Chapter 6 #3
"Easier said than done." I tug my hat off and stuff my mittens inside it, unzip my layers now that the truck is heating up.
He sighs and prepares to put the vintage Stepside Chevy into gear; I put my hand on his wrist to stop him.
"You should probably not be driving to hear what I have to say," I tell him.
His eyebrows raise. "It's like that, huh?"
I don't answer that. Swallowing hard, I close my eyes and hunt for the words to start, for the right way to say what needs to be said.
But I can't find anything. I open my mouth several times but the words dry up on my tongue.
"You're that scared?" he asks. "Jesus, Lace. What the fuck happened? Just say it."
"I was pregnant," I blurt.
Silence greets my pronouncement.
I watch his eyes slide closed, watch understanding wash over his face. "Holy…fucking…shit," he mumbles. "That makes sense."
I stay silent as he processes.
"I always wondered if that was it, but…" he shakes his head. "But…why run?"
"Cole, you have to understand—"
"Understand?" He interrupts, his voice rising, intensifying. "Understand? I have to understand? Don't you—didn't you think I would have?"
"I don't know, Cole. I panicked."
"Panicking is telling me after a couple months. Panicking is getting an abortion before I knew. You fucking…you ran away."
"I know."
"Pregnant," he repeats.
I wish that was it—spill that truth and that's all that needs to be said. Closure granted.
But nothing is ever that simple.
He scrapes his knit Sheriff's department winter hat off his head and tosses it onto the dashboard in the front left corner, scrubs his hair with a hand. "Pregnant. You left because you were pregnant." A pause. "I have so many questions."
"I know."
He looks at me, his expression unreadable. "There's more." It's not a question.
I nod.
He turns his gaze out the window. "I need time to process this first."
"Okay," I whisper.
He puts the truck in gear and pulls away from the turn-off, heading south. His jaw is tight, the way it gets when he's thinking hard—or pissed off. Or both.
I think I was expecting an explosion, but I should have known better—Eddie would have exploded, but Cole isn't the type; that initial outburst is the worst of it.
Somehow, that isn’t the relief it should be.
Dawn stains the sky as we pull into the parking lot of the B-and-B. For a moment, we just sit with the engine idling, neither speaking—me because I don't know what to say, and him probably because he has too much to know what to say first.
"Cole, I…I'm sorry." It's the only thing I can say. "I'm sorry."
He just nods, not looking at me. "I need to sit with this for a bit, Lace. And you look done in. Get some sleep."
"How can I, Cole?"
"I don't hate you."
"You don't know everything."
"I can guess."
"Cole…"
"Get some sleep," he says, and it sounds sort of like an order. "We'll finish this later."
"Adam-One, do you copy?" His radio squawks, startling me. That's when I realize, somehow having missed it until now, that he's in his uniform; his gear belt is on the bench between us, his radio in the cupholder. He’s up-up.
"This is Adam-One," he answers. "I copy."
"We have a domestic at Cooper's Hollow. Old Man Hollis is at it again."
Cole pinches the bridge of his nose, shoots his cuff to glance at the cheap Timex on his wrist. "At five-fifteen in the goddamn morning? The nasty old goat never fucking sleeps, I swear to god." He glances at me. "I gotta go, Lace."
"Mr. Hollis is still around?" I ask, shocked.
The man was old when we were kids. Charlie Hollis is a tall, wiry, mean, cantankerous old motherfucker who's been a constant source of trouble his whole life, mostly because he and his wife, Bea, get into knock-down-drag-out fights regularly.
The old woman gives as well as she gets, and god forbid anyone suggest she leave him.
The last time someone suggested she leave Charlie, that person had to have their nose reset.
They love each other in a bizarre, violent, fucked-up sort of way.
I remember Cole's dad, the original Sheriff Mannix, answering calls to that same trailer in Cooper's Hollow, the Three Rivers’ mobile home park, every other week at least. It seems that much hasn't changed.
"I think both he and Bea are too fuckin' mean to die. They'll be around long after the cockroaches, most likely."
I touch Cole's arm. “I’ll answer every question you have whenever you're ready, okay? I promise."
He nods. "I'll have a pile of 'em."
"I can imagine." I look at him once more, and I see the pain in his features, and I hate myself for putting it there; I hate myself even more for the pain still to come. "Whenever you're ready, Cole."
I leave the warm cab of his truck and watch him leave. I stand in the cold, watching, until his taillights make the turn and vanish.
When I manage to fall asleep, it's fitful and restless, full of memory-dreams of Cole and me in the back of his truck beneath the stars, back when the world was full of hope and the person who meant the most to me in the whole world still loved me.
When I wake up later that morning, it's to the reality of a world wherein I have neither of those things.