by Sara Hubbard
“It’ll be okay, dear. You’ll see.”
I nod, my cheek rubbing against her soft sweater.
“How about we go and stress eat?”
“That would be awesome.”
With her arm around my shoulders, we walk to her car in silence. I pass Sam’s room, but the door is closed. As we leave the building, Sam comes up over the hill with mussed-up hair and her makeup smudged. Her clothes are wrinkled, and when she sees me she smiles.
Immediately, I wonder if she stayed out all night and who she stayed with. Ozzie wouldn’t have been with her, but a spark of jealousy in my gut forces me to think it’s a possibility. Since when am I a jealous person? It’s a nasty emotion, one that makes you scowl without meaning to while irritation and anger grow roots in your gut.
“Hey, Charlie,” she says.
I glare at her.
“Who’s your friend?” Mom says sweetly. “I haven’t met her before.”
I clutch Mom’s arm and pull her forward so she doesn’t stop to talk.
“Missed you at the party,” Sam says over her shoulder.
“I'll bet,” I say under my breath.
“Got a little crazy so I decided to stay the night.”
“I didn't ask!” I snap back.
“Charlie!”
I pull Mom forward again. “She’s not my friend, Mom. And she just broke up Ozzie and me.”
“What?” Mom’s eyes widen as she scowls over her shoulder. “Really?”
I shrug.
“Hussy!” Mom screams.
I put a hand over her mouth, embarrassed. Not because I want to, but because I feel like I should. Mom stares at me, wide-eyed, ready to yell it again, and I burst into laughter before dropping my hand and lowering my head to her shoulder. I start to cry, and she wraps her arms around me.
“There, there, dear. If he walked away from you, then he doesn’t deserve you. No one ever has.”
I pull back and look up at her. “I did a bad thing, Mom. A very, very, very bad thing.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ozzie leads me to the parking lot, to a shiny forest green Jeep with a hard top. He presses a key, and the lights flash as it unlocks. I didn’t know he had a car. From what the head professor said at his high school, I thought he grew up poor, a disadvantaged guy who overcame the price of tuition because of his ability to skate with a stick. He told me himself he went to prep school on scholarship.
I stand by the passenger side while he gets in. My hand is on the handle, and I hesitate only a moment before climbing in beside him. It’s chilly out today. The wind is so strong the tips of the evergreens in the distance are curving at the top as they bounce farther and farther to the right.
He pulls on his seatbelt and turns the ignition. With hesitation, I buckle mine too, my eyes set on his hard face. With the turn of a knob, heat gently blows in my face, ruffling my hair in a way that tickles my cheeks.
Without a word, he pulls out of his parking spot and follows the road that leads off campus. My thoughts run wild. Where is he taking me? And why would he want to take me anywhere? The scowl on his face, his stiff muscles, and the death grip he holds on the steering wheel suggest he’d rather be anywhere but here with me now. If I want to find out what he wants, I have to let him lead me, but I’m too strong-willed to sit quietly
“You're not taking me somewhere to kill me, are you? You know, someplace quiet where they won’t hear me scream?” I stifle a laugh, but part of me is really worried. I still have no idea what he did to get community service, and he’s already told me he’s a fighter. My gut tells me he’d never hurt me, but you just never know. How well do I know him after all?
“You wanted a story,” he says through gritted teeth. “I’m going to give you one.”
I don’t like the sound of that. “What does that mean?”
He glances at me, and his scowl fades. His forehead wrinkles as he recognizes my fear—not necessarily of him, but of how powerless I feel right now.
“Like I said. You wanted my story. I’m giving it to you. Every last detail. What you do with it is up to you.”
I open my mouth to speak, but words fail me. Why would he do that? What does he have to gain? Except to make me feel shittier than I already feel.
“What’s wrong? This is what you wanted, isn’t it? My story. The details of my private life to share with whoever you please?”
