Breaking Beautiful (17 page)

“I still don’t remember anything.” I try to sound sure, hoping that that will be the end of his interrogation.

“That must be kind of unnerving, to have a block of time when you don’t know where you were or what you did.”

My blood chills. I want to ask him what he means by that, if he’s accusing me of something. The truth is, it’s a thought that keeps haunting me, too. I don’t know what I did that night. I don’t know what really happened.

“But I guess no one can blame you for not being able to remember. You took quite a blow to the head. You seem to be doing okay now, though.” He smiles. “You even have a new boyfriend.”

My throat goes dry, like I swallowed a mouthful of sand. Now the real reason he brought me here comes out. Because I was seen with Blake. “Blake’s just a friend.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Just a friend? Are you sure he feels the same? He seemed pretty protective of you when I pulled him over.”

“We’ve been friends for a long time.”

“Are you sure you want to be friends with a guy like him? Blake has a bit of a record, doesn’t he? Some problem in Nevada?”

I should tell him that’s none of his business. That it was a long time ago. I should defend Blake, but I don’t even know how to defend myself. I step toward the door. “If we’re done here, my dad’s waiting. He needs to get back to work.”

Detective Weeks doesn’t move. “Your dad’s a mechanic, right? Owns that new shop in town?”

“Yes.” I say it slowly, trying to figure out where he’s going with this.

“He ever teach you anything about cars?”

“No.” I keep my voice even. “Dad just got out of the Army. Before that he was gone all the time.”

“What about your friend Blake? Does he know cars? That thing he drives, that old El Camino, probably needs a lot of maintenance, right? Does your dad help him with that, or does he do it himself?”

“I don’t know.” My head is spinning, and my scar tightens. I’m not sure where Detective Weeks is going with any of this, but it feels bad, bad for me and bad for Blake.

“Funny thing about the accident report.” He riffles through some papers on the desk. I wonder if the accident report is sitting on the desk beside him. I wonder what it says. “It didn’t say how fast Trip was going when he hit the corner. Usually they measure skid marks to figure that out.” I stand next to the door, frozen. “Do you know why they couldn’t figure out how fast the truck was going?” His eyes bore into my soul.

I don’t answer.

“Because there weren’t any skid marks.”

Chapter
23

I have to stay away from Blake.

The realization hits me like an icy wave as I walk down the lobby to the front of the police station. How could I have not seen it before? Hannah’s voice screams in my head.
“You poison everyone and everything that gets near you.”
She was right, but I was too stupid, too selfish, to see that I was poisoning Blake just by being near him. Now Detective Weeks thinks he’s mixed up in whatever happened the night of the accident. And I can’t even remember enough to keep him out of trouble. Not even enough to keep myself out of trouble. Guilt by association.

“What did Detective Weeks want?” Dad’s voice interrupts my thoughts. I forgot that he was waiting for me.

I hold up the ticket meekly. “I forgot to pay this.”

“Your ticket? That’s what he wanted?” Dad doesn’t look like he believes me. “You were in there a long time.”

“He gave me a big lecture about what could have happened. He said he could have had me arrested.”

“He’s right. You need to be more careful.” Dad takes the ticket from me. I wonder if “you need to be more careful” means something more. “Do you have any money to pay for this?”

“A little.” I shake my head. “Not enough.”

Dad pulls out his wallet and pays the ticket. He’s quiet all the way out to the car. Finally he says, “Did Detective Weeks ask you anything about the accident?”

I open my mouth to lie. Then I see his face, the face of a man who ten months ago was interrogating insurgents in a war zone. Lying to him is impossible. “Yes.”

“And what did you tell him?” Dad’s voice stays even.

I trace the edge of the tigereye in my pocket. “That I don’t remember anything.”

“Is that true?” his interrogator voice asks.

I shake my head, no and yes, and say, “It’s all a jumble. Images that don’t make any sense. Dreams.”

Dad touches my arm. “Maybe if you went back to that counselor. Maybe you have post-traumatic stress disorder or something like that. A lot of guys came back from the war with that stuff. Maybe if you had someone to talk—”

“No!” I say it too quickly, and then back off. “All she did was tell me I was angry, that I should hit my pillow.”

