I pulled the towel tighter around my body, still trying to hide the bruises even though I knew it was too late to pretend. It seemed old habits would die hard. “Shouldn’t you guys be at work?” I asked.
“You think we’d miss out on helping you get ready for your first dance?” Becca replied.
I’d been fairly certain no one would care. “I’m pretty sure I know how to dress myself,” I told her.
Becca laughed and got up from the couch. Moved toward me. She lifted my hair high up onto my head and then pulled a few strands loose around my face while asking, “Yes, but do you know what to do with your hair?”
I admitted that I didn’t so she and Maggie brought me into Maggie’s room where they set me in front of a vanity. Becca blew dry and curled my hair while Maggie applied some powder to my face and some color to my eyes. When they were finished even I couldn’t deny the fact that I looked halfway decent.
Becca couldn’t stop smiling at my reflection so I sent her to fetch my dress from my room, just so she would stop. Unfortunately, this left me alone with Maggie. We hadn’t spoken much since the night I crawled into bed with her and asked her about my long-absent father, but alcohol had not made a reappearance in the apartment. For that, I was thankful.
“There is something I want you to have,” she told me. I watched as she moved from beside me to the jewelry box on her dresser. She rummaged through until she came up with a necklace. A silver chain with a diamond snowflake pendant. “I thought it might go with the ice-blue color of your dress.”
I fought back tears as she draped it around my neck and clasped it into place. I remembered this necklace from when I was a child. I was always mesmerized by the way it shined, dangling from Maggie’s neck when she would get all dressed up for a night on the town, but I hadn’t seen her wear it in years. Part of me had thought she’d pawned it. Cashed it in for money for booze. But she’d saved it and she was giving it to me.
I brought my hand to the pendant. Swirled it in my fingers. “It’s beautiful,” I whispered, my voice cracking with unshed tears.
“It was my mother’s,” she told me. “The only thing of hers that survived the fire.”
I was curious about the fire. Wanted to confirm my suspicions about Grandpa Rhoades and the cause of the flames. But not more than I wanted to hold on to the happiness I felt at that moment. Maggie had done something nice for me. She’d given me something precious. Something that meant the world to her. I didn’t want to ruin it simply to satisfy my curiosity, so I thanked her instead and she kissed me on the forehead. It was the first time Maggie had kissed me since I was a child.
Jeff arrived a little while later and was gracious enough to smile when Becca insisted on snapping a few pictures. I thanked him during the car ride to school. “No problem,” he replied. “Your mom and your aunt seem really cool.” For once I had to agree. Maggie wasn’t drunk and Becca had kept her irritating perkiness in check. More importantly, they hadn’t fought with each other. They’d put their differences and past hurts aside for one night to help me get ready because they thought it was important. I couldn’t begin to express how much that meant to me.
At the school I searched the crowd for Garrett even as Jeff and I waited to have our picture taken together but I didn’t see him or Zoe. They arrived later while Jeff and I were on the dance floor, drifting together to a Taylor Swift song. I watched Zoe push through the crowd in her slinky, purple dress, refusing to have her picture taken. Probably because Garrett’s face looked like a jigsaw puzzle.
When the song ended I went to get punch while Jeff went to say hello to some of his friends. I greeted Dr. Cross, one of the chaperones, as she ladled the red liquid into a plastic cup for me. “I’m glad I ran into you,” she said as I sipped from my cup.
“Really?”
“Yeah, I haven’t seen you around the bar lately, so I was hoping to talk to you here.”
“About what?” I asked. The familiar fear crept in. The feeling that someone knew something incriminating. Not that I thought anyone would tell me instead of Sheriff Wilson if they did. But I couldn’t understand what else Dr. Cross would want to talk to me about. We hardly knew one another. The only thing we had in common was our love for Charlie. And then it dawned on me that it must be about Charlie and my heart sank remembering Paul Ford’s promise to have him put down.
“There was a petition filed to have Charlie euthanized,” she replied. “Apparently he bit a cop. And well, I have to do it tomorrow morning and I just wanted to make sure you had a chance to say goodbye to him if you wanted.”
