Chapter 8
NADIA
Nadia flicked on the bathroom light and startled at her reflection.
She wasn’t vain, but her appearance shocked her.
She couldn’t believe she hadn’t been stopped in Walmart and asked if she needed help.
She’d cleaned up her face for the most part in the car with Thomas’s towel and water, but dried blood matted her hair and stained her white blouse.
Her eyes conveyed a separate, unhinged energy, and the thin laceration that crossed her cheek was an angry red.
Eager to close a deal, the car saleswoman had kept her thoughts to herself too when Thomas showed her the amount of cash they had on hand. She hadn’t spoken up at all.
Nadia prodded at the wound and inhaled sharply through her teeth. The laceration had started to crust over, but it burned. It needed a few butterfly bandages.
Her fingers started trembling. Or maybe they’d been trembling the entire day.
She’d come so close to dying. An inch to the left and the bullet would have gone through her head.
If Thomas hadn’t shifted at the last second, the bullet would have hit its mark.
He’d be dead. They both would have been because whoever had been shooting at them would have made sure she hadn’t survived as well.
She located hand towels and a fully stocked first aid kit under the sink and cleaned the wound as best she could with the antiseptic solution.
She managed to apply the Steri-Strips before she had to stop.
Her hands fiercely trembled and she suddenly felt lightheaded.
She abruptly sat on the toilet and dropped her head in her hands, choking on a sob.
Another sob filled her throat, but she kept it lodged there. She refused to give those bastards her tears.
“You’re alive. You’re safe. Alive and safe. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.” She rocked back and forth, hugging her arms. Today could have gone so much worse. She inhaled and exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled.
Images flew by. Glass shattering. A bullet whizzing past her ear. The impact of Thomas’s body when he threw himself at her.
Her breaths shortened, coming faster, the images taking her further back in time, dislodging dusty memories as if seeking its own safe space.
And suddenly, Nadia was back in her childhood bedroom, thirteen years old and covering her head with a pillow, chanting, “You are safe. You are loved. You are okay. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.
” But she could still hear her parents arguing about her.
Lisa didn’t agree with the extent of Don’s punishment.
No TV and friends for a month just from getting caught wearing makeup to school.
Don wasn’t just fed up with Lisa challenging every decision he made. He was fed up with Lisa, period.
Their argument escalated. Something shattered and Nadia knew her mom had started throwing things.
The front door slammed. Don had walked out.
He always did when they argued. And the house stilled as if holding its breath.
Nadia dropped the pillow on her lap and held her own breath.
It didn’t take long for what she knew would come next.
A cabinet door banged and another door slammed as Lisa took her anger out on the house.
Nadia’s anxiety poked at her like an angry bear and the walls of her room closed in on her. She couldn’t listen to her mom’s meltdown, not when she’d been the cause of her parents’ argument. She needed to leave the house.
At the risk of disobeying her parents, she picked up the cordless phone on her nightstand and called Aimee at the Old Irish Goat. She’d be doing her homework in the back office while her parents worked the evening shift at their restaurant. Nadia asked if she could spend the night.
“I’ll check with my mom,” Aimee said, and a minute later, “My mom’s okay with it if your mom is.” It was a school night.
“She is,” Nadia lied. She just had to get away from the ugliness in her house. She then called the one friend she knew with a car.
Thomas Donato pulled up in his shiny black BMW moments later, and Nadia slid into the passenger seat.
“Thanks for the ride.” She dropped her backpack on the floor between her feet and swiped her hair over her shoulder, trying to act cooler than she felt.
He was four years older, built like he was in perpetual training for college football tryouts, and cuter than the guys in her eighth-grade classes who were all right-angles and into mind-numbing stupid things like Pokémon cards.
“No prob.” Thomas shrugged, turning his hazel eyes, a heart-stopping blend of golden leaves and earthy browns, on her.
His mouth lifted in a slight smile. Embarrassed, she glanced away, tugging at a loose thread in her shirt hem.
Thankfully, he turned up the radio volume so she didn’t have to talk with him on the ride over.
She wouldn’t know what to say, too intimidated to make small talk.
As if a senior in high school were interested in anything a middle schooler had to say.
But she also secretly liked him, had so since they first met five years ago when his family moved to California.
And crushes always made a normally extroverted Nadia quite introverted and shy.
