“Hey Maria – grab the pot, will you? I’m elbow-deep in cookie dough over here.”
“Hey, skipping the mixer and doing it by hand was your idea, not mine,” I call back, grinning as I head for the stove. I shut off the timer and carefully make my way back to the sink to drain the pasta. A thick, steamy fog coats the inside of the kitchen window as I dump the spaghetti into a colander.
“Damned right I skipped the mixer,” says Tina proudly. “They’ll be the best cookies you’ve ever had, too.”
“I don’t know about that,” I tease her. “I’ve had some really good cookies in my day.”
“Oh ye of little faith. You’ll see. Mine don’t just kick ass—they kick all the asses,” she proclaims with a grin and then sticks out her tongue at me.
Our roommate Lacey squeezes into the already packed kitchen and reaches around Craig to grab her purse off the counter as he chops cucumbers into the salad.
“I’m almost ready now. Can you preheat the oven for me, Maria?” calls out Tina as she preps a pan for her so-called best cookies ever. “Hey Lacey, are you hanging around for dinner?”
“No thanks. I’m going out with Mike tonight,” she answers as she rummages through her purse.
Of course she is; she always goes out with her boyfriend. I’ve barely seen her all semester long. She pulls out her little makeup kit and starts putting on lipstick right in the middle of the kitchen. It’s as if she’s completely oblivious to how badly she’s crowding us and how Tina is glaring at her while holding a rolling pin.
I pull out my phone and send another text to Owen.
M: You coming to dinner or no? Ten min.
He never responded to my first message and it’s not like him to miss dinner.
“Did you get the oven yet, Maria?” asks Tina as she finishes off the pan.
“One second,” I reply, finishing off my message. I don’t know why, but it really bugs me that Owen is late tonight.
M: Call me please. Also, cookies. Yum. <3
Tina sighs and shoots me a dirty look as she pushes past me and turns on the oven herself. The cookies go in ten minutes later, on goes the timer and then it’s time to get the plates loaded up. Craig fills salad bowls while Tina and I pile the plates high with steaming pasta and wonderfully delicious meatballs.
I carry the plates to the table and then pull out my phone once more to check for a response. Tina glares at me again.
“Will you just relax already?” she groans. “He’s probably just busy.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll be here as soon as he gets hungry,” Craig agrees with her. “I didn’t do a grocery run this week and he’s still broke from the medical bills for his hand, so the fridge is totally empty.”
“I know that. Why do you think I’m so worried about him not being here?” I fire back, shaking my head. He rolls his eyes at me.
“Oh, both of you just cool it. Save it until after dinner,” snaps Tina in a tone that makes Craig and me immediately shut up.
When I ate at Owen’s place yesterday, he promised me that he could afford it. He told me his medical bills were all under control and that’s the only reason I let him make me dinner in the first place. He could have just told me he was broke and I’d have been just fine.
I shake my head as I sit down for dinner. I just don’t get people sometimes.
“So are you planning to tell me about your vet school interview or do I have to wait until you break up with me and run off with a second-year vettie to find out?” Craig asks Tina.
I stiffen and cover my mouth in shock at his question, but Tina laughs and kisses him on the cheek instead of slapping him like I expected her to. I really don’t get people sometimes.
“I think it went great,” she answers between mouthfuls of pasta. “I won’t know for sure until I get the acceptance letter, though. Fingers crossed. How about you? Found a job to support my extravagant shopping sprees yet?”
I can’t help but giggle at that one. Tina loves to shop but does so almost exclusively at secondhand stores. I think it’s like searching for buried pirate treasure to her.
“Tina the Fashion Pirate,” I think. It has a certain ring to it. She’d need a pink parrot, though.
“Your truffles and bonbons will have to wait just a bit longer, babe,” Craig answers. “I know I have an offer coming from a little engineering startup in downtown Ithaca—I’m just waiting for the paperwork to come in. Not sure if I’m going to apply for anything else at this point.”
