Wow. Brenda wasn’t the sweet woman I saw in the engagement picture at all. All the same, it made me feel easier, lighter about what I was about to do to Coach Locken. I didn’t forgive and didn’t forget. I was just biding my time, putting more weeks and months in the calendar between us so that when the time came, I wasn’t going to be a suspect.
Now I’m walking home from school, feeling marginally better about life. For one thing, Locken got the boot after that showdown and is no longer working at my school, which is great. For another, my last two classes have been canceled, so I’m dipping early for an afternoon of breaded fried Ravioli (the frozen Trader Joe’s kind), and Ricki Lake reruns. Or as some like to call it: heaven.
Persy isn’t due to come home for two more hours, Dad’s at work (isn’t he always?), and Mom finally agreed to go to therapy and deal with her dark spells, so she is all the way across the city and won’t be back until evening.
I unlock the front door to our apartment, happy in the knowledge that Coach Locken is miserable, wherever he is right now in the world. I toe my sneakers off, let my backpack slip from my shoulders by the door, and pad barefoot across the living room. I’m going to deal with the ravioli in a second. First, I’m going to pee. I still hate going into the bathroom to pee. It’s like I have PTSD and expect to have a miscarriage again, even though I know I’m not pregnant. But no matter how time passes… how my life seems to look like it turned a corner… I cannot help but hate Locken for what he did to me. For what he did to my body. In my mind, this happened because of the way he took me. It was so violent, so frantic… I’m sure he caused some kind of damage.
I pass by my parents’ bedroom and notice the door is ajar. Not shocking, considering this house is always a mess and we don’t have a closed-doors or open-doors policy in place. I stroll by it when I hear a soft moan that makes me stop dead in my tracks.
Oh shit. They’re here.
They’re here and they’re having sex.
This is worse than I thought. Their love knows no bounds. Someone kill me.
I turn around, intending to tiptoe back to the kitchen and maybe pee in the sink so I don’t have to listen to this crap and get scarred any further, when I hear my father’s voice.
“Oh, Sophia.”
Sophia? Who the fuck is Sophia?
My mom’s name is Caroline.
What in the shit?
I huddle back to the ajar door, peering through the crack, blinking the image into focus.
My dad is lying on the bed, and on top of him, with her back to me, is a woman who is definitely not my mother. Long red hair. Slender figure. Freckles on her shoulders. She is riding him.
Dad is cheating on Mom.
The perfect fairy tale I grew up believing is all a lie.
All men are cheaters.
All men are untrustworthy.
All men are trash.
I pad back to the front door and slip out of the apartment, taking the stairs three at a time up to the roof of the building.
I don’t jump, but not because I don’t want to.
Only because I have an unfinished grudge to tend to.
And Dad? I’ll never forgive him.
I was being followed.
I could tell I was being followed when I looked through my rearview mirror and noticed the same incognito black sedan zipping out of Boston, gliding onto the highway, staying the same four-car gap from me no matter how many lanes I switched.
Not knowing who it was—Frank? Louisa? Devon’s Mom? The devil himself?—I decided to escape it.
Today seemed like a bad day to die and get buried in the woods.
I lane-hopped for a while, feeling sweat coating my forehead as I tried to think of a game plan. How was I getting rid of this strange car?
And then it hit me.
I popped my blinker to make a right into one of the small towns bracketing greater Boston and waited patiently in a line of cars. My stalker did the same. When the light turned green, I made a terrible (and I do mean freaking awful) traffic offense and continued straight ahead, not taking the right, and speeding into a busy intersection. Cars slammed their brakes, horns blared at me angrily, but when I looked back, I saw that the black sedan was way behind, trapped inside a sea of vehicles in a traffic jam from hell.
I drove and drove and drove some more, not sure where I’d end up.
And somehow, already knowing where I was going to go.
All at the same time.
For the first time since I’d turned eighteen, I was living with my parents again.