I’m sure to Dr. Cross this was nothing. Something she’d had to do a hundred times before, but to me this was devastating news. “You can’t,” I cried. “Paul Ford deserved it. He was harassing me.”
“Might be true, Abby,” she told me. “But if a dog bites someone, I have no choice.”
The room started to spin away from me. I turned my back to Dr. Cross, but staring at the crowd was no better. They danced and blurred together. The lights were too bright, the music too loud. I teetered on the brink of passing out. “Are you okay?” Jeff’s voice asked from somewhere beside me. His fingers grasped my elbow, grounding me to the floor.
“Air,” I told him. “I just need some air.” I rushed across the room, through the swaying crowd, to a pair of double doors that I knew led to a courtyard between the buildings. I sat down on the concrete steps, felt the cold seep through the thin fabric of my dress.
Flurries were beginning to fall from the overcast night sky. The first snow of the season already, when a week before it had felt like summer. I guess those old men knew what they were talking about.
I watched the snow as it pirouetted through the air, landing on my skin, dampening my hair, ruining the style Becca had so carefully crafted from my usually limp hair, but I didn’t care. I had to find a way to save Charlie. I couldn’t let Paul Ford take him away from me.
Freshly fallen snow crunched behind me before Garrett took a seat next to me. “It’s a little overwhelming in there, huh?” he asked and I laughed because the idea that he thought I’d run away from the dance was so ridiculous.
“There going to kill Charlie,” I told him and even as I said it, I knew he’d understand how important the mangy mutt was to me.
“Who?” he asked. “Why?”
I rested my head on his shoulder. “Paul Ford. Tom’s brother. Charlie bit him when he was harassing me outside the bar. Dr. Cross just told me she has to put him down tomorrow morning.”
“I’m so sorry, Abby,” he said and I knew that he meant it. That was one of the reasons I hadn’t said anything to Jeff before I bolted from the gym. I knew that even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t understand. Not like Garrett did. And anything he could have said would have been hollow.
“I can’t let them kill him, Garrett,” I cried. “I can’t. It’s my fault. He was only trying to protect me.”
Garrett stood. “Okay, calm down,” he said, pacing while he thought of a solution to my problem. A few moments passed before he stopped walking back and forth in front of me. He stared down at me and smiled. “Okay,” he said. “So we don’t. Let them kill Charlie that is.”
“But how can we stop them?”
“We can’t. What we can do is make sure there’s no Charlie in his cage when Dr. Cross comes for him tomorrow.”
“What?”
“We’ll steal Charlie.”
I rested my chin on my hands, looked up at Garrett. “And do what with him exactly? If I keep him, they’ll know. They’ll come for him.”
“So we’ll take him to one of those no-kill shelters. Somewhere far away from here. Somewhere they’ll never find him.”
“Tonight?” I asked, sitting up. I was unsure of how we’d manage to pull it off without getting caught, much less do it before tomorrow morning.
“Sure,” Garrett replied. “Why not?”
There was only one thing holding me back, but I was afraid to say it
aloud. Afraid if I did that Garrett wouldn’t want to help me anymore. “The Penn State scouts are coming tomorrow morning,” I reminded him. “I have to be in the pool by nine.”
“No worries,” he promised. “We’ll leave now. We’ll drop Charlie off and I’ll still have you back in plenty of time.”
I heard the door above us on the steps behind me open and close. “There you are, Garrett,” Zoe’s voice rang through the air. “I was looking all over for you.”
I stared down at the ground, at the clean white snow. “Abby’s not feeling well,” I heard Garrett lie to Zoe.
“Do you want me to go get Jeff?” she asked and I cringed because I hadn’t thought about what our leaving would do to Jeff and Zoe. And because Zoe seemed genuinely concerned and I was about to abscond with her boyfriend.
“No. I’m gonna take her home,” Garrett replied and I wished for the power of invisibility because I could feel Zoe’s eyes on me, trying to send me up in flames. Garrett reached out for my hand. I latched onto it like it was a life preserver and I was drowning.