Rain dots the windshield, and he flicks a switch to turn on his wipers. The slow, dull sound of the plastic blades permeates the silence. I’m sick to my stomach, and the feeling is growing to epic proportions.
“Ozzie, you have to know I agreed to that story before I knew you…”
“You knew you were writing it when I met you in the gym. You never once said who you were or what you wanted. Stupid me thought you were this sweet, innocent girl who might be worth getting to know.”
“I wanted to tell you, but…”
He glowers at me, his face getting red. “Was that all bullshit? Were you trying to pull me in and get to know me so I’d tell you private things that I don’t like to talk about with anyone?”
“No! I swear. I mean, yes, I did set things up so we could start talking, but I meant to tell you who I was from the beginning. And showing my vagina was not part of the plan—just for the record.”
“Don’t be cute.”
“I’m not trying to be!”
He thumps his head against the headrest before grimacing. “So, what happened?” His tone is softer. He’s trying to understand and he’s willing to listen. “Did you think you’d get more out of me if you lied?”
I curl my fists, shove them under my legs, and watch him while he focuses on the road. “I’m not used to guys giving me the time of day.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Ahh!” I growl in anger. I pull out my phone and scroll through images on my Facebook page to the one image I was tagged in, in tenth grade, that completely defined my place in high school for the following two and a half years. I hold my phone in a death grip as I stare at the rolls on my belly and the puffy cheeks that made my naturally oval face turn round. Smiling, my teeth, covered in braces, shine in the sunlight. I close my eyes. He needs to see who I was, who I am inside, and why I continue to be so damn insecure about the way I look and how others see me.
He takes the phone and looks up and down from the road to the phone. He lets go of a quiet sigh and hands it back to me.
“I might have changed on the outside, but I’ll always be the girl who got teased and talked about behind her back. No guys gave me a second look in high school, especially popular, handsome jocks. I had no idea how to talk to you. I thought you’d probably just brush me off anyway, and you didn’t. You were so nice to me and I liked it—more than I should have. I wanted you to like me back. That was never going to happen when I told you about the story.”
“I’m sorry high school sucked for you. I really am. But that doesn’t give you an excuse to play with me the way you did, and you’re lying if you say you weren’t.”
“I didn't mean to. I genuinely care about you. And I decided before we…before we…had sex that I wouldn’t do the story. I tried to offer Jack a different story, one that wouldn’t hurt you, and he wasn’t interested. He wanted to know why you were benched for playoffs, and then he told me you did community service, though he didn’t say why. You were such a mystery to me that I tried to find answers for me at that point, not because I wanted a story. I just...wanted you.”
He scoffs at me. “You and I…that ship has sailed. I gave you a chance. I decided to trust you when I barely knew you, and you lied to me. There’s no getting past that. No matter what you feel or don’t feel. So sit back and enjoy the ride.” He pulls onto the highway, his eyes laser focused on the road.
I hold onto the seatbelt like it’s my lifeline.
Forty-five minutes later, we get off the highway on exit forty-five. We follow a long road without houses or buildings, li
ned with only trees. Another ten minutes later, and the wind shakes the car as the rains slaps against the metal exterior and the windows.
We reach a sign that reads Widow’s Creek. I say the name in a hushed voice, recognizing the name of the town from the article I found online about Ozzie. My mouth is dry. I want to reach out to him when I see that little boy in my mind again. But I don’t dare try.
Sitting up a little straighter, I try and see through the slanted rain as we pass a sparse main street with nothing but a small market store, a general store, a bank and post office, and a handful of restaurants. Other buildings dot the street, but are boarded up or have FOR LEASE signs in front of them. Only a handful of people are around, and there are barely any cars. A dying town. How fitting for a guy who lost his family and his life here.
“Two summers I worked there,” he says, pointing to Mary’s Cafe and Eatery. “I was a shitty employee the first year. I don’t know why she hired me back.” He sounds less angry now, but there is an emotionless quality to his voice that makes me sad for him.
