Breaking Beautiful

by Jennifer Shaw Wolf

  I should say forever, but I stick to “A few weeks.”

  “I see, and before that, what was your relationship with Blake?”

  “Friends.” I say it firmly.

  “And how long have you and Blake been friends?”

  “Since we were little, like four or five.”

  “I see. And did you maintain that friendship when you were dating Trip Phillips?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Blake was gone for part of it, he was—” I swallow hard.

  Detective Weeks shuffles through the papers and pulls out one to read. “Serving time in a juvenile detention facility in Reno, Nevada, for a breaking and entering charge.”

  Everyone knows, but I feel like I’m betraying Blake when I say, “Yes.”

  “What about after he returned to Pacific Cliffs. Were you and he friends then?”

  “Stay away from him, Allie.”

  “Not really.” I can’t look at Detective Weeks or the recorder. “I didn’t see him that much, and Trip didn’t like me to—” I stop myself.

  Detective Weeks leans forward. “Trip didn’t like you to … ?”

  “Trip didn’t like Blake.”

  “I see, and how did Blake feel about Trip?”

  “I don’t like the way he treats you, Allie.”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t really talk to him then.”

  “What about the night of cotillion? Did you talk to Blake that night?”

  “You don’t just have to go with him wherever he wants. He doesn’t own you.”

  Panic grips me. I didn’t remember until now that Blake was at cotillion. I keep my voice calm. “I don’t remember.”

  “Did you have an argument with Blake that night?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Did Trip and Blake have an argument?”

  “You don’t learn very fast, do you, Juvie? She’s mine. She’ll always be mine.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Abruptly, he says, “I don’t think I have any further questions at this time. We’ll be in touch with you later if there is anything else. Thank you for coming in.”

  I’m really confused, but I give him a formal “You’re welcome.”

  He turns off the recorder. “I want to show you something, Allie, off the record.” He turns around and fishes something out of one of the boxes behind him. It contains a piece of white fabric coated in dark brown stains. “Have you ever seen this before?”

  I nod. “Yes, sir. It’s the sweater I wore to cotillion.”

  He takes another plastic bag out of the box, something else that could have once been white, but it has the same brown stains and it looks like it might have spent time buried in mud.

  He touches the other bag. “What about this?”

  I shake my head no.

  “It’s a T-shirt. A vagrant found it hidden under a log in the woods behind the cliff and brought it to my attention.” He picks up the bag with the sweater inside. “Do you know what the brown stains are all over this sweater?”

  “Blood.” My stomach knot tightens. “My blood.”

  “Right. So what do you suppose the brown stains are all over this shirt?” He touches the other bag.

  “Blood?” I guess.

  “It is blood, but the question is, whose blood?”

  I wait for him to answer that question, but he acts like he wants me to answer it.

  Finally sighs. “I haven’t got the lab results on that one so I can’t answer that for sure. But my guess is it’s the same blood that’s on the white sweater. Your blood.”

  My scar throbs in time to the clock ticking behind him. I can’t figure out where he’s going with this. “Why would my blood be on—”

  “This shirt is too big to be yours. Too small to be Trip’s. But if my hunch is right, and your blood is on this T-shirt, it means someone else was there the night of the accident, with you, with Trip.” He narrows his eyes and leans forward. “There might even be some of his blood on the shirt.”

  I’m not sure if he means blood from the shirt’s owner or Trip’s blood. If Trip died going off a cliff why would his blood be anywhere but inside the truck or spread out over the ocean?

  He puts the bags with their bloody evidence back in the box and sets the box on the shelf. “Lab results can be unpredictable. It could be a couple of weeks, could be a couple of days. But if I’m right, there was another witness that night. Someone who might do a better job of remembering what happened.”

  Blake. His name, his face, flashes in my mind. Was Blake there that night? Why would my blood be on Blake’s shirt? Why would anyone’s blood be on Blake’s shirt?