Thomas turned into the Goat’s parking lot and stopped, letting the car idle.
Nadia couldn’t convince herself to get out.
Like she’d felt in her room at home, the thought of being stuck in the restaurant’s cramped back office felt suffocating.
Just thinking about it sitting here in the car had her breaths coming quicker.
“Are you okay?” Thomas asked, leaning forward to peer at her, his face pulled with concern.
She shook her head. The world outside seemed big and heavy and lonely.
“Can we go somewhere?” she heard herself ask, hoping he’d take her somewhere. Anywhere that wasn’t here.
He took her to Joe’s Diner where he was meeting up with a few friends to study.
“Look who showed!” a burly guy shouted when they’d entered the diner. The three other guys at the booth pounded the table.
Thomas walked over to them.
“Hey, D.” One of the guys bumped fists with Thomas.
“That your new piece?” asked his burly friend. His frosty blue eyes leered at Nadia hovering behind Thomas.
“Fuck off, Smythe.” Thomas smacked the back of the guy’s head. “She’s James’s friend.”
Spotting an empty table under a window, Nadia left Thomas to his friends and headed that way. She dropped her backpack on a chair and sat in the one beside it. Thomas was doing the same across the table from her when she looked up.
“You don’t want to sit with your friends?” she asked.
“No room.” He dropped into the seat opposite her. Nadia glanced back at their booth. They lewdly gestured at them and Thomas scowled.
“Mature bunch.”
“They’re dicks. Ignore them.” Thomas plucked the menus from behind the condiment basket and slid one across the table to her.
She wasn’t really hungry, and she didn’t have any money on her.
But she picked up the menu and scanned the unappetizing photos.
Pancake stacks. Well-done steaks and potatoes.
A waitress stopped at their table and poured them glasses of water. “What’ll it be tonight, Thomas?”
“Coffee. Loads of sugar and cream.”
“Sure thing, dear. And you, hon?”
Nadia peeked at the menu again, uninterested in any of the offerings. Her appetite walked out the door with her dad.
“Want a coffee?” Thomas asked.
She read through the beverage selection. Coffee was two dollars with free refills. She didn’t drink coffee, but maybe the hot drink would chase away the bone-deep cold her parents’ argument had brought on. She should have two dollars in coins at the bottom of her backpack.
“Sure.”
“Cream and sugar, hon?”
“Say ‘yes.’ The coffee sucks here.”
The waitress pursed her lips at Thomas.
“What? It’s true and you know it.” He winked at Nadia, grinning up at the waitress.
The woman rolled her eyes.
“Cream and sugar?” she repeated.
“Sure.” Nadia closed the menu and put it back.
“I changed my mind. Add a hot fudge sundae. Two spoons.”
“You got it.”
“Thanks, Angela.” Thomas returned his menu to the side of the table.
“You know her?”
“We come here a lot after practice to study. Their coffee sucks, but it keeps you awake.”
Angela returned with their coffees and dented cream and sugar canisters. “Your sundae will be ready shortly,” she said and left for the next table.
Nadia sniffed the coffee and took a hesitant sip, scorching her tongue.
Thomas laughed at the face she made. “Told you it was rank.”
“It’s awful. Why do you drink this?” She nudged the mug away, regretting her order.
“Try this.” He added a heavy pour of cream, stirring in three heaping spoonsful of sugar.
She tried another taste. It was barely palatable, but the sugar softened the bitter edge.
“You get used to it,” he said, watching her.
Heat crept up her neck. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, suddenly interested in the saltshaker.
He unzipped his backpack and took out a notebook and his calculus textbook, pushing them aside instead of cracking them open.
He twirled a pencil, drumming the eraser end on the table as he stared across the restaurant where his friends sat.
“You don’t have to sit with me.” She unzipped her own bag, mirroring his actions. Needing something to do with her hands.
“It’s all right.”
She smiled slightly. They fell into awkward silence despite how loud the restaurant was. It was a popular hangout spot for the high school. Students occupied most of the tables.
Nadia stared down at her books, feeling a little weird she’d ended up here tonight. Aimee was probably wondering when she’d show.
“My parents don’t like each other either.”
Her head rocketed up. “What makes you think mine don’t?”
He shrugged. Aimee must be talking about her to James.
“They hate each other,” she heard herself admit, liking the fact hers weren’t the only ones. She felt less alone around Thomas.