Bitter End Read online

  He leaned his forehead against mine. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Forgive me?”

  I closed my eyes and nodded, unsure what else to do.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The party wasn’t fun, even though everybody was there, and people had brought everything from volleyballs to hot dogs. Even with the car doors swung open wide and music blaring, trunks popped and iced kegs flowing. This was going to be one of those epic parties that everyone talks about the entire year. The kind of party that goes down in school history. And it still wasn’t fun.

  Cole dove right into the crowd, clapping people on the shoulders and calling them “dude,” as if they’d known each other their whole lives, his other hand clutching a beer. He was telling jokes and laughing and kicking a soccer ball someone had brought. It was as if nothing had ever happened in the car on the way over. As if he’d totally let it go.

  Every so often he’d come over to the picnic table I was sitting on, squeeze my shoulder, and say, “Hey, babe, can I get you something?” and I’d just try to smile my “everything’s okay” smile and shake my head.

  But I couldn’t help it. Everything was not okay. I’d nodded when he’d asked for forgiveness, but I was still mad.

  Zack and Bethany were on the other side of the shelter, sitting on the ground next to the fireplace by themselves. Bethany’s face was pink and sad, and every so often Zack would pick up a leaf or stick off the shelter floor and toss it into the fire. Neither of them would look at me. If they glanced up, they quickly looked away. It was as if I didn’t exist.

  I knew enough to know that Zack, usually the clown at an event like this, would normally be right in the center of the volleyball game, “accidentally” tripping and falling on one of the girls (preferably the one in the least amount of clothes), and at first everyone would laugh and think it was hilarious and then eventually the girls would get tired of being mauled and kick him out and he’d come over to where Bethany and I were and we’d play some dumbass game like Screw, Marry, Kill and he’d name all the girls he was just all over. Or maybe, if Bethany and I were feeling mean, we’d start up a game of Make Zack Do Stupid Stuff on a Dare, like eat bugs and climb trees in his underwear. Stuff we’d been making him do since we were seven. Stuff he never got tired of doing or got mad about.

  Instead, I was sitting alone, Bethany was trying to look as if she hadn’t been crying, and Zack was throwing leaves on a fire. But Cole was having a great time.

  And I felt like it was all my fault.

  After a while, darkness fell and it started to get cold, and Zack and Bethany took off with a couple of kids we’d hung out with a lot in elementary school, and then it was just me, sitting alone as the party got rowdier and rowdier, watching Cole, who’d organized a game of football so intense all the guys’ shirts were plastered to them with sweat.

  Cole’s team was winning. Of course.

  We didn’t leave until the game was over.

  In the car on the way home, Cole kept asking if I was okay, and I kept telling him yes, even though on the inside I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, only that what I was feeling was definitely not “okay.” I kissed him when we got to my house. I told him I loved him. And I went inside, not knowing what to think.

  I didn’t sleep much. I kept hearing Cole’s words—You just want to get in my girlfriend’s pants, and you are too stupid to see that— and seeing the hurt look on Bethany’s face. I’d told Cole I’d forgiven him. And it was true that Zack was acting like a total jerk around Cole. It was true that he’d sort of brought it on himself with all his “Big C” talk and his “That guy’s a tool” attitude since day one.

  But still. Cole was way out of line. And I didn’t understand how he could hurt me that way, just to rag on Zack. I didn’t understand why he had to hurt Bethany. She was trying to be nice. Bethany didn’t know how to be anything other than nice. I didn’t understand why Cole couldn’t just wait till we were alone and bring it up to me rather than blast them to their faces and ruin their night.

  And I didn’t understand how he could be having fun for the rest of the night, looking like he was on top of the world while the rest of us were miserable.

  And I especially didn’t understand why I’d let it go on.

  As the night wore on and I thought things over, I’d started to forgive Cole less and less. It was easier to stay angry when he wasn’t stroking my cheeks with his fingertips and telling me he loved me and was jealous. It was easier to be mad at him and think maybe Zack was right. Maybe Cole was a tool.

