Heart on a Chain (18 page)

“
There are people who can help you, places you can go…”

I meet his gaze again.

“
Dr. Jamison, I’m seventeen years old, almost eighteen. What happens, the state puts me in foster care? Who takes in a seventeen year old?” My injured throat pushes the words out. “Someone who’s in it for the money, maybe. Or, I don’t know, someone who wants to get something out of it. Those who want to get a family out if it adopt babies. You think things would be different for me somewhere else? At least this way I know what to expect.”

His head drops into his hands as he acknowledges the truth of my words. “I don’t like this,” he mutters, probably not meaning for me to hear. Then he looked up at me again. “You’re pretty badly injured. Has it been this bad before?”

I think of the other times I’ve been beaten, but I have to admit, this is the worst. I shake my head.

“
What if it gets worse? Worse could mean dead.”

I know that. I sharply remember thinking she would kill me this time. She hadn’t, though. Something had stopped her. Would something stop her next time?

“
I can try to help you.”

“
No,” my throat is on fire, talking painful. It’s imperative I make him understand. “I couldn’t live with it if Henry knew. I couldn’t stand it if he pitied me. He’s my friend. That would change if he knew.”

Dr. Jamison shakes his head. “You don’t give him enough credit.”

“
Please
,” I beg.

“
This isn’t about Henry, or what he thinks. It’s about you.”

“
Right. And I’m asking you to let it go. If it makes it hard for you—legally, I mean—I’ll leave. I’ll find somewhere else to go for a few days.”

He doesn’t answer, asking instead, “What will happen if you don’t show up at home for a few days?”

I glance out the window, as if the answers are there in the stars.

“
She won’t contact the police. She won’t want them investigating. She probably wonders if she killed me,” I rasp, remembering the pool of blood on the kitchen floor at the foot of my failed Thanksgiving dinner.

Dr. Jamison jerks in surprise—whether at my admission, or the fact that I said
she
instead of
he
, I don’t know. He blows out a breath full of uneasy resignation.

“
Okay, well, you need to rest for a few days. Broken ribs can be dangerous, and if you puncture a lung you would
have
to go to the hospital to live.”

“
I’ll stay down,” I promise.

He walks to the door, taking a breath without turning to look back at me, hand on the knob.

“
She should be in prison for this.”

Chapter Thirteen

Because it’s Fall Recess,
we don’t have to return to school until the Wednesday following Thanksgiving. I spend those days recovering in the Jamison’s home. The girls had been let in on my being there, told I’d been in an accident. They don’t question why I’m staying at their place instead of my own. They’re just happy to have me here.

After a couple of days, I’m allowed to be up more, and spend time with them in their family room area, eating leftover turkey sandwiches, which are far better than the turkey sandwiches they have at school. The whole family has taken it upon themselves to try to outdo one another as my caretaker. It’s become a kind of game to them, to see who can do the most for me.

Mostly, I revel in being near Henry, all day, every day. I try to get him to take a break from me, but he won’t hear of it. Except for when he’s showering he’s with me; even at night he sleeps in the chair next to me.

Dr. Jamison casts my wrist, and allows me to have my ribs unwrapped temporarily for a shower myself. They even bring a plastic chair in for me to sit on in the shower.

I could have lived in this fantasy world forever, but inexorably, Tuesday comes. School is back in session tomorrow, and I can’t afford to miss it and have attention fall on me.

“
Stay one more night,” Henry pleads. “I’ll take you home tomorrow after school.”

So I stay. I only have my torn and bloodied clothes which had been taken that first day—thrown away, I suppose—and have been wearing a pair of Claire’s pajamas. She brings me a pair of jeans and a top to borrow for school tomorrow, since we improbably wear the same size. They are the nicest clothes I have ever worn, but in a very girly and vain way, I’m glad that Henry gets to see me at least once in something that isn’t shapeless and ugly.

I awake the next morning, binding my ribs extra tight, not an easy task with one wrist in a cast. I’m still very sore, but I know I can make it. I looked at myself in the mirror, my face mottled with purple and yellow bruises. Most of the swelling has gone down though. My lip is only a little swollen, the biggest drawback to this being that it hurts when Henry kisses me, so he’s done very little of that.

We ride to school in a lightly falling snow. Henry has given me his coat against my protests, since his jacket is still at my house. I’m happy he insisted, because his jacket has long since lost the scent of him, but his coat is filled with it. He’s already spread the word among some of his friends about my “car accident”, knowing word would get around school.

He’s still frustrated with me because I won’t tell him exactly what happened.

I find that my “accident” makes me the recipient of some sympathy—probably more because of how my face looks than anything. Not only does no one try to hurt me or trip me, they actually hold doors for me and help me to carry my books—which had luckily been left at Henry’s—when I’m not with him. Mostly, this is carried out by Henry’s friends, which I’m grateful for when I pass Jessica in the halls and see not only a lack of sympathy in her eyes, but anger instead.

