darla smiles.
“I figured you’d ask.” She saves a picture. “I’ll send it to him.”
My eyes fill all over again. Cat groans. “Oh, come on. She’s starting again.”
“You’re crying too.”
“I stopped.” A tear slides down her cheek.
Penny points. “No, you didn’t.”
“That was leftover.”
Becca dissolves into laughter against my shoulder. And somehow, with Dad’s fingerprints still wrapped around my arms, I’m laughing too.
By the time Darla packs everything away, we’ve fixed our makeup and Becca has repeated good fucking day enough times that it’s officially become policy.
Cat takes one look at my face before we leave. “Sit.”
“What?”
“Sit.”
She takes my makeup bag from my purse, because apparently arguing with Catherine O’Farrell is pointless once she’s decided to do something. Penny leans against the dresser while Cat fixes the makeup my crying ruined.
Her fingers are gentle when she blends concealer over the fading bruise on my face. The cut on my lip stays — there’s nothing we can do about that without making it look worse. The bruises on my arms disappear beneath my sweater again. For now.
Twenty minutes later, we walk into the boutique.
It looks more like a hotel than somewhere people buy prom dresses — marble floors, chandeliers, fresh flowers, sparkling water with fruit floating in it.
The downstairs is busy enough that I recognize a dozen girls from Edgewood before we reach the stairs. Nobody looks twice at us.
Our consultant takes us up to a private suite with a small sitting room, couches, enormous mirrors, racks of dresses, and one large dressing room through an open doorway. The door closes behind us.
Penny looks around. “Okay.” Becca starts going through the dresses. Penny points at me. “We already established you’re going to prom.”
“I remember.”
“Today we’re finding the dress.” She pulls one from the rack.
I stare at it. “That has feathers.”
“They’re tasteful.”
“Where?”
Cat laughs. And then, for a while, everything is normal. Gloriously, ridiculously normal.
We try on dresses. We make fun of dresses. Penny puts me in something covered in so many crystals I look like a chandelier. Becca finds pale blue and comes out looking so beautiful Cat stares at her for three seconds before pointing at the dressing room.
“No.”
“What?”
“Go back.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re irritating me.”
Becca laughs. “That isn’t a reason.”
“It is to me.” Cat tries on black, of course, and steps out looking like she should have a knife strapped to her thigh.
Penny looks her over. “Kaid’s going to be insufferable.”
“He already is.”
“You encourage his worst qualities.”
“I enjoy his worst qualities.”
“We know,” Becca says.
Then Penny comes out in a dress with a slit almost to her hip.
Cat looks at her. “No.”
Penny turns toward the mirror. “Yes.”
“Xander fights people recreationally.”
“And?”
“You’re going to cause a homicide.”
Penny smiles at herself. “Sounds like his problem.”
I laugh. Carefully this time. I’m wearing something pale pink that Penny insists is beautiful and I insist makes me look like an expensive cupcake.
My sweater came off with the first dress — there’s no point putting it back on between every change when we’re alone in a private suite — so the marks on my arms are out.
I stopped noticing them twenty minutes ago.
The girls haven’t. Every so often I catch Cat looking, or Penny’s mouth tightens, or Becca finds an excuse to touch my hand.
But they don’t let it ruin today. Good fucking day.
I’m standing in front of the mirror deciding exactly which baked good I resemble when the suite door opens.
Bella Whelan walks in. She stops. Looks at Penny. Cat. Becca. Then me.
Her eyes travel down the pink dress. “Oh, thank God.”
Penny’s entire face falls. “Oh, fuck off.”
Bella walks farther inside. “No, sincerely. Thank God I’m here.”
“You weren’t invited.”
“Clearly.” She gestures toward me. “Look what you’ve done.”
I look down at myself. Becca starts laughing.
Cat looks me over again, then Bella. “If you’re about to tell her that dress is awful, hurry up. I’ve been trying to decide if I hate it.”
Bella’s eyebrows lift. “Finally, someone reasonable.”
Cat’s mouth curves. “I didn’t say I agreed with you.”
“You will.”
Penny closes her eyes. “No. There cannot be two of you doing this.”
Bella looks at her. “Penelope.”
“Whelan.”
“Lovely as always.”
“My morning was going beautifully until thirty seconds ago.”
“I have that effect on people.” Then Bella looks at me again, and her expression softens. “Alison.”
“Bella.”
“Please take—“ She stops. Her eyes have landed on my arm.
The humor drains out of her face so fast it’s almost frightening.
Her gaze moves over the dark marks on my left arm, then the right.
She doesn’t say anything. Neither does anyone else.
