Alison
THE MORNING’S PAPER STARES AT me from the kitchen table. The high I’d been riding over the way things have been going with Barrett, including our agreement to go public yesterday, has now evaporated into thin air.
My lip trembles as I turn the page, and for the hundredth time, read the side-by-side headlines.
Mayor Landry is Off the Market and Mayor Landry Embroiled in an Abortion Debacle scream at me in black and white.
“What are you thinking?” Lola asks, her hand on my shoulder.
“I don’t know.” My voice sounds so weak, even to me, and Lola squeezes my arm. She came as soon as I called her earlier, right after my mother called me with questions about the articles. Of course, I had no idea anything was happening and when Lola brought the papers by, I was blindsided.
“Did you read this?” I sniffle, pushing back tears.
“Yeah. Over your shoulder. I’m sorry.”
“How could his own campaign do this to me? How could his own staff bring up everything I went through, paint me as some weak damsel in distress with a kid that needs saving? That’s not what this is at all!”
“I know.”
“And then this,” I say, feeling the disbelief start to wane and anger taking its place. “There’s a scandal about some ex he has trying to say he forced her to have an abortion?” I pace the kitchen, trying to wrap my mind around everything. “Do you think . . .” I’m almost afraid to say it out loud. The mere thought burns my windpipe, scorches my heart. “Do you think he used me to make himself look better because he knew this story,” I say, jabbing the paper, making it pop, “was going to break?”
“I don’t know . . .”
She watches me warily as my phone starts to chime on the table. I see it’s Barrett and I don’t want to talk to him. Not yet. Not until I make sense of this on my own. Silencing the call, I sit at the table and read over the words again.
“They call me straight out. They bring up the assault, they talk about Hayden’s record, what I was investigated for. And it quotes a Nolan Bicknell as the source, Barrett’s fucking campaign manager.” I look at my best friend, my jaw hanging open. “How did I not see this coming?”
Lola blows out a breath and sits beside me. “You don’t know what happened. Maybe it’s just a strange coincidence.”
I snort, knowing there’s no such thing in politics. Everything is calculated, moved like a chess piece. And here I am again, being used as a pawn.
Tears pool in my eyes as my phone rings again and I just shut it off. My homework is sitting beside it and I pick it all up and carry it into my bedroom, dumping it on the bed. I don’t want to look at anything right now—just the newspapers that remind me how stupid I’ve been.
“He used me,” I say, believing it more and more as time goes on. “He allowed them to do this. The press release was supposed to say we were together and to respect our privacy, not call everything out . . .”
We both jump as a knock pounds on the front door. I know it’s him and I know even more I don’t want to see him.
“Want me to get it?” Lola asks, pressing her lips together. “Want me to get his balls?”
A grin touches my lips. “Just get it and tell him I’m not here.”
“Got it.”
She stands and marches to the door. I hear it swing open and his honeyed voice echoing through the hallway and around the corner to the table.
“Is Alison here?” he asks.
“Nope. She’s not here.”
“Where is she?”
“Not here,” Lola barks. “Do you not get that? Should I put it out in a press release loaded with bullshit? You know, speak your language? Will that help?”
“Listen . . .”
“No, you listen. You need to go,” she fires back.
“I know she’s here,” I hear him say. “I need to talk to her.”
The sound of desperation in his voice breaks me and the tears begin to fall. I’m so hemmed up with feelings, the pain in the ass emotions I’ve tried to keep away.
Sitting quietly at the table, I hear them talk, their voices lowered, and can’t make out what’s being said until I hear Lo again.
“Leave, Landry.”
“I want to talk to her. Please.”
Everything goes quiet and I sniffle. It comes out louder than I expect and in my little one thousand-square-foot house, it doesn’t take much for a sound to make it to the front door.
“Alison!” he yells. “Talk to me, baby. Please. Give me five minutes.”
“What part of leave don’t you understand? Does it equivocate in your mind with loyalty or honor? Because you clearly have neither of those.”
“I had no idea,” he says, obviously to me. “I didn’t know Nolan was putting that out! I had ”no idea!
I want to believe him, for things to go back to the way they’ve been, but doing that seems as careless as putting my heart out there to begin with.