Bitter End (19 page)

I was shocked at how tightly he was holding my wrist. I remembered the night of the lake party, when he grabbed my knee so
hard it left faint little finger-shaped welts. I stared at him incredulously. I’d assumed those welts had been an accident.
I’d figured it was just the heat of the
moment and hadn’t even thought about it again after we’d made up. But here he was grabbing my wrist, hard enough to leave
welts again. And the way his lips pressed together in a thin pink line told me this was no accident. He was squeezing my wrist
on purpose.

I tried to pull free of his grasp. “Let go of me, Cole. I’m leaving.” He squeezed tighter, his fingers digging into my skin,
and twisted just enough to make my wrist throb. “Ow,” I hissed, bending at the knees and yanking backward. “That hurts. Let
go. I’m serious, Cole.”

He stood up, coming around the table and getting so close to me, our noses were practically touching. I could smell the gum
on his breath. He stared at me, and whatever thoughts were in his head made his eyes grow darker. The smile had gone and been
replaced by a snarl. I didn’t think it was possible, but he gripped me even more fiercely. I felt something inside my wrist
thump and strain. I sucked in air through my teeth, my knees buckling even further. There was nothing I could do about the
tears now, and I blinked them away angrily.

It seemed like forever that he just glared at me like that. Then he got even closer and whispered, “What? Does Zack’s touch
feel so much softer?”

Surprise rocked me. I forgot about my arm for half a second, and looked up to him in confusion. Zack’s touch? What did that
even mean? “What’re you… ouch! Cole, stop it! That hurts!”

But he squeezed with such force he was shaking now.
My fingers were turning purple, the circulation cut off so I couldn’t bend them. “I saw you,” he said, his face going red,
his voice turning into this gruff bark that made goose bumps pop up on my arms. I reached down with my other hand and pulled
at his fingers. They didn’t budge—he was too strong. “I saw you groping each other in the parking lot yesterday. Looked like
a real lovefest out there. Very cozy.”

“Groping each other? We weren’t… oh my God… are you spying on me now?” I thought of Georgia saying Cole was creepy, the way
he was always hanging around, watching me. And I thought of the car that had slowly followed Zack’s car out of the parking
lot yesterday.

He yanked on my wrist, and the breath was sucked right out of me. “Don’t lie to me, Alex!” he snarled in my face. “I saw you
out there! And I saw you leave his house and walk back to yours last night, too.”

At the word “too,” he released my wrist by shoving it into my stomach and giving it a mighty push. The relief in my wrist
was short-lived, as I stumbled from the force of his shove and fell backward, toppling over my chair and smacking my hip hard
against the floor. I was so stunned, I couldn’t move. My wrist and hip ached.

He stood over me, breathing hard through flared nostrils like an animal. I scrambled up to my knees, which wasn’t easy one-handed,
with a hip that didn’t want to move. I couldn’t say anything. And the tears were suddenly gone, too.

“It’s not bad enough that I have to deal with Brenda’s
shit, is it, Alex? It’s not enough that I have to stay home to take care of that bullshit. But you take the first opportunity
you get when I’m not around and you cheat on me with that idiot next door.”

I was still trying to get my feet under me, when he suddenly grabbed my hair and yanked upward. I gave out a cry. Somehow
I was standing, and not even feeling my hip or wrist because of this new pain at the side of my head. I felt a few hairs snap
and pull out. I was shaking so hard I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stay standing up if he let go. This was more than leaving
a few finger marks on my knee. This was scary.

He pulled my face to his again. “You won’t screw around on me, Alex,” he growled in a voice I’d never heard out of him before.
“You’re not smart enough to pull it off anyway. I will catch you. Every. Single. Time.”

“Okay,” I whimpered, my hands hovering around his hand, standing on my tiptoes to keep him from pulling any more hairs out.
I wanted to tell him that I hadn’t been screwing around with Zack but had actually been trying to convince my friends that
he was a nice guy. But I was afraid if I protested he would pull harder or do something else, so I just nodded, as much as
his grip would let me, and agreed with him. “Okay.”

