We’ll have to find a way outside without Brandon finding us. That means splitting up, just for a minute. Long enough for him to be too busy with me to notice what they’re doing.
“You and Jen go, I’ll find him and distract him,” I say.
I rush out of the gym, first hoping to catch sight of Brandon. He sees me, fire in his eyes, and I run down the hall, toward the door to the parking lot, hoping he’ll follow me so Jen and Marissa can slip past and reach the lobby to make the call.
When I hear the heavy footsteps behind me, I rush faster, outside and into the parking lot.
The second I feel the cool air, I know I made a mistake. It’s dark. I’m alone.
Even if it’s just Brandon behind me, it’s not like I’m exactly safe. So I keep rushing forward until I reach the brightest spot of the lot. All the kids are still inside, having the time of their lives. I should be inside.
I shouldn’t be out here. But if I go back inside now, Brandon might reach Marissa before she can talk to his mom.
I stop to catch my breath, my chest heaving much harder than it should for how much I ran.
Screw this.
I turn—
And see a large figure in the shadows of the parking lot.
“Brandon?” I ask, my heart pounding. Hoping it’s him and not someone else.
But I can’t make out his face. Is it just me, or is that not a suit he’s wearing? I’m imagining the ugly blue uniform, right?
The figure is tall. Brandon’s tall, right? It’s probably just him. Just Brandon. I can handle Brandon.
Then he calls my name, and a chill of the worst kind rushes through me. The kind that feels like a scream trapped inside.
Everything stops. Frozen.
That’s not Brandon.
He comes forward, and I have nowhere to go but backward. Do I run and hide behind the cars? How long until he finds me? My feet feel cemented to their spot.
Now is not the time to panic, Anna!
“Exquisite,” he says, slurring the name and making it sound even more disgusting than it already was.
“What do you want?” I spit.
“I told you I wasn’t through with you. No one can keep me away from you. Not Luis. Not your new boyfriend.” He tilts his head like a damn puppy dog, but I know he’s anything but. Calling him a rat would be too kind to him and too mean to the rat.
“It’s not a school night anymore, Sweet Pea.”
I shake my head. “You won’t have me again,” I say. I wish I felt as confident as I sound.
He laughs. “Oh, I will. You’ve been a bad girl, Exquisite. But don’t worry.” He glances back to the school. “They’ll all know your real name soon enough.”
“What?” I ask.
“Unless you’d prefer to keep it between us.” He grins. “But you have to stop running from the truth. It’s who you are. No more pretending.”
I shake my head. “It’s not who I am anymore.”
He laughs, like I’m a little child, then lunges at me.
I spin away, but he’s too fast. His body slams into mine, and we both fall to the ground. Pain ricochets up my arm and head, making me dizzy, but I manage a scream. Not just a yell, but an animalistic scream that I swear should shatter the glass of the school. It doesn’t.
My scream does nothing.
No one is coming.
He grabs my arms and pins them against the ground. Pins me.
“You can run from the cops,” he says breathlessly. “You can run from your pimp, but you can’t run from me.”
“No!” I cry out. I can’t go with him, I won’t. I’d rather die now.
I claw at his face, tearing at anything I can get my nails into. Warm blood drips onto my face, but he doesn’t stop pulling at my dress, doesn’t even scream or groan.
Is this part of what he likes? Causing me pain? Forcing me to do what he wants?
Then I see the lights, hear the siren. I don’t know how cops could be here so fast. How they could know I need help. A spotlight shines from the car and onto us. The janitor pauses. Through the bright light, a cop comes toward us.
Will they understand what happened? Or will it be like always? Will they blame me? Tell me I was asking for it?
The janitor’s grip on my arm weakens a little as he looks up, surprised, and I manage to rip my arm free and push the base of my palm up to his nose. I hear a crack, a scream, and his blood splashes onto my arm. I spin away, but he grabs me.
“You tell them nothing. I have more. More I can tell them.”
The cop comes to a stop in front of us. His face is obscured by the bright light.
“Step away from the girl.”
I know that voice. He speaks with such confidence, such certainty, that a pulse of strength rushes through me.
“Officer, we were just—”
The figure doesn’t let him finish. He punches the john in the face, which gives me a free moment, and I’m able to get away from him and stand beside my hero.
He’s not a cop. It’s Jackson.
“Get the hell out of here,” he says.
He must have brought his father’s cop car close and turned the siren on when he saw what was happening to me.
I take a few steps back, but I don’t want to leave Jackson with the janitor.
The janitor chuckles as he realizes Jackson’s real identity. “How cute, your boyfriend came to the rescue. Even after I told him the truth.”
“Jackson, let’s run. We can get away,” I whisper, hoping he’ll listen.
“No, I’m not letting him get away.”
“Don’t be stupid, boy.” The janitor stands tall. “You can’t compete with me.”
He steps forward, and I know he’s too big, too strong. I’m scared. Scared that he’ll hurt Jackson. Scared he’ll force me to admit to Jackson more than a hint of the truth. Scared that Jackson won’t win this fight.
The janitor lunges at Jackson, and I yell, a desperate scream.
