“Gracie,” I whisper.
She looks down and away, eyes glued to the floor.
“Let me look at it, please. You don’t need to hide from me,” I say softly.
“Okay.”
After placing the remote on the table, I gingerly roll up the leg of her sweatpants and pull down her sock. An angry, dark yellowish-green bruise surrounds a swollen area the size of a golf ball on her left ankle.How is she even wearing normal shoes with this?The sheer force he must’ve pushed her with to dothis kind of damage… I brush my thumb in a feather-like touch against her battered ankle and suck in a shaky breath.
“You need to ice and elevate this, Gracie. It won’t heal properly if you keep walking on it,” I say weakly.
“Yeah, I figured. I’ll d-do it after you leave, okay?” She snatches the remote off the table and turns the movie back on.
We sit in silence for two minutes before I decide I’ve had it. I grab the remote and completely turn off the TV.
“We need to report him. Enough is enough.”
“Danny, I t-told you not t-to make this a b-big d-deal. I’ll b-be eighteen soon anyway. He won’t stay like this forever. I’m positive.”
“You can’t be serious. It’s been years of the same bullshit,” I reply, my voice hoarse. “I can’t…fuck. I’m trying not to take away from how you’re feeling. I don’t want to make this about me. It’s just…it’s just so goddamn hard to sit by and watch you get hurt. Emotionally, physically, it doesn’t matter. It’s all hard to swallow.” The blood rushes from my head, and my heart rate speeds up. “If you just let me help you, Gracie, I can fix this. I’m trying to understand.”
“That’s just it. You d-don’t understand. He’s my d-dad, and he could get b-better soon. He’s still d-dealing with the loss of my mother. I’m not over her either. I’ll never b-be over her.” She slowly pulls her feet off my legs and scoots back on the couch.
I lean toward her, closing the distance between us. “I know, but that’s no excuse for how he treats you. It’s not right, Gracie. Parents shouldn’t do this to their kids. I want to be there for you. Let me be there for you.”
“It was a one-off thing, I’m sure of it. It had b-been a really long t-time since we had an incident b-before this one. He hasn’t even b-been missing work recently. You d-don’t need t-to worry.”
I cover her hand with mine. “I care about you, Gracie. I care about you more than anything.”
“Well, if you care about me, then you won’t say anything. We’ve b-been through this b-before. If the police b-believe you, they’ll send me t-to my only living relative, Mae, in Florida. If Mae can’t t-take care of me, I’ll go into the foster care system. If the police d-don’t b-believe you, I’ll stay with D-dad, except he’ll b-be angrier than b-before. There’s no positive outcome.”
I snatch my hand back and nervously run it through my hair. “No positive outcome?Nopositive outcome? It would suck if you lived in Florida, Gracie, but you know what? At least you wouldn’t be bruised. At least you wouldn’t be hurt. At least you wouldn’t be fearing for your goddamn life every single day. At least I wouldn’t have to see my girlfriend beaten within an?—”
She brings her hand to her mouth. “Your girl?”
Heat rises in my chest, and I can’t stop barreling through my words. “Becauseguess what, Gracie? It doesn’t matter if you go to Florida. It doesn’t matter if you’re a plane ride away. You could go to California. You could go to Amsterdam. You could live in fuckingTokyo! It doesn’t matter. Because in any country, you’d be away from him. You’d be secure. You’d be safe. And you’dstillbe mine.”
“Be, be yours? Danny, I…”
I turn my head toward her without thinking and lean in. When our foreheads gently meet, Gracie gives a small gasp. My lips are so close to hers now, hovering slightly above them. I tuck a curl behind her ear, and it immediately springs back in front of her mouth. The corners of my lips turn up, and I twirl the curl with my finger this time, gently tugging on the end. Her breath smells like buttered popcorn and vanilla chapstick.
“Gracie,” I whisper, my breath warming her face. “Do you want me to?—”
“Yes. Oh my gosh,yes.”
My heart is pounding, I can feel it in my throat. This is it. I make a move to close the last bit of distance between us before the jarring sound of the front door slamming into the coat rack infiltrates our ears.
We snap apart.
Her dad is home.
Chapter 22
Grace
Seventeen Years Old
“Susannah! Where’s my fuckin’ food? I work all day and come home to an empty dinner table…Susannah! Right now, girl. Goddamn, yer sssslow as shit.”
