Chapter Five #2
She whipped towards me, her defensiveness morphing into anger. “Yeah, kind of hard to miss your mansion.”
I knew I wasn’t imagining the undercurrent of bitterness in her voice. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She headed for the door but tossed venomous words over her shoulder, “Congrats, Holly. You escaped the bad guy. Was it really so hard? Is it still? In your big, white house and your designer clothes? You guys could afford to move across the freaking country to avoid him. That’s not an option for me.
I love him. And I am staying. And I am choosing to fight for what we have.
It is so different from what happened to you.
I appreciate you telling me. It means a lot, really it does.
And what happened to you is awful. But it’s not the same. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
I rocked back on my heels like she had hit me.
My shirt was still damp from her tears, and I could see the spot of wetness on hers.
I thought it had helped, to tell her the truth.
I thought she understood. Clearly fucking not.
I blinked back a new wave of tears, the warmth of anger spreading in my chest. “Fine. Don’t let my privilege hit your ass on the way out. ”
I watched her go, trying to force myself to breathe.
Please turn around. Just one glance up at my window.
But she didn’t. I could see the set in her shoulders even from here.
After her Uber disappeared from view, I turned and stood for a minute staring at my bed and the books still scattered there.
I wanted to scream, but the last thing I needed right now was my mom or dad all up in my business.
Grinding my teeth, I picked the books up one by one and chucked them as hard as I could across the room.
The thud of them hitting the walls did nothing to dull my anger.
Or the dull ache. I had fucking trusted her, and she had turned it against me. Who did that?
Throwing myself back onto my bed, I buried my face into my pillow.
Only then did I allow myself to scream until my throat ached.
The raw, thorn-like tenderness that had become so familiar to me.
My mom’s voice came through the door, asking if I was alright.
Guess I hadn’t been as quiet as I meant to be.
When I yelled that I was fine, I wasn’t the least bit surprised when she took it at face value and left me to my misery.
Just like old times. Me and my ghosts and a mom who was too caught up in being perfect to care.
That night, I took my pizza to my room. Amidst the textbooks and papers I had yet to clean up, I nibbled on my dinner and stared into a corner.
Part of me was livid. I had opened up to her.
, and she had thrown it in my face. I had cried.
I hated crying. What did she think I wanted?
A pity party? No. I just wanted her to know she wasn’t alone and she was worth more.
Like it had been easy to leave everything I knew behind.
The way my mom had looked at me in the months before, during, and after the trial.
That sorrowful look, the one full of regret.
I couldn’t stand it. So, I had stopped looking back at her.
And when he walked down the courthouse stairs a free man?
Well, I just stopped talking about it all, ’cause it hadn’t ever done me a lick of good.
That’s when I just shoved it all to the back of my mind. Out of sight and all that.
My mom came in at some point, taking my plate and pressing a kiss to my head.
She eyed the textbooks and my disheveled appearance.
I knew that, in her own way, she cared, just as much as I knew that Maria hadn’t meant it.
Not really. That didn’t mean her words didn’t sting.
I just wanted so badly to help her. And maybe to run him over with a really big truck.
Multiple times. Thud, thump, you son of a bitch.
I chortled at the image, then wondered if this classified me as mentally unstable.
Whatever. I would give her the weekend. And on Monday, she was going to realize I didn’t give up so easily.
She was stuck with me, whether she liked it or not.
She turned eighteen in a few months, and we were almost half-way done with our last year of school. Sky’s the limit.
I spent the weekend alternating between staring at my phone, praying it would ring, and running through my textbooks one more time.
The air had gotten decidedly cooler, winter firmly having Georgia in her grasp after a brief struggle.
At one point, I yeeted my geography book from the balcony and then regretted that decision when I had to go outside in the biting cold to get it back.
Maria hadn’t reached out. Not once. My mom was hovering, like she always did.
And dad had some major surgery and a sick kid to save.
So, it was just me and my study guides and my circling thoughts.
And those stupid memories that hadn’t wanted to go back in their box.
The nightmares had come back worse than before.
Suddenly, the rumble of motorcycles ripped me from my concentration.
Oh, and there was that. Much to my sheer delight, there was evidently a motorcycle club not even ten minutes down the street.
I think mom’s soul departed this mortal plane when she found out.
I could live with it, for the most part, but there was a certain group of by now very familiar bikes that seemed to take a sick pleasure in revving their engines as they drove by.
Micropenis-possessing man children.
I flipped off the bikes as they went by.
I had only caught sight of their owners once or twice in school.
They were jocks. Big shock there. And players.
Especially that blonde one. I only paid them any attention because one of them had a habit of staring at Maria like she had been put on this Earth to save him.
And Jackson? That douche couldn’t be further from my mind, thank you very much. He was lucky I remembered his name.
I huffed and grabbed my geography textbook off the ground.
With it in hand, I headed back inside to find my mom.
I couldn’t get my mind to shut up, and there was only one other person loud enough to drown them out.
She who didn’t know how to shut up. I found her sitting in the primary living room.