  Detective Weeks shakes his head like I’ve disappointed him somehow. “You have to trust somebody sometime, Allie. I just hope when the time comes, you decide to trust the right person.”

  .........

  I don’t go home after I leave the police station. I drive toward the cliff, but I don’t stop there. Everything that Detective Weeks said swirls around and around in my brain. The spot of white, someone else there. Blake fighting with Trip. Blake fighting with me. And something else, something important. Something I can’t quite remember.

  I go past the cliff, up the road beyond and officially out of Pacific Cliffs, to the one place I’ve avoided since the accident. The place that I’m now positive Trip was taking me to.

  It’s a lot wetter than it was this summer. Dad’s truck slips and slides but makes it up the steep trail where Trip took me off-roading for the first time. When the trail gets too narrow, I park the truck and get out. The path winds back into the woods. I push low-hanging branches out of my way and step over long thorny vines.

  “Watch your head. Maybe I should just carry you.”

  After a few minutes I reach a clearing. A little stream flows through the middle. Huge boulders line the bank. A tall pine tree stands in the center.

  “Here it is. My special place. No one in Pacific Cliffs knows about it but me.”

  I move toward the tree and trace my fingers over the letters. TRIP LOVES ALLIE.

  “Now it’s our special place.”

  He cut the letters deep, so they stand out like scars against the bark. Someday our names will probably be the reason this tree is weak enough to fall over in a storm.

  I sit down on one of the boulders next to the stream.

  “Close your eyes and hold out your hand.”

  The setting sun filters through the tress. The stream rushes by. My head is throbbing, but I grit my teeth and will the memories to keep coming.

  “Do you like it? I had it designed especially for you.

  “Nothing’s too good for my girl.”

  Pain throbs in my chest and in my head. Gray swirls over the memory. I shake my head and breathe in deep to keep from blacking out. I stand up and walk into the woods while my heart slows down. A few feet in, something red, buried under the bushes, catches my eye. I squat down, careful not to get in the mud, and reach through the brambles. They snag my sweatshirt and tear into my skin, but I keep reaching until I have it in my hands. I pull it out into the light.

  When I realize what it is I almost drop it again. Red, satin, high-heeled, and open-toed. It’s one of the shoes that I wore to cotillion. It’s barely recognizable, but I’m sure that’s what it is. The red has faded in patches to more of a pink-orange. It’s covered in pine needles, rotting leaves, mud, and something else.

  I brush my hand along the side to clear the debris off the side of the shoe. I examine it closer. At first I think the other stain is blood, like the blood on the white shirt Detective Weeks showed me, but when I touch it, it feels greasy.

  “What the hell did you step in, Allie?”

  My stomach aches with remembered anxiety.

  “Be careful, you’re getting it on my truck.”

  But he was in a good mood that night.

  “Keep your feet on the floor, okay?”

  And I couldn’t affo
rd to make him mad by telling him his truck was leaking oil.

  I lean forward to look for the other shoe, but it isn’t in the bushes. I stand up and look around the woods, forcing myself to remember again.

  Running, breath coming in gasps, claws grabbing my legs, tearing at my skirt.

  I walk farther down the path that leads away from where I parked. I find a snag of red fabric on one of the vines. The claws were blackberry vines, roots, low bushes. I know who I was running from. What was I running to?

  A white shirt, coated in blood. Too big to be mine, too small to be Trip’s.

  Blake’s face floods my mind again. Was he here?

  The rumble of a truck coming closer startles me. There are a million trails in these woods. That truck could be going anywhere, but I don’t want to risk being caught here. I start back to the clearing. The sound fades and then cuts out.

  A big boulder on the edge of the path stops me. I run my finger over the sharp edge, then trace the scar on the back of my head. Did I fall against a rock like this? Did Trip make me fall against it? If he did, how did I end up in the truck?

  A branch cracks, then footsteps. I stop, but all I hear is my own breathing. I look around. A clearing in the clouds, something white on the path ahead of me. My stomach lurches.

