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“So weird. ”
She’s smiling when she pulls my head back down.
Caroline’s smiling, and we’re kissing, and everything is perfect, until light cuts across her face and she says, “Oh, shit. ”
Headlights in the driveway.
“My dad. ”
Her Romeo and Juliet balcony turns out to be the perfect height for dropping into the backyard.
My car turns out to be in just the right spot for getting out of Dodge without being spotted.
But the drive between Ankeny and Putnam is way too short for me to sort out what the fuck it is I thought I was doing and way too long to endure the memory of Caroline’s mouth against mine.
The apartment looks alien when I get back. Small and cold and ugly. Empty.
I go into my room and shut the door. I flop onto my back on the bed, feeling tired and used up.
My phone rings. I almost decide not to answer it, because I know it’s got to be Caroline.
I can’t talk to her. I have to get my head on straight first, figure out what that was. Figure out why, when I snuck down her driveway at a crawl with my headlights off, half of me was hoping I wouldn’t get caught and the other half was disappointed, ashamed, fucking furious with her for making me feel like her dirty little secret.
When I glance at the screen, it’s not her, though. It’s my mom.
“Hey, what’s up?” I ask.
Frankie’s voice. “Dad’s here. ”
My heart jolts. I sit up so fast that my vision narrows. I have to put my palm to my forehead to steady myself. “Where are you?”
“At home. At Bo’s. He’s—he won’t go away, West. You have to make him go away. ”
She sounds like she’s about to cry, her voice high and reedy, right on the verge of losing it.
Frankie never cries.
“Okay, take a deep breath, kiddo. You’re inside, right?”
“Yeah. ”
“And he’s outside. ”
“Uh-huh. And I locked the front door, but he’s pounding and pounding on it. I’m afraid it’ll break!”
Now that she says it, I can hear the pounding. I’m thousands of miles away, and the sound scares the fuck out of me. I still remember him outside the trailer, yelling at my mom in the middle of the night.
“Michelle! Let me in! Let me into my own goddamn house, you worthless slit!”
He was drunk, Mom told me. He was angry. He didn’t mean it. But I shouldn’t worry, because she would never, ever let him hurt me.
It wasn’t even forty-eight hours later that she let him into her bedroom.
He hurt me plenty.
“West?” Frankie’s voice is wobbly. “I’m scared, West. ”
My hands are shaking from adrenaline. I push myself until my back is in contact with the wall. I need something hard to brace against. “I know, sweetheart, but that’s a solid door, and he’s not going to get through it. Where’s Mom and Bo?”
