by Riley, Gia
If you’d told me at the end of the school year that I’d be sitting at The Whip, in my brother’s office, while Winnie was in the shower, I’d have told you to get your head examined. There’s nothing sexual about us, but I think about her all the time.
Even now, when I’m sitting in Ace’s chair and he walks in, I have the urge to tell him all about her. I can’t though. The things she told me were spoken in confidence. If I want to keep her in my life, I have to keep her secrets. That means, I can’t ask my brother for advice this time, and I can’t ask him for help. Whatever he knows about Winnie came from her, and that’s the way it has to stay.
Ace tosses his keys on the desk and glances toward the bathroom. “Who’s in the shower?”
“Winnie,” I tell him.
He grabs the stack of mail on his desk, and then he opens the mini fridge and pulls out a bottle of water. “Can I ask why?”
“You can. That doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you.” I try to make my voice sound light and airy, like there’s nothing for him to worry about, but it’s not easy to hide the fact that Winnie’s in trouble.
I must gloss over the obvious pretty well though because Ace just rolls his eyes and sits on the corner of the desk. His long, dramatic pause tells me I’m about to get a lecture.
He finally looks at me. “Jasper, whatever you’re doing with that girl, be careful. And don’t do it in my office.”
Maybe telling him the truth would have been a better idea. At least then, his opinion of Winnie wouldn’t have changed.
“I know what you’re thinking, and we definitely didn’t do that.”
“She’s in my shower, Jasper. That speaks for itself.”
My own brother doesn’t believe me. If he had found Winnie on that playground today, he’d never be saying these things.
Before I can clear the air, Winnie comes out of the bathroom with her wet hair piled on top of her head. She’s wearing a clean polo shirt, and most of her coloring has returned. There’s even a little bit of pink on her cheeks from the both of us staring at her.
Now that they’ve been cleaned, the cuts on her cheek aren’t nearly as bad. There’s no makeup on Winnie’s face though, so they’re still noticeable. My brother sets down the stack of mail in his hand and gets to her before I have a chance to cut him off.
“How did this happen, Winnie?”
She shies away from his fingertips, not wanting Ace to touch her. There’s no way she’s going to tell him what happened, especially when she hasn’t even told me the whole story yet.
Her eyes find mine, and they beg with me to save her. She doesn’t have to ask me twice. I get up and take her hand, and unlike with Ace, she lets me touch her.
“Winnie had a little accident at the playground earlier, but she’s okay.”
My brother waits for Winnie to add anything to the story. She doesn’t. Ace looks like he wants to call our bluff, but he lets us leave his office and go out the back door.
“I can’t leave, Jasper,” she says. “I need the money.”
I can shut her shift down with one word to my brother; that’s the only reason she’s pleading with me. But those marks on her speak louder than anything she could say.
“You’re in no shape for a shift tonight, Winnie. You’ve been through hell today.”
“I’ll stay in the kitchen with you. I promise I won’t go beyond the kitchen doors. It’ll be like I’m not even here.”
“But you are,” I whisper. “You’re right here.” I’m so torn between doing what’s right and what she wants that I cave before I say another word.
When she looks at me like she needs me, I can’t deny her. I want her to want me—simple as that. And, right now, she’s asking for my permission like she needs it. I don’t know what that means. I just know I like it.
“Fine. We can stay.”
She gives me a little smile and wraps her arms around my neck. “Thank you,” she says.
I breathe in the scent of her freshly washed hair and realize how much Winnie wants to be taken care of. She’s still determined as ever, but for some reason, she’s giving me control over some of her choices. I don’t think she realizes she’s doing it, and I’m not about to clue her in. Not when she’s finally starting to trust me.
“Come with me. We have half an hour before we can clock in, and it’s too hot to stay outside.”
Winnie follows me through the dancers’ entrance and down the hallway. We slip into the back room, and I flick on the switch to turn on the black lights. It takes a second, and then our black polo shirts disappear, and Winnie’s teeth glow brightly enough to light up the entire room.
