Chapter 44 Sophie
FORTY-FOUR
SOPHIE
I have set off an avalanche.
After Cole got arrested, my mother and I were asked to come to the station to testify again. But this time, I talked. And I told them everything.
The interrogation went on for hours. My mother raged at my willingness to testify but couldn’t do anything about it because I turned eighteen four days ago. She no longer had to be present, which is why she couldn’t silence me anymore.
It seems like she’s forgotten that I’m no longer a child.
Because of my mother’s behavior and my being of age, I don’t have to go back to her, but the case became much more complicated when I explained to the officers why I had run away in the first place.
Apparently, the fact that my mother systematically cut me off from the outside world had a significant impact on my psyche. At least that’s how the law sees it.
A psychological evaluation has been ordered, which puts all further investigation on hold. No one knows what to believe anymore, since it’s one person’s word against another’s. This, in turn, means that Cole is to be transferred to county jail, where he’ll await trial.
When they’re finally done asking questions, a female officer takes me to the reception area of the station. "Do you have somewhere to stay?"
I look at her blankly. There’s only one place I want to be, and that’s with Cole, but even though he’s still in the same building, they won’t let me see him.
Before I can reply, a loud voice draws our attention.
"I want to talk to him right now, dammit!"
I turn my head and see Jules angrily shouting at an officer. When I call her name, she whirls around instantly. Seconds later, she throws her arms around my neck, nearly knocking me over.
"Goddamn… I’m so glad to see you," she mutters with a mixture of distress and anger.
Her emotions wash over me and want to consume me, but I don’t let them. "I’m so sorry," I say incoherently. "I didn’t do this. You have to believe me."
She nods at my shoulder before letting go of me and looking at me urgently. "I know you would never do something like that to him."
Only now do I notice that her face is red and wet with tears. She is completely distraught, and all at once, the tears burst out of me as well. "Why does he keep saying it’s true, Jules? Why is he lying?"
She shakes her head. "I don’t know."
"Miss Reed?" the officer interjects again with audible discomfort.
I wipe the tears from under my eyes and glance at her for a moment before looking back at Jules, clasping her hand with mine. "I’ll go with her."
The policewoman looks from me to Jules and back again. "You sure?"
Anger bubbles up in my chest because she, too, seems to think she knows what’s best for me.
"I’ll go with her," I repeat insistently. "Thank you for your efforts."
Before she or Jules can say anything back, I turn away and walk toward the exit, dragging Jules behind me.
After driving us home in Cole’s pickup and while Buster is greeting me profusely, Jules heads straight for the open kitchen. Meanwhile, I look around the large room that has been my home for a week and seems more familiar to me than my own room ever was.
Everything smells of him, but that’s the only thing that has remained. The motorcycle? Disappeared. The pool table? Pushed into the corner and dusted. The television? Gone. The coffee machine? No longer there.
"What happened here?" I want to know quietly.
"Better. Not. Ask," she says almost bitterly. "Jack?"
As I turn to her, she holds up Cole’s whiskey and looks at me with raised eyebrows.
"I think it’s a good day to start," I decide, to which she nods in agreement before grabbing two glasses from one of the cabinets.
After we sit down at the table, she pours for both of us and slides one glass toward me while keeping the other in her hand. "Cheers."
I frown. "What?"
"Just drink," she replies tonelessly instead of explaining, pouring the amber liquid into herself.
Without thinking any further, I do the same. The alcohol burns in my throat, making me cough, but it also tastes like Cole, so I empty my glass.
Jules is already pouring herself another glass and refills mine as well, before setting the bottle aside and looking at me. "Now tell me exactly what happened after I left. That dumbass didn’t think it was necessary to explain anything to me."
So I tell her. Everything. That Cole slept with me, and then wanted to fix the bike.
What happened when we got back, and that we escaped to a motel.
I told her how Cole literally abandoned me the day after, and that I didn’t know where to go, which is why I went back to my mom.
That I still had the phone he had bought me, but kept it hidden.
At that, Jules ruefully confessed to me that Cole had forbidden her to text me back, but I can’t be angry with her for that. Instead, I tell her about the day I confronted my mother with what had happened, and how she found the phone shortly after and handed it over to the police.
I blame myself terribly for that. If I had hidden the stupid thing better or just let it disappear, it probably would never have led to Cole getting arrested. But since I had to keep it and torture myself with it, it was only a matter of time before my mother found it.
"Stop it," Jules demands again. "It’s not your fault. Your mother was the one who raised the suspicion in the first place."
"But why is he acting like all of this is true? Why, Jules? And what happened here?" I make a sweeping motion with my hand. "What happened to him?"
Jules sinks into herself and closes her eyes.
"I don’t know," she replies wearily. "When I called him from Chicago to ask about you, all he said was that you weren’t there anymore. I raged and threatened to come right back, but he just hung up on me. Because I couldn’t reach him after that, I got on the next plane, and when I finally got here, he was lying on the couch, absolutely wasted, while everything here was smashed.
It took hours before I got him to talk. He drove me crazy with his fucking silence. "
I can literally picture it in front of me. I can see him sitting here, an empty bottle next to him, doing just nothing. The crystal-clear image causes a painful tugging in my chest.
"No matter what I said or did, he refused to even say your name. And then he just… disappeared." A deeply sad expression darkens her features. "I don’t know where he went, but he wasn’t with me anymore, Sophie. He was gone. Like he had… died. I’ve never seen him like that before. Not even after the accident."
It tightens my throat to hear all that. I can hardly bear to listen to her words because they stir up too much inside me.
They make me sad and angry. I want to cry and scream and rage.
Want to grab Cole by the shoulders and shake him.
I want to ask him how he could do this to her—how he could do this to all of us—but he’s not here.
There’s nothing I can do. Once again, I am completely helpless.
"One day, the bike was gone. I don’t know what he did with it, but I didn’t dare ask him about it either.
And that was it. Every time I came here to check on him, he just sat there, staring into space as if he was waiting for his end to come.
He barely talked, but he drank all the more.
I wanted to help him. I really did, Sophie, but as soon as I so much as mentioned you, he freaked out so badly that at some point, I didn’t dare anymore.
" Her voice gets quieter toward the end, making it clear how bad these last weeks must have been for her.
"You did everything you could." I reach for her hand.
"But it wasn’t enough," she chokes out. "It just wasn’t enough. He’d given up on himself, and I should’ve done something to stop it."
We sit in silence for a while as tears run down our cheeks.
Cole’s pain is almost palpable in the air around us. I hate myself for letting him send me away. I should have known it was a lie and that he didn’t mean what he said that morning. But his words hurt so much that I just couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see his pain, nor could I tell that he was lying.
"What happens now?" I ask at one point, to which Jules sighs loudly.
"I don’t know," she replies, exhausted. "He won’t talk to me. Told me to sell everything, move in with my mom, and forget about him. He said goodbye to me. Can you believe that?" A mirthless laugh escapes her.
Yes, I can believe it. This is the Cole who can’t see that he deserves to be happy. The one who can’t see that he, too, deserves friendship, affection, and love. The Cole who thinks he’s not worth anything.
"They just have to believe me," I say. "They can’t lock him up if the victim doesn’t accuse him."
"Oh, you bet they can," Jules replies angrily. Then she finishes her second glass and reaches for Cole’s cigarettes, which he has left on the table.
I’ve never seen her smoke, but I guess it doesn’t matter right now. Maybe this is her way of being close to him. In fact, she coughs a few times, but I don’t say a word and just think about the fact that it smells even more like Cole now.
Cole, who’s gone.
Cole, who may not come back for a very long time.