This wasn’t the kind of position I wanted to be in.
But here I was…
“I’m so sorry, Jo,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean… I don’t know. I saw what I saw. And I’m not wrong. Fuck, I wish I was.”
“And what is it that you saw, Belle?”
“It was Michael. He… he was with someone else. This stupid whore in a really slutty dress. And he… he was grabbing her, okay? She was touching him. They started to kiss. I saw it all.”
Jo slowly turned her head and looked at me. “You’re sure that’s what you saw?”
“I’m completely sure that’s what I saw, Jo,” I said. “I’m sorry, but that guy is a creep. He has said things to me. And even my friends…” I shook my head. “That doesn’t matter. I know what I saw. I wish I didn’t see it, but you know what? At least he can’t hurt you anymore.”
“He can’t hurt me, huh?” Jo asked.
“Jo…”
Her eyes didn’t move from mine. She didn’t blink. She just stared. The kind of stare that scared me.
“You saw all of this?” Jo asked.
“Yeah. I was out with some friends and the second I saw… I came here. I had to tell you. You’ve done a lot for me. I know you say you’re not a mother or friend or even someone who wants to listen. And I get that. I get why you’re like that. You don’t want to get hurt. And this asshole… he found a way in to hurt you.”
I reached for Jo’s hand and she lifted it at the last second. “Is that a story?”
“What?”
“Everything you just said. Is that a story? Is that what goes through your mind all the time?”
“Story…? It’s not a story. I swear it’s not a story.”
Jo looked forward.
That gave me a small sense of relief.
Her stare was lethal.
“So you’re out with friends and you see Michael with some woman.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“And I’m going to guess you weren’t just hanging around some beach or something, right?”
My face started to burn again.
Jo was wicked smart.
And I sort of made a promise to Lizzy…
“I can’t say anything else,” I said. “I just need you to believe me.”
“Believe you,” Jo said. “Believe you… yet I face the reality of you just stepping over the line again.”
“The line? There is no line, Jo. There never was a line.”
“That’s true,” she said. “But if you are telling me the truth, then I know where you were tonight. And I know what goes on under that restaurant.”
My heart stopped for a second.
Jo looked at me again.
Now I felt like the entire conversation had been flipped over onto my chest.
“What…”
“There’s a part of me that wants to scream at you right now. I want to scream what the fuck were you doing down there? But there’s a part of me that doesn’t care. You’re old enough to make your own decisions. Even though you had to sneak down there. Which opens up a whole other set of questions to ask. On top of that, you decide to step right into a relationship you have nothing to do with.”
“Jo… I’m trying to help,” I said. “I promise my friend-”
“Your friend? The one who talked to the refrigerator?”
I swallowed hard. “No. Not that one.”
I thought about Sarah… Gray… his car… her mouth…
It was like everything was trying to crumble around me. My getaway of just leaving and going home was gone now. My mother and my so-called best friend took that from me. Which meant I needed Jo. Which meant I should have kept my mouth shut…
“Belle, you have no idea where you were,” Jo said. “So let me put on a couple of hats here. Let me try this out. Then you can tell me how I did.”
“Jo…”
“Shhh,” she said.
She pretended to put on a hat. “That fucking place is dangerous. Okay? That’s where a lot of people go to do a lot of crazy things. With each other. With new people. With strangers.” She sighed. “They use fake names. They have hotel rooms above the restaurant for one night only. And it’s not just drinks they use to calm things down. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I nodded.
I had no idea what Lizzy and Danica had gotten me into then.
How serious and dangerous it was.
Which made me completely stupid.
Yet I was there for good reason…
I saw what I fucking saw.
“I’m sorry, Jo,” I said. “I was just trying to enjoy a night away from BFH.”
“Then go back to your old town.”
I laughed. “Tried that. You can’t imagine what I saw.”
“So you’re just seeing things everywhere you go, huh?”
“Seeing the truth, yeah,” I said.
Jo pretended to touch the brim of her invisible hat. “That place you went to is not meant for you, Belle. I’m going to say it like it is. You have no idea where you were. Or what could have happened to you. That place is meant for a certain kind of person. And that’s not you.”
“Ouch,” I whispered. “But okay.”
“I don’t ever want to talk about that again,” Jo said. She took the invisible hat off, put it down, and replaced it with another one. “Now… for this hat…”
It was time to talk about what I saw.
I opened my mouth, ready to repeat the entire story, to make sure she knew I wasn’t lying.
Before I could speak a word, Jo slapped me across the face.
* * *
I wasn’t as shocked as I expected to be. That meant somewhere inside me I had known there would come a moment when Jo would slap me. Of course there were fifty other reason why she could have slapped me.
And to think it was over a guy?
I would have never guessed.
It wasn’t the hardest slap I had ever felt in my life, but it was enough that I held my cheek.
