Chapter 51
Eleanor
“Please,” she cried.
Her voice was low and shaky. I sat up straighter in my bed.
“What do you mean, come get you?” I asked. “Aren’t you in your room?”
“I was, but I, um, I sneaked out to go to a party. I . . .” She started to sniffle. “Please just come get me, OK?”
“Where are you?” I questioned, hopping out of my bed and tossing on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I scrambled around to get my shoes on, and I grabbed my purse and keys as she gave me the address.
“Are you hurt? Are you OK?”
“I’m fine, it’s fine. I just . . . I just want to go home.” She started sobbing into the receiver, and it broke my heart.
“I’m on my way. I’m coming.”
“Just don’t tell Dad, all right? He’ll never trust me again,” she warned through her tears.
“Just stay there, Karla, OK? I’m on my way,” I said once more, trying to give her all the reassurance that I could over the phone.
I hung up the receiver and dashed out of the house and drove straight to Greyson’s. I rang the doorbell repeatedly until he answered.
He raised an eyebrow. “Eleanor? What is it?”
“It’s Karla. She’s at a party, and we have to go get her.”
“What? No. She went to her room a while back,” he explained, rubbing the back of his neck.
“No, she just called me. She sneaked out a while ago.”
“What?!” he snapped, his eyes widening from shock. “I’m going to kill her,” he hissed, hurrying over to get his shoes on.
“First let’s just make sure she’s OK. She sounded really upset on the phone. I’ll grab Lorelai.”
“OK, I’ll meet you out front.”
When I grabbed Lorelai, she was yawning, asking what was going on, but I just told her we were going for a quick ride. We headed outside, and Greyson already had the car running. I placed Lorelai into her car seat and buckled her in, then I hopped into the passenger seat and closed my door.
“Where are we going?” Greyson asked with his hands gripped tightly around the steering wheel. “Where are we going?” he repeated, his voice stern.
I gave him the address and he took off, not speaking a word. I glimpsed the anger in his tense jaw and the way he tightly held the steering wheel. The stress that was flying through his mind.
“That is the last time I give her a bit of responsibility,” he hissed beneath his breath. “She just proved—”
“Greyson,” I said slowly, placing my hand on his forearm. “There’s plenty of time for you to be upset. But right now, I think she’s just going to need you to be there for her. She sounded so distressed.”
He let out a quick huff and went silent, not speaking another word.
When we arrived at the location Karla had given me, we found her sitting on the curb. She was balled up, with her arms wrapped around her legs and her head down, rocking back and forth.
Lorelai was fully awake now, glaring out of the window at her sister. “What’s wrong with Karla?” she asked, confused.
“Stay here, Lorelai,” Greyson ordered as he and I got out of the car.
We walked over to Karla and looked at her, and a strong stench hit our noses as we grew closer and closer. There were some liquids all over her and what looked to be pieces of trash stuck to her clothes.
“Karla?” I whispered, and she jumped, alarmed, as if someone was going to attack her.
“Leave me alone!” she hollered, wide-eyed, as she looked around. When she realized it was me, she took a deep breath. “Eleanor.” She stood and then saw Greyson and her eyes filled with fear. “You told him? I told you not to tell him!”
“I had to, Karla; he’s your father.”
She looked at Greyson and began shaking, as if she knew exactly how much trouble she was in. “Dad, look, I’m sorry, OK?” Tears started streaming down her face as her small frame shook. “I know you’re upset and you won’t trust me ever again, but look, you don’t get it. Nobody gets it.”
“Gets what, Karla?” I asked, because Greyson was standing there speechless, and I wasn’t even sure what emotions were running through him. I couldn’t tell from his stance. I couldn’t tell from his facial expressions. He just seemed frozen in place.
“I’m lonely!” she cried out, tossing her hands in the air.
“I have no friends, and everyone hates me and makes fun of me every day. Every day is hard, and you guys don’t understand.
Nobody understands! I just thought when my old friends called me to hang out that maybe I was being let back into our friendship group, I just thought, I thought, I th .
. .” Her words were so jumbled and shaky that they grew harder to understand as she sobbed nonstop.
“I’m sorry, Dad, OK? I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m—”
Before she could continue, before she could push one more apology out of her mouth, Greyson stepped in and wrapped his arms around her.
He pulled her in so tightly that she wouldn’t have been able to let him go if she wanted to.
She kept saying the words I’m sorry to Greyson, and he held her so close to him.