What do I do? Run for help? Join Jackson and fight the janitor?
Jackson takes a hit across his jaw, but he bounces back and tackles the janitor to the ground. They roll over each other, and then the janitor is on top of Jackson and raising his fist—
Someone reaches down and pulls the janitor off Jackson with more power and anger than I’ve ever seen, even from pimps. It’s a man in a blue uniform. And not just any cop. It’s Jackson’s father.
“Get off my son!” He flings the janitor off Jackson, then pins him to the ground.
There are more red and blue lights, more cars, more men in uniforms. Everything happens so fast. Three men struggle with the janitor, and another rushes to help Jackson, who’s bleeding from his lip but seems fine.
Then there’s a crowd, kids from the dance filing out into the parking lot to watch the excitement.
“We had a deal, Exquisite! You owe me!” the janitor yells as he’s wrestled and cuffed.
Two officers pull him toward a cop car.
Another to the side says, “You have the right to remain silent—”
“She’s a whore!” the janitor yells. “I was just getting what I paid for!” He starts laughing as the cops shut the door on him.
I shiver and then collapse onto the ground, unable to stop the tears as they drift down my cheeks.
The police eventually come over to me, give me a blanket and ask if I’m okay, who they should call for me.
“My mom,” I manage to squeak out.
Alex, Jen, and Marissa are the only faces I recognize in the crowd around me. I thought I understood them, but I can’t read their expressions. After everything we went through together… Shit, was that just a little bit ago? I’d love to think my past doesn’t make them hate me.
All I know is that everyone now sees me for who I really am.
I don’t expect them to understand. How could they?
Jackson stands beside me the entire time, and I can’t even thank him for what he did, because I can ba
rely keep up with the police questions. I’m not sure even I understand what I tell the police, but Jackson helps me to explain as much as he knows, and I guess what I say about the janitor makes enough sense, because finally they tell me it’s okay. We’re done for now. We can talk more later.
Jackson’s dad doesn’t seem too happy. His face is like cold stone, and then he rushes toward Jackson, and I almost leap forward to come between them, tell his father that it’s not his fault. I can’t stand him getting into trouble because of me.
But I find myself staring, surprised when Jackson’s father wraps his arms around his son.
Finally, my parents come to pick me up and take me home. I wonder if they’ll ever let me out of the house again after this. Guess I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t.
When we drive out of the school parking lot, there’s still a crowd of about a hundred people, some parents, but mostly kids still in their homecoming finest. I see them whispering, some of them sad, some shocked, some excited, probably that they got to see something so dramatic in real life or that they’ll have the best drama to talk about in school on Monday.
I can only imagine what they’ll say. I don’t know how much the witnesses heard, but I know it was too much, and soon the cops will know the full truth. Soon, they’ll all hate me.
It’s my fault for coming back here.
It’s my fault for thinking I deserved a second chance.
Chapter Thirty-Three
When I finally make it home, my mom’s worried gaze bores into me. My father shakes his head like he always knew I would end up in trouble. Like it was inevitable. It always is when I’m involved.
They talked to the cops, but they don’t know the full truth. They know a man attacked me in the school parking lot after homecoming. They know Jackson tried to save me. They know the cops now have the man in custody.
But they don’t know that this man wasn’t just a creepy janitor. They don’t know that I’ve slept with him before in New York and that he paid me. They don’t know that’s what he wanted from me now.
And it’s probably best that I’m the one to tell them. I’ve lost every bit of power I thought I had. At least this way, I’m asking for whatever punishment I get.
I won’t hesitate. I’ll tell them before we even go inside.
But as soon as I’m out of the car, my mother wraps me in her arms and holds me all the way into the house. My father glances at us, his anger palpable, but my mother doesn’t seem to care right now whether he’s angry.
I want to stop her. I need to tell her what happened. She deserves the truth. But her arms around me turn me into a sobbing mess.
She helps me to my bedroom, like I can’t walk or something. She does know I’m not injured, right? The blood on my arm is from the janitor. It’s not mine.
“Lie down,” she says. “Rest.”
“Wait,” I manage to say. “Mom. There’s something I need to tell you, about tonight, about that man…”
She shakes her head and shushes me. “It doesn’t matter, not right now. He’s in custody, you’re safe, and you need to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”
I swallow and let her tuck me in like I’m five years old, and then I let my body collapse in exhaustion.
As I’m falling asleep, I hear my parents whisper-arguing about letting the dog in to sleep next to me. Apparently my mother wins, because a few minutes later Zara is licking my face and trying to jump up on the bed with me.
She ends up jumping up by my feet, and I scoot to make enough room for her. She lays her head against my thigh, and that’s the last thing I remember until morning.
When I finally wake up, I sneak down the hall to find my mother. She’s rolling some dough behind the counter but looks up and smiles when she sees me. I don’t know where my dad is, but it’s better this way. I’ll tell her first. And maybe then, when I tell him, it won’t be so bad.
“Hi, sweetheart, how are you feeling?”