  But then Zack wasn’t there when Cole carried my backpack out to the car after the end-of-the-day bell rang. Zack wasn’t there in the movie theater or at the mall, when I truly felt like Cole’s queen. He didn’t know how softly Cole could stroke my arm, or how that stroke made me feel inside or how cozy my neck felt when Cole walked next to me with his arm crooked around it.

  Most of all, Zack didn’t know how I finally felt as if… for the first time in my life… someone loved me. Someone could speak to me in longer than half-sentences. Someone could be more than a faded necklace and a bunch of old photos in a musty shoe box under my bed. Cole was real. His touch was real. His softness was real.

  And real people made mistakes, didn’t they?

  When morning finally came, I was more confused than ever. I did love Cole—at least, I thought I did—but I’d never stuck up for anyone who’d hurt Bethany and Zack. And for the first time since we’d met, I was genuinely mad at Cole. And I was mad at Zack. Hell, I think I was mad at everyone.

  Dad was in the kitchen, standing at the sink with a cup of coffee, when I came downstairs for breakfast. I sidled up to him, stood on my tiptoes, and kissed his cheek. As usual, he didn’t say a word or make a move to kiss me back. Just sipped his coffee again, staring out into space.

  “Morning, Dad,” I said, reaching around him to pull a bowl out of the drying rack on the side of the sink.

  “Alex,” he said. Just one word. Typical.

  “Sorry I got in so late last night,” I said. “Cole was finishing a football game.”

  “Cole was getting wasted, is more like it,” Celia said, coming in from the living room, carrying a bowl half-filled with milk. Her hair was standing up in greasy chunks around her head, and she was still wearing her pajama pants and tank top.

  “He was not getting wasted,” I said.

  “That’s not what Zack said,” she countered. “You know, Zack? Your supposed best friend? He texted me last night. Told me about what happened.” She walked lazily around me to the sink and set the bowl in it.

  “Now, you know what I think about drinking…” Dad said, pointing at me around the handle of his coffee cup. But actually, no, I didn’t know exactly what Dad thought about drinking, because that would require Dad to actually tell us what he thought about something. In fact, I’d love to know what Dad thought about drinking. Or what Dad thought about anything, for that matter. But I didn’t say that out loud. No need to aggravate an already aggravated situation. Plus, I reminded myself, I wasn’t mad at Dad. I was mad at Cole. And now Celia, too.

  “I wasn’t drinking. And Cole wasn’t getting wasted, either,” I said, glaring at Celia’s back. I pulled the cereal box from the top of the refrigerator and shook some into my bowl. “Zack doesn’t know what he’s talking about. His mouth got him in trouble, and he’s mad. That’s all. He’ll get over it. You shouldn’t be texting my friends anyway, Celia.”

  “I didn’t text him. He texted me. And Zack’s my friend, too,” she said. To Dad she added, “And he says Alex’s new boyfriend is a total jerk.”

  I pulled the milk out of the refrigerator and poured some over my cereal, waiting for Dad to respond. He didn’t. I grabbed a spoon out of the drawer.

  “Zack doesn’t know Cole,” I said. “And neither do you.”

  Celia shrugged and sauntered out of the room, holding her palm out toward me, talk-to-the-hand-style, leaving me and Dad alone.

  I
waited for Dad to press me for details about Cole. A part of me wanted him to. Wanted him to ask me who this guy was and if what Celia was saying was true. I wanted to tell him that I was mad and that Zack was causing his own trouble and that I felt bad about Bethany but that I still loved Cole, and I wanted Dad to give me advice on what I was supposed to do now.

  But he didn’t. He finished his coffee, rinsed out the cup, and crammed it into the dishwasher, all in silence. I sat at the table eating my cereal, willing him to just say… something. Anything.

  Instead, I heard his keys rattle.

  “Going to work?” I asked around a mouthful of cereal. I could hear the sharpness in my voice.

  Dad grunted.

