Chapter Thirty-Five Elsie
Chapter Thirty-Five
Elsie
Elsie pounded the steering wheel as she waited for the traffic light to change so she could leave the stupid parking lot.
Her father’s latest betrayal had pushed her over the edge.
Without that money to pay off the blackmailer—a.k.a.
Porter, hiding behind a burner phone number and a fake Snapchat account—she would be publicly humiliated.
Sure, she had to accept some of the blame too. Hadn’t she proved she could botch up her life? Her cell phone buzzed with an incoming text, which she had no intention of reading.
She wished her father could have stayed in Biloxi rather than show up here like he was truly worried about her.
She should have guessed, though. He always preferred disappearing during the tough times—like evacuating for a hurricane—then making a big show out of arriving after the fact.
As if she and her mom and Grammie didn’t have enough heartache.
Cars whizzed past, weaving and bobbing through heavy traffic.
Everyone around her was in a hurry, while she sat at a standstill with virtually nowhere else to go.
But she sure couldn’t stay at that place any longer with her dad lying through his teeth to her mom, pretending he hadn’t just pissed away the money she’d counted on to pay off the person trying to extort her.
His selfish greed had killed her very last hope.
It wasn’t like her mom and Grammie could be any more disappointed in her.
Maybe she could just go to her grandparents’ bungalow by the shore and eat up all the ice cream in the freezer.
Maybe even throw her phone in the river so she wouldn’t have to see her life implode on the screen.
A big-ass truck slammed on the brakes nearby, oversize tires squealing as the 4x4 slid halfway into the intersection when the light finally turned for her.
Nerves already strung tight, Elsie realized she had no desire to pull into that intense traffic.
So much for her big escape. Her breakout would have been much easier in Middle of Nowhere, North Carolina, than rush hour traffic outside the nation’s capital.
But she wasn’t really making great choices recently, so this lined up.
It was getting dark and she was tired. The prospect of adding another dent to her mom’s van made her feel lower still.
She shifted into reverse and pulled around to the back parking lot, out of sight. Once she calmed down, she would decide what to do next. Stay or bail. For now, she could return Willow’s call before her friend blew up her phone with more texts.
Keeping the engine running, she blasted the air conditioner on high, her face still on fire after finding out her dad had stolen her last hope. She pulled up Willow’s contact and rested the phone in the hands-free holder. Since the worst of the hurricane had passed, the connection should be better.
“Hey there,” Willow answered, the roaring in the background not nearly as bad. She sat in her bedroom closet with an electric lantern, clothes lining the rods over her head. “Did you get the money from your college fund?”
Elsie slouched back in the seat, staring at the ballerina charm on the rearview mirror. “My dad gambled it away. I’ve decided to come clean to my mom.”
“Wow, you’re brave.” Willow’s face paled as she scrubbed her hair back with a scrunchie. “Except don’t you think your mom will blow her top?”
“She won’t be happy.” Her palms went sweaty, and she rubbed them on the seat fabric. “She’ll probably want to call the cops on Porter, because he’s obviously behind all this. The police will be able to work their internet magic and do stuff like trace his IP address. Maybe even take his phone.”
Willow shook her head furiously. “You can’t do that. Then the photos will be all over everywhere. All of the photos. And maybe Porter is being pressured by somebody and you’ll ruin his life.”
“Don’t you think whoever it is will just keep asking for money again and again?” Panic swelled at the thought. “There will never be any guarantee the pictures won’t get out. I don’t know what else to do to make this stop. At least I won’t have to worry and wait anymore.”
“You can’t go to the police,” Willow whispered, insistent. “Do you really think this is only about you?”
A chilly premonition crept up her spine. “What do you mean?”
“Because the same thing happened to me,” Willow cried out.
Her friend’s admission shook her all the way to the chipped polish on her toenails. Sadness for her lifelong friend mixed with disillusionment that Willow had stayed quiet while Elsie struggled with fear and shame.
“When? Why didn’t you tell me?” They could have been allies. They could have helped each other. Elsie didn’t understand. “I didn’t know you and Porter had been together.”
“It was just a one-time thing. I’m sorry,” Willow managed between clenched teeth, hugging her pillow to her face as if trying to muffle the sound of their call.
