Spilled Milk: Based on a true story (21 page)

BOOK: Spilled Milk: Based on a true story
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“You’ve done
this before?” My voice rose.

“See Brooke
that’s why you’re better than me. That’s why you’re gonna have a great life and
be so successful.” She completely ignored what I had just said.

“What do you
mean?”

“You always
think.” She tapped a finger against her temple. “You know what to do all the
time. You’re like, the bestest friend ever.” She looked out the window. “Oh hey
look that tree looks like a cow.”

“You’re drunk.
And you’re smart too Cristin, you just make…” I fought for the right words, “Bad
choices sometimes,” I said, pulling into the driveway. Her mom’s car wasn’t
there yet so I still had time to get everyone inside.

“No, not like
you. I don’t even really know what happened with your dad. I saw something in
the paper, but, I’m not sure. I mean, you must be really brave to stand up to
your dad. I couldn’t do that. I had an abortion last year, did you know? No one
really knows. My mom would of killed me.”

My eyes
widened. “Cristin I had no idea. I’m sorry.”

“No, no it’s
okay. You’re so brave. You don’t follow the crowd, like
some
people.”
She pointed to Dustin snoring in the back and giggled. “Plus it makes you totally
hot, guys love that you have a mind of your own. Jason wouldn’t stop staring at
you all night.”

“Jason?”

“Yeaaa. The guy
with the dark hair. Tan skin. He’s yummy. He stared at you all night. Stared. I
saw him. How did you not notice? I ate a pickle before. Oh, Brooke?”

“Yea?”

“Imma throw up
now.”

My door flew
open and I raced around the front of the car.

 

Chapter Twenty

Jason and I had
been dating for five months, and we had Cristin to thank for introducing us.
Kind of. She was tired of me moping around over Paul and thought meeting
someone new would be a good idea.

“Jason’s a
total sweetheart. He used to smoke weed, but not anymore, I know you don’t like
that. I told him to meet you at your locker after gym so you guys can meet.”

I moaned. “You
didn’t.” Cristin
would
finagle a blind date in high school somehow.

“What’s the big
deal? You met him already.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yea, you did.
He was tan boy staring at you all night at the party Dustin took us to.
Remember?”

“Vaguely.” I
shut my locker.

“He drives a
really old pickup truck. I’ll show you later after school, in the parking lot.
He’s a real country boy. Just wait. He’ll be here.”

Jason never
showed up. He didn’t show up anytime that week either. It turns out he wasn’t
too interested in the random meet and greet our high school hallways had to
offer either. I was on my way home from work when I noticed his 78’ Ford truck
taking up two spaces at the Shop’N’Stop gas station. He waved slightly when he
saw my cavalier at the stop light. Too embarrassed to just drive away after I
had been spotted, I cruised into a parking spot beside him

“What’s this
thing get, 10 miles to the gallon?” I said.

“Eight,
actually.” He jumped down from the raised truck and brushed his hands on his
Carhart’s. He leaned against a rusted fender and cocked his head to the side.
The smell of oil blasted my nostrils when he moved closer and I cringed at the
rips and holes in his clothes. When he smiled though, I saw right past those
things.

“You’re Brooke,
right? I’m heading to a buddy’s house. Wanna go?”

The rest,
Cristin says, is history. The truth is we didn’t speak to each other for weeks
after hanging out that night. I was with Sophia at the local auto shop getting
new windshield wipers when she spotted Jason working behind the counter. “Hey,
isn’t that the guy Cristin tried to hook you up with?”

I craned my
neck. “Yea.”

He was in his
work uniform, helping a guy with tired hands pull a part out of a box. He
seemed enthusiastic about the conversation and flashed a handsome smile every
time the guy said something.

“You like him.”
Sophia pointed at me.

“I do not. I
don’t even know him.”

“You should
have seen your goofy face two seconds ago. You think he’s totally hot. Let’s go
tell him.”

I grabbed her
wrist. “No, don’t. Come on, let’s go.”

“You’re
seventeen and have had one boyfriend.
One.
Prom is at the end of this
year, you know, senior prom? So either you go tell him he’s hot or I’ll do it
for you.”