“Why do you think you were a bad employee?”
He shrugs. “I was a fucked-up kid who was mad at the world. I showed up late all the time—if I showed up at all. I’d hide out back by the dumpsters and drink rum from a flask. Anything to forget about what I’d lost. But I had to work because, at the time, my foster family refused to give me any money and I couldn’t play hockey anymore without money. I needed new skates, equipment, and then there was ice time. No way would they ever support something that mattered to any of the kids they had. The money they got from the government only went to them.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say quietly.
He chuckles humorlessly. “Four homes in four years. Each of them worse than the last.”
“Four?”
He turns a corner, and the paved road gradually morphs into broken asphalt and then gravel. We rock in the Jeep as we pass over puddled holes. Dense, overgrown trees hang low above us, some scraping the roof of his Jeep. When the rain dies down to intermittent drops, he slows his windshield wipers. Finally, he rolls the car to a stop. Up ahead is nothing. Just a clearing with a slab of concrete and some old boards scattered around.
“That was my house before it burned.”
He points to the foundation. Some of the burned, blackened wood that managed to survive litters the surrounding patches of grass and dirt. I reach for the handle and pull on it to open the door, but as I start to get out, he grasps my arm. He holds it firmly, but not hard enough to hurt me. I stare at his fingers and then up in his serious, dark eyes.
“I’d like to see it close-up,” I say.
He grits his teeth. “No. This is far enough.”
“Have you been back here since it happened?”
He shakes his head, his jaw widening with his clenched jaw. “Why would I come back? My house is gone, and this…this is a graveyard.”
I pull my foot back inside the car and re-buckle my belt. I close the door and fold my hands in my lap. I wait for him to say something, to do something, or to just drive away, but he doesn’t. We sit here for another ten minutes. Then he drags the gearshift into reverse, and he pulls away from this tiny corner of his tragic world, his glassy eyes glued to the road.
“Where are we going next?”
“You’ll see.” He drives down the near-deserted side streets to a mobile park out in the middle of nowhere. There is nothing for miles and then multiple double-wide trailers pop up. He pulls over on the side of the road. The rain has finally stopped, and the gray clouds begin to part, revealing a pale blue sky. After one final swish of the wipers, he turns them off. He runs a hand through his messy hair and then points ahead to an off-white home with green shutters. One of the shutters is off, and you can still see the lighter shade of paint from where it once sat.
“Right there. Foster home number one. They had four kids, not including me. Three boys in one room and two girls in another. We came and went as we pleased. They didn’t give a shit about us unless social services were dropping in. They had to make sure they got their money, though we never saw any of it. I ran away from there. Hitchhiked to New Brunswick and put up a tent near Woodstock. Stayed there two weeks before the police dragged me back, and because my foster family didn’t report me missing, they couldn’t keep me. Not that I cared."
“Why are you showing me all of this? I don't understand. Are you trying to let me in? Or are you trying to make me feel worse than I already do?”
He shakes his head. “Like I said, I’m giving you what you wanted.”
“Don’t let me into your life like this if you’re just going to push me away. Don’t make me more invested.”
He laughs. “This makes you more invested? Oh! I get it. Sob story. You want to take care of me now. You want to help me heal from all the trauma of my youth. Been there, done that. My court-mandated therapist did a bang-up job of doing that so I’m all good now.”
It’s clear to me as he fixes his eyes on my face that this trip is all about hurting me, and in this moment, he represents my father for rejecting me and all the assholes who tried to break me in high school. I desperately want to hate him because, in some ways, he’s hurting me more now than any of them ever could. He’s making me hate myself. I blame me. I brought this on, not him.
I throw open the door and get out, stomping down the street as puddle water kicks up around my feet and dampens the hem of my pants. His car screeches behind me, and I imagine he’s driving away, but as the rumble of the engine grows closer, I realize he’s following me. Just close enough to stay at my back. I toss my hand in the air and flip him off. Not something I normally do, but hey, he deserves it. He picks up speed and crawls along beside me.