“We’re not supposed to be in here, Jasper.”
“We’re not supposed to do a lot of things, but we do them anyway.”
She can’t argue. With limited time, this is the only place where we can be alone right now. Before long, this room will be filled with frequent flyers looking for private time with their favorite dancers.
Ace hates this aspect of the business, but without the stage and the dancers, there’s little separating The Whip from every other dive bar in town. Ace needs the business. The business needs the money. And the bulk of the money comes from the crowd who comes to watch the dancers. It’s a vicious cycle, especially when one of his biggest moneymakers is Tess.
Winnie looks at the benches lining the wall and the few chairs in the middle of the room. Everything’s spaced out by round drink tables and random plush ottomans. I’ve never been in this room during a shift, only after, and I’m kind of glad I haven’t seen exactly what goes down. Winnie though, she looks like she has a pretty good idea.
I laugh when she says, “I’m afraid to touch anything.”
She’s too good for a place like this. We’d have been better off risking being caught at the bar than hiding out in here. But, when I saw Winnie trying to hide the scratches on her face from my brother, I wanted her someplace she wouldn’t have to hide.
“Let’s go to the bar. We can sit in the back corner.”
For a second, she considers the move, and then she shakes her head. “I think I’d rather stay here.”
She finally decides on a place to sit down, but she hesitates long enough that I sit first and then pull her onto my lap. This way, she doesn’t have to actually touch the fabric.
“Tell me if I get too heavy, and I’ll get up,” she says sweetly.
In the dark, her eyes are so smoky, I can’t stop staring at them.
“You weigh, like, ninety pounds, Winnie. I think I’ll live.”
“Not by choice.”
I don’t know what she means, but I drop it. Arguing with a girl about her weight is asking for trouble.
I change the topic entirely and ask, “How did you end up at the playground?”
She turns her head away from me and stares at the wall. She doesn’t want to talk about it.
“Like I said, Jax ransacked my room and stole my money. Tess got her fix and showed it to me. The bag got knocked out of her hand, and she came after me.”
“So, you ran? I still can’t believe Tess fought her own stepdaughter.”
Winnie plays with the ring around her thumb and ignores the question at first. I move my hand from my thigh to hers, and she turns her head toward me again.
“Tess doesn’t think of me as a daughter. Maybe when she first met Dad she did, back when her life didn’t revolve around drugs and dancing. Believe it or not, there was a time I kind of liked her, and we got along.”
“I believe it,” I tell her.
Memories flicker behind the glowing whites of her eyes. I can’t imagine anyone not liking Winnie. If Tess were in her right mind, I’m positive she wouldn’t be so angry all the time. There wouldn’t be this overwhelming need to compete with Winnie. Because that’s exactly what she’s doing.
“Has Tess hurt you before?”
“Tess hates me, Jasper. She’ll do whatever she wants to make that clear. I don’t matter to her.”
&n
bsp; “You matter, Winnie. I promise you that.”
She shrugs like the thought is foreign to her. “Trey’s the only one besides my dad who has ever cared about me. He’s been gone a lot though, and now that I’m older, he thinks I can handle more and take care of myself. I’m trying, but my age holds me back from everything. I can’t get my own place to live. I can’t work in a lot of places or sign important papers to free myself of Tess.”
“You mean, like emancipation papers?”
“Tess won’t sign anything. I’m not sure she could though. She and my dad were never legally married, so technically, I belong to the state. She worked things so that, even if I run away, they’ll bring me back to her or someone else—someone who might be ten times worse than she is.”
I can’t see the tear fall in the dark, but the droplet of salty water lands on my arm. It could have come from her wet hair, but another and then another follow, and I hear Winnie sniffle. Pulling her against my chest, I hold on to her as her shoulders shake.
She grabs a handful of my polo and holds on with everything she has.
“Please, let me take you home. To my house. We can even go to Ace’s if you’d rather go there. I have a key.”
