Bitter End

by Jennifer Brown

  I sat in the backseat by myself and pretended not to hear them joking with each other up front. Pretended not to notice that neither one of them said a single word to me all the way home. Pretended not to be so relieved when we finally pulled into Zack’s driveway, where I could bolt across the yards and into the darkness of my house, alone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Half an hour later, I was showered, bandaged, and lying in bed, staring at the lights coming in through my window onto my ceiling.

  My chin still burned, even more so now that I’d clipped off the hanging piece of skin. My nose felt sore, too, and my tooth, while it didn’t exactly ache, irritated me by poking into my tongue.

  I couldn’t leave it alone. As I lay there, thinking, I pushed my tongue under the sharp edge of the tooth over and over again. Jab. Jab. Jab. Something about the pain felt familiar and—as weird as it sounds—good.

  Because at least the pain in my tooth was something I could count on. Something I could expect. Jab. Pain. Sharp edge. Poke. Ouch. Good. I knew that was coming. I could predict and understand my broken tooth.

  The rest of my life… not so much.

  How did everything get so out of control? Where did I go from here? I was afraid to face everyone.

  It must have gotten very late, because I lay there so long I actually began to contemplate just running off to Colorado myself right then and staying there. Not telling anyone where I’d gone. Just going and being a memory. I had enough money saved up to get out there. I had a car. All I needed to do was get a job once I got there. All I had to do was get away and leave the pain behind me.

  Just as I finally started to drift off, yelling outside pulled me awake again.

  I sat up and looked out the window. I couldn’t see anything, so I got out of bed and pulled the blinds all the way open.

  Cole’s car was at the curb, idling, the driver’s side door open. He was standing in the side yard, yelling something to someone who was standing in the shadows of Zack’s front porch.

  It was hard to understand what he was saying. His words were slurred, and there was a yard and a pane of glass between us, but it didn’t take a genius to make out what was being said.

  “Because I want to shee her and iz nona your business!… She’s not your girlfriend, dude, get a grip…”

  I gasped, bringing my hand up to my mouth, unsure what to do. A light had gone on in the house across the street, and I saw the neighbors lift up their shade to peer out. God, if Cole kept this up, Dad would wake up, and the last thing I needed was to try to explain why my boyfriend was screaming in my yard, so drunk he could hardly stand up, at three o’clock in the morning. Oh, and by the way, can you schedule me a dentist appointment for, like, immediately?

  I started to unlock the window so I could pull it open and, hopefully, shush Cole. But before my fingers could work the lock, he yelled again.

  “Shit, I’d liketa shee you try,” he said, and there was a streak of blue jeans and suddenly Cole was on the ground, rolling around angrily with Zack, both of them punching wildly.

  Lights went on in another house across the street, and someone stepped out on their front porch and shouted, “Hey!”

  My fingers worked double-time then, and I yanked open the window. Cold air rolled in at me, and the grunts and thwacks were loud and crisp. But I realized I didn’t know what to say.

  Really, Cole was no match for Zack, who was at least as big as Cole, and not drunk. He hit Cole five times to every one of Cole’s strikes, and eventually Cole stopped hitting back and went to simply covering his head. Zack rolled Cole onto his back and grabbed his shirt, pulling him up off the ground, then letting him drop. Zack’s hands went slack at his sides.

  “You touch her again,” Zack shouted in Cole’s face, “I’ll break your whole fuckin’ body.”

  He got up and walked back to his house, flicking a glance at my window, where I stood, my hands pressed against the screen, my mouth hanging open. His lip was bleeding and he was out of breath, but otherwise he didn’t look so bad.

  Cole looked much worse. Bloodied nose. Bloody lip. Blood gushing down his chin.

  He kind of looked like me.

  After Zack’s door slammed shut, Cole rolled on the ground a little, then stood up, spitting onto the ground.

  Several neighbors were outside now, one of them holding a phone to her ear.