“Of course you’re going to,” Tina tells him, rolling her eyes.
“Oh, you think so? What makes you think I want something else?” he challenges her.
“Most jobs in Ithaca pay like shit, Craig,” she says. “Are you sure you want to leave yourself with only one option?”
Tina and Craig continue to argue back and forth about job applications as I stare down at my plate, slowly twirling a long strand of spaghetti on my fork. Where is Owen? It’s well past eight o’clock. He should be here by now.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I tell myself. I’ve only known him a few months even if it feels like much longer. Who am I to complain that he’s late for dinner? It’s not like I’m his mother. There’s nothing for me to worry about.
If there’s nothing to worry about, then why can’t I shake this horrible feeling in my stomach?
I poke halfheartedly at my spaghetti and force myself to eat a few bites before pulling out my phone and texting him again. When I look up, Tina is staring at me.
“Um... obsessive much?” Tina chastises me, and then she reaches across the table and snatches the phone out of my hands before I can react.
“Hey! Give that...”
“Nope,” she answers, shaking her head with finality. “Quit nagging him and give him a little room.”
I can’t get a single word out before she zips my mouth shut. Damn it! How is she so good that?
“Seriously, Maria... you’re going overboard,” Tina quietly tells me. “I know you love him, but he needs his space too.”
I look silently down at my plate. She’s wrong; I’m not being obsessive. I know Owen in a way that she never will and somehow I’m certain that something is wrong tonight. It’s stealing my appetite and I know that there’s no way I’m going to eat my dinner while I’m worrying like this.
“Craig, can I borrow your keys?” I ask, getting up from the table and holding out my hand to him.
“Maria!” gasps Tina, staring at me as if I’m insane. “Will you just sit down and...”
“No. I’ll get my head looked at if I’m wrong but for now, just shut up,” I snap at her. “Craig, give me your keys, please. I’m going to go check on him.”
He thinks about it for a second and then shrugs off Tina’s angry glare and hands me the key to his front door. I’m just going to go check on Owen and come right back. I really do hope that I’m being overbearing and obsessive, because that’d mean he’s doing just fine and there’s something wrong with me. I have a laundry list of things wrong with me already, so what’s one more thing if it means he’s okay?
“Thanks. I’ll be right back.”
Tina continues to chew me out from the table while I put on my ratty old sneakers, but I’m not listening to her anymore. I’ll deal with the fallout when I find him perfectly okay at his apartment. Maybe he’s watching a football game. Is it even football season? I have no idea. I just want him to be okay.
I race out the door, slamming it shut behind me, and by the time I make it to the long staircase up to Owen’s apartment, I’m regretting not bringing a coat. It’s dark and cold out here and the howling spring wind chills me to the bone as I climb the stairs. One flight up... two flights up... my fingers ache as I clutch at the freezing cold railing. Now, a left turn. His apartment is at the far end and all the lights are out. Not even the front stoop light is on.
I bang on the door and wait, shivering, for him to come let me in. No answer.
He didn’t answ
er the last time I did this either. He hid from me until it was clear that I wasn’t going away and then he finally let me in. He needed my help that time, too; he broke his hand and I forced him to go see a doctor.
I fumble with the key but stop myself just as I’m about to unlock the front door.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he’s not even home. He could just be studying up at the library. He does like to hide in the Uris Library stacks, after all. He says he can concentrate better there. Maybe I came over here for nothing because he’s just up on campus like a normal student, and all my nervousness is really just the paranoia of a psychotic girl clinging desperately to her boyfriend.
I don’t believe it for a second. I’m going inside.
The lights are off in the apartment except for the dim stovetop lamp in the kitchen, but I can still see Owen in the low light. He lies motionlessly on the couch with his face pressed into the back cushions. A huge pile of papers covers every inch of the living room table—homework assignments to grade from his graduate advisor, I assume—and splintered fragments of a broken pencil litter the table and floor alongside a bottle.
