She demurred and sat back. I’d hit my mark.
I’d guessed long ago why she had been so ferocious toward Andrew. A friend would have supported me, but she’d practically taken up a war cry. She was a victim too; that was why. I didn’t know the details, but it explained a lot. Not just her reaction that day, but her subsequent profession. One day while I was nursing Bailey, she announced that she was an escort, as easily as if she’d gotten a paper route. It had been part of our tacit pact. She never brought up the rape—or the hospital—and I never questioned her work. She pretended like my “date nights” were normal, and I pretended like selling her body on a nightly basis was A-OK. We were enablers of the best sort.
“Give me the number.” My gaze held hers, willing her to do what I asked.
She pressed a few buttons on her phone, then slid it across the table to me. It was opened to a contact—JW, it said. Andrew Williams. We used to joke about the fact that our last names started with the same letter. Said I wouldn’t have to change my initials when…
I hit the Call button and waited.
“Hello,” and just like that, I was back in my childhood room, calling to tell him about the drama of second period. It took a second to return to the present.
“Hello,” I said. “It’s me.”
“Allie? Are you okay?”
I almost laughed at the concern. It felt real. No, it probably was real. Our friendship had been real, except for that one time when it wasn’t. “I’m okay. I think we need to talk.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Remember Pop Rocks?”
I smiled at the memory. There was a diner where we’d hung out and gorged on cheap cheese fries and free refills of soda. Then Andrew had made a miniature explosion with his drink and the fizzy candy, and we’d been banned. Not that it mattered now—only two years later and we were both unrecognizable. “I remember.”
“Meet me there in thirty,” he said.
“Okay.” I hung up the phone and handed it back to Shelly. “Can you watch Bailey?”
“Of course,” she said. “I miss my girl.”
My head was blissfully empty as I drove into that crappy part of town.
The diner was the same, still dirty but somehow smaller. I sat down in a creaky vinyl booth. The lamination was peeling off the tabletop. I rested my hands there, but it was sticky to the touch, so I put them in my lap.
The worst part of waiting was the thinking. What would I tell Andrew? It depended on his mood. He’d become increasingly capricious, up until that day—the emotional equivalent of an atomic bomb. It wasn’t personal; at least, I thought not. I just happened to be in the vicinity at the time—a casualty.
Thinking, thinking. I heard Shelly’s voice, What happened with that cop?
Then again in her voice, Don’t think about it.
I was trying, dammit. I really was.
But the alternative was to contemplate this sticky stuff on the table. No, seriously—what was it? I prayed it was some sort of food product, at least. Ugh, I couldn’t keep thinking about it. I reached for the menu the server had dropped off. I was hardly in the mood for eating. I’d already eaten lunch, and plus it was pretty gross in here. But, well, I was desperate.
I ordered chocolate pie. It took about ten minutes, and then the server reappeared with a slice of pie and a glass of water. I cut a small bite from the corner and tasted it. It was good. A bit too sweet. Oh, yuck. A kind of clay aftertaste. I took a gulp to wash it down—metallic water.
I coughed and sputtered. Andrew chose that moment to appear. I clapped my hand over my mouth as he folded his long body into the booth across from me.
“Not as good as you remember it?” He smirked.
I pushed the plate away and shuddered. “I don’t know how I ever ate that.”
He eyed the slice of pie. “We had a strict fries-only rule, if I remember right. And always order pop.”
Our eyes met. “Don’t drink the water,” we said at the same time. We smiled.
How strange, this camaraderie. Perhaps it had something to do with the location. We’d been friends here, so it was easy to fall into that role now.
We both stilled.
This wasn’t the paralyzing panic of our last meeting, after two years of snowballing fear and apprehension. For all I’d known at the time, he could have raped me where I stood. Of course, he’d done worse. He’d threatened to take Bailey from me.
Even as I marveled at my ease, cold fingers of remembrance clenched my insides. No, this grimy diner had been only a very temporary sort of amnesia. Memories assaulted my calm: flashes of pain, the blue eyes flashing darkly, almost too black.
“I missed you,” Andrew said softly.
I’d missed him too. My friend, Andrew, I’d missed. The guy he’d turned into that last night, not so much. In the past two years he’d filled out from a lanky teenager, but he was still lean. Probably would always be. I’d filled out too. From skinny girl to pregnant to young woman.