Heart on a Chain (29 page)

I touch his face, “You know I do.”

“
Then what’s the problem?”

“
Henry, your life’s path was laid out long before I came along. It would be wrong for it to change just because of me.”

“
Nothing will change. Except to be better, because
I’m
better when I’m with you.”

“
Henry, I—”

“
Maybe,” he interrupts me. “All I’m asking for is a maybe. Say you’ll think about it; give me a chance to convince you.”

I know the fair thing, the right thing, is to say no, to end it right here before I can hurt him further. There isn’t even a remote possibility of a future between us. I’m also aware that Henry is a care-taker, and that this is nothing more than his way of trying to protect me.

However, I’m weak and can’t imagine trying to get through the next few months alone, without him at my side. I’m selfish enough that I’ll keep him for that long, that for every second I can I’ll hold on to him, be with him. I imagine the wrenching pain of being without him, feel sick at the thought of it, and so I’ll put it off as long as I can, even at the cost of leading him along, of being dishonest.

“
Okay,
maybe,
” I say, crushing guilt consuming me at the look of happiness on his face, knowing my only true answer can be no. I push the box back into his hand. “But you have to keep this.”

“
You don’t want to wear my ring?” he asks while looking down at the box, hurt in his voice.

If only he knew just how much I wanted to.

“
Henry, there’s so much going on right now. It just seems like one more complication—explaining a ring. Can’t it just be our secret?”

He nods, but then looks at me teasingly.

“
I kinda wanted you to wear it, so everyone would know you were mine.”

I smile weakly, “Who wouldn’t know that? They’d have to be completely blind to not know that.”

He puts the box back into his pocket.

“
What am I supposed to give you for your birthday then?” he asks, sulky. My heart is twisting violently in my chest, but I push the feeling away with practice born of years of hiding reality.

“
I can think of something,” I say lightly, pulling his face to mine, hiding the hurt behind my love for Henry.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I continue with
my physical therapy twice a week, which Emma usually drives me to. I got my driver’s license when I was sixteen and had taken drivers education through school, but as I have not driven since getting my license, I’m not sure I even remember how. Henry offers to leave his car with me so I can drive myself after I get my cast off, but I don’t want to tell him I probably no longer know how to drive, so I just tell him I don’t want to use his car.

The school administration has decided that based on my recovery period and my upcoming trial that I can have special tutoring, followed by taking tests to determine my eligibility to graduate with the rest of my classmates. No one says out loud what we’re all thinking—that I might be in jail by the time graduation comes around and won’t be attending graduation at all.

Senior prom is looming and Henry tries to convince me to go. He can’t understand that I’ve had nightmares about those kinds of school functions for the last several years.

I made the mistake of attending one dance in middle school. It was toward the beginning of my seventh grade year, when the torture by my classmates led by Jessica had just begun and so was still in the less brutal stages. It was chaperoned by some of the faculty and a few parents, and yet Jessica still managed to make it a horrific day for me.

I had pilfered enough money from my parents to buy me a “new” outfit at the secondhand store. I purchased a really cute pair of white Capri’s and a pink cashmere sweater. I spent some extra time doing my hair in curls and had even snuck into my mom’s room to use a little of her makeup.

Jessica obviously spent some time thinking about how to humiliate me and set me up. She convinced Brad Johnson, one of the cutest, most popular kids in the school to help her out, as well as some of the other kids—both boys and girls. I’d had a little crush on Brad, as did ninety percent of the girls who went to school there. Not only was he cute, he was an
eighth
grader. Of course, Jessica was the prettiest girl in school, so I’m sure it didn’t take much to enlist Brad’s help.

The dance was going pretty well, lots of kids dancing. I, of course, was sitting by myself on the bleachers in the over-heated, sweat filled gym. I wanted to dance but didn’t have the guts to ask anyone, or to dance by myself as many of the girls did. Then Brad came up to me.

He asked me to dance and I felt a surge of joy; Brad Johnson picked
me
. For a minute I felt a sense of justice—this would show Jessica and all those other girls. I followed him out to the crowded dance floor. It was a fast song and there were kids all over the place, bumping into one another, so it didn’t occur to me to think there was anything unusual going on.

Brad grinned over my shoulder on occasion and I was stupid enough to think he was proud to be dancing with me, that he was smiling at his friends. But soon I became aware of laughter behind me, and then people pointing and whispering behind their hands to one another, the laughter spreading and getting louder. I looked behind me and didn’t see anything that was funny.

Then I saw Mrs. Cowan, the gym coach, hurrying my way. She pulled me away from Brad, and walked me quickly toward the doors that lead to the locker room. I pulled back, asking her where she was taking me. I hadn’t done anything wrong, had I?

“
Let’s go into the dressing room and we’ll talk there,” she told me urgently. I looked behind me and saw everyone now laughing and pointing my way. I saw Brad, arm around Jessica, also laughing—and Jessica smiling at me like the Cheshire cat. Once in the girls dressing area, Mrs. Cowan continued to lead me toward the restroom.

