AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes,” I agreed. “Anything.”
He smiled, a full, real grin. “Do you want to hear what it is, first?”
“I’ll do it for sure,” I said eagerly. I wanted to be his friend again and anything would be fine.
“What I’d really like is if you could come over and hang out with me. I want to talk to you more about this boyfriend thing rather than you going home alone to deal with him. I would even allow you to make dinner, which I would eat. I have a lot of groceries. Don’t tell your boss at the NGS, but I had them delivered from somewhere else.”
“Aren’t you too tired to entertain me?” I asked. “You just played a full game of football.”
“I’m tired and I bet you are, too. We can actually get food delivered and I won’t force you into dance instruction tonight.” He held out his hand. “We missed the Broadway and jazz episodes of ‘The Last Dancer,’ so we better catch up after we eat. What do you think?”
“I think you’re still worried about me and I appreciate that, but you don’t have to be,” I said. “I can take care of myself.”
“I’m very worried about you. If you’re going to break up with him, if he already knows you’re pulling away, then it’s dangerous. I saw what he did to you at your sister’s wedding and if that’s the way he acted in front of a witness…” He didn’t say more, but he didn’t need to. I was already afraid of the same thing.
I thought for another moment about going home versus going over to Bowie’s apartment, about sitting on my bed and startling at every noise versus laughing at dumb jokes, about staring at the light bulb that I was afraid to turn off versus watching bad dance on TV. About being alone versus being with him.
I nodded. “I wouldn’t mind cooking if you have something other than hot dogs.”
“I thought you loved that dinner,” he said.
It actually seemed like I might have hurt his feelings, and that was the last thing I wanted. I hurried to reassure him. “I did! I really loved it, a lot,” I swore, and he smiled at me again.
“You’ll be in the mood for another indoor picnic soon enough.” Bowie held out his hand. “Let’s go.”
“What about my car?”
“I’ll text Lyle in security so he doesn’t worry about it being parked there for a while and I’ll drive you back to get it later.”
“You’ll drive me back here? It’s already late and you’re tired.”
“We won’t stay up that long. It’s better for us to go together,” he told me. “Come on. No hot dogs, I promise. We’ll hang out for a little while and watch a dance show. It’ll be great.”
There were a few problems with this plan, and many, many more problems that would come after it. I nodded anyway and put my hand in his. “Let’s go,” I agreed. I felt better than I had in about a month.
Chapter 9
Ward’s mom looked at the cup of coffee instead of meeting my eyes. She swirled the cold, muddy liquid, moving it faster and faster. “No,” she told me. “I really have no idea where he is.”
I wasn’t sure if I believed her but I didn’t know what I would have said either, not if I were in her shoes. I’d called Valerie from a phone at the stadium and asked her to meet with me in this public coffee shop where there were plenty of witnesses, just in case. Then I’d explained how I needed to know where her son was. I needed to know that because of what he’d done, and when she’d feigned ignorance about those things, I’d explained how he had watched me, how he’d tracked me, and how he’d kept me in line with threats and violence. I’d said how scared I’d been for the last six years. Six years of my life, lived in fear.
“He’s not always like that,” I’d also said, because it was true and because she needed to hear it. “I know there’s a lot of good in him and that was why I fell in love with him in the first place. But I can’t be with him anymore and I texted that to him from my old number, and now I’m afraid that he’s going to…I don’t know what he’s going to do.”
I had a lot of ideas, though, that were still keeping me up at night and making me jump whenever I heard a loud noise even when the sun was high in the sky. I was trying to stay out of Ward’s way, of course, but there was no sign of my ex-boyfriend. No one seemed to know where he’d gone, not his friends or other employees at the marina, and now, Valerie. He’d never answered me when I’d written that I was sorry, but it was over. I’d pressed the button to send those words and my heart had beat with the sound of a kettle drum in my ears.
“It’s done,” Bowie had said when I’d turned off that phone for the last time and put it down. He patted my other fingers, which were gripping his t-shirt so tightly that when I let go, the fabric stayed in a crumpled wad.
“Sorry,” I’d said, and he’d taken my hand in his instead.
“It’s done,” he’d repeated. “But now, you have to be even more careful.”
That was why he’d hired someone to follow me for protection, it was why I was coming and going from the Wonderwomen practices with other girls or with the coaches, why I was parking right in front of the NGS and Martha was insisting on walking me to my car anyway, why I’d talked to the head of stadium security and my college’s security team, too, and now they were aware of the problem. It had meant letting more people know what had been happening in my private life, in my private relationship. I’d had to tell a lot of secrets, which was not how I’d lived up to this point.
It had been terrible at first. I’d gone to Sam and Rylah and explained that I’d had to break up with my long-term boyfriend and that it might become an issue.
“Why?” Sam had barked out, and then, with sentences that jerked and stumbled, I explained how Ward had been controlling and sometimes violent. I’d repeated the same story to everyone else and the more times I said it, the easier it got. So far, no one—not my coaches, not Lyle from Woodsmen security, not Martha—no one had told me how stupid I’d been or how weak and silly I was, that if I’d been dumb enough to stay, then maybe I’d deserved what I was getting.
In fact, mostly everyone had seemed to feel guilty about their own part in it instead of being disapproving about mine. Sam had sworn a lot and Rylah hadn’t stopped him, but then he’d said, “Damn it, Sissy! Why didn’t you tell us this before? Rylah and I always hated that son of a bitch. Why didn’t you tell us?” He’d hugged me pretty hard, too.
