I shake my head when he looks at me briefly.
"Oh, little darling… We’ll have to change that."
Ten minutes later, a giant cardboard box labeledDunkin’ Donutssits on my lap, filled with colorful, ring-shaped pastries.
"What are you waiting for?" Cole reaches into the box to grab one with blue icing and bites into it heartily.
I opt for a plain one without icing, as I’m not comfortable eating something that colorful, and take a small bite.
"So?"
I cover my mouth with my hand before answering, my face contorting a bit as the sugar almost hurts my teeth. "I don’t think I’ve ever had anything this sweet before."
Cole laughs and takes another donut before driving off. Then he starts listing off a wide variety of foods to find out what I haven’t eaten yet. And that seems to be a lot. Pasta, ice cream, seafood, chocolate, burgers, potato chips, and countless other things that make me realize that my mother has kept much more from me than I ever believed.
"Damn, darling… What did you eat?" Astonishment is clearly written on his face as he looks briefly at me. I think I can even see a hint of anger in his eyes.
"Vegetables from our garden, homemade bread, and cheese and meat from the market. Sometimes we had oatmeal cookies with honey."
"What about your dad, anyway?" Cole asks cautiously after a while.
"I don’t have one."
His gaze softens a bit. "Everyone has a dad. But we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to."
I turn my head to the right and look outside at the landscape rushing by.
Of course I know that I have a father. After all, I’m not stupid. But I don’t know him, and from what my mother has told me, I don’t want to, either.
"My father isn’t a good man," I reply quietly at some point.
"Why would you think that?"
"He did things to my mother that she didn’t want. And then she got me."
I know what it’s called. I’ll never forget how mad my mother got after I asked her once where I actually came from. What she told me then sounded so horrible to me that I didn’t dare ask her about it a second time. And since then, we have never talked about it again.
Cole curses softly as I continue looking out the window. "Is that why she didn’t let you out?"
"I think so. She always said the world is an ugly place and men are pure evil."
A dismissive snort escapes him. "Well… she’s not entirely wrong, you know?"
My voice sounds harsher than intended when I answer him. "But she’s not completely right, either."
A few minutes pass before he continues. "I’m sorry about what happened to your mother."
"So am I," I say quietly.
It must have been awful if it led her to such drastic measures. Raising me like that was not normal, and even though I love her and it breaks my heart to know what she went through, I now understand that it wasn’t right. She shouldn’t have had to keep me at home to protect me. She shouldn’t have taken away the lifeI could have lived just because something horrible happened to her.
"You know things usually aren’t like that between a woman and a man, don’t you?" Cole’s voice is calm but serious.
When I finally manage to turn my head in his direction, he looks at me urgently.
"Yes, I know. Jules has… explained some things to me." My cheeks warm at the words.
Cole’s chuckle breaks the strange mood that had been building up in the car. Then he twists his mouth into a crooked grin as he looks at me. "American Pie,huh?"