I attempt a smile. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
She nods and puts down the roller, then wipes her hands on the towel by the sink. “What do you need to tell me?”
“It’s about last night. About that man.”
I need it to be me that she hears it from first.
“Okay, sweetie,” she says, sitting down beside me, brushing my messy hair down calmingly.
“He wasn’t just the janitor. He…he was one of the men from New York.”
She pauses, and I can feel her entire body tense up. “You mean…”
I nod, tears rushing to my eyes.
She takes her arm from around me and presses it to her mouth. Her eyes squeeze shut and push a few tears down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whisper, but she doesn’t respond. Maybe it’s the first time that she realizes that I’ll never be normal, not really. Because the horrible things in my past will never really go away. There will always be something coming back to slap me back to reality.
I’m a whore. That’s all I’ll ever be, no matter how hard I try to pretend—
Someone grabs me violently by the arm and whips me around. I face my father, terror rising in my throat.
“What did you just say?”
“Daddy?” I manage to get out through a sob.
“Martin!” my mom yells.
“You’re telling me you brought one of those men back with you?”
“No…” I murmur, but there’s no denying it.
My mother rushes forward. Zara barks and growls from the hall, and my father shoves me from him. I nearly fall into the corner of the wall.
“Martin, stop!” my mother yells again.
He pauses for only a moment, as though shocked that she said anything. “Don’t you realize what she’s done? I warned her what would happen. I warned both of you.”
Zara’s barking continues as he approaches me. As he unbuckles his belt.
I wince, already preparing for the blow.
He curls the end of the belt around his hand. “You brought this on yourself.”
He raises the belt—
My mother screams and charges into him. She’s not nearly strong enough to overpower him, but he’s taken off guard, and he falls into the wall.
“Don’t you touch her,” my mother says just before he slams her into the wall and they both fall to the ground. He presses her down by her upper arms and pauses, looking at his wife openmouthed. He definitely didn’t expect his obedient wife to fight back, like ever. He pulls back after a second and grabs the belt, tightening the end of the belt around his hand. “You brought this on yourself.”
It happens so fast that I can’t stop him, can’t step in for her the way she did for me. The belt whips through the air and lands on my mother’s forearm—which covers her face just in time—with a sickening crunch. Zara jumps forward, snarling and snapping at his feet. He kicks her away. I scream and throw all my weight into my father. Before I even know it, he slams me into the wall, and my head hits with a bang and a flash of white-hot pain.
Zara barks again and leaps at him. Her big jaws just barely miss his forearm as he twists out of the way. She stops and stands between me and my red-faced father. She barks at him, threatening him to try again.
“Down, Czar!” he commands, but Zara doesn’t even flinch. Her bark turns to a snarl, and my father clenches his fist.
Then the doorbell rings.
Everything freezes.
My father pauses and looks to the door. My mother is still on the ground, tears in her eyes.
“Nora, get the door.”
She wipes her face, then nods and pulls herself up to answer the door. She doesn’t bother fixing her hair, and I wonder if that’s on purpose. Zara licks my hand to see if I’m okay, her eyes still studying my father. I pet her head. She proved herself today.
“Hi. Are you Mrs. Rodriguez?” I hear a deep voice ask. “I just came by to see if Anna’s doing okay.”
There’s a pause at the door,
and my father and I look at each other. He waves his finger over his mouth, a gesture to stay quiet.
I wait for my mother to assure them everything is fine, but we can’t take visitors.
This is just a temporary pause before I get my punishment.
I used to think it was punishment for being me. But now I see the rage in him. The desperate desire for control he’ll never have. I couldn’t control whether the janitor came for me. I couldn’t control whether Luis wanted to sell me. And I can’t control whether my dad wants to hit me.
“Not a word,” my father whispers to me.
He stands to the side of the room, out of sight of Jackson’s dad but close enough to hear whatever my mom says.
“Anna’s…” Her voice trembles. She looks over and sees my dad, who wags his finger, and she gives a quick intake of breath. “She’s not really up for a visit right now.”
“Mrs. Rodriguez, is everything okay?”
She nods quickly. Too quickly, it seems to me, and Jackson’s father must see it, too. He glances down, takes in my mother’s full appearance. And that’s when he notices the still-fresh mark on her arm from my father’s belt.
“Mrs. Rodriguez, if there’s anything wrong, all you have to do is ask me to come inside.”
My mom looks at my father, and I think it will be like always. But then she looks at me, and her face hardens.
“Please come inside,” she says. “My husband is—”
My father registers the betrayal she’s about to commit and grabs her by the arm. “You bitch,” he says, pulling her inside—
Jackson’s father moves like lightning. He grabs my father, removes him from my mom, and pins him against the wall.
“You do realize I can arrest you for domestic violence, right?” he yells at my father.
“I wasn’t doing anything!” My father’s yells are muffled by the wall.
Is Jackson’s father always like this? That quick to act? Or had he already suspected my father was abusive? Maybe all this time I thought we were so good at hiding who we really were, but the truth was obvious to everyone but us.
“Nora, do you want me to take him?” he asks.
She swallows and looks at me. Then she turns back and nods.
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