“Instead of Hannah.” Dad’s voice lightens a little. He squeezes my arm and then starts the car.

I lean my head back.

“Maybe you just need time.”

I nod. My head hurts.

“I just hope they’re willing to give you time.”

My eyes flutter open. “Who?”

Dad breathes in. “This town is too small. People talk too much.” He looks at me hard.

“What have you heard?” Like I don’t know. Like I don’t know that they’re all talking about me, and about Blake, and why we’re together so much, so soon.

“Some people are saying that the accident was suspicious and if they’re paying for a new detective, he should be doing some investigating.” He pulls out of the police station and heads for home.

I think about what Detective Weeks said about there being no skid marks. Would Dad know why there wouldn’t be skid marks? Could I ask him? What would he think if I did?

“You seem to be the missing piece in all of this.” He turns and looks at me. “Because you were the only witness, I worry that people might take some of their suspicions out on you. If they had a clearer picture of the night of the accident. If you could remember …”

My head hurts. “You’re not helping. I said I couldn’t remember!”

“Right.” He touches my leg. “Sorry.”

He’s silent for the rest of the way home. He parks in the driveway and looks at me again. “Blake’s grandma came into the shop today. She’s having problems with that old Buick again. She mentioned that she had asked you to work for her.”

“She did,” I answer. “But I wasn’t—”

“I told her I thought it would be a good idea. It’ll give you a way to pay me back, and I do expect you to pay me back.” Dad
raises his eyebrows. “It might be good for you to be out doing something.”

“I don’t think I should.” For Blake’s sake.

“Try it for a while. At least long enough to pay me back.” It kind of feels like Dad is ordering me to work for Grandma Joyce. “You’re eighteen. In less than a year you’ll be going away to college. It’s time you took some responsibility for your life.”

I lie in bed that night, trying to figure out what Dad meant about taking responsibility for my life. Another veiled reference to trying to remember the accident, or something else? I’ve been living in survival mode for so long that anything in the future feels vague and far away. If I go away to college, will I be able to escape everything that happened here? Can I hold out that long?

I think about the painting of me that Blake has in his attic. A dream. A dream I shattered for both of us a long time ago. I rub the tigereye across my lips and try to remember what it felt like to have his lips against mine. After all I’ve done, I don’t deserve him, but he’s willing to give me another chance.

The rest of the town isn’t willing to give either of us a chance, but if the accident investigation were closed, if Detective Weeks went away, then would the town forget? Would I be able to be with Blake?

Everything Detective Weeks said churns inside of me. Why were there no skid marks? Did he mean Trip went over the cliff on purpose? Was that where Detective Weeks was going with the whole “depression” thing?

But Trip wasn’t depressed. Everybody loved him. He had everything. He was great at sports. He was gorgeous. He had plenty of money. He had me to control.

Maybe he was just too drunk to make the corner.

I close my eyes and press the tigereye against my scar. It would be easy. All I’d have to say was Trip was drinking that night. That he was drunk when he went around the corner. That I jumped to save myself. The case would be closed. People would stop looking at me like it was my fault. No one would question Blake. No one would care if we were together.

I’d seen Trip drive drunk plenty of times before. The night before the accident, when I snuck out to rescue him, he was drunk. I tried to get him to let me drive him home.

“You need to let me drive. Just give me the keys, okay?
”

“
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t tell me what to do!”

“Trip, please, you’re drunk. I don’t want you to—”

He turns on me so fast I don’t have time to avoid his fist crashing into my shoulder. I fall backward, my back slamming against a jagged stump on the way down.

James and Randall look the other way.

The thought hits me almost as hard as Trip’s fist. I sit up in bed. James and Randall both saw Trip hit me the night before the accident. They both know.

I lie in bed for hours thinking about it. When I finally fall asleep I dream that Trip hits me and that I fall backward and hit my head on something hard. The whole town is standing around, but no one acknowledges me. No one acknowledges what he did. No one helps. They just leave me there, lying in a puddle. I’m wearing the dress from cotillion. And the puddle is red.