As we turned and started toward the parking lot, he turned his head to tell Zoe that he would call her later. “No you won’t,” she shouted from behind us. I heard her heels clacking on the steps as she descended and sped to catch up. She pulled on Garrett’s arm, bringing us all to a halt.
“Now you listen to me, Garrett Scott,” she screamed. “You are my date. My boyfriend. Not Abby’s.”
“Zoe,” Garrett tried to interrupt but she cut him off. “No,” she told him. “Let me speak. I took you back. No questions asked. I forgave you for choosing her over me once, but I won’t do it again. If you leave now, I won’t be here for you when you get back. Or the next time she crushes your heart. We’ll be over. Do you understand me? Over.”
The better part of me wanted to tell Garrett to stay. That he deserved better than me. That he deserved someone who could love him fully, like Zoe Winchester. But I couldn’t find my voice.
“I’m sorry, Zoe,” Garrett apologized. “If you feel that way, I understand. But I really have to go.”
Chapter Seventeen
Abby
We parked a block away and stole through the pitch-black darkness amid the other partygoers still clad in their tuxedos and ball gowns. We knew no one would notice us. We were just two more teenagers wandering home after leaving the dance. Garrett walked ahead of me but as we neared Dr. Cross’s office, he reached back to take my hand.
It was a friendly enough gesture. Something I wouldn’t have hesitated to do in the past when we were just friends. Now I briefly wondered what the gesture meant.
Deciding I didn’t care, I slipped my hand into his and fell into step beside him. Feeling the warmth of his body next to mine, I inched closer, wanting to experience the full force of it. Let it wash over me. Overwhelm me. Drown me. It was moments like those that made me think that it wouldn’t matter if I surrendered to it, if I allowed myself to love him completely. I felt guilty when I thought about Zoe and Jeff. About abandoning them at the dance. But Garrett was the only person who would commit breaking and entering for me.
We entered Dr. Cross’s office through the rear entrance in the alleyway by the bar. Charlie’s cage was empty, so I knew Dr. Cross must have moved him inside. Silently I cursed Paul Ford. Charlie didn’t deserve to die for doing what he’d done. He was just trying to protect me. One of the few creatures on Earth who cared enough to look out for me.
Garrett removed his tuxedo jacket and wrapped it around his elbow, which he used to break the small window on the back door. He reached through the shattered glass and unlocked the door. We didn’t have to worry about an alarm. No one in Little Bend had one. Dr. Cross was no exception.
I glanced around quickly to make sure nobody had seen us before I followed Garrett into the darkened building. The busted glass crunched beneath my heels. I looked to the floor and examined the evidence I’d ground to dust beneath my feet. It glinted in the dull overhead fluorescent light, a fine powder of proof that Garrett would do anything for me.
I smiled a little at this realization and when I looked up, I could see Garrett staring back at me through the darkness. I saw that night again in his eyes and for a moment I thought he might kiss me again. I wanted him to kiss me again, but he didn’t. He just reached out his hand once more and pulled me along to the double-doored room at the end of the hallway.
“Charlie,” I called, spying the dog in a cage on the far side of the tiny, spotless room we entered. He didn’t move. He barely even acknowledged my presence. It was almost as if he’d given up already and resigned himself to his fate. I kneeled before the cage and examined the lock. “Don’t worry Charlie,” I promised. “No one’s gonna hurt you. We’re gonna get you out of here.”
“Shit,” Garrett swore from a kneeling position beside me. He examined the lock and flung it back against the cage in anger. In the corner, I heard Charlie growl. “I’d need bolt cutters to get through the lock,” he told me.
“Do you have any?” I asked.
“Not in the truck.”
“Keys,” I told him, remembering the months I spent helping Dr. Cross nurse Charlie back to health. “Dr. Cross keeps the keys to the cages in her office. Above her filing cabinet.”
Garrett dashed off to retrieve them while I took a seat on the floor. I stuck my arm into the cage and called Charlie to me. He didn’t move and I wished I’d brought some treats to give him.
