Bitter End (24 page)

I took a shower, and the warm water felt like heaven on my eye. Then I got dressed and grabbed a bag of frozen peas. For the
rest of the day, I leaned back against my headboard as mindless talk shows and soap operas droned away on my TV, and held
the peas against my cheek. My mind
was racing, trying to understand what had happened the night before. Trying to understand what I’d done to set Cole off this
time.

But I just couldn’t understand any of it. I didn’t understand why basketball was such a big deal in Cole’s world. I didn’t
understand how his parents made him so tense. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t get over the Zack thing, and I didn’t understand
his mood swings or why he had to call me names and make me feel small. I didn’t understand what made him snap.

I didn’t understand how he could hit me. Not just a shove or a wrist-grab, but an actual hit. And I didn’t understand how
he could be punching my face one minute and telling me he loved me the next.

And I didn’t understand how I could let him.

On the drive home the previous night, I’d thought about Shannin’s story about the night Mom left. Shannin made Mom sound like
a bad guy—like someone who could beat the person she loved one minute and hold him the next. Shannin made Mom sound like someone
who could understand who Cole was.

Did that make me like Dad?

The thought made me sick to my stomach, and I started to wonder if maybe my lie about being sick hadn’t had a little bit of
truth in it.
Sorry, Dad, I lied about having a bug. Turns out, the illness I have is the same one you have: forever walking around like
a whipped puppy, pining after someone who’s as crazy as goosehouse shit
.

Twice during the day, I picked up the phone and started to dial The Bread Bowl—not to bawl Georgia out for going to my dad,
but to tell her. Tell her everything. Stop this craziness and all this stuff I was living without understanding from seeping
into my brain too far.
Help me, Georgia
, I would say.
Help me get out of this.

But every time I started to punch in the numbers, I thought about what it would be like to be “the abused girl.” I thought
about people whispering at school. About Celia’s smug look. About Bethany and Zack sadly shaking their heads and saying they
tried to tell me. About counselors and “talking it out” and everyone saying it was shocking because Cole and I looked as though
we had a perfect relationship.

And, yeah, as pissed as I was… I couldn’t help thinking of Cole. The hell he would go through. The way he’d feel that I had
betrayed him. I would miss him. As crazy as that sounds, I would miss him. The kisses. The little romantic gifts and calling
me Emily Dickinson. The guitar lessons. The inside jokes. The spillway. They would all be gone, and I would miss him.

I texted Bethany and told her I was sick. She didn’t answer. I texted Zack; he responded: “Gt wl sn.”

With all that was going on between me and Cole and with Georgia and now Dad, too, I couldn’t really deal with those two.

“Gt wl sn.” Not best-friend wishes, really. Which hurt. But it didn’t surprise me in the least.

Cole never called.

Before Celia came home, I put the bag of peas back in the freezer and sneaked another look in the bathroom mirror. The swelling
was a lot better, but there was still a bruise. I was going to need another day before I’d be able to cover that with makeup.

By the time I heard Celia’s key in the front door, I’d already gotten back in bed, bad cheek down, and adopted my sick look
again. A few minutes later she appeared in my doorway.

“Better?” she asked, munching on a granola bar.

“Puked twice,” I groaned, closing my eyes like she was interrupting my sleep.

“Uh-huh,” she said. “I saw loverboy today. He didn’t look very happy. Maybe he’s getting sick, too.”

“Well, at least you know he wasn’t here all day,” I said.

She chewed contemplatively, then rewrapped the granola bar and placed it on the edge of my dresser. She walked over to me
and crossed her arms. Then, with a sigh, uncrossed them and sat on the edge of my bed.

“Something seems different about you,” she said. “Is everything okay?”

I was so taken aback by Celia’s sudden interest in someone other than herself, I almost gasped. But if I made a list of people
I’d never be able to tell about what was going on with me, Celia would be at the top of the list. She had a big mouth, and
she almost never liked me. She’d use it against me for sure. “I’m just sick,” I said. “That’s all.”

She cocked her head to one side and squinted at me. I held her gaze. “It’s just,” she said. “It’s just that your boss told
Dad there might be something going on with you. Zack and Bethany were talking this morning about how your boyfriend is a total
jerk, and on the same day you’re sick he looks like shit. I just… well, if you needed to talk or something.”