I wish I’d let her cry in silence because suggesting that we leave again has her wiggling out of my arms.
She glances at the clock on the wall and wipes away her tears. “We have to clock in.”
Again, I let her have her way. What choice do I have? At least, if we clock in, I can be with her. Once we leave, there’s no guarantee she’ll stay with me, and I can’t let her go back to that trailer with Jax and Tess.
Winnie opens the door, and the light from the hallway blinds us. She intertwines her fingers with mine and waits for me to lead the way back to the kitchen. The goose bumps on her arm are probably from the air-conditioning, but I stare at them anyway, hoping I’m the one who put them there.
Nineteen
Winnie
Jasper’s smile gives me out-of-control butterflies again. I didn’t mean to have a weak moment and fall apart on his lap. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel good to let it out.
Some days, I spend so much time concentrating on keeping the tears inside, my eyes twitch. Between not getting much sleep and constantly worrying, my heart never stops pounding in my chest. Even when I finally close my eyes and let sleep take me away, it races. Tonight, that didn’t happen. When Jasper held me, I wasn’t scared of him. I wasn’t even a little bit nervous.
Holding the tears inside became impossible, like I had no control over my own emotions. I blinked once, and then the second time, they fell all on their own. It was a celebration of sorts. Some kind of epic declaration that maybe I wasn’t completely broken down and worn out.
There’s still a little bit of my soul that bleeds for acceptance. Not everyone in my life is out to get me.
Jasper’s full of goodness. He’s shown me that he has my back. I think he might even be my friend—like an actual friend who doesn’t just want me around for his own pleasure. Other than holding my hand, Jasper’s never made a move. He’s never pressured me or made suggestive comments that make my skin crawl.
In the back of my mind, I wait for the change. That little spark that ignites in his eyes and alters his behavior. Sometimes, I don’t see it coming until it’s too late. With Jasper, I’m not sure I’d see it coming at all because anger and disdain don’t seem like qualities he possesses. I’ve been wrong before though. And I’ve regretted every trusting bone in my body for letting my guard down.
How long will Jasper be on my side?
What’s going to happen when he gets sick of watching me fall apart?
I don’t have answers to those questions; only he knows the truth of his intentions, and for now, I’m okay with that. I’ve told myself a million times not to get attached. I think I already am.
He’s been watching me like a hawk since we clocked in, worried that I’ll have another breakdown or that I’m too banged up to be working all night. In an ideal world, I would have taken the night off and rested in bed with a movie and popcorn.
I’d do anything for some movie popcorn right now. The kind that’s drenched in butter and makes your lips all slippery. My stomach growls as I just think about crunching the kernels between my teeth.
My head’s pounding, and I’m so hungry, I’m pretty sure my stomach’s turning inside out. I’ve been drinking enough water to keep it filled up, but water only does so much. Water isn’t food. It’s just a decoy that my body’s going to get sick of if I don’t find an actual meal soon.
I’ve come close to passing out before, so I know time isn’t on my side right now. The shakiness, light-headedness, and tiredness happen in rapid succession. Once the shakes start, the rest usually follow.
Trying to ignore my body is never a good idea. Because pretending I’m not desperate for food usually ends up with me passed out on the floor. Eventually, I wake up wherever I ran out of energy. That can’t happen at The Whip, especially not in front of Jasper.
There’s a box of soup crackers on the counter next to the walk-in refrigerator. I’ve thought about grabbing them and going inside to eat as many as I can stuff in my mouth in a minute or two, but Jasper won’t stop staring at me. If I go in there, he’ll follow me. And, if he sees me munching on crackers, he’ll know how hungry I am. Then, he’ll buy me another burger and fries that I can’t afford. Owing him more money won’t help me get any of my own any faster.
Before I can come up with another plan, my body folds in half. As I fall to the floor onto my hands and knees, I stare at Jasper. His mouth opens, and if I could hear, I’m pretty sure he’d be saying my name.
