determined to prove her point, so she sent him off without so much as a kiss goodbye.
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” she begins.
“No.”
“What do you mean, no? You haven’t even heard my brilliant plan.”
“And yet the answer is still no.”
“Hey, I’ll have you know I’m excellent with my hands, and I’ve never had any complaints in the sexy time department.”
I laugh. “You’re brilliant plan was that we should convert to lesbianism?”
She shrugs. “I’ll try anything once.”
“I think that’s your problem.”
Holly grabs the bottle and pours another round, “When did we get so pathetic, Ana?”
“When my boyfriend—no, when my
“Right.” Holly throws back her shot and beats her chest while making a coughing-wheezing sound that makes her sound like a decrepit old woman. Then she immediately pours another and raises her glass to me. “To men who fuck you over.”
I clink my glass with hers. “To men who rip out your heart.”
“To men and their stupid, beautiful, unforgettable cocks.”
“Amen.”
“Have you heard from him?”
“No.”
“Do you want to?”
I sigh. I don’t know why she asks me this, but every week it’s the same. I want to forget him so badly. If it were possible to cut him out of my heart completely, I’d do it. I’d do it and never look back, but I can’t. So the ache and the longing just continue to build inside me until I’m drowning in it: drowning in how much I miss him. How much I still love him and how much I can never forget.
“No,” I lie, but I know even Holly doesn’t believe that.
“Yeah, me neither,” she says and pours us both another drink.
Two weeks later I’m enjoying a lazy Sunday lie-in before having to make my way over to the shop for more baking when the phone rings. Apparently no one else is capable of picking it up, because it rings out and then immediately begins ringing again. I throw back my covers and dash for the kitchen, yanking the receiver from the cradle before it cuts out again.
“Hello?”
“Ana.” It’s Holly. Or at least I think it’s Holly; it’s hard to tell between all the sniffling and sobbing.
“Hols, what’s wrong?”
“I’m pregnant.”
“Uh …
“I’m staring at twenty sticks with pee on them all screaming positive. My boobs hurt, I wanna simultaneously chuck my guts up and inhale a vat of ice cream, oh and that condom that Coop said was still good after he’d been carting it around in his car since the beginning of time was not even fucking close to being
“Holy crap.”
“What am I going to do, Ana?”
“Hols, we’ll figure this out. Just sit tight, I’m coming over.”
“Okay. Ana?”
“Yeah?”
“Bring ice cream.”
“Okay.” I hang up the phone and stare at the countertop and the remnants of a big Sunday cook-up that Dad’s left in the sink and I kind of want to throw up myself. Then I shake off the shock as best as I can and head back to my room. I throw on the first thing I see, yank my hair back into a ponytail and dash out the door.
It’s not until I’m making a beeline for the frozen produce aisle that I remember why I’ve not set foot in this store in over two months. The surreptitious glances, the sombre silence as I leave a trail of gawking shoppers in my wake. It seems a couple of months aren’t long enough for Sugartown residents to get used to the idea that the town “whore” was in actual fact as pure as virgin snow, and their beloved town sports star was a rapist scumbag. My bruises may have healed on the outside but these people remind me daily of the damage done on the inside with their stares and their weighty silence.
I steel my nerves, straighten my spine and avoid their gazes as I turn the corner into the frozen foods section. There are two shoppers at the end of the aisle but I don’t pay them any mind; I don’t even glance in their direction. I just scan the freezer for Holly’s favourite brand and dive in when I see one tub left at the very back. Twenty seconds later I yank it free, and emerge from the cold covered in goose bumps and come face to face with Scott.
The ice cream falls to my feet and my heart leaps around inside my chest as I take in his face and the chicken scratch on his forehead.
Elijah’s handiwork.
I’d heard about it, of course. Between the town and my dad I’d known exactly what Elijah had carved into his face, but that knowledge couldn’t compare to seeing it firsthand. The letters are etched into his skin with crude red scabs. It’s so disgusting and barbaric and yet fitting, all the same. It’s obvious he’s growing out his hair in an effort to hide it. Seems a stain that dirty should be imprinted on his soul, not just his forehead. Still, I guess it does what Elijah intended it to do, though that doesn’t make it any easier to see up close.
“Take one more step and I’ll scream so loud I’ll bring this place down on top of us.”
“I’m not here to hurt you,” he says holding up his hands in surrender. “Just shopping with my mum.”
“And violating a restraining order, but then, the rules don’t really apply to guys like you, do they?”
“Ana, I’m really sorry about what I did. I was drunk. I didn’t know about you being …” I suck in a sharp breath and he peters off. I glance at his mother who doesn’t even have the sense to pretend she’s not watching this exchange like a hawk.
“Did your parents put you up to this?”
“No, I wanted—”
“You think you can smooth this over with an apology? Make it all go away?”
“That’s not what I’m trying to do-”
“Bullshit. Let’s call this what it is—a last ditch effort to get me to drop the case. Which, by the way, is never ever going to happen. You might be walking around like a free man now, but when this trial happens you’re going away for a long time.” I point my finger at his forehead. “The man who did that happens to be in the exact same prison you’re about to call home, and I’ll bet everything I have he’s counting down the days until he sees you again.”
“Ana—”
I turn on my heel to walk away but Scott reaches out and grabs my arm. I rip it out of his grasp and seethe. “Don’t you dare touch me, you filthy pig.”
And then I quickly walk away, holding my head high. I stalk past the gawping faces of shoppers and past the cashier who’d been working that till since I was five years-old and out into the midday sunshine of the parking lot where my heart drops through my stomach and I promptly fall apart.
“Where’s the ice-cream?” Holly asks as I step into her bathroom and quickly shut the door behind me.
“Probably still on the supermarket floor,” I mutter and then elaborate when she sends me a curious look, “I ran into Scott.”
“Holy fuck, Ana! Are you okay?”
“Oddly, I think I am. Or at least I will be.” I sit down beside her and she leans her head on my shoulder before handing me a pregnancy test. I glare at the little plus sign like it personally offends me. “So you went and