I closed my eyes. “I actually need to sleep. Don’t listen to Zack and Bethany. They’re just mad because I’m not spending every
waking second with them. They’ll get over it,” I mumbled.

She sat there for a while longer; then I felt her get up, and I opened my eyes. She shrugged. “If you say so.” She grabbed
her granola bar off my dresser and said, “You don’t look good. You got dark circles under your eyes. I’m outta here. I don’t
want it.”

And with that, she was gone, pulling the door shut behind her.

“Thanks, though,” I called to her back, but she didn’t hear me. I closed my eyes again, wondering how much longer I’d be able
to keep this a secret. People were talking. I’d have to make a decision soon—either leave Cole or find a way to stop setting
him off.

Lying there with my eyes closed felt so good, I kept them that way. And after a while I really did fall asleep, dreaming about
lying curled up on Cole’s floor, my face all fat and puffy, while soup bubbled away in the kitchen, Brenda making kitten noises
and dancing to lullabies, and Mom on the
roof with her blazing-fire hair, cackling and dropping things off the edge to the ground below.

At some point Dad’s hand, rough and cool, pressed against my forehead, waking me up.

“Huh,” he said. “No fever.”

I stretched, catching myself at the last minute from turning onto my back, even though my neck was getting stiff from lying
in one position.

“I’ll call you in for tomorrow, too,” he said. “Just in case. Here, this was on your car.” He held out a rose, wrapped in
green tissue paper, a tiny sprig of baby’s breath cradling it.

Dad left the room and I sat up, pulling the note out of the flower and reading it:

Emily Dickinson, you are the love of my life. I’m sorry. Love, Cole

I buried my nose in the flower and took a deep breath.

I had to figure out how to stop making Cole so angry.

The next day, Cole left another flower on my windshield, so I called him. We talked for hours. He apologized. He promised
to do better. To accept my friendship with Bethany and Zack. To stop letting basketball and his parents make him so uptight.
To go back to the way things were before.

He convinced me that this was just a rough patch and if we were dedicated to our relationship the way we claimed to be, we
would get through it with no trouble. We would be stronger, and the time he punched me in the face would be something ugly
that we were too embarrassed to ever talk about again, even to each other.

Even though deep down I didn’t believe him, I convinced myself that I did. I had to believe him. I’d already given up so much
to be with him. To lose him now would make me feel as if I’d given up so much for nothing.

After two days with a “stomach flu,” I finally went back
to school. It was a Friday, and I was so swamped with work and with repeatedly checking and repowdering my face, I barely
had time to see Cole, much less Zack and Bethany.

But at the end of the day, when I turned the corner into the tutor lab, there was Zack sitting at the old desk he used to
sit at when I tutored him before.

“Hey,” I said, my fingers automatically drifting up to my cheekbone. Then, when I remembered that I didn’t want to accidentally
rub off the makeup, they fell to my necklace instead. “What’re you doing here?”

“Hey back!” he said, rolling a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other while I dumped my backpack on the table and
pulled out my notebook. “Ah, she’s so busy her best friends need a reason to see her now.” He mimed holding a microphone to
his mouth. “Tell me, Miss Bradford, what is it like evading the paparazzi? I saw the shower photo in
Questioning Magazine
, by the way. Your, uh… shower cap looked amazing. I stared at it for hours.” He mimed sticking the microphone in my face.
I laughed.

“No, it’s good to see you, Zack,” I said. “It’s just that… aren’t you supposed to be with Amanda right now?”

“Well,” he said, “it turns out Amanda’s not doing so hot in her own English class. Big stink. So Moody switched us all around.
Amanda gets study hall, you get me, and the Big C goes to Jackie Rentz.”

“Don’t call him that,” I murmured, opening my notebook and sitting down.

“Something wrong with your eye?” he asked, changing the subject. “It looks puffy. You must’ve been pretty sick. Celia said
you barely left your room.”

I rested my forehead on my hand, looking down and doing my best to shade my eyes and cheek from Zack. “Celia’s worse than
the paparazzi,” I said. “So what do you have to work on?”