She looked up at me as I walked in, muting her show and smiling hesitantly at me.
I held up my flashcards like a weapon. “Quiz me?” I was almost blinded by the sheer joy in her ear-to-ear smile.
“Oh my goodness, yes!”
“Geez, Mom. It’s geography. Not the cure for cancer.”
“Right, right. Ok. What can I do?” TV off, she crossed her legs and patted the seat next to her. I sat, turning to face her, and handed her the cards.
“Answers on the front, questions on the back.”
She nodded eagerly, that little line in her brow furrowed in concentration.
For the next several hours, she quizzed me until I considered burning the first globe I found.
When I finally went to bed that night, I stared at the ceiling.
When the same damn engines pulled me from almost sleep, I got up and grabbed the heaviest textbook I could find.
Hurrying so I wouldn’t miss them, I went down the stairs and out the front door.
It was a beautiful, if not a little chilly, night and I tried to enjoy it a little as I walked down the driveway.
Right as they went past my home, I threw that book with everything I had.
It didn’t hit them, but it did scare the shit out of them, judging by the shouts and the squealing of tires in the dark.
Take that.
Come Monday, I’d had my fill of studying and was ready to find Maria.
I pulled into the parking lot a little too quickly, Sally protesting as I accidentally hit the curb.
Sorry, girl. But there was one thing I wanted to do before I went inside.
I was tired. Finals had me stressed. My bestie was going through hell.
And someone was going to get their ass kicked.
I found “someone” pretty quickly. Four jocks were leaning up against the worn brick, laughing at some joke I hadn’t been privy to.
The quiet guy—Rodney I think—nudged his buddies when he saw me heading over.
Dalton gave me a wide, friendly grin before winking at me and saying, “Hey, gorgeous.”
I scoffed at him. “Oh, fucking save it for one of the cheerleaders constantly hanging off you.” He held up his hands in an “I surrender” gesture as I fixed each one of them with a hard stare.
“Which one of you miscreants thinks it so damn funny to hold your throttle down every time you drive past my house?”
They looked at each other and then Jackson, King Asshole himself, stepped towards me. “What’s wrong, princess? Don’t like us disturbing your peace?”
“I’m going to show you peace disturbance if you keep messing with me.”
He rolled his eyes, “Oh, you mean like throwing a textbook at us? Right. Very scary.”
I moved closer to him. “I don’t know what I’ve done to make you act like a damn fool, or maybe that just comes naturally to you.
Newsflash? Being a dick doesn’t look good on anyone.
Keep pushing.” I didn’t give him a chance to answer before stomping away.
My sour mood didn’t improve when Maria didn’t show up for school.
Not that day. Not that week. She missed finals. And she missed every call.
I was so damn worried about her I was sick.
I questioned the teachers, even cornered the principal.
I threw a tantrum when they told me it was confidential but there were “extenuating circumstances” and to “not worry.” After about two weeks, I begged my father to look into it.
An address, a name, a freaking welfare check.
He promised he would. I was going mad feeling so useless.
He and Mom had some sort of holiday gala at the hospital with the Board of Directors and a bunch of important people.
I managed to convince them to let me stay home.
One of those sudden, winter storms came rolling in and my windows damn near rattled.
I was sitting at my desk, trying to stalk Maria on social media for some hint of her whereabouts, when my doorbell rang.
I about jumped ten feet in the air as the sweet, tinkling chime echoed throughout the otherwise empty house.
I had a whole rant ready for whoever was behind that door but my misplaced ire dissipated as quickly as smoke on the air.
Maria.
She was soaked from head to toe. She must have walked here.
Worse? Her busted lip. Her black eye. The swollen jaw. How she cradled her arm. Her bottom lip trembled and she looked up at me, “I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Ohmigawd, get inside before you freeze to death.” I was almost too afraid to touch her but, as gently as I could, I pulled her inside.
“Maria, where have you been? What happened? Where is he? I will fucking kill him with my bare hands. My bare hands, you hear me? Why haven’t you answered any of my calls?
” She shivered violently so I steered her into the kitchen where I quickly made a cup of hot cocoa and shoved it into her hands.
Still, she said nothing.
I ran upstairs, grabbing a change of clothes. She was bigger than I was, but it would have to work. I snagged a blanket from the back of the couch before rejoining her in the kitchen.
After she was changed, and not shaking like a maraca, I looked at her expectantly. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Maria?”
She finally looked up. “I’m sorry I’ve been gone. I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it. I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head. “It’s ok. I’m not mad. Talk to me. According to the many therapists I’ve seen, saying awful shit is something called a defense mechanism. I know I’ve done it.”
She started sobbing, a heartbroken, desolate sound.
I still wasn’t a huge fan of touch, but my friend needed me.
Oh God, she looked awful. I was almost afraid to put my arms around her, worried she would shatter at the slightest pressure.
She was warming up but still shaking. She buried her face in my shoulder, and I just held her like I had wish someone had held me.
Her next words were so quiet, I almost missed them.
But then the three shocking words seemed to echo around the room.
“I’m pregnant, Holly.”