  Cole stumbled, cussing, back to his car, stopping to spit every few steps. Then he got in and left, just before the police rolled down the street. They paused at Zack’s house but must have decided that whatever had gone on was over now, and rolled away silently.

  I crawled into bed and went back to feeling my jagged tooth with my tongue, replaying over and over again in my head the look on Zack’s face when he glanced up at the window.

  There was no way I’d ever figure out this night, which began with the boy I loved, who was supposed to be my ultimate best friend, hurting me, and the best friends I hurt at the basketball game standing up for me.

  Zack had looked up at my window as if he’d expected me to be there. As if he knew I’d been watching him beat up Cole. As if he’d not only been warning Cole but warning me as well that he wasn’t afraid to take on Cole if he had to, whether I liked it or not.

  There was another look in his eye, too. A look that said he wasn’t going to just let me be devoured by Cole. A look that said he’d always had my back and wasn’t about to stop now.

  Maybe I wasn’t as alone as I’d thought I was. Maybe it was finally time to tell.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “Let me see,” Bethany said when I slid into the seat next to her. It was opening night of The Moon for Me and You, and I’d had a late dentist appointment, so I’d had to meet her there. The community center was packed. I was nervous for Zack, even though I knew he was backstage goofing around, not a nerve to be had.

  I smiled wide, showing off my newly crowned tooth.

  “Very nice,” she said. “Did it hurt?”

  “Only on the drive over,” I said, closing my lips and running my tongue over my top teeth to remove any lipstick stains. I dug through my purse for a mirror so I could check them.

  “Big lecture, huh?”

  I nodded. “Oh, yeah.” I located the mirror and held it up in the light, looking myself over. My scraped nose, lips, and chin had long since crusted over, the scabs fallen off. All that remained were faint scars that I was mostly able to cover with makeup. “ ‘I can’t afford to fix your teeth every time you decide to jack around in a parking lot,’ ” I said, adopting a gruff voice meant to mimic my dad’s. “Seriously, I was so close to just saying forget it, I’ll live with the temporary tooth. I’d kind of started to get used to it, anyway. This tooth feels so big in my mouth now.”

  In my head, I replayed the conversation between Dad and me on the drive to the dentist’s office. There’d been more than just a lecture.

  “That boy’s been leaving roses on your car again,” he’d said, the question lying, unasked, between us.

  “Yeah,” I’d answered, not sure what to say.

  “Is it serious?” he’d asked.

  I shrugged. I had no way to answer that question. I wasn’t sure what “it” was between Cole and me anymore. He had come in to school that Monday, beat up but acting as if nothing had ever happened between us. He had started leaving the roses on my car again, with sweet notes, calling me Emily Dickinson and saying he was sorry and begging for my forgiveness. Just like always.

  Only now… my skin crawled every time he touched me. He irritated the hell out of me every time he spoke. He scared me. But I hadn’t left him. At this point, I didn’t know how.

  “I don’t know,” I said to Dad, staring out at the trees whipping past us. We passed the spillway, and my stomach turned in knots. If only we could get that magical time back, I thought. If only I could get a lot of things back. And before I even knew what I was doing, I blurted out, “Dad, why did Mom leave?”


  At first he didn’t say anything. Just stared straight ahead, his hands resting at the bottom of the steering wheel. Silence, like always. No answers, just… silence. I rubbed my forehead with my palm, waiting for what I was guessing would be only more silence.

  But, surprisingly, just as the dentist’s office came into view, Dad said, “She got mixed up with some guy who claimed to be a spiritual healer.” He shook his head, gave a sardonic laugh. “He was an unemployed blackjack dealer. But she believed him.”

  I sat up straighter. “She had an affair?” My fingers felt cold, and I couldn’t make sense of it.

  But Dad shook his head, pulling into the parking lot and swinging the car into a space. “No,” he said. “It wasn’t an affair.” He held the keys in his lap, tossing them lightly between his fingers. “Alex,” he said with a sigh, “you were always the one who missed her the most. But you need to understand. She was sick. Mentally. And she was drunk that night she left. It was all just a big, sad accident.”