My breath catches in my chest as I pick up the bottle. It’s a bottle of cough syrup and it’s entirely empty. I turn to the sofa as panic rises inside me. How much did he drink? Why would he do something like this? It’s not going to kill him or anything, not unless he was an idiot and combined it with...
...that’s when I notice the beer bottle on the floor next to the sofa.
“Owen?” I ask, gently shaking his shoulder. “Answer me, please. Are you okay?”
He doesn’t respond. He’s breathing but I can’t get him to wake up.
“Owen, you need to wake up,” I call out, shaking him harder this time. “Can you hear me?”
He groggily wakes up and mumbles incoherently before falling back asleep.
“Sweetie, please!” I beg him. My voice is shaking almost as much as my hands are now. “Please wake up.”
Owen finally wakes up and I let out a sigh of grateful relief and lean into him, hugging him tightly.
“Oh thank God,” I whisper, and he stares back at me in confusion. He’s disoriented from the drugs, and I’m not sure if he knows what’s happening or even where he is. His eyes are puffy and red and I can tell that he’s been crying.
“Maria? What... what’re you doing here?” he finally asks me. His voice is quiet and languid, but it doesn’t sound like he’s drunk anymore, more like his brain is still asleep.
“I borrowed Craig’s keys,” I tell him. “Owen, how much of that bottle did you drink? Did you drink the whole thing?”
He stares at the bottle for a long time as if he doesn’t remember how it got there.
“Oh... that,” he mumbles, pulling himself away from my embrace and lying back down on the couch. “No, just a double dose. I... I need to sleep.”
“Really? Only two?”
He nods silently and presses his face into the cushions again.
I sit quietly beside him and run my fingers through his hair as I try to calm myself down. Most of his scars are invisible, cloaked by the low light, but I can still pick out the long white line on his jaw even in the dark. You can always find someone’s scars if you know how to look for them. A tiny overdose of cough syrup isn’t going to hurt him, alcohol or not, but it's still a terrible idea and more than enough cause for me to worry. What happened to him? He didn’t wash down a double dose of cough syrup with a beer just to catch up on lost sleep. I know him better than that.
“What’s wrong?”
The clock ticks loudly in the kitchen, marking second after agonizing second until he finally answers me.
“Tomorrow,” he whispers.
“You’ll tell me tomorrow?” I ask, and he nods almost imperceptibly in response.
I open my mouth to argue, but my words catch in my throat. I’ve had bad days—days when I can’t bear the idea of talking to anyone, days when even going outside is a struggle—so who am I to say that he can’t have his own bad days? I love him, though, and I can’t just leave him like this.
“Give him a little room,” nags Tina’s voice inside my head.
I can do that. I can give him until tomorrow.
“Okay honey,” I whisper, leaning down and kissing him softly on the cheek. “Need anything before I go?”
He turns and looks up at me over his shoulder before answering. His eyes are glistening with tears and it almost breaks my heart to see him so sad.
“Please don’t go,” he pleads. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“I’ll stay all night if you want me to.”
I smile softly, lean down and kiss him gently on the cheek, and then I curl up next to him on the couch. His skin is burning hot and I start sweating within minutes, but I’m not letting go of him. His breathing is quick and shallow and I can feel his pulse racing as I press against him.
“I’m here for you,” I whisper in his ear as I hold him close. “I always will be.”
My cell phone’s alarm will wake me in the morning if I fall asleep. I can’t leave him alone like this. Craig can take care of him in the morning when I head out to my job interview. Hour after hour passes in silence until Owen’s pulse finally slackens and his breathing slows.
What happened to him? Did his father find some new and horrible way to torment him? I wish I could take him away from his terrible family forever so that nobody could ever hurt him again.
“I won’t let him hurt you, sweetie,” I whisper to him in his sleep. “Never again.”
I lay by his side late into the night, worrying about him until sleep finally claims me as well.