He stuffed the imaginary microphone back into my face. “Can I quote you on that?” he said in his TV announcer voice. But when
I didn’t respond, he tugged at his collar. “Sheesh, tough crowd. I remember this one girl. Name was Alex Bradford. Used to
actually laugh every now and then,” he said, then leaned over and pulled a crumpled sheet of paper out of his backpack. “Vocab,”
he said. “Big test Monday.” I hated the way his voice sounded so serious, so un-Zack-like. But, really, he left me no choice.
I couldn’t continue to play the flirt game with Zack. Even though I knew it meant nothing, I couldn’t keep inviting fights
between me and Cole like that. I had to try my best to keep things from spiraling out of control. In a lot of ways, Cole’s
mood was difficult to predict and didn’t make sense. But in a lot of ways I couldn’t blame him for being jealous of my relationship
with Zack. Zack was flirtatious. And I egged him on, probably because it always felt so good to get that attention. But now
I didn’t want it. I couldn’t want it, because wanting it made it look to Cole like I didn’t want him.

We worked on vocabulary, and then I helped Zack make some changes to a report he had due, the whole time keeping my face tipped
down toward the desk as best I could.

Then, just as we were getting ready to pack up, the door flung open and Cole strutted in.

My stomach automatically seized up, and my heart started racing. Cole plus Zack in any room never equaled anything but trouble.
And the last thing I needed, on my first day back and while I was trying to hide a black eye, was trouble.

Zack must have sensed it, too, because he let out a deep breath and started packing up, wordlessly.

But Cole’s face was open happiness.

“Hey, you two,” he said, coming up behind Zack and slapping him on the shoulder good-naturedly. If I hadn’t been seeing it
with my own eyes, I would never have believed it. “It’s Friday—you’re not supposed to be working so hard on a Friday!”

He bounced around Zack to my side, then leaned over and kissed me.

“Big C,” Zack boomed. “How the hell are ya? Kill any puppies lately?”

Cole laughed out loud—a forced, hearty laugh—then reached across and punched Zack lightly on the shoulder. “No, but the day’s
still young,” he said. Then to me, “You’re right, Alex, the guy’s got a sense of humor.” I responded with a thin smile.

Zack pulled the toothpick out of his mouth and held it in his hand while he shimmied into his backpack. I could tell by looking
at him that he was so not finding this funny, but that, like me, he didn’t know what exactly to find it, either.

“Yep, I’m a real comedian,” he said. “Listen, Alex, you gonna be around this weekend?”

I nodded, unsure what was playing out between them, but getting very nervous.
Please, Zack
, I pleaded on the inside.
I know you don’t know what you’re messing with here, but I could get hurt if you turn this into a game
. And then my heart sank when I thought of it like that. I could get hurt. Because of a joke.

“I should be,” I said. “Got a lot of homework, though.”

“Yeah, of course,” he said, leveling his eyes at Cole purposely this time. Then back to me. “Bethany’s coming over to help
me memorize my part. Thought maybe you’d want to come over, too. Since, you know, we don’t do the Saturday thing anymore.”

“Maybe,” I said, hating the shake in my voice and the way I felt electric standing next to Cole, waiting for his response,
which I was sure was going to be violent.

“Hey, baby, that sounds like fun,” Cole said, bumping me with his hip. “My dad’s got me doing some lame-ass chores this weekend,
anyway. This way I won’t have to feel bad about leaving her alone all weekend, you know, man?” Again with that friendly shoulder
punch. I flinched, but Zack stood so steady he almost looked like he was made of concrete.

“Cool,” Zack finally said, poking the toothpick back into his mouth. “I’ll call you.”

He started toward the door, holding his rolled-up script of
The Moon for Me and You
in a tight fist.

“See ya, man! Have a good weekend,” Cole called after him.

“Hey, same to you, Big C, you cool, cool guy,” Zack called back without turning around.

After he was gone, I finally turned to Cole. “What was that?”

He shrugged, his face still lit up and smiling. “What was what?”

I gestured toward the door. “That. All that ‘Have a good weekend’ stuff.”

He reached for me so suddenly I flinched, but he simply wrapped both arms around my waist and pulled me in against him. “I’m
trying. For you. You said you wanted me to try, so I’m trying.”