“Watch out,” Garrett whispered when he returned. I moved out of the way so he could open the lock and release Charlie. When he finished, he stepped back and I opened the cage door. Still Charlie didn’t stir. “Come on boy, let’s go,” I called to him a few times until Garrett stepped into the cage to retrieve him. Charlie growled at him and I knew that it would have to be me. I stepped in behind Garrett, placed a hand upon his shoulder, and motioned for him to exit. Then I approached Charlie.
He allowed me to near him and when I’d reached him, he allowed me to pick him up. I knew there was no way for me to carry him back to the truck a block away and there was no way he’d allow Garrett to touch him. “You’re gonna have to bring the truck around,” I told Garrett.
“Someone might see us,” he cautioned. “If they do they’ll definitely recognize my pickup.”
I couldn’t care about that at this point. I had to get Charlie out of there. To hell with the consequences. “Do it,” I said and he did. He always did. Whatever I asked, Garrett would do it.
I waited to exit the building until I saw the taillights at the edge of the alley. Garrett knew better than to try to help me carry the dog, but he held the door open for me and steadied me as I climbed into the cab and positioned Charlie with his head upon my lap. I tried not to react to the feel of Garrett’s hands against my back.
We drove most of the way with the windows down and the radio on, avoiding conversation. I held tight to Charlie. He was scared, I could feel his whole body convulsing. I whispered in his ear. Promised that I’d take care of him. I wanted him to feel safe, loved. I wanted him to know I would never do anything to hurt him. But each time his body shook I wondered if he knew they were promises I wasn’t certain I could keep.
As we drove, I fell asleep, not waking until it was nearing two o’clock on Saturday morning. The clock on the dash flashed the time at me in bright red, reminding me that we were on a deadline. I had to get back to Little Bend by nine if I wanted to swim for Penn State. We were nearing the shore. I could smell the salt in the air. Taste it on my sleep-dried tongue. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“There’s a 24 hour no-kill shelter in Barnegat,” he replied. “I figured the Jersey shore was far enough away. But,” he said, pulling the truck to the side of the road and switching the ignition off. “I’ve gotta pee first.”
I smiled and nodded. He’d been driving for hours, non-stop. I was surprised he hadn’t needed to get out before that point, but he’d probably wanted to let me sleep. Truth was, I could us
e a bathroom myself. And a toothbrush. Preferably with some toothpaste on it. Of course, right then I would have settled for a stick of gum or half a mint.
Charlie was asleep so I gently moved his head from my lap onto the seat before reaching for my purse. I shoved a hand inside and searched until I found a pack of gum at the bottom. I stuffed a piece into my mouth before I stepped out of the truck.
Garrett had yet to emerge from the cluster of trees where he’d gone to relieve himself so I rounded the truck and dropped the tailgate so I could take a seat. I shook out of my hair and rolled my dress up to my knees before stretching out. It was a good deal warmer there than in Little Bend and I enjoyed the feel of the warmth on my skin where hours before there’d been frost.
“So I was thinking,” Garrett said as he hopped up beside me. “We’ll have a few extra hours after we drop Charlie off. What d’ya say we head to the shore? Check out the ocean?”
I repositioned myself so that I was lying across the tailgate with my head resting on his outstretched legs. “Or we could stay here.”
“Here?”
“Yeah, here. You. Me. Just like this.”
Garrett laughed. “Well as interesting as this desolate stretch of road is, I could really use some food. How about some breakfast at least? Then we can plan the rest of our boring future in the middle of nowhere.” Reluctantly, I agreed and got back into the truck so Garrett could drive until we found a roadside diner that was open twenty-four hours a day.
Inside, I waited for the waitress to seat us then I headed straight for the bathroom. The warm water from the sink felt incredible, bringing life back to the tired skin of my face. I patted my skin dry using some paper towels than ran a wet hand through my hair. I was still wearing my homecoming dress and my hair was windblown and a downright mess. I still looked like shit but it was the best I could do under the circumstances.
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