––––––––
My knees shake and my heart pounds in my chest as I stagger into the kitchen, my arms loaded down with heavy grocery bags. I close the front door as quietly as I can and hope that Mom doesn’t hear me. If she is in the living room, I’m in trouble. There’s no way she wouldn’t have heard me come in.
Good, she’s upstairs. I have time to get my bag out before she sees it. She sent me out to pick up groceries and I secretly stopped by the pharmacy on my way back. She can’t find out about my side-trip. If she does, I’ll have to tell her what Darren did to me.
I remember her laughing at that poor woman on the news, the woman whose boyfriend raped her, and my chest tightens painfully. The one thing I desperately need to talk to her about just has to be something she’ll never accept or understand, doesn’t it? I can never tell her about what happened.
I start unpacking the groceries. Milk in the fridge door, eggs on the little shelf in the back...
“Hi sweetie,” she calls to me, and I panic as she starts down the stairs. She comes around the corner just as I slip the pharmacy bag into my inside coat pocket. She stares at me for a moment, and just as I’m certain she saw me, she grabs the peanut butter and jelly and heads to the cupboard.
“Thanks for running out to the store for me,” she tells me. “I’ve been working all afternoon and didn’t have time to get anything ready for dinner.”
“No problem,” I answer cheerfully. “They were out of Dad’s coffee, but I got everything else.”
“You remembered the Italian sausages, right?”
“In the freezer,” I answer with a nod as I put the raisin bran away.
“No, let’s put the sausages in the fridge,” she tells me. “I’m making sauce tomorrow and need them thawed anyway.”
We dig through the rest of the bags in peaceful silence, and I let out a quiet sigh of relief and head for the stairs as Mom puts away the final can of tuna.
“Oh, Maria?” she calls after me as I turn the corner to the stairs. “You didn’t get anything else while you were out today, did you?”
Shit.
I thought I’d escaped, but she saw it after all. She knew about my secret bag the entire time we were unpacking groceries.
A horrible feeling of dread rises inside me. I don’t want to tell her, but she knows I
’m hiding something. If she sees what’s in that bag, she’s going to learn everything. She’ll hate me if she learns what Darren did to me!
I don’t need a mirror to know how guilty I look. I can’t keep secrets because my face always flushes under pressure. All I can do is take a deep breath and nod slowly.
She smiles knowingly as my silent nod confirms her suspicions.
“Maria, you’re old enough to know better than that,” she scolds me. “You’re going to ruin your teeth and spoil dinner if you keep eating all that chocolate.”
Chocolate? I’m not hiding chocolate. A wave of relief washes over me as I realize that somehow, against all odds, I made it out of this alive. She completely misread my guilty expression and thinks I’m hiding candy.
“...and with all that junk food you eat, you’re going to end up getting fat like your father if you aren’t careful.”
She finishes her lecture and stares expectantly at me, waiting for a response.
“Yes, Mom. I’ll try to control myself better,” I answer, hanging my head guiltily. I do feel a little guilty, but it’s because I’m lying to her, in a way. I’ve never told such a backward lie before, confessing guilt for something I didn’t do, but it’s still a lie.
She casts me a motherly smile and then starts flipping through her recipe book and trying to decide on dinner. I take the opportunity to race upstairs before she decides to confiscate my non-existent chocolate bars, run straight into the bathroom and lock the door behind me.
I pull the pregnancy test out of my pharmacy bag. My period should have started over a week ago and I’m terrified. I’m scared that Darren might have gotten me pregnant.
The instructions for the test are printed on a long, narrow sheet of paper in such a tiny font that it’s nearly illegible, and my shaking hands aren’t helping any as I try to read. I know that plenty of women miss periods for all sorts of reasons, but those women aren’t rape victims.
It must be stress. I missed my period because I’m really stressed out, right? What’s more stressful than being raped and having to keep it secret? Please let it be just stress! An enormous lump forms in my throat as I run through the instructions one last time and then it’s time to find out the truth.
Found (Lost and Found #2, New Adult Romance) (Lost & Found) Page 4