  I blink and realize two things: the spot ahead of me is real, not in my mind, and it’s gray, not white. Tall, dark-haired, thin. Even with his back to me, I know who it is. He’s blocking the path back to Dad’s truck, and it’s too late to run from James.

  In a quick motion I throw the shoe into the woods. The sound of crackling branches when it lands causes James to turn around. I walk toward him, quick but casual, like I don’t care if he sees me here.

  “What are you doing here, Allie?” he demands. He’s wearing his football jersey, gray with white numbers on the front.

  “I could ask you the same thing.” I try to keep my voice even.

  “I asked first.” He crosses his arms and moves so he takes up the entire pathway.

  I decide to go for the widow-in-mourning approach. “I came here to think. I was missing Trip. He used to bring me here.”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t give me that bull. I saw you in the parking lot with Juvie this morning, attached to his face. You came here looking for something.”

  I make my face blank. “What would I be looking for?”

  “It’s not here. I already looked.”

  “What’s not here?” For the first time I think that James might know something about Trip’s accident that I don’t.

  “The present he was going to give you for your birthday. He bragged about it all night. He didn’t tell me what it was, but it must have been worth a lot. Enough for you to kill him for it.” His eyes narrow at me. “I know you sold all of his other stuff at that pawnshop in Hoquiam. You only wanted him for his money.”

  “You’ve been following me!” The pieces click into place—the guy standing in the shadows, the guy who followed me to the pawnshop, it was James. “Why?”

  “Mr. Phillips made it worth my while.” He leans back against a tree, bold, bragging, like Trip. “But I would have done it anyway. I’ve been waiting for you to slip up so I can see justice done.”

  I think about the way James turned his back when Trip hit me. The way he wouldn’t look me in the eye after that. I glare at him. “Since when do you care about justice? You didn’t try to stop Trip when he—” I bite my tongue to keep from finishing that sentence.

  “Go ahead, Allie. Say it. Tell everyone what Trip did to you. It just makes you look more guilty. It’s on the news all the time. Women who kill the guys who beat them up.”

  I push past him and head toward Dad’s truck.

  “Keep running, Allie. Keep pretending everything is fine. It doesn’t make any difference. Sooner or later you’ll screw up and then we’ll all know how Trip died. I’m watching you.”

  Chapter

  36

  “Where do you want this set up?” I jump as Kasey’s voice brings me back to the clipboard in my hand. She sets down the box of tablecloths for the refreshment table. She’s been unbelievably nice about the whole thing with Blake. She asked Marshall Yates to the dance after Blake turned her down.

  I force myself back to the map that’s page three of my notes. “Left corner. The long tables need to be set up at right angles, with the little round ones in front.”

  “Got it, boss.” She picks up the tablecloths again and heads for the corner.

  I can’t believe I’m here directing traffic as we set up for the dance. After what happened with James, I prefer to be in a crowd, safe from his prying eyes. But being here feels surreal, like everyone’s reality is disconnected from my reality, like I’m watching myself stumble around with everyone else, playing normal, while inside my mind everything is falling apart.

  No one else feels it. Andrew is in the corner with Marshall, programming lighting sequences in his computer to go with the music. Randall and Blake are hanging Blake’s paintings over the frames. Angie is draping fishnets and lights over the basketball hoops.

  Even Hannah is here with her own clipboard in the corner of the room, pretending to supervise. Except for the missing scrapbook, the police didn’t find any evidence that Hannah’s room was broken into. Ever since then I’ve seen Hannah alone more and more. In the girls’ bathroom yesterday I actually heard Megan say that she thought Hannah had put the notes in my locker just to be mean.

  “You okay?” Blake whispers, and kisses me on the cheek.

  “Fine.” I look down at my notes and grip the clipboard harder. “Just trying to keep everything straight.”

  “You’re doing great.” He crosses the room to help Randall with another frame.

  “This is really coming together.” Ms. Flores steps beside me. “This could be the best dance this town has ever seen.” She glances at Hannah and leans closer to me. “Better even than cotillion.” She leans over and gives me a sideways hug. “You’ve done a great job.”

