Page 126 of Gone Tonight
I desperately wanted to get away. I was on the verge of splintering into a million pieces, and her kindness felt like a mallet bearing down on me.
Something was changing in Rosie’s expression as she stared at me, like she was working out a problem, teetering on the cusp of the solution. I kept smiling, even though my lips felt strange and rubbery.
I finally asked her what I looked like because I couldn’t stand the overpowering silence.
Rosie let go of my water bottle. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth.
She told me I looked like her sister did when Coach came to their house to visit.
My hands began to shake. Violent trembling spread through my body until I felt as if it would tear me apart, as if shards of me would go flying in a thousand different directions.
Rosie’s sister Marie was a year ahead of me in school, but she’ddropped out at the beginning of her junior year after she almost killed herself by overdosing on pain medicine.
Everyone at school knew Marie’s story. She’d been a good student and guitar player, but all at once she seemed to self-implode. She started cutting herself—people could see the wounds on her arms—and she quit playing guitar and began using drugs.
My voice sounded alien, even to my own ears, when I asked why Coach came to the house to visit Marie.
Rosie told me it had been happening even before Marie quit school. Coach took a special interest in Marie because she was so musical. Their mom was grateful and said he was like a father figure.
A sob tore itself free from my throat. Tears began to stream down my face.
I cried out to Rosie that she couldn’t ever let Coach in their house again.
Then I climbed into my car, slammed the door, and sped away. In my rearview mirror I could see Rosie still standing there.
Of course I wasn’t the only girl Coach abused.
There’s always more than one.
My note to Rosie was brief, too: Timmy Morales’s mother hurts him. Help him.
That long-ago day when I saw Rosie on the street in Lancaster, she told me she’d heeded my plea.
She’d helped protect my brother.
When I think about the brutal way Coach died, I remind myself of this: He will never again touch Marie, or any other girl.
It helps.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVECATHERINE
One week later
I pull the final drinking glass out of the packing box labeled “kitchen” and unwrap the sheet of newspaper cushioning it. I set the glass on the lowest shelf of the cabinet next to the refrigerator and close the cabinet door.
That’s my last box. I break it down, then lean the flattened cardboard against a wall with the half-dozen others to bring down for recycling.
I blow a strand of hair that has escaped from my ponytail off my face, then put my hands on my hips as I glance around my studio apartment.
It’s a quirky, pleasing blend of old and new. Tall, double-hung windows welcome the sunshine and late-afternoon breeze, and a tiny balcony has just enough room for the wrought-iron table and two café chairs I found at a secondhand store. In the wintertime, my place will be snug and cozy with its small gas fireplace and steel-gray, elegant radiators.
I used my last paycheck from Sunrise to splurge on a deep, impossibly soft, dusky rose love seat that I put in front of the fireplace. I also assembled a tall Ikea bookshelf and moved in my bed and dresser from my mother’s apartment.
There’s plenty of time to add more photos and knickknacks and books to my new shelf, and to pick up a funky lamp or two at a flea market.
There’s room for me to grow in this apartment.
I open the double French doors to my balcony and step out.