“Since there are two of us, the police will have to take us more seriously.” For the first time since this whole mess began, she felt a tiny sliver of hope. Two voices were stronger than one.
Willow shook her head, her expression hollow. “I can’t. I’ll get in trouble too.” She bit her lip hard and squeezed her eyes shut for a second before blurting, “Porter snuck pictures of me to get in with the cool crowd. Half the starting lineup of the football team are in on it.”
Her friend rattled off names that enraged and terrified Elsie all at once.
Willow continued, “They target girls—boys too—to get money in exchange for deleting the images. When I didn’t have any money to pay them off, they came up with another way for me to keep them quiet.”
For a moment, the words just sat there between them. Willow stared at her. Waiting for her to understand.
Then the pieces came together until the full picture of what had happened exploded in her mind. The worst of the photos had been taken on that school camping trip last summer, right after she’d broken up with Porter. She’d even been talking to Willow in the shower.
Her friend had set her up.
And Elsie felt the last piece of her tattered support network turn to ashes. Her dad’s betrayal had sucked, but it hadn’t really been a surprise. Her best friend stabbing her in the back? Throwing her to the wolves to save her own skin?
The treachery leveled her.
“How could you?”
Willow leaned in closer to the phone, her face filling the whole screen as she whispered fiercely, “If you say a word, Porter and I will tell the cops it was all your idea.”
The line disconnected.
Elsie’s ears rang in the aftermath. Her friend’s eyes may have been full of tears, but this disloyalty ran too deep for forgiveness.
Never in a million years would Elsie have done that to another person, and certainly not for a seat at the cool table.
She may have wanted to hide her own humiliation, but she wouldn’t have shuffled it onto another person.
Her stomach soured, and the pain built. A scream swelled inside her.
A tap, tap, tap on the van window startled the shriek from her.
Except it was just her father. She didn’t know how much more she could take before she shattered into a million pieces.
Sighing, she rolled the window down. “What now?”
He rested his forearm over the window and leaned toward her. “Are you going or staying?”
“I guess since you found me, I’m staying.” She knew she was giving attitude, but she didn’t care. She was done trying. “It would suck if you called the cops and reported Mom’s van stolen.”
A movement in the side mirror snagged her attention. Her mom and Dusty moved closer across the parking lot, halogen streetlights flickering to life as the evening darkened.
Totally busted on the worst moment of her life. Which was saying a lot given her recent history. Her ex-boyfriend had shared underwear photos. Her best friend had set her up to have naked shower pictures. Then she’d received a blackmail offer. Oh, and her father had gambled away her college fund.
Worst of all, her grandpa was dying.
Sighing, Elsie turned off the engine, grabbed the guitar from behind the seat, and hopped out of the vehicle. “I’m not going anywhere. I just needed some time to cool off.” She passed the keys to her mother. “The past couple of days have been . . . a lot.”
She scowled at her father. At least he had the grace to turn a little red.
Her mom held up the fob. “Seth, how about you use some of those winnings of yours to go get supper for everyone. There’s a slew of restaurants nearby.”
He scratched the back of his neck. “There’s a cafeteria. I could—”
“You could also just leave,” Rosalynn snapped, then smiled tightly.
“Right,” he said, taking the key chain from her hand. “I saw a fried chicken place up the road.”
Elsie shot him her best death glare. “No need to hurry.”
Grimacing, Seth clapped a hand over his chest. “Don’t worry about thanking me. I can feel the love.”
After he drove out of the parking lot into the evening twilight, the silence between her and her mom threatened to swallow Elsie whole. Together, they started back toward the garden, where there would be no more hiding from the truth. She had to tell her mom every mortifying detail.
The Zen garden would need to work overtime to handle the bomb Elsie was about to drop. At least the place was deserted, other than a cardinal flitting from branch to branch and a couple of frogs who’d taken up residence in the fountain.
Rosalynn wheeled her chair up to a wrought iron table and settled Dusty beside her. She tossed a granola bar and some gummy candies on the table. “I’ll be glad to have a decent dinner when your dad gets back.”
Really? That’s what she planned to lead with? “Dad’s a loser. He’s never there when we really need him. Don’t you think I can see how he spends lots of money on himself while you pinch pennies?”
A bucket of chicken wasn’t going to fix this.