"I want to talk to himright now, dammit!"
I turn my head and see Jules angrily shouting at an officer. When I call her name, she whirls around instantly. Seconds later, she throws her arms around my neck, nearly knocking me over.
"Goddamn… I’m so glad to see you," she mutters with a mixture of distress and anger.
Her emotions wash over me and want to consume me, but I don’t let them. "I’m so sorry," I say incoherently. "I didn’t do this. You have to believe me."
She nods at my shoulder before letting go of me and looking at me urgently. "I know you would never do something like that to him."
Only now do I notice that her face is red and wet with tears. She is completely distraught, and all at once, the tears burst out of me as well. "Why does he keep saying it’s true, Jules? Why is he lying?"
She shakes her head. "I don’t know."
"Miss Reed?" the officer interjects again with audible discomfort.
I wipe the tears from under my eyes and glance at her for a moment before looking back at Jules, clasping her hand with mine. "I’ll go with her."
The policewoman looks from me to Jules and back again. "You sure?"
Anger bubbles up in my chest because she, too, seems to think she knows what’s best for me.
"I’ll go with her," I repeat insistently. "Thank you for yourefforts."
Before she or Jules can say anything back, I turn away and walk toward the exit, dragging Jules behind me.
After driving us home in Cole’s pickup and while Buster is greeting me profusely, Jules heads straight for the open kitchen. Meanwhile, I look around the large room that has been my home for a week and seems more familiar to me than my own room ever was.
Everything smells of him, but that’s the only thing that has remained. The motorcycle? Disappeared. The pool table? Pushed into the corner and dusted. The television? Gone. The coffee machine? No longer there.
"What happened here?" I want to know quietly.
"Better. Not. Ask," she says almost bitterly. "Jack?"
As I turn to her, she holds up Cole’s whiskey and looks at me with raised eyebrows.
"I think it’s a good day to start," I decide, to which she nods in agreement before grabbing two glasses from one of the cabinets.
After we sit down at the table, she pours for both of us and slides one glass toward me while keeping the other in her hand. "Cheers."
I frown. "What?"
"Just drink," she replies tonelessly instead of explaining, pouring the amber liquid into herself.
Without thinking any further, I do the same. The alcohol burns in my throat, making me cough, but it also tastes like Cole, so I empty my glass.
Jules is already pouring herself another glass and refills mine as well, before setting the bottle aside and looking at me. "Now tell me exactly what happened after I left. That dumbass didn’t think it was necessary to explainanythingto me."
So I tell her. Everything. That Cole slept with me, and then wanted to fix the bike. What happened when we got back, and that we escaped to a motel. I told her how Cole literally abandoned me the day after, and that I didn’t know where to go, which is why I went back to my mom. That I still had the phone he had bought me, but kept it hidden.
At that, Jules ruefully confessed to me that Cole had forbidden her to text me back, but I can’t be angry with her for that. Instead, I tell her about the day I confronted my mother with what had happened, and how she found the phone shortly after and handed it over to the police.
I blame myself terribly for that. If I had hidden the stupid thing better or just let it disappear, it probably would never have led to Cole getting arrested. But since I had to keep it and torture myself with it, it was only a matter of time before my mother found it.
"Stop it," Jules demands again. "It’s not your fault. Your mother was the one who raised the suspicion in the first place."
"But why is he acting like all of this is true?Why,Jules? And what happened here?" I make a sweeping motion with my hand. "What happened tohim?"
Jules sinks into herself and closes her eyes. "I don’t know," she replies wearily. "When I called him from Chicago to ask about you, all he said was that you weren’t there anymore. I raged and threatened to come right back, but he just hung up on me. Because I couldn’t reach him after that, I got on the next plane, and when I finally got here, he was lying on the couch, absolutely wasted, while everything here was smashed. Ittook hours before I got him to talk. He drove me crazy with his fucking silence."
