My Sweetest Escape (40 page)

said, holding my face as if she was looking

for bruises.

“No, nothing like that. He didn’t hurt

me.”

“That’s not what it looked like from my

perspective. Shit, I never should have

trusted him, but Hunter was all for it.

I swear, I’ll never let him near you

again.” She hugged me, and I tried to tell

her that it wasn’t Dusty’s fault. That I was to

blame. For this, for everything.

But the words were too big and too

heavy for my tongue to form, so I just

started crying again. It seemed to be my

default form of expression lately.

“It’s okay, Jos. It’ll be okay.”

It was less okay than it had ever been.

We both heard yelling upstairs and then

the front door slammed so hard it shook

the whole house.

“It’s okay, baby girl. I’m not going to let

anything hurt you.”

Renee insisted on putting me to bed and

then bringing me soup. No one else came

downstairs, but I could hear them upstairs,

and even if I didn’t know what they were

saying, I knew they were talking about me. I

wondered who had taken what side. When

Renee left to go make the soup, after

tucking me in bed, I checked my phone.

Nothing.

I’d expected at least a phone call or

something from Dusty, but I finally seemed

to have driven him away for good.

So why did I feel like someone had

frozen my heart and then smashed it into a

million pieces with a hammer? I curled up in

the fetal position and tried to stop myself

from crying.

Seriously, how many gallons of tears

could I produce? I was apparently going for

the world record.

Renee came back with the soup, and I

had some of it, just to appease her. She also

handed me some Tylenol PM, and I

swallowed it down without thinking. I

wouldn’t sleep otherwise. I’d done this

routine nine months ago, only that time I

didn’t have Renee.

“You just rest. Don’t worry about school

or homework or anything else. I’ll take care

of everything. Okay?” She kissed my

forehead and turned off the light as she left

the room, and I lay there in the dark silence.

“Come on! I’ve never been to a concert

before. Please? I can’t do
this without you,”

I said, clasping my hands together. “Please

be
with me when my concert cherry gets

popped.” That made him laugh.

“Fine, fine. But you’re paying for gas.”

“Deal!” I said and threw my arms

around him. “You also need to
tell me what

to wear. I don’t real y have concert attire in

my closet.”

“I know. What is up with your

wardrobe? You look like you just
stepped off

C-SPAN all the time.”

“I’m going to have to dress like this all

the time someday, so I
might as well get

used to it.”

I tried to shut out the memories, but

they wouldn’t go back in the place I

normally kept them. They were too big, too

close, and I couldn’t shove them away, no

matter what I did.

“So, what do you think?” he yel ed in

my ear as the first act finished their set and

the crowd went berserk.

“Amazing!” I yel ed and then screamed

with everyone else at the
top of my lungs.

“This is life, Jossy. This is living the

day,” he yelled as people
chanted for an

encore.

We watched the second act, which

wasn’t as good as the first,
but it didn’t

matter. Nathan got a text that made him

frown, and I
asked what was wrong.

“Nothing. Nothing that I need to deal

with. You want to see if
we can get closer?”

We’d pushed and worked our way to the

front
by the time the third act took the

stage. I was drunk on the music
and the

atmosphere, and I’d never felt like that in

my life. It was
too much and not enough at

the same time.

“I never want to leave!” I yel ed.

“You’ll have to sleep sometime. And

they will kick us out eventual y.”

He seemed distracted.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine. My head’s somewhere

else.”

“Do you want to go?”

He shook his head and smiled.

“No way. I’m not cutting your first

experience short. We’re staying until the

end.”

“We don’t have to.”

“Are you sure?”

I looked at the stage.

“One more song?” I said.

“Deal!” He put his arm around me and

kissed my forehead.

We stayed for that one song, that song

that changed our lives.

When it ended, we moved through the

crowd and went back to
the parking lot.

Nathan had volunteered to drive me back to

Maine
to surprise my stepsister Jessica on

her birthday. He’d said he had a
few friends

he wanted to visit anyway, so it was no big

deal. I felt
bad for making him drive me all

the way to Maine, but he said he
didn’t

mind and I could pay him back by giving him

a ride another
time. He was such a good

friend. Would have given me the shirt
off his

back.

“Friends don’t owe friends. You do a

favor, they do one back
and eventual y you

forget and you just end up doing nice things

for
each other. That’s how it should work

anyway.” When it came to
advice, Nathan

always had some, and it was always good,

even if
I didn’t understand it at the time, or

thought he was crazy. In the
end, he was

always right.