I compromised.
“I’ll leave my number on his truck. He’s busy. I don’t want to interrupt him at
work.” He thanked the guy and made a goofy face at one of the guys he worked
with. A face he would use over the next several months to get me to laugh until
I couldn’t breathe.

“Fine.” Sophia
rolled her eyes. “Chicken. I’m gonna watch you write the note.”

Jason texted me
sometime after eleven that night. I felt like a creeper explaining to him who I
was and why I left my number on his truck. He didn’t seem to mind, and we
thought it would be a good idea to hang out again. He kissed me when he left after
our date; he ran his hand over my cheek and through my hair as he pulled me
closer. We were inseparable after that.

I found out
that Jason’s parents had divorced and the day that I met him at the gas station
he was sleeping at his buddy’s house. His mom lost their house and they were
living out of a motel outside the school district’s boundaries. He slept at a
friend’s house to avoid the fourty five minute commute and to try to pretend
that his life was somewhat normal by being around friends. I respected and
understood that.

Right around
the time his mom found a small house in a beat up part of town is when Jason
realized I was living out of my car. Two days later, and after meeting his mom
only once, I was moved into one of the two bedrooms in the house.

His brother
took the only other bedroom and his mom slept on the futon in the living room.
I felt like I was putting her out and was uncomfortable with it, but she
insisted that the futon was sturdier for her back. And besides, she had said,
there was no way was she was going to let me live in my car.

Going to court
became difficult when I had to explain to Jason where I was going. Paul’s
reaction when he found out scared me into thinking that I should hold off on
telling Jason what was going on.

I was Jason’s
first
real
girlfriend, and I knew what kind of spell your first can
have. I didn’t want to lose him too. I wanted to tread lightly, because I did
love Jason, even though I wasn’t ready to admit that to myself yet because of
Paul.

Earl was officially
arrested, even though he made bail the next day. Eight months had passed since
the time I filed the report with the police and they conducted their investigation.
The judge ordered $40,000 bail but you only have to come up with 10%, or $4,000
in his case, so he was free to go until the preliminary hearing.

Heather called
and explained about the preliminary hearing. “Now the purpose of this hearing
is just to establish
if
a crime was committed, based on the facts, and
if
it was the defendant that probably committed the crime. A preliminary hearing doesn’t
mean he’s guilty or not guilty, it’s just there to establish if we can move on
to the next step. Understand?”

I nodded into
the phone as I juggled my anatomy textbook in my lap on Jason’s bed. “Do I have
to do anything?” I asked.

“We have the
burden of proving a crime was committed. That means you’ll have to testify in
front of a judge again and explain what happened. It won’t be at the courthouse
though. Preliminary hearings happen at the magisterial district court, it’s a
smaller court closer to where you live. We’ll also introduce the things we
found in the home as evidence.”

“What did they
find?” Mom didn’t tell me anything about evidence.

“You really
want to know?”

“Yea. Please.”

“They found a
Barbie in one of his toolboxes. One of your old Barbie dolls. It had a hair tie
in its hair that belonged to you. The Barbie was naked.”

I closed my
eyes.

“They also
found a lot of pornographic material. Magazines, videos, that kind of thing.”
Heather paused one second too long.

“What was wrong
with having the porn?”

Heather sighed.
“There was a picture of you between the pages. An older one. You were maybe
eight or nine. It was taped to one of the faces of the women.”

Heather told me
Earl would be there, but it would be unlikely that he wouldn’t take the stand
since the burden of proving anything was on my lawyer. Bail could be modified
if the judge thought he might become a flight risk. I hung up the phone and
tried to concentrate on the anatomy terms in front of me. It was going to be a
long week.

Since the
preliminary hearing is held in the magisterial district court, Mom and I
crammed into the eight by eight space waiting room. There was a tiny window on
the front door and a dim overhead light. Heather hurried inside and pointed
towards another door on the other end. “In there, quickly. David is here. We’ll
wait in the courtroom.”

Heather ushered
us into a cramped space and I started to look around. We were surrounded by
boxes of files, mops and cleaning supplies. “Heather are we in a closet?”