Then she walks closer — not toward the dress anymore, toward me — her eyes moving from one arm to the other. “What happened?”
I instinctively start to cross my arms. Then stop myself. “I’m okay.”
“I didn’t ask if you’re okay.”
Oh. The room changes around us. Penny looks up. Becca goes quiet. Cat watches Bella like she’s deciding something.
“It was Dad.”
Bella stares at me. “Roman did that?”
“Yes.” Her eyes go back to my arms. They’re unmistakable this close — fingers, hands, a person’s grip preserved beneath my skin. “Both arms?”
I nod. “He grabbed me.”
“And shook her,” Cat says.
Bella’s eyes cut toward her. Cat doesn’t blink. “Hard.”
Bella looks back at me, and now that she’s searching for it, she finds the rest — the discoloration makeup couldn’t quite erase, then my lip. Her expression changes again.
“He hit you.”
I nod. Something ugly moves through her face, and for a second she doesn’t bother hiding it.
“When?”
“Thursday. After school.”
“He was angry.” She says it flat, and I recognize it — the reflex, the reaching for the reason, the same thing I do in my own head every single time.
So I start to answer the way I always answer. "He was—"
Bella’s gaze snaps back to mine before I can. “I don’t give a fuck what he was.”
It comes out instantly. Hard. Not performed. She hears herself a half-second too late, and for once there’s no clever thing waiting behind it to smooth it over. She just looks at my arms like they’ve told her something she already knew and hoped she was wrong about.
“Victor know?”
My stomach tightens. “About this? No.”
Her mouth flattens. “Of course he doesn’t.”
Penny watches her closely. Bella seems to realize she’s said too much, and she does what she always does — reaches for the dress, wrinkles her nose, puts the mask back on.
“Well. Roman O’Toole is a piece of shit, and that dress is still terrible.”
A laugh escapes me. My lip pulls. I wince — and Bella’s eyes go to it, and that murderous thing crosses her face again, there and gone, before she points at the dressing room.
“Take it off.”
Penny folds her arms. “You’re very bossy for someone nobody invited.”
“And yet desperately needed.”
And somehow, Bella stays. Worse — she’s good at this. Really good. She takes one look at a dress Cat likes and tells her the neckline is fighting with her shoulders.
Cat studies herself in the mirror, then Bella. “Annoying.”
“Because I’m right?”
“Because you seem pleased about it.”
“I usually am.” She finds Becca a different neckline that somehow changes the whole dress. Then she looks at the black one Penny loved earlier. “No.”
Penny’s head snaps around. “What?”
“The fabric looks cheap.”
“It costs four thousand dollars.”
“I didn’t say it is cheap. I said it looks cheap.”
Penny stares at her. “I could kill you in this room.”
Bella smiles. “Not in that dress.”
Cat laughs. Penny looks betrayed. “You’re enjoying this.”
“Immensely.”
Eventually Bella turns toward me. “Your turn.”
She pulls a dress from the rack, and my smile slips. It’s fitted. Not obscenely. But enough. Cat sees it immediately, her eyes coming to mine. Becca notices next. Penny opens her mouth.
Bella doesn’t notice any of them. “This.”
I should say no. My bump isn’t big. But it isn’t nothing anymore — not without my blazer or sweater hiding it. Around the girls I don’t bother. But Bella doesn’t know. Still, the dress is beautiful. And I’ve spent enough of my life refusing things because of secrets.
“I’ll try it.”
The dressing-room door closes behind me. I change slowly. The dress slides over my body, and I turn sideways toward the mirror. There. My little bump.
My hand settles over it. “Hello, baby.”
I smile then drop my hand. Maybe Bella won’t notice.
I step out and Becca smiles immediately. “Oh, Ally.”
Cat looks me over. Penny considers the dress.
Bella frowns. “No.”
Penny throws her hands up. “You picked it.”
“I make mistakes.”
“You’ve spent an hour telling us you don’t.”
“I’ve decided to grow as a person.” Bella walks toward me. “The waist is sitting wrong.”
My heart stutters. She reaches for the fabric. Stops. Her eyes drop. My stomach turns to ice.
No.
Bella looks at my stomach. Then my arms. Back to my stomach. And every bit of color drains from her face. “Oh, fuck.”
I step backward. “No.”
“Alison—“
“Don’t.”
Becca is standing before I realize she’s moved. Cat stands with her. My hand flies over my stomach.
Bella looks at it. “Holy shit.”
“Don’t look at my baby.” The words come out sharp. Angry. Terrified.
Bella’s eyes snap to mine. “You cannot tell anyone.”
“I wasn’t going to—“
“You cannot.”
“Ally—“
“Don’t tell me it’s fine.”