  “I have to work today, too, so I’ll just see you…” I started, but he’d already left the room, a murmur I couldn’t make out his acknowledgment that he’d heard me. I sighed. “Good-bye, Alex. Have a great day, sweetheart. I love you,” I said softly into my bowl. Suddenly I had no appetite. I grabbed the bowl and tossed the cereal into the sink, listening to the front door close and Dad’s car start up in the driveway. At the same time I heard the shower turn on upstairs and the echoey voices from Celia’s stereo.

  I sighed and leaned forward against the sink. I could see Zack in his driveway starting up the lawn mower. He glanced up, as if he knew he was being watched, but turned his gaze back to the mower before I could raise my hand in a wave. I knew by the way he paused before pulling the starter rope that he’d seen me and he was totally pretending that he hadn’t.

  I watched him press his earbuds into his ears, and he started walking, head down, behind the mower.

  It was almost impossible to believe that just two days earlier I thought I had exactly what I’d always wanted. That one person who would make me his world. Who would tell me he loved me and mean it. Two best friends who were there for me, no matter what.

  Today, everyone was off doing their own thing, and I was totally alone.

  Only this time, it wasn’t just my family that gave me the lonely feeling. With Zack and Bethany mad at me, alone really felt like alone.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  For the first time ever, I was late to work.

  I had no good excuse. I’d stood by the window and watched Zack mow his lawn for a long time, waiting for him to turn and catch my eye, wave to me. Forgive me in the way only good-natured Zack could do. But he never did. Just mowed the side yard and moved around to the other side, where I couldn’t see him.

  I’d tidied up the kitchen a little. Stacked my bowl in the overflowing dishwasher and turned it on. Found an old rag under the sink and used it to wipe a sticky coffee cup ring off the counter. Stacked up the old newspapers and tossed them in the recycle bin in the mudroom. Put away the few groceries Dad had picked up at some point and left sitting, still in the bag, on the counter, as if the energy to put them in the pantry was more than he could muster. As if he were still leaving half his chores for a wife who wasn’t there. And hadn’t been there for a very long time. If she’d ever really been there at all.

  Celia’s shower turned off, and I headed upstairs to take my own. Halfway through washing my hair, I realized I’d been so distracted by Celia’s accusations about Cole and by Dad leaving without a word and by Zack mowing without acknowledging me that I’d lost track of time.

  I showed up fifteen minutes late, my hair still wet and hanging down, my makeup slapdash. And I’d forgotten my visor.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said, breathing heavily as I rushed past the managers’ office to clock in. “I lost track of time.”

  Georgia was sitting in the office, separating coupons and rubber-banding them together. She shifted backward in her chair, which squeaked, and looked me up and down before saying anything.

  “Where’s your visor?” she asked. “Forget it. Here, put your hair up.” She handed me a rubber band, and as I quickly gathered my hair into a ponytail, she leaned down and opened a drawer, then pulled out a smashed-looking visor and shook it to plump it up. “Have this one.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the visor. “Just what I always wanted.” But Georgia didn’t respond with one of her usual smart remarks. I recognized the curt voice and pursed lips and blunt head nods. I’d seen her use them with other employees—always when she was mad. My stomach twisted as I realized that, for the first time ever, she was mad at me. God, was the whole world going to be mad at me now?

  I slid the visor onto my head. “I’m really sorry…” I started, but Georgia cut me off with a nod of her head.

  “You need to get out there,” she said. “Greg stayed late to cover until you got here. Get on the register. Lunch rush’ll be starting soon.”

  “Georgia, I’m really…”

  She glanced up at me. “Later, okay? I need you on the register.”

  I nodded and left her to her coupons.

  Lunch rush started early—almost immediately after I relieved Greg, in fact—and I was swamped. Flustered, I kept making mistakes—pressing the wrong buttons, forgetting to discount for coupons, giving out the wrong change and having to call for Georgia to come open my drawer with a key so I could make it right—and twice I got an earful from angry customers.

  The upside was I was too busy and too worried about making up my lousy performance to Georgia (whose mood certainly did not improve with every mistake I made) to even think about Cole or Zack or Bethany.