I certainly didn’t make a noise or speak a word.
Jo frowned for a second and then went back to showing zero emotion.
“Who do you think you are, Belle?”
I shook my head.
“You think you have a right to enter my relationship?” Jo asked. “I don’t know where I opened that door for you. I opened my front door because of your mother. Understand?”
“Jo…”
“Say me name one more time, Belle, and I’ll slap you so hard you’ll forget my name.”
Okay, now that was scary as hell.
I nodded.
I understood.
Jo looked forward and laughed. “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you, Belle. I made it clear what we were. Who I was to you. Who you are to me. And for some reason you think we’re friends. Or closer than that. Maybe family or some other made up bullshit thing. But what you are… gone. It’s time to put an end to this. You obviously can’t function in this house. And if being at BFH - as you called it - is so stressful, then go. You want to exchange poems and stories with Lake Whitaker?” Jo laughed again. “Go right ahead. You can email her. Text her. You can meet her at little cafes and watch confused college kids stumble over words on how their parents fucked up their lives.”
“This is crazy… I didn’t ask for this…”
“Neither did I,” Jo said. “Stand up, Belle. Walk back through that door. And stay away from my part of my house.”
“Does that mean-”
“Do what I said,” Jo growled.
I jumped up and choked back tears.
I looked down at her.
There was nothing I could say to fix this.
I was just trying to help.
Like she did to me.
Because if she was blind to her feelings… and that guy was…
“Not that it’s your fucking business,” Jo said, “but I knew already. I knew where Michael was tonight. It was planned, B
elle. It’s part of our relationship. Nobody said we were exclusive to each other.”
My heart sank and I started to step back.
I had fucked up.
Big time.
I saw what I saw and I just…
“I’m so sorry, Jo,” I whispered.
She didn’t respond. Instead, she just reached for her wine and took a big gulp of it.
It didn’t make sense that she was just going to sit there and drink like that. Alone. Something was…
Not your business, Belle. She just kicked you out.
I opened the glass door and walked down the curved hallway back to the main part of the house. I went up to the bedroom that was no longer (and never really was) mine and I grabbed one bag. That was all I had in my life.
One fucking bag.
I stood at the edge of the bed, still wearing the dress I bought because of Uly and wore tonight because of Lizzy.
In the bag I had a quick change of clothes, a hoodie, my notebooks, and nothing else.
I took off the shoes that matched the dress and put on my favorite shoes.
I needed to get out of the dress too, but I just wanted to leave.
Where are you going to go, Belle?
If I told Lizzy and Danica what had happened, they’d get pissed at me too.
I was stuck.
Sort of stuck.
I could take Jo’s car and…
I took out my phone and stared at the screen.
What’s your choice now, Belle?
This was insane.
There were three people I could text.
Not all at once though. I had started enough fights.
In a really stupid way, I needed a sense of peace.
At least for tonight.
I sucked in a breath.
And I sent a text message that would change everything for good.
ten
I stood in the middle of the driveway, enjoying the sight of the trees. The way the lights hit the white color of the buds or flowers or whatever it was growing off the trees. That peaceful and heaven-like drive of Jo’s driveway…
I was still wearing the dress. A bag over my shoulder. Smoking a cigarette.
Waiting to be saved.
And I wasn’t even sure if the word saved was the right word.
This was more of an escape.
To get out of Jo’s house for the night and see what would happen tomorrow.
I heard the distant rumble of an engine and I swallowed hard.
Then came the giant headlights of the truck.
It made sense to just go in alphabetical order, right?
Ash was the first to get a text.
And he responded.
I waved to him in case he didn’t see me.
The truck slowed and I ran to the passenger door and climbed up into the truck.
I looked at Ash.
He eyed me in the dress and leaned toward me. “Something I need to know here, angel?”
“What?”
“You dressed up for this? For me?”
I tried to smile but my eyes filled with tears.
I turned and looked out the window and hurried to wipe the tears away.
Ash started to drive, not questioning my tears.
Or maybe I had gotten lucky for once tonight and he hadn’t seen the tears.
Even though he knew something was wrong. Because I called him for help. To come get me out of Jo’s house.
“I’m going to listen to some music,” I said to Ash without looking at him. “So don’t try and talk to me.”
“Wow,” he said. “Whatever you need to do, angel. I’ll just keep driving. I’m going back to my place though. We’ll be alone though. I have my own house on the property.”
I fought with the knotted mess of the wire on my earbuds and curled my lip.
“Of course you do, Ash,” I said.
I stuck the earbuds into my ear and shut my eyes.
He was taking me to his place.
Which was also in the same vicinity as Hil.
That made me think of Uly.
The only one left out of the night.
Except there was no way in hell Ash would have told Hil about me texting him.
Or maybe…
Shut up, Belle.