  I shake my head. “Not me, I just—”

  “No, you really worked your butt off. Organized everything. Kept everyone on budget.” She looks down at me and smiles. “Don’t belittle what you’ve done, Allie.”

  I glance down at the papers in front of me, the map and a spreadsheet/check-off list for everything. Something that Andrew made for me on the computer, but with notes and information I gave him. Did I really do all of this?

  Blake and Randall carry the last frame through the doors, sweating and grunting. “That will teach you to use metal,” Angie calls from her perch below the basketball hoop.

  “Watch it or I’ll take your ladder,” Randall says. She makes a face at him.

  “So has Blake told you the good news?” Ms. Flores asks.

  “No.” I shake my head. “What good news?”

  “You haven’t told her,” she yells across the room to Blake.

  “Yeah, Blake,” Angie yells, “why haven’t you told her?”

  Blake turns red and drops his end of the metal frame. It almost lands on Randall’s foot. Randall swears but tries to cover it with a cough when Ms. Flores shoots him a look.

  “Now is as good a time as any for the announcement.” Ms. Flores crosses the room. She has a smudge of blue paint across the back of her skirt. She takes the microphone from Marshall. “Is this on?” She taps the end while Marshall turns up the volume. Blake is inching back behind the pole he was holding on to. “Thank you all for your hard work. I knew you guys could pull this dance together and make it the best in the school’s history.” She pauses while Randall and Marshall start whooping. “I’d like to take a minute to thank Blake and Allie.” Everyone applauds. I reach for the stone in my pocket as my face burns. “I would also like to recognize Blake for the beautiful artwork he has spent so many hours creating just for this dance.” She pauses and looks fondly at Blake. “I couldn’t bear to have his paintings just rolled up and stored away after tomorrow night, so I
showed them to members of the city council. The city is going to buy them. They’ll be displayed in various public buildings around town.”

  The gym erupts in cheering. I walk over and wrap Blake up in a hug. Randall is shouting “Wo, wo, wo, wo,” and beating his fist in the air. Andrew sends crowd-cheering sound effects over the sound board. Angie nearly falls off the ladder because she stands up and screams. Only Hannah stays still, hugging her clipboard to her chest and looking all alone.

  .........

  Everyone else has cleared out. Only me, Blake, and a janitor are left in the building, and the janitor is nowhere to be seen. I slide onto the floor beside the stage, exhausted. Blake finishes plugging in a couple of cords and slides onto the floor next to me.

  “You missed one.” I point to one canvas sail that’s still tied up at the top of the frame.

  “That’s my surprise.” His voice is full of anticipation; my stomach flip-flops, a mixture of excitement and dread. What if I don’t have the reaction he’s expecting? “You wanna see how everything looks?” He walks over and dims the lights, flips on the wind machine, and then pushes a couple of buttons on Andrew’s computer. Blue and green lights play across Blake’s paintings and they billow like sails in the breeze.

  He climbs up the ladder, slices through the rope that’s holding it up with his pocketknife, and the last sail unfurls. I stand up and walk over to get a better look. It’s a woman, standing at the edge of the cliff, watching the waves. She’s wearing an old-fashioned dress and her hair is almost covered by a gray scarf. The locks that aren’t trapped are gold blond and blow in the wind. She’s clutching a cross at her chest and the bright spot in the picture is a ship on the horizon. The woman is smiling—joy and relief written in her eyes.

  She has my face.

  “I call it Hope.” He climbs down the ladder and wraps his arm around my waist. “I looked at so many pictures from Pacific Cliffs where the people looked hopeless—widows waiting for their husbands to come home from the sea, the loggers after the mill closed, the dock workers when the port moved south. I wanted to show that Pacific Cliffs was more than businesses shutting down and people dying in storms. I wanted to show hope.” I turn around to face him. He traces the scar over my eye. “When I started to paint her, I knew she had to have your face.”