We spent the trip back home searching

every station on the radio
for new music. Up

and down the dial, AM and FM. It was

amazing what you could find when you

went outside your comfort zone,
something

I’d always been afraid of. Nathan had held

my hand
and pul ed me into a world I didn’t

know existed. A world of passion and music

and love. He was just so happy that being

with him
made me happy, too.

“Call me if you need anything, Jossy,

and I’ll be here,” he said
when he dropped

me off. I’d told him about my family issues,

and
he’d told me he had some of his own.

“So I’ll see you on Sunday?”

“Unless I go crazy before then,” I said,

rol ing my eyes. From the
driveway I could

already hear my stepdad yel ing at one or

another
of my siblings and then there was a

crash.

“Just call me if you need to.” He gave

me a hug and I didn’t
want to get out of the

car.

Barely a half hour later, I’d already had

a fight with my mother
and had escaped the

house. Luckily, one of my stepbrothers had

gotten a letter from the school principal

about cutting class, so I’d seized
my chance.

I felt bad for doing it, but I figured Nathan

wasn’t that
far away and could come get

me.

“Hey, Jossy, what’s up?”

“Hey, Nathan. Can you come get me? I

hate to ask, but I can’t
stay here.”

“Of course. I just have to take care of

something and then I’ll be
right there,

okay?”

I wiped my eyes and looked back at the

house. I didn’t know if
I could handle that.

Things had been bad lately, and I was pretty

sure Mom was on the verge of another

divorce.

“Hurry.”

“I’m on my way, Jossy.” He hung up

and that was the last thing
he said to me.

I got up a few hours later and put on

some music, but I had to turn it off because

it seemed like every song was trying to

either remind me of Dusty or remind me of

Nathan, so I shut it off and put a movie on

my computer. Something with a lot of

explosions and crappy dialogue that

wouldn’t make me cry or think or anything

like that. But even those movies have some

sappy moments, and I found myself crying

for a stupid robot.

“Knock, knock.”

“It’s open,” I said, wiping my eyes and

shutting my computer. I would not let

anyone know that I cried watching a movie

about robots from space.

Taylor poked her head in with a

tentative smile on her face.

“I thought you might want something to

eat. Or drink. Or company.” I didn’t want

any of the above, but it was sweet of her to

ask, so I sat up and patted the end of my

bed.

“I’ve been where you are, Jos.” No, she

hadn’t, but I kept my mouth shut. The

reason Taylor had been messed up was

because of something that happened to

her. Not something that she had any

control over. I was messed up because I

deserved it. I deserved the torment the

universe was visiting on me. I deserved to

drown in it.

She said sweet things, and I listened and

tried to look like I was listening and

absorbing and that she was being helpful.

“So you can’t let the bad things that

happen to you stop you from seeing the

good things.” It was cute and all well and

good for her. I was happy that she was

happy and had a good life. I’d never get

that.

This was the most depressing pity party

ever, which was probably the point of a pity

party.

“Renee is convinced he tried to hurt

you, but she’s suspicious of everyone and

everything. I also know that if I’ve learned

anything about you, it’s that if a guy tried to

hurt you, he would never survive, and you

wouldn’t defend him.

So, what I think is that he was trying to

tell you something that you didn’t want to

hear. Am I getting warm?”

Yes.

“No.”

“Uh-huh. So the question is, what was

he trying to tell you and why didn’t you

want to hear it?”

Okay, I was really sick of people having

theories about me. If I was better at lying,

I’d come up with a completely reasonable

explanation that everyone would believe.

Or I should have just done what I’d

considered a few times and run away

without looking back. But of course, that

plan had a flaw in the form of my sister

Renee. If there was anyone who would

search the ends of the earth for me and

then drag me back from the edge of it, it

would be Renee.

“I’m not going to force it out of you. It

will happen when you’re ready. Hell, I spent

years keeping my secret just as fiercely as

you’re keeping yours. So I get it.” She got up

and patted my shoulder.

“Things have a way of working

themselves out, whether you make the

effort or not.” With that she shut the door

quietly and left me alone again.

“You look like shit,” Hannah said when I

showed up to Pam’s class on Wednesday.

Renee had insisted that I take off Tuesday

as well, but I thought it was so she could

keep an eye on me.

I sure as hell wasn’t suicidal, but that

didn’t seem to matter, no matter how many

times I told her. My razor and all the knives

in the kitchen and even the aspirin vanished

mysteriously, and I suspected her and at

least one other member of the house, but I