So that’s what I did.
I shut up. In my mind.
And I just listened to the music.
The truck came to a stop and by the time I turned my head, Ash had gotten out.
I sat forward and ripped the earbuds out of my ears.
We weren’t at his and Hil’s place.
We were parked at the side of a building.
“Shit,” I whispered.
What the fuck is this? Some kind of setup? Is he going to leave me in his truck to just…
I looked down at my earbuds.
Music wasn’t going to fix anything tonight.
I needed to write.
I needed to figure out so much.
As I reached for my bag, the truck door opened again.
Ash was back behind the driver’s wheel, except now he had flowers.
A bunch of roses.
He extended his arm. “Take these, angel.”
“For what?” I asked.
“You’re in a dress. You look beautiful. You should have some flowers to go along with it.”
I gasped and blinked as tears filled my eyes again.
I reached for the roses, trying to find my breath and trying to find some words.
When I grabbed the roses, I felt a hot, sharp pain on my pointer finger.
“Fuck,” I said and ripped my finger away.
The roses fell to the seat.
A small droplet of blood poked out of my fingertip.
“Shit, Belle,” Ash said.
He grabbed my hand and then squeezed my finger with his other hand.
“I can’t fucking win tonight, Ash,” I said.
“What is it?”
“Everything. I fucked everything up. I thought I saw something, and I thought I did the right thing by talking to Jo and it blew up in my face. I don’t think she wants me there anymore. And I don’t blame her. I took it all upon myself…”
Ash opened his hand and we both looked at my finger.
The small droplet of blood was gone and that was it.
“See, angel?” Ash said. “Nothing bleeds forever.”
I reached for the flowers again, this time making sure I didn’t stupidly grab the roses by their thorny stems.
“Thank you for these,” I said.
“They come with a price.”
“Of course they do, Ash. What’s the price?”
“I want to know everything about the dress. Because that’s something you wear to have taken off.”
My body was jolted with warmth.
I opened my mouth and shook my head.
Ash lifted my finger to his lips and kissed the spot where the rose thorn has pricked me.
“So I guess you do have a heart, huh?” I asked.
Ash shook his head. “Just a sucker for a pretty girl in a dress.”
I held my roses with one hand and gave Ash the middle finger with my other hand.
It was as fancy and classy as I’d ever get in life.
* * *
As we drove through the winding streets of the property, I keep looking for Hil.
And, yes, they were streets.
There was the main driveway that went all the way back to the gigantic house where Ash’s father and Hil’s mother lived.
Along that main driveway there were several said roads that went to the other houses and cabins on the property.
Of course, a rich person’s version of a cabin was really different than my idea of a cabin. If my mother - or myself - were ever able to afford a night in a cabin, it would be a glorified cardboard box. Or the kind of place where the kitchen, dining room, living room, and bathroom were all in the same room.
But not Ash’s place thoug
h.
He pulled his truck right up to the thick steps to his cabin. His house. His place.
It was a log cabin. It looked shiny, like it had just been built earlier that day.
It was big and it was cozy.
Kind of like Ash, huh?
My cheeks warmed up as I got out of the truck, taking my bag and my roses with me.
Ash walked to the bottom of the steps and took out his phone. With one finger, he moved it along the screen and lights started to turn on.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me here,” I said.
“What?” Ash asked, looking back at me. “It’s all hooked up to my phone.”
“Seriously?”
I looked at the cabin-slash-house and the porch lights were shining bright. Inside the main window, lights were on too. Then with another swipe of his finger, the front door was unlatched.
Ash grabbed my bag from me and carried it up the steps to the door.
He opened the door and waited for me to go inside.
The first thing I did was sigh.
There was no other choice but to sigh.
The place smelled like fresh wood and pine.
The interior matched the exterior.
It was big, open, and for some reason it made me think we were hidden on the top of a snowy mountain. Where we’d get snowed in for like two weeks.
“For as big as the main house is, it gets crammed and annoying,” Ash said.
“Because of Hil?” I asked.
“Because of everything, angel,” he said.
“Everything?” I asked.
“Let me show you the bedroom. So you can get changed out of that dress.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I hate this thing.”
My eyes were glued to the stone fireplace that went from floor to ceiling. It kind of looked out of place but it wasn’t my job to judge this place. At the back of the cabin-slash-house there was a set of steps. They were so perfectly hidden too.
Ash waved his hand at the wall and the lights upstairs turned on.
Upstairs there was a landing and three doors.
Ash pointed to each door.
A bathroom. A closet. And the bedroom.
Of course the bedroom was the biggest. And the bedroom connected to both the closet and the bathroom.
It was rugged and luxurious.
The bed looked to take up half the room.
It was actually bigger than the bed in my room at Jo’s house.
NOT SO Special: a bay falls high novel Page 10