After school Henry argues with me, trying to get me to come back to his house. I want to do just that, take the easy way and hide as long as I can. He makes it so much harder when he looks at me with desperate appeal in the dark depths of his eyes. I don’t know what he knows, but I think maybe he suspects the truth, or something close to it.

Finally, he relents when I hold my ground. “At least let me take you to your house. You shouldn’t be walking so far.”

This starts a new argument, but I find Henry is as stubborn as I am. We compromise that he won’t drop me in front of my house, but in front of the house next door, and that he will let me make my way home alone.

He helps me out of the car, pulling me close for a gentle hug, dropping kisses on my face and lightly on my mouth. He presses something into my hand and I look down to see a cell phone there.

“
No,” I protest, my voice still a little rough.

“
It’s not from me. It’s from my dad.” When I start to hand it back he wraps his hand around mine, trapping the phone there. “It belonged to one of his employees who no longer work’s for him. My dad pays each month for it to sit in a drawer. He’s worried that you don’t have a phone. It’s a loan. Take it.”

“
I can’t…”

“
Please. For me. It has all of our phone numbers programmed in it. All you have to do is call and I will come; I’ll be here before you finish dialing.”

“
Henry…”

“
It’s just a loan.” He sees my hesitation. “If you don’t take it, I’ll throw you back in my car right now and hold you hostage at my house until you agree.”

I smile up at him. “Where’s the threat in that?”

He laughs, kissing me lightly.

“
Please, take it. My mom will not let me back in the house if you don’t.”

I capitulate.

“
Well, we can’t have that, can we?”

He shows me how to use the phone, since I’ve never owned a cell phone myself. He has, of course, programmed himself as the first speed dial.

He kisses me again, then holds me firmly. I relax into him, already dreading the time to go until I can see him again.

“
I’ll miss you tonight,” I tell him.

He looks down at me.

“
Call me before you go to bed.”

“
Okay.” He releases me and I turn toward my house, frightened of going in, but knowing it’s time. He waits until I’ve arrived at my front door before turning away and getting back into his car.

Mom is sitting on the couch, but instead of being asleep or watching TV, she’s sitting, head in her hands, arms propped on her knees. She looks up as I close the door behind me. Relief floods her face at the sight of me. I walk over to stand before her and her eyes skim down me, taking in the cast on my arm, and my stitched brow before coming to rest on mine. She holds my gaze for a minute, then looks away.

“
I was…I thought…I didn’t know where you were,” she stammers, and if I didn’t know better I might believe there is concern in her voice.

“
You mean, you didn’t know if I were alive or not,” I say, fear twisting through my stomach at the thought of what she might do to me for talking to her that way.

She looks up at me again and her face is contorted with guilt. I feel a moment’s compassion for her, but that disappears when I take a deep breath and my ribs throb in protest.

“
I’m alive and I’m back, and I need to rest to recover fully.” I move past her toward the stairs, glancing into the kitchen. She’s cleaned up the mess, scrubbed the wall and floor so that no evidence remains. So much for her concern for me personally—it seems she was more concerned about whether she might get caught. I take a step up the first stair, and then turn to face her again, heart pounding. She watches me closely.

“
You can’t do that to me again. You can’t hurt me anymore.” She doesn’t say anything, so I turn and walk up the stairs. In my room I lay down on my bed, dizzy from the effort it took to stand up to her.

A smile crosses my face.

A new kind of life begins again. Because it‘s my right wrist that’s broken, it requires help with my work both at school—for which I oddly have plenty of volunteers, again mostly Henry’s guy friends, but also from several of the “losers” who share our lunch table—and with my homework after school. I tell my mother this, amazed she doesn’t argue. So after school I go home with Henry and stay the afternoon and into the evening each day.

Emma seems happy about this, and makes sure I have dinner each night before leaving. I recover quickly, probably because my body is receiving more nutrition than it’s ever had. I find myself fitting into a family, and I like how it feels.

Claire makes sure to show me plenty of embarrassing pictures of Henry—especially ones of her doing his hair when it was longer. I’m bribed to see these ones by allowing her to do
my
hair. I’m shown a picture of extended family members, including the Grandpa Henry was named for, and that brings back a clear memory of Henry as a boy.

The first day of school, he had announced his name in front of the class, telling everyone he had been named for his Grandpa Henry, and for the next few years, each time he introduced himself to someone new, he would repeat the same story. By the time we were in fourth grade, everyone was well aware of where his name had come from.

I laugh at the memory and tell his sisters about it, who find it to be a great thing to tease him with. They start calling him “Henry-who’s-named-for-his-Grandpa,” like it’s one long name.

Each night when I return home, I clean up the kitchen and living room, though it isn’t as hard as before, because my mom is making something of an effort as well. I clean my bathroom as I get ready for bed, then call Henry as soon as I’m in bed, and we talk until one or both of us fall asleep.

As the weather turns colder, sometimes dipping down below zero at night and struggling to rise to the mid-teens during the day, Henry starts picking me up and dropping me off in front of my house. He ignores my protests that I’ve been walking in weather like this for years, and when there doesn’t seem to be any fallout from Mom, I quit objecting.