“It’s all right, Karla. You’re all right, I got you.” He held her as she sobbed into his arms.
“You’re never going to forgive me,” she cried. “I keep messing up.”
“Hey, hey, look at me.” Greyson pulled away from her and bent down to look her in her eyes. “You are my daughter. I am always going to be here for you.”
That just made her cry harder and wrap her arms around him, burrowing herself against him.
My heart was breaking for Karla. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what she’d been going through.
“Karla. What happened tonight?” Greyson asked once he and his daughter finally let go of each other.
She rubbed her left hand up and down her right arm, which was covered in some kind of junk.
“Missy called me and asked if I wanted to hang out. I thought it was some kind of joke because she spent the past year ignoring me since she started dating Colton Stevens, a senior jerk, and well, Colton said he wouldn’t date her if she hung out with a freak like me. ”
“Who’s Missy?” I asked.
“Karla’s old best friend,” Greyson answered. “Go on. She called you and what?”
“Well, she and Colton came and picked me up, saying they wanted to make up for not talking to me. They wanted to take me to a party at his parents’ house, since they were out of town, so after some convincing, I agreed to go.
Then I got here, and everyone just started calling me a freak, and they .
. . they . . .” Her eyes watered over and she shivered, clearly reliving what had happened.
“They said that my face looked like trash, so I should smell like it too. And they all started dumping stuff on me and rubbing raw meat and crap against me.”
Greyson was visibly livid. He glanced at the house. “Stay here, Karla.”
“What? No, Dad! You can’t—”
“I said stay here,” he ordered, marching straight for the house where the party was currently taking place. He pounded his fist on the front door. When a boy answered it, he had a smug look on his face.
“Uh, yeah?” he said, looking at Greyson.
“Are you Colton?” Greyson asked. “This your house?”
“Yeah?”
Greyson pointed to Karla. “Did you do this to my daughter?”
Colton looked down at Karla and then chuckled a little. “No, I think the tree did that to her when she got fucked up last year.”
Greyson tensed up, and his hand formed a fist. The moment I saw this, I hurried up to the porch and stepped between the two.
“Greyson. Breathe.”
“Yeah, old man. You might have a heart attack,” Colton remarked, looking cocky as ever. I wanted to hit him too. “Hey, look everyone. Hunch called her daddy to come save the day. He smells just as bad as she does,” he joked, looking back into his house and making his friends laugh.
“Listen, you little shit,” Greyson hissed, his hands gripped tighter than ever before. “If you ever come near my daughter again, or say some bullshit about her, I’m going to—”
“Going to what? Kick my ass? Newsflash, old-timer, I’m seventeen. If you lay a hand on me, I will call the cops. You can’t hit a minor. I’m not stupid.”
“Let’s find out,” Greyson said, pulling his fist back, but I caught it midair.
“Greyson, you don’t want to do this,” I whispered.
“Trust me, I do,” he argued, his eyes piercing into Colton as if he was seconds away from murder.
“Greyson, look at me,” I ordered.
“No.”
“Greyson, look at me,” I demanded once more.
“No.” He tightened his arm even more, and I could feel the intensity coursing through his veins.
“Grey!” I placed my hand on his cheek and forced him to look my way.
We locked eyes and I lowered my voice, feeling chills race over me as I stared into his fiery eyes.
“This isn’t you. This isn’t you,” I softly spoke.
The force of his arm began to relax, and he began to lower it right as Colton decided to speak again.
“Yeah, and how about you get off my porch and go take a shower? You smell like your disgusting daughter,” Colton huffed.
For goodness’ sake, it was as if this little prick wanted to get his butt kicked.
Greyson’s strength resurfaced as Colton’s words hit his ears, instant anger rising once more throughout every inch of his body. He was so tense that I wasn’t certain I could hold his arm down much longer, but luckily I didn’t have to.
Lorelai came marching past me, with butterfly wings on her back, and she kicked her leg up in the air, right between Colton’s legs. “You leave my sister alone, you little bitch!” Lorelai shouted, kicking Colton straight in his privates.
Greyson’s arm dropped as both of our jaws practically hit the ground in shock.
Oh my gosh, Lorelai just kicked a seventeen-year-old’s ass.
I’d never been so proud in my life.
Colton tumbled over, howling as he placed his hands over his junk. “Oh my God!” he cried, whimpering in pain. “What the hell?!”
“Dude! Colton just got his ass kicked by a kid!” a guy hollered, and everyone started laughing their heads off.