Chapter
24

“Excellent, Allie,” Grandma Joyce says as she leans over my shoulder. Three lessons into this and I’m getting better at keeping my hands from shaking, or at least hiding it from Grandma Joyce.

“She just made a striped vanilla candle, perfect texture, without burning anything or ruining the pan.” She raises her eyebrows, like that should mean something to Blake. He grunts back.

Grandma Joyce shakes her head. “Blake isn’t really here right now.”

I’ve already learned that when Blake is into his art, the whole world could explode and he wouldn’t notice. Right now he’s studying a black-and-white picture, a charcoal pencil in his hand and a big piece of paper on an easel in front of him. He has a smudge of charcoal on his cheek and his knuckles are smeared with black.

I smile back, glowing from her praise. Being freaked out about making a mistake has actually been a good thing. I seem to be getting better at this.

“What are you working on, B.?” Grandma Joyce crosses the room to Blake and studies the picture. “Ah, the mill.” She leans over and brushes the hair out of Blake’s eyes.

This wakes him up from his trance. He pulls away from her. “Grandma.”

“Scruffy again, Blake.” She shakes her head.

“I like his hair long,” I say without thinking.

Blake blushes, grins, and rubs his throat, leaving a streak of black there, too.

“Thanks, Allie,” Grandma Joyce says. “Now I’ll never get him to cut it.” She leans closer to the picture beside Blake on the desk. “This was the mill during its heyday. Before it shut down, most of the town worked there. If it wasn’t for Mr. Phillips revamping the inn and bringing in tourists, Pacific Cliffs would have probably died out completely.”

She flips through the book. “Allie, have you ever seen this picture of your mom?”

I set the candle mold down and join her across the room. The page she’s looking at has rows of beautiful teenage girls in varied styles of formals and big updos.

“Yeah. I’ve seen that picture before.” I try to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Mom’s official Beachcomber’s picture: her gold-blond hair piled on top of her head, a sequined blue gown draping over her hips, her smile perfect—as always.

I remember how hard Mom tried to convince me to do Beachcomber’s, filled out the application for me and everything.
Trip didn’t like the idea of my parading in front of a bunch of other guys. And how could I wear the fitness outfit, shorts and a short-sleeved T-shirt, my bruises on display for everyone? Mom was more than disappointed. I think it was her dream for me to follow in her footsteps.

“Beachcomber’s Queens—look at the lot of them.” Grandma Joyce slides her finger down the page. “Your mom, and this is Patty George, Hannah’s aunt. That should have been Phoebe’s year. If she hadn’t run off, it would have been. Just like her dad—ran away when things weren’t going her way.”

Blake’s face twists. I think it hurts him when his grandma talks like that about his mom. I study the pageant queens so I don’t have to see his discomfort. Hannah’s aunt is wearing a strapless red satin dress, bloodred like my dress from cotillion. It looks so familiar that it makes my head hurt. I close my eyes. Angie’s high-pitched voice fills my head.

“That’s a fabulous dress, Allie. I don’t know why you keep it covered up.”

I pull the white sweater closer to my body. “I’m cold
.”

“
It’s like eighty degrees in here; how could you be cold?
”

“
Allie’s always cold.” Trip drapes his arm over my shoulder and starts fingering the neckline of my dress. “But maybe I can convince her to take off that jacket later tonight, after I give her her birthday present.”

I elbow him away, and then wait for his subtle retribution—fingers digging into a bruise he knew was there, or a look that tells me I’m in trouble for making him look stupid in public—but it doesn’t come.

“Everybody bow down.” Angie rolls her eyes. “Here comes the queen.”

I follow her gaze to what distracted Trip from punishing me. Hannah, standing in the doorway in her sash and crown, on the arm of some
trophy date—always hot but never good-looking enough to overshadow her. Trip’s eyes travel every inch of her emerald-green dress, from the deep neckline to the slit at her hip. She watches him, too.