  After the rush was over, I felt a hand on my waist and heard Georgia’s voice in my ear, softer now, more like the Georgia I was used to hearing.

  “C’mon, let’s talk,” she said. Then, louder, toward the kitchen, “Jerry? Can you watch the register, please?”

  I followed Georgia back to her office. She sat in her chair and I stood, my shoulder pressed against the doorway; the office was too small for two chairs.

  At first she didn’t say anything. Just bent down and opened the safe, tossed in an empty deposit bag, and closed the heavy door. I thought maybe she was still mad, and, more than that, thought I would go crazy if she didn’t say something soon. Thought I would run down the street screaming if one more person gave me the silent treatment.

  But after she shut the safe, she leaned back, pushed her fingers up under her glasses to rub her eyes, and then looked at me and smiled.

  “Busy day,” she said. “Been like this all week. Here, let me fix you.”

  She motioned for me to turn around and I did. Her chair squeaked, and then I felt the visor and rubber band being pulled out of my hair. My hair fell against my back again, and then Georgia’s hands scooped it back up, deftly smoothing the sides and top.

  “You’re not yourself today, darlin’,” she said, her voice muffled around what I guessed to be either the visor strap or the rubber band.

  I shrugged. “I know. I had a really bad night last night. I’m sorry.”

  My hair pulled against my scalp as she wound the rubber band in it. I winced but didn’t say anything.

  “There,” she said. I turned around and she handed me the visor again and sat back in her chair. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “’Lot of them don’t even show up at all and still expect to come back to work the next day. Greg was late this morning, too. He’s late almost every morning, the lazy bum. You’re not planning on becoming a lazy bum, are you?”

  I shook my head as I tugged on the visor and worked my ponytail over the elastic strap. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”

  She waved her hand at me. “Oh, honey, I was just kiddin’ ya. Everybody has a bad day. But listen. Dave’s been hanging around a lot lately. I heard from Nan over at the Clancy Avenue store that he’s been on a rampage. Caught a manager stealing in the downtown store and is convinced that we’re all out to get him now. Nan says he’s firing people left and right, for the tiniest stuff, and that’s why old Granite-Ass’s been snoopin’ around so much.”

  “Oh,” I said. “He would’ve fired me today.”

  She nodded. “Maybe. And mayb
e me to go with you.”

  I leaned back against the door. The last thing I needed was to lose my job. I still had only about half of the money I’d need for Colorado, and that was if Bethany didn’t plan any more add-ons like RVs and stargazing at mountain chalets. Thinking about Colorado gave me my usual pang of upset, and my fingers drifted to my necklace. But this time the upset wasn’t because I knew I was getting closer every day to finally getting out there, but because of what had happened with Bethany the night before. I doubted Cole’s outburst last night would have made her cancel the trip, but she was probably wondering if maybe I would cancel it. We’d been in arguments before, and we always made up. I just hoped this time would be no different.

  I should have called her this morning. Should’ve apologized right off the bat. I made a mental note to call her as soon as my shift was over.

  “Listen,” Georgia said, leaning forward. “I’m still gonna tell you the same thing I tell everyone. Lily starts school this fall, and I don’t need to tell you that it’s gonna cost us a pretty penny to send her somewhere that can help her. Plus all the special supplies and equipment. So I can’t afford to lose this job, and I need everybody’s help with that, okay? You help me, I help you. You know I’m always going to bat for you guys.”

  The bell above the dining room door jangled, and we both leaned to see who was coming in. It was just an older couple, and Jerry seemed to have it under control. I could almost feel the tension radiating off Georgia as she leaned back into the office, her chair squeaking under her again. She was really worried about this Dave thing.

  I guess I couldn’t blame her. Georgia’s daughter, Lily, had been in some sort of accident when she was a baby, causing her to have all sorts of physical problems and developmental delays. Georgia didn’t talk about Lily’s health much, and she brought Lily to the store only on very rare occasions. She and her husband worked hard to get their daughter the best of everything, but they didn’t have much money, and Georgia was constantly worried about her job.