“Might as well
be.” She rolled her eyes. “These magisterial courts jump from place to place
depending on the rent. This is definitely one of the smaller ones. We’ll wait
in here until your lawyer gets here, and the judge. This way you don’t have to
see him.”

It made me feel
better that she tried to not use his name around me. She never would call him
Dad
.
Adam and Thomas still did though, whenever they would ask for an update on what
was going on. I heard Thomas in the kitchen the other day when I was over
visiting. “Mom, is Dad ever coming back?”

“Let’s go.”
Heather whisked us into the musty courtroom and I saw Earl watch me come out of
the room in my peripheral vision. We stood only eight feet from the judge and
less than five feet from Earl and his lawyer. I silently begged that I would
not have to go up next to the judge to tell him what happened. I would be so
close, too close, to Earl. I hated that him and his lawyer stood next to the
only exit in the room. I was trapped.

“All rise for
the honorable Judge Constance.”

It was harder
to concentrate with a guy judge sitting in front of me. I felt like every time
my lawyer made a remark about rape or abuse the judge glanced my way. Once
again I had to tell the judge in my own words what happened.

My hands
clasped together, I sped over the information at lightning speed to prevent my
face from getting too enflamed. The judge was satisfied with my overall general
description and didn’t ask me to give further details on any of the rapes or
abuse. Heather had said to keep my explanations simple, again, since this was
not the place where it was determined if he was guilty or not guilty.

Earl was lead
from the courtroom after both sides provided their evidence. Even though I had
to go before a judge to get the protection from abuse order, it was no easier
to stand in front of these people now to say it again. By the time I arrived
back home to Jason’s exhaustion had kicked in and I didn’t care that I had an
exam the next day.

“So how’d your
court thing go?” He pulled a blanket around us and stroked my hair as my cheeks
molded onto his bare chest.

“Okay I guess.
Just have to wait now.”

Jason nodded.
“You seem tired.”

“Exhausted.”

He yawned in
response. “Me too. I think we’re the only seventeen year olds that work as much
as we do.”

“Wouldn’t be
surprised.”

The bed shifted
as Jason leaned to his left and grabbed something off the dresser. He moved his
hand under the blanket and placed a cell phone sized box in my hand. I
scrunched my face and looked up at him. His pearly teeth greeted me. When I sat
up and opened the Littman Jewelers box, a diamond encrusted pendant necklace
reflected off the light in my eyes.

“I mean, if I
didn’t work so much I couldn’t afford to get my baby a six month anniversary
gift. So I’m okay with it.” His grin was so wide I could see his gum line and
he brushed the hair away from my neck to clasp the back.

“There’s three
diamonds. One for the past.”

His lips moved
over my neck.

“One for the
present.”

Warm, shallow
breathing caressed my ear.

“And one for
the future.”

His lips were
pressed firmly against mine as we lay back on the bed. My cheeks in his hands
he pulled away long enough to say I love you and resumed attaching himself to
my face.

I pulled at the
pendant and looked it over in my hand. “This is so beautiful. Thank you. That
was so sweet.”

Secretly I was
impressed he made such a big deal out of our six month anniversary. Earlier
that week when I was with Midge I gave her an attitude. I still missed Paul so
much and I felt guilty being in a relationship when I was still thinking about
someone else.

“I haven’t even
told Jason I love him back yet because I don’t think you can love two people at
once. But I do love him. But I miss Paul.”

“Why do you
miss him?” asked Midge.

I sneered.
“What do you mean
why
?” The answer seemed obvious to me. He was my first
boyfriend, and I loved him.

“Tell me the
things Paul did that make you miss him.”

I considered
what she was asking me. Every time I opened my mouth no words came out. Any
excuse I could come up with was irrelevant compared to the closeness I felt to
him and his family when I shared my day with them. The idea of how we kissed and
laughed was surely missed too, but it wasn’t the reason my heart was hurting.
Paul filled a void where I was allowed to talk safely about anything I wanted.
I missed that.

BOOK: Spilled Milk: Based on a true story
8.22Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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