“What’s going on?” I softened my tone. “What’s wrong? Did something happen to—”
“I...I need your help, please...”
“What happened?” I grabbed my jacket and slipped into my shoes.
“I can’t....I really need your help...”
“Where are you?” I rushed to my garage.
“I’m on...on Tim Street...At Haven Foods...And I’m—”
“Are you hurt?”
“No... But I...” She said something in between sobs. “Can you come get me?”
“I’ll be there in a minute.” I revved up my car. “Stay right there.”
“Please don’t call my mom,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“Please...”
“I won’t.” I wouldn’t know what to say anyway.
I sped over to the grocery store—racing into parking lot, slowing down once I saw what the problem was.
Jesus...
I stepped out and looked at the mangled metal mess that was once Claire’s Audi Q7: The front of the car was wrapped around a pole and the windshield was shattered. The front right tire had been flung across the lot and the driver’s door was smashed in so deep that it looked like the car had run into the guard rail before crashing into the pole.
From the way it looked, it was a miracle that Ashley had made it out alive. I looked over at her and noticed that she was trembling.
I took off my jacket and put it over her shoulders. “Shhh. It’s going to be okay.”
She sniffled. “Are you going to tell my mom about this?”
“I’m pretty sure she’s going to find out somehow...”
“I know you two aren’t together anymore, and I’m sorry for calling so late, but I didn’t know who else to call...My mom isn’t the best option, if you know what I mean...”
“Tell me what happened...”
She wiped her face on her sleeve. “Me and Caroline wanted to go out tonight, but she wanted to hang out with that guy—Jake, remember? He finally asked her out after texting her every day.” She shrugged. “It’s her weekend to take our car, but I wanted to go on another date with Chris...I didn’t want to have to rely on him for a ride because the last time we went out, he drove and I barely made curfew so...”
“Calm down.” I motioned for her to sit on the hood of my car.
“We met at the movies and everything was going fine, but then he said he wanted to spend some alone time with me. He told me to follow him somewhere and...It was an um, a hotel...”
Please give me the G-rated version...
“He had the room set up really special, and he’d rented some movies, and he told me to ‘just relax’...We drank like four beers each and I thought we were just going to mess around. Honestly, I swear! I didn’t think he was going to try and sleep with me! This was only our third time going out!”
“Okay...” I braced myself for the rest.
“We were kissing and touching and stuff but then he started getting really rough and tried to take my pants off...I told him no, but he kept trying so I threatened to scream...Then he got really angry and started cursing at me, calling me a tease...He told me he didn’t really like me anyway. He’d just heard that I was....I was easy! But that’s not true! I’ve never been with anyone!” She cried. “So I ran out of the room, but when I got downstairs all his teammates were in the lobby laughing at me and calling me all these names...They said he only invited me there so he could—so he could prove how easy I was...I rushed out to the parking lot and drove off as fast as I could...I was fine at first, but then I couldn’t really see where I was going and the road started to get blurry and...Well...” She waved her hand toward the wreck.
“I take it that you didn’t ask your mom if you could use her car?”
“Are you kidding me? She would’ve said no! She always says no! She expects us to stick together all the time! I mean, Caroline is my best friend and we do a lot of stuff together, but we do have our own lives. She acts like she doesn’t see that! How can she expect us to share a car? It’s not fair...” She shook her head and leaned on me, not saying anything for a long time.
Once I felt like she’d completely calmed down, I cleared my throat. “So, you called me because you want me to fix this before your mom gets back?”
“Well... yeah.” She sat up and smiled. “I think you can afford it...”
“And you’re going to beg me not to tell her what happened?”
“Yes...”
I smiled and tried not to laugh. “Tell you what, I’m not going to tell her.”
“Really? You’d do that for me?”
“You are.”
“What?”
“I’ll have it replaced by tomorrow morning, but you have to tell her that you took her car without permission and you were out drinking as soon as she gets back from her trip.”
“What! What type of sense does that make?”
“It makes perfect sense to me.”
She crossed her arms. “She’ll ground me! I’ll miss Charity Lane’s party next weekend! Not to mention autumn jam!”
“Probably so.”
“And she’ll take away my cell phone! And not just take it away—she’ll destroy it!”