  He opened his door and got out, but I stayed rooted in my seat. It didn’t make sense. Why would Mom need a spiritual healer? What was their relationship if it wasn’t an affair? And why would Mom risk everything to be with him? I wanted to ask Dad so many more questions, but he was standing at the back of the car, stuffing his keys into his pocket, and I knew he was done talking about it.

  I wanted to tell Bethany and Zack. See if they had any more answers than I did. See if it made sense to them. But I was still learning how to talk to my best friends again after all that had happened. I wasn’t sure anymore what they were interested in. I wasn’t even sure they were still interested in our trip. At least, with me there.

  “Well, I think it looks good,” Bethany said, snapping me out of my memory. “Hopefully this one won’t get knocked out. Imagine what your dad will say if he’s got to pay for it a second time.”

  I dropped the mirror back into my purse and zipped it shut vigorously. “Bethany, please. Don’t start. I know what you think, but I really was wrapped up in my coat, and if I hadn’t been, I would’ve been able to brace my fall. It was my fault. Really.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “I know. I was just saying I hope you don’t fall down on your face again is all. A lot of people die from falls every year. I just don’t want you to be a statistic.” She didn’t have to spell it out for me to know what she meant. She believed it was “just a fall” about as much as she believed I could fly.

  We stood as a couple shimmied in front of us down the row to their seats.

  “I’ll be all right,” I said, when we settled back again. “Can’t you guys just let it rest?”

  She held up her hands. “Okay,” she said. “But if you need help cutting it off…”

  As the house lights dimmed I wondered if maybe it was just a matter of getting help cutting it off. Maybe I wasn’t just afraid of what he would do to me or to Bethany and Zack if I broke up with him; maybe I was afraid of being without Cole. Maybe being with an abuser was better than being totally alone again.

  And before I could even stop myself, the words tumbled out of my mouth: “I think… I don’t know, like, I deserve it sometimes.”

  She reached over and put her hand on my wrist on the armrest. “Alex,” she whispered, but the house lights went totally down and the orchestra’s opening music crashed to life, breaking whatever spell I was under. “Alex,” she whispered again, but then faltered when the man in front of her shot her an angry look.

  I shook my head and pointed to the stage, where Zack had emerged in a 1950s-era suit, singing something about payday.

  The lights came up again for intermission. We both clapped and cheered Zack’s successful first half, which was way better than any first half Mickey Hankins had ever had, but somehow the excitement never quite reached our eyes.

  We might have talked more about it. I might have told her about the night Cole punched me. I might have taken her into the ladies’ room and told her about Brenda’s suicide attempts and Cole’s dad, who I was pretty sure beat Brenda, too. I might have told her about the wrist and about Cole calling me a slut whenever he was mad at me. I might have been swept away just enough by Zack’s singing and Bethany’s soft hand on my wrist to have told her everything.

  But the lights were up again, and it was bright and I felt exposed. The family next to me began pushing their way down the row, and the audience, including Bethany and me, made a mass exodus toward the restrooms, and the moment was gone.

  Bethany made a beeline for the restroom, but all I really wanted was something to drink, so I turned toward the booth set up by the culinary students and got a soda. I paid for it, then turned, taking a sip, and almost bumped right into Cole’s chest.

  “There’s my beautiful lady,” he gushed, kissing me on the ear. Immediately I felt the familiar tension rise in my shoulders. Lately, I’d had that tense feeling in my shoulders every time he touched me. I smiled thinly. “You are gorgeous tonight. I didn’t realize people got so beautified to go to school plays.”

  My heart was so busy racing, I could hardly take in what he was saying, much less answer him. Was he going to insinuate that I was trying to look good for Zack? That was a path that was too familiar and too ugly to want to go down. I sipped my soda casually.

  “So I was trying to surprise you,” he continued, stretching one arm around my waist and pulling me toward a corner where nobody was standing. “But I got here right as the show was starting and I couldn’t find you in time. Sure looked like you and Bethany were having a serious conversation down there.”