He held me there for a few more seconds, then released me with a half-shove and moved back to his side of the table. He picked
up his backpack and slung it over one shoulder, just as calmly as he’d do on any ordinary day. Meanwhile, I was rubbing the
side of my head where he’d
pulled my hair, just concentrating on staying upright, my knees were shaking so bad. Trying to make sense of everything that
had just happened. It had all happened so quickly, it was almost as if I’d imagined it.

Backpack in place, he finally spoke. His voice was normal again, not that wired snarl he’d adopted just a few minutes before.
Instead, he sounded spent, tired, calm.

“We’ll talk more later,” he said. He walked toward me, grabbed my chin gently between his thumb and forefinger, lifted up
my face, and kissed me. “I love you,” he said as he walked toward the door. “And I won’t let you fuck me over.”

He slipped out the door and let it shut behind him with a soft
shush
, and suddenly I was alone.

And that’s when everything began to hurt.

My wrist.

My hip.

My head.

My neck.

And none of it hurt nearly as much as my heart.

How was it possible that this was the same guy who’d rested his hand so lightly over mine, strumming chords and putting my
poetry to music? How was this the same person I’d trusted to keep me safe at the top of the spillway? Who’d kissed my eyelids
in his bedroom?

I didn’t know what to do, so I got busy. I spent a few minutes straightening the table and chairs, my whole body shaking.
I couldn’t really use my left hand—the one he’d
grabbed—so I kind of half-pushed, half-pulled things back into place.

A part of me couldn’t believe what had just happened. Most of me, really. Like maybe it was all just a dream and I would wake
up from it, shaky and upset but so glad it was over. But a part of me knew that it was true, what I’d just experienced. Part
of me had known it at the lake party. Part of me had sensed something dangerous about Cole even back then. But nothing like
this. Never, not in a million years, would I have sensed this.

Slowly, shakily, I slid down into a chair. I turned my hand over and stared at my wrist, which was red with welts and would
surely be bruising at that very minute. I leaned over and tugged down a small space of waistband on my jeans. My hip already
sported a puffy bruise, so purple it almost looked red.

And then the tears started.

How could he?
my mind raged.
How could he do this to me?

My thoughts spun. What would I do?

I felt that I should tell someone about what had just happened to me. Run screaming it down the hall. Call the police. Tell
Mr. Nagins, the school counselor. Do something. Call Bethany. Run next door and get Zack out of lab. Get someone’s attention,
and…

And what? Show them my bruises? Tell them about the lake party? About the merry-go-round when he scared me on purpose? Tell
them that I’d had sex with him anyway,
even after he’d already bruised me once? Tell them that I’d made excuses for him that night?

I was so embarrassed. I couldn’t even imagine telling anyone those things. Those things made me look stupid and gullible and
needy, and I knew I wasn’t those things. I knew it was more complicated than that. But nobody else would understand.

Not to mention, I’d probably get enrolled in some schmucky battered women’s workshop or something by Mr. Nagins. They’d call
Dad. It would be a huge deal because it happened at school. And everyone would find out.

I knew how this school worked—if one person found out, everyone would know immediately. And I was so not ready to be the school’s
domestic violence example.
Did you hear what happened to Alex Bradford?
God, I would never be so stupid. I’d kick his ass.

They would probably pull me up to the front of the room in health class, make me tell my story so others could learn from
it. All the while everyone in the classes would be thinking how I was such an idiot for not fighting back. They’d wonder how
I could love a guy like that. They’d call me pathetic.

And, God, what about Bethany?
He doesn’t seem that nice
, she’d said.
Be careful
. If I told her what he’d just done, she would think she was right about him. I would have proven her right.

And God only knows what Zack would do if he found out.

And the worst—and I couldn’t even believe it myself, that I was thinking this—if I told everyone the truth, Cole would hate
me. He would never forgive me.

And I hated myself for even thinking about Cole’s feelings right now, but I just couldn’t help it.

I crossed my arms on my desk and laid my head down on them and cried, thinking all these things and more. Thinking that this
was not like Cole. He was stressed. He must have been, because normally he didn’t do this. It was his family problems.

And thinking that maybe I pushed him into doing this. I pushed him by letting Zack tickle me in the parking lot and by not
telling him that I was going to Zack’s house that night, by not explaining to him that Bethany was there and we were eating
cookie dough and talking RVs.