The spatula in his hand falls from his fingertips. In slow motion, the metal clatters against the tiled floor. I don’t hear that either. By the time it stops moving, my eyelashes are fluttering closed, and the room is closing in around me.
Once I’m flat on my back, Jasper’s on top of me, his mouth moving with questions I can’t give him answers to. He’s pleading with me to respond, but the words won’t come. There aren’t any instructions to give him. Passing out is inevitable. There’s no stopping what’s already happening.
Barely able to part my lips, I mutter something close to, “Sugar.”
He disappears, and when he comes back, he’s so blurry, his mouth blends with his nose, and his eyes look like three dancing orbs instead of two.
“Open your mouth,” he says.
I can finally hear him, but I can’t get my lips open. He doesn’t wait and shoves a tube of icing into my mouth. It tastes as cheap as it looks, but I pretend it’s dessert in a fancy restaurant.
“Swallow, Winnie. Close your mouth, and swallow.”
I listen to Jasper, thankful that I’m still awake enough to follow his directions. If I were anyplace else, I would have closed my eyes and let God take me wherever he wanted. But Jasper’s someone to stay awake for, and I’m happy because, if I pass out completely, he’ll insist on taking me to the hospital. He might even call 911, and ambulances are expensive. I should know.
When we first moved to the trailer park, I thought Tess had overdosed, and I called for help. It took me an entire summer of babysitting to pay the bill. There wasn’t a single dime left over for me, and Tess never let me forget it. You’d think she’d have been glad I tried to save her life. She had been disappointed I wasted her time and screwed up her buzz.
Ace kneels next to me with another tube of icing and a handful of little white packets of sugar. “How is she?” he asks Jasper like I’m invisible.
“She was sweating and shivering at the same time,” Jasper tells him. “She’s not as pale though.”
“Make her some real food!” Ace yells to the rest of the kitchen staff who have stopped working to stare at the new girl lying on the floor.
“When’s the last time you ate, Winnie?” Ace asks.
“Sit up,” I mumble.
My hands are still shaky, b
ut Jasper grabs them and helps me into a seated position on the floor. If Jasper hadn’t gotten the sugar so quickly, I’m positive I’d be out cold.
I’m ashamed that I have to tell him, “The little bit of burger I had with you yesterday.”
He pushes a piece of hair away from my face, and I close my eyes when his knuckle brushes against the cuts. I’m so scared the peacefulness will disappear and that Jasper’s anger will turn him into everyone I hate.
But, while he looks disappointed, maybe even a little sorry that he hasn’t fed me more, he says, “What happened to your breakfast this morning?”
It kills me to tell him, “Jax ate my food.”
Nobody’s made me breakfast since Dad died. Even when he was alive, I was old enough to fend for myself. I relied on the cheapest box of cereal to get by and could only dream about food like the muffin and banana Jasper gave me this morning. As I strolled the aisles of the grocery store, I imagined the sweetness of the strawberries and the little seeds that would get stuck in my teeth. After that, I’d stop at the bakery and let my mouth water at the chocolate cake and trays of doughnuts stacked high. Doughnuts were cheap, but they didn’t last long. I couldn’t afford to buy things that had to be eaten quickly. I needed food that would last a long time and wouldn’t get moldy or expire too fast.
A string of curse words flies from Jasper’s mouth. He shakes his head and stares at his brother. “Why wouldn’t she tell me she was hungry?” he asks Ace. “How can I help her if I don’t know she’s starving?”
Ace grips Jasper’s shoulder and tells him, “Calm down.”
“Don’t be mad at me,” I whisper. “Jax took the food from my room while Tess was fighting with me. I wouldn’t have let him have it.”
“I’m not mad at you about the food, Winnie,” Jasper says through clenched teeth. “I’m mad that I didn’t know. I’m pissed that I couldn’t tell how badly you needed to eat.” He drops his head in his hands and stops talking.
Mad.
Pissed.
How can he not be mad yet still be pissed? Isn’t that the same thing?
“My blood sugar drops sometimes,” I tell him even if he won’t look at me.