Page 74 of His Heart

“I wasn’t going to hook up with him,” she said, her eyes still on the floor.

“No?” I asked. “He sure seemed to think so. At least you picked a guy with a conscience.”

“That wasn’t what I was doing,” she said.

“Bullshit,” I said, spitting the word at her. “I don’t know what happened at the bar, but you left with a pack of fucking party boys and got in the back of a pickup truck. You tried to jump out while they were joyriding down the goddamn highway.”

“What?” she asked.

“They had to hold you down,” I said. “You could have fucking killed yourself. And then they took you back to their house. You only ended up with me because you were so out of it, the guy decided he didn’t want to fuck some girl’s unconscious body. He called me to come get you.”

Brooke stared at me, stricken. Her face was pale, her eyes bloodshot. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“What were you thinking?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s it?” I asked. “You don’t know. You could have been raped, or killed. I was going out of my fucking mind trying to find you, and you don’t know.”

“I didn’t mean to get so out of control,” she said. “I just wanted…”

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said.

I waited to see if she would say anything else. If she’d try to explain what she’d been doing last night. Nothing.

“Fine.” I stood up. “I’ll take you home.”

She stared at me for a second, looking like I’d just slapped her. I tore my eyes away from her pain and grabbed my keys.

“Let’s go,” I said. “I have shit to do today.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll walk,” she said, her voice trembling.

She walked away. I stood in the kitchen and listened to her footsteps, then the door open and close.

“Fuck.” I pushed the chair across the wood floor and it slammed against the wall. Probably left a dent I’d have to fix later.

Charlie poked his head in. “Is it safe?”

“Were you listening?”

“I caught the end,” he said. “Sorry, I came down and you guys were talking. Or, you were mostly.”

“Whatever. I don’t care.”

He grabbed the chair and pulled it back to the table.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “I know she’s been through some shit, but why is she so goddamn self-destructive? Just when it seems like she’s better—she’s not so sad and fucked up all the time—she pulls this crap. She could have died last night.”

“She needs help, Seb,” Charlie said. “Not the kind of help you can give her.”

“I know she does,” I said. “I’ve told her that, but she blows me off.”

“Maybe last night will be a wake-up call,” he said. “Like hitting rock bottom.”

“Will it, though?” I asked. “On her last day in Phoenix, she was a step away from being homeless. Living with a guy who beat the shit out of her. You know why she didn’t want to call the cops that night? She had drugs in her system. She was afraid of getting arrested. Shouldn’t that have been rock bottom?”

---