After his window rolls down, he calls out my name. “Charlie.”
I fold my arms over my chest. The air is cooler here than it is at school. My nipples harden, and the nubs are firm against the bare skin on my wrists.
“Get in the car,” he demands.
“I’m done, okay? You made your point. I’m an asshole. But so are you! You think I would share any of this with the world? Do you honestly think I would do that to you? To anyone!” I stop and turn toward the Jeep. “I didn’t know you. I didn’t. And you obviously don't know me at all.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
“What do you want from me?” I say, my voice so high pitched it’s almost a whine. “God! Please just tell me what you want. I hate games.”
“Me, too.”
“Then stop. Please. Just stop.”
He nods, his eyes dropping to the pavement. I tip my head back and groan and then trudge around the car to get back inside. He turns the heat up a notch and then the seat as well. The heat underneath me warms my legs and butt almost immediately. “Thank you,” I say quietly.
“Sure.”
“Can you take me home now?” I say, pleading with my eyes. I feel like I’m on the brink of tears.
“Yeah, I can do that.”
But the world has other plans. He accelerates, and a few meters later we hear a pop and the car starts to move lopsidedly. He lets out a low curse and wrings his hands around the steering wheel before ambling forward to pull over onto the shoulder of the road.
“This is just great. Perfect. Just so you know, my luck is the worst. Nine times out of ten, if something bad can happen to me, it invariably will,” I say.
He pulls out his phone and taps in a number. With the car still running, his Bluetooth picks up on it and transfers over to his phone. I see the name Mary and a number comes up. I glance at him, curious who the number belongs to, but it’s none of my business so I don't ask. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m mentally and physically exhausted. Stuck in a car with a boy who hates me enough to drive me to the middle of nowhere to make me squirm.
The laugh of a woman carries through the speaker of his phone.
“I’m nearby. Out by The Andrews’ home. Can you come and get me?” Pause. He clea
rs his throat and rolls his eyes. “I’ve got a flat and no spare.” Another pause. “No, I'll call him in the morning for a tow. It’s Saturday night. He’ll be at Wild Horses.” He drums his fingers on the wheel as he leans his head against the leather-covered headrest. “Yep. Thanks.” He hangs up the phone.
“Who was that?” I ask.
“My therapist,” he says, deadpanned.
With a single raised brow, I scowl at him. I’m in no mood for sarcasm, but then...maybe it’s not sarcasm at all. “Really?”
He drags his fingers down his face and groans. Then he quietly chuckles. “No. Not really. That was Mary. She’s the social worker who took me in and eventually adopted me. My last name is hers.”
I want to punch him in the shoulder for playing with me, but then the reality of my situation makes me do a turnabout. “Wait. You’re letting me meet your adoptive mother?” A spark of hope ignites in my belly.
His face drops, and as if he can sense what I’m thinking, he sets me straight. “Don’t go reading anything into this.”
“I wasn’t,” I snap back, trying to sound offended.
He lets go of a frustrated sigh. “You’re such a bad liar.” He studies my face, and I can’t look him dead in the eyes. “How come I didn’t see it before?”
But we both know the answer. He didn’t want to.
Chapter Nineteen
The edge of the world is tinted with a blended shade of pink and purple. We sit in the car in silence, staring out the windshield, neither of us daring to talk to the other. It’s almost a blessing when Mary rolls up in her yellow Beetle and stops with her passenger door adjacent to Ozzie’s driver’s side. Her window rolls down, and the silver haired woman looks up at us. Her smile is electric, big and bright, one that could only be reserved for someone who means a great deal to her.
Ozzie tries to fight that same smile. His eyes are glowing, and he covers his mouth with a hand, wiping it across his lips like a washcloth trying to get rid of a food stain.