Maybe I should have even invited him to come along. Talked Bethany and Zack into letting him join us.

I should have made him see that it was completely innocent. That
I
was completely innocent.

What would I have thought if I were him? Of course I would’ve thought something was going on. I would have been angry, too,
if I’d seen Cole leaving a girl’s house at night. I would have been hurt. I would have been livid.

At some point my tears turned from tears of pain to tears of sadness and regret. We would break up now. It would all be over.

And somehow that turned out to be the worst thought of all. Even though I was hurt and embarrassed and ashamed
and pissed that he’d done this to me, I still loved him. I still felt as though we were meant to be together. I still wanted
him. And I ruined it.

The bell rang and I sat up, wiped my face on the backs of my hands, and finished putting papers into my backpack, wincing
every now and then when I’d forget and use my left hand to move or lift something. I wondered if Amanda, in the next room,
had heard what just happened. Probably not, or Zack would’ve stormed in. At least I thought he would. Nobody had heard anything.
Nobody had seen anything. I was the only one who knew.

I stood and took some deep breaths as I slipped the backpack on my arms, and then walked out as if nothing had ever happened.
As far as I was concerned, nothing had.

Celia noticed my wrist right away.

“Holy cow, what happened?” she breathed, scooting onto the edge of my bed, waking me up. I opened one eye to find her gaping
at my wrist, which was lying on the pillow next to my head.

“Nothing,” I mumbled, pulling it under the blankets. “What do you want?”

“No way,” she said. “That’s not nothing. That’s disgusting.” She threw back the blanket and tried to grab my hand.

I yanked it away and smacked it against my hip, and had to hold my breath to keep from crying out. Both hurt like hell. I
sat up, annoyed, hiding my wrist in my lap. “I slammed it in a door at work, okay? It doesn’t matter. What do you want, Celia?”

She made a face. “Good morning to you, too, Mary
Sunshine. I was just going to tell you that Shannin called, and the grandmas are totally all over the food for Dad’s party.
You ordered the cake, right?”

I rolled my eyes. Not with the party again. I swear, Celia was going to make some poor man completely miserable someday with
her nagging. We still had months to put this together, yet Celia asked me pretty much every day if I’d ordered the cake, which
I had not. I just had too many other things on my mind.

“I’ll get to it,” I said, sliding out of the other side of the bed and checking the clock. I had to work in an hour. Which
meant I had to take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, and figure out how to hide these bruises, with not that much time.
And I still hadn’t heard from Cole since yesterday. Thinking about what happened made sadness and fear wash over me all anew.
“Did Cole call this morning?”

“You still haven’t ordered it? Alex, this is important.”

“So is my job. And school. And… you know, it’s not like you have to order a cake months in advance, Celia. I said I’d do it.
I’ll do it,” I snapped, pulling my uniform out of my closet. “Did Cole call this morning or not?”

Celia glared at me, still sitting on the edge of my bed. “No. He did not. Not making phone calls must be one more fabulous
thing you two have in common. I’m supposed to talk to Shannin today. She’s going to be super-pissed if you don’t order that
cake, you know. You said you’d be in charge of it, so she’s expecting you to do it.”

“I will!” I practically shrieked, pulling underwear out
of my drawer and heading for the bathroom. “Just… God, Celia. You’re such a…”

I let the sentence trail off as I shut the bathroom door. But I heard her on the other side calling out, “The whole world
doesn’t revolve around Cole, you know!” Her footsteps thudded down the hall toward her bedroom, and I turned on the shower
as hot as it would go.

While I waited for the shower to heat up, I turned my hand over and stared at my wrist. It was mottled and dark purple. Almost
yellow. Nasty. I pulled off my pajamas and looked at my hip, which didn’t look any better than my wrist. I touched it gingerly,
wincing at the little jolts of pain but feeling better. The bruises weren’t as bad as I’d originally thought they were. This,
I could cover. And, thankfully, it was the weekend. I had a couple days before I had to worry about keeping covered up at
school. Maybe they would heal before Monday. I touched the side of my head where Cole had grabbed my hair. Nothing. At least
I didn’t have to worry about that.