“
What’s going on?” I asked her, starting to feel a little afraid.

“
Honey, I hate to tell you this, but it would appear that your menstruation has begun.”

“
What?” I was shocked, since my period had just finished the week previous.

“
Do you have a pad with you?”

“
No, I don’t.” My stomach began to ache with dread.

Mrs. Cowan hurried into the faculty office and came back, pressing the white bulk into my hand. I went into the bathroom stall with trepidation. Could my period have started again so soon?

When I got in there, it was obvious the blood was only on the outside of my pants—and had not in any way come from me.

My first thought was that someone was hurt and had bled on me. I reached out to open the door to inform Mrs. Cowan, but then my mind belatedly started to process information—the amount of blood on me would had to have come from someone severely injured. Even had it come from my menstruation, it could not have bled so profusely so quickly.

Then I remembered Brad’s grins over my shoulder, all of the kids bumping into me, a feeling of damp on my backside which I had thought was maybe just sweat because of the heat. Mostly I remembered Jessica’s grin. That was when I knew she had done this. I wasn’t sure if it was real blood or something she had concocted, but it really didn’t matter.

It was the humiliation that mattered—she had wanted it and made sure she accomplished it.

I’ve never forgotten the complete mortification of the laughter, followed by returning to school the next day and having kids pointing and laughing, having them throw pads and tampons at me as I walked down the halls, walking up to my locker which was plastered with pads stuck on the outside.

I’d sworn then that I’d never put myself in the position to be degraded like that again, which is why I have avoided all extra-curricular school activities—especially dances. I can’t even think of going to a dance without remembering that day and reliving it.

It isn’t a story I’m willing to share with Henry, especially on top of the knowledge he now has about the rest of my life. I know he’s probably heard some of the stories about me from his friends, but only a girl can understand the complete humiliation of this one, so I doubt any of the boys really remember it.

Because I won’t tell him the real reason and don’t have a really good made-up reason not to go other than just to say I don’t want to, he keeps asking me, trying to convince me.

“
It’s our only senior prom, we
have
to go,” he tells me. I tell him he should go, but with someone else. He has no idea what it costs me to tell him to take someone else, jealousy eating me up, but he refuses anyway—to both my relief and chagrin.

“
My mom will be disappointed if she doesn’t have pictures of us for her scrapbook,” he tells me, and I know she might be a little disappointed, but I also think that part of Emma instinctively feels why I don’t want to go and so would never push it.

“
Claire will be devastated if you don’t wear her dress,” he says, and I have to admit that that’s the one argument that almost sways me. I don’t want her to think I don’t like her dress. Then I think about having her beautiful creation ruined in some prank, and my resolve is strengthened.

“
I really, really want to go with
you
, and be with you that night,” he tells me, and in the end we compromise.

I’ll let Claire dress me up in the dress she made me, and do my hair, but Henry will take me somewhere else, away from anywhere the rest of the kids from school might be. Henry seems happy with that compromise, and soon he’s scheming something secret for that night that he won’t tell me about. Claire is told we’re going to the prom and that makes her so happy that I feel guilty about the deception—but not guilty enough to capitulate.

Every day I have either tutoring or physical therapy, and I’m completely dependent on Henry and his family. My father has returned to his old ways, rarely coming home from work until he’s already spent several hours at the bar drinking. I try to hide it from Henry and Emma especially, but since they’re the two who spend the most time at my house or driving me around, it soon becomes pretty obvious.

One night, Henry’s bringing me home, and as usual walks me in. We’re saying goodnight when my father returns home, a little earlier than usual. He stumbles in, nearly falling as he passes us. Henry catches him.

“
Whoa, Mr. Mosley, you okay?” he asks, dragging my father upright.

“
Henry, you’re a good boy,” he says, words slurring, patting Henry sloppily on the cheek. Henry glances up at me and I feel my cheeks burning with shame.

“
He’s okay, he just needs to go to bed,” I murmur, hugging my arms around myself, wondering if the floor will open up so I can disappear inside.

“
This happen often?” Henry asks, still steadying my father, who’s now singing a raunchy song that makes my face flame brighter.

I shrug, not wanting to lie, but not wanting to admit it either.

“
Are you safe here?” Henry asks, a fair question considering what he now knows about how my life had been, but I still feel mortified that he even has to think to ask it.

“’
Course she is,” my father interjects, breaking off in the middle of his song—a small blessing—and tries to stand a little taller. “I lock the doors myself.”

I roll my eyes. Obviously that isn’t what Henry is referring to.

“
Yes, I am,” I tell him. Henry eyes me dubiously, but then accepts what I say as truth.

“
Okay.” He grabs my father again, who’s leaning precariously. “Mr. Mosley, let’s get you up to bed.”

“
Oh, Henry, no,” I step forward, hand outstretched, horrified at the thought of Henry having to help him like that. “I can do it.”

“
Really?” He sounds doubtful, eyeing my cast meaningfully.