  He paused pointedly, and I had no choice but to swallow the soda I was holding in my mouth and speak up. I braced myself for a poke or a jab or a pinch that would mean I know what you were telling her. I shook my head. “We were just talking about my new tooth. See?”

  I bared my teeth, and Cole’s face lit up. “There’s the mouth I know and love.” He leaned over and kissed me, then smacked his lips together elaborately. “Mmm… sweet!” He leaned in and whispered into my ear, “The soda’s not half-bad, either.” Our old joke.

  Slowly, I started to relax. He was the old Cole, sweet Cole. Cole who was trying to make the best of it with Zack and Bethany. Cole who whispered that I was beautiful and left roses on my car and assured me we’d have a great, calm life together with lots of beautiful children. Why couldn’t he stay that Cole?

  The lights flickered, and the crowd started to move back into the auditorium.

  “Oh, hey,” Cole said, pulling two ticket stubs out of his back pocket. He held them up. “I’ve got two seats.”

  I glanced over at Bethany, who was flicking worried looks over her shoulder at me as she filed back into the auditorium with the rest of the crowd. After what I’d told her, she’d never in a million years understand why I’d even be standing next to the guy, much less why I would sit with him over her for the entire second half of a musical.

  She might even try to get me to move back to my original seat. Cause a scene. Make people stare. Force me to deny having ever said anything. Force me to make her look like a fool in order to save myself.

  But as much as I worried that Bethany wouldn’t understand why I wasn’t sitting with her, I knew that Cole would be pissed if I chose her over him. And of the two of them, Cole was the one I was far more afraid of.

  “Okay,” I said, taking his arm. “Let’s go.”

  Turned out, our seats were only a few rows behind Bethany, who scanned the auditorium almost obsessively until the lights started to go down.

  And when they did start to fade, she finally found me.

  I didn’t need light to see the disappointment and sadness in her eyes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  As soon as Cole took the corner toward the lake, I knew where we were going. This was the first time we’d really gone anywhere alone since the musical. Not that Cole hadn’t been trying. I’d been avoiding it.

  I was afraid to be alone with him. Afraid that he’d hurt me
again. Afraid that I’d be forced to break up with him and then he’d do something crazy. Afraid that there was a lot more of me to be broken than just a tooth. Unbroken parts of me on the inside, where scars don’t show. And afraid that he would find those unbroken parts of me and smash them to bits.

  But no matter how I tried, and no matter how many times Bethany tried to talk me into it, I couldn’t break up with him. There was something familiar about Cole. I loved him. I understood him. We understood each other. And you don’t come by that every day. If you give up on your soul mate… if you let him slip through your fingers… will you ever be loved again? I didn’t know, and I was afraid to find out.

  We didn’t talk much as we drove along through the woods. Cole’s hand was in my lap, his fingers entwined with mine. He sang along to the radio; I gazed out the window at the bare tree branches silhouetted against the crisp early-spring sky. Things felt comfortable between us.

  Finally, Cole pulled off on a gated road and parked in a patch of dry weeds. We both got out and tromped through the familiar foliage, coming out on the other side at the top of the spillway.

  Cole marched right across, just like always, but as I raised my foot to join him, I felt the familiar pang of fear reverberate in my chest. It had been a while since we were last here. It was so high. So dangerous. And a lot had happened between our last visit and now. Cole himself had gotten so much more dangerous since then.

  “Come on, Emily Dickinson,” Cole said, stretching his arm out toward me. “I won’t throw you off.” He laughed as though he’d just made a particularly funny joke, but my knees shook when I realized that this was exactly what I was afraid of.

  “I can’t,” I said, and choked out a laugh. My teeth chattered. “It’s been too long.”

  Cole rolled his eyes and came across to me. “Chicken,” he teased. Then, just as he’d done on our first date, he grabbed my elbows and, walking backward, led me to the middle of the spillway ledge.