Page 68 of Pretty Broken Promises

We don't talk anymore as she winds up Queen Anne’s Hill, and pulls up to a park. She slaps the steering wheel. “Well, cross that one off the list. I guess this might have been far-fetched because she doesn't have a car.”

“It's pouring rain. Why are we going to a park?” I ask.

Tracy looks at me again, and this time almost with sympathy. The look says that when I find out what she knows I'm not going to like it. “We are going to a parkbecauseit's raining outside.”

“That makes absolutely no sense,” I say.

She turns her face toward the driver’s side window and mumbles, “Tell me about it.”

We head back down the hill, and re-enter my neighborhood. There are several parks surrounding my apartment building. One is constructed to look like a Japanese garden. Tessa is not there. There’s another one that is a more classic park with playground equipment for children. She isn't there either.

Tracy stays in the parking lot for a minute looking out over the surrounding area. She points off to the left. “That space there, is that a park? It's on a hill, right?”

“Yeah I think that is a park. Kind of more a viewpoint,” I confirm.

“Perfect.” She puts the car back in drive and starts heading in that direction.

When she pulls into the parking lot, I almost don't see her at first, because she is so perfectly still.

Tracy exhales. “Not again.”

“What do you mean, not again?” I ask.

Tracy shakes her head. “That's really not my place to tell you.”

“Trace, I know we've grown apart. I've got a lot to apologize to you for, but right now, my focus is on her. I need you to tell me what she needs. What is going on right now?”

“Has she spent a lot of time alone lately?”

“Football camp started a few weeks ago and it's been a bigger time commitment than either of us realized it would be. And I think that they're trying to make me stay later than everyone else.”

“Why would they do that?”

Tracy is the first person that I am going to say this out loud to. There was a time that me confiding in her would not have been strange. I might have even gone to her before I went to Shane. “I haven't figured out how I'm going to talk to Tessa about this yet, so I don't want you bringing it up to her. I am going to say something, I just don't want her to think that I'm going to go along with this bullshit.”

“Spill it, Shaw.”

“The athletic director has basically said they want me to present myself to the public as single because that will help sell more tickets to women.”

She scrunches up her eyebrows. “Isn't he the coach from our high school? He's got to know you well enough to know you're not going to go along with that.”

“Yep, and that's why they've been keeping me there later every day,” I say out loud what I only just figured out a couple hours ago.

“You think they're trying to make you guys break up,” she says, confirming my other thought.

“I was coming home to talk to Tessa about it and she was gone.”

“You cannot talk to her about this tonight. I know she seems like she's doing okay. Like she’s handling everything that we went through, but she's really good at faking shit. The truth is she wasn't doing very good before we were abducted. It's worse now. It's not every day, but if she spends too much time alone the thoughts get to her, and she just shuts down.”

“What kind of thoughts?” I already know the answer, but I still ask the question.

“Let's just say Tessa is not the kind of person who should be left alone. She's still a risk to herself.”

“She's been working crazy hours. I think Carol pretty much forced her to leave today.”

Tracy nods her head. “Yeah, that's because she still has some sense of self-preservation. When she scares herself, she finds a park. It's better when it's raining.”

“But it's cold.” I know my comment is stupid the second that I say it, because Tessa is doing this instead of cutting herself.

---