Thirty-Three
(Wednesday, August 17, 2016)
Dakota lay in bed—she’d been awake and dressed for hours now—fingering the soapstone four-leaf clover her grandfather had given her for her birthday. After they’d left Bull’s Body Art, he’d tucked it in her hand, along with a scrap of paper and his phone number, and closed her fingers around it with an affectionate pat.
“Seems like you need it more than me right now.” He’d been right. Because when she’d finally made it home late yesterday afternoon, her mom had said nothing. Which could only mean one of two things: she’d been too hungover to care, or she’d been plotting Dakota’s demise. The most horrible, truly awful, unfair punishment that her psychologist brain could conjure.
The knock on her door, measured but firm, turned Dakota’s stomach. She tucked her grandfather’s lucky charm into her pocket.
“Are you awake?” her father asked, without opening it. He was only being nice, softening the blows to come. It was nearly ten, and he wasn’t at work yet.
“Yes.”
“Come downstairs, please.”
“Alright.” Dread deepened her voice, weighed her down. So that every step felt like an effort.
Even Gus seemed subdued as he followed her into the lion’s den, his tail dragging.
Her parents sat opposite each other, the coffee table between them. On it, smack-dab in the center, the worst thing she could have imagined. Her cell phone. Powered on and unlocked.
“Sit,” her father directed.
Dakota could tell they had a plan. They never made plans anymore. Not like this. One where they’d teamed up against her. She couldn’t decide whether to be furious or grateful.
“I don’t even know where to start,” he began.
“I do.” Her mom stood up, tapped a few keys on Dakota’s phone and held it out to her. “Explain this.”
“It’s not me. I mean, it’s partly me. My face and all. But it’s photoshopped.”
“And this one?”
“I sent it to Tyler when we were dating. I begged him to delete it. I thought he had.”
“So you’re sending half-naked pictures to boys now? That’s what you’re doing? Did you have sex with him too?”
“No.”
“I don’t—we don’t—trust you anymore.” Her mom took another step toward her, looming over her now. So close, Dakota smelled the alcohol on her breath. Over her shoulder, Dakota searched out her father. But he seemed transfixed. Her mother’s anger could do that. “That’s not even the worst of it. Ha! I can’t believe I’m saying that. That this is what it’s come to.”
Her mother fiddled with the phone again, cursing under her breath. She slammed it against the coffee table. Dakota winced when she saw the cracked screen.
“Mollie, calm down.”
She spun around like she’d been lashed with a whip. “You don’t get to tell me that, Cole. You haven’t been here. Why do you think she’s like this? Sneaking out, lying. Making me miss work. Letting me think she got a real tattoo. Embarrassing me on the phone with some guy named Bull. Bull. As if that’s a reasonable name. He probably knows more about my own daughter than I do.”
“I tried to tell you, Mom, but you—”
“But me, nothing. Your father and I have already decided. You’re leaving early for Starry Sky. Go pack your shit.”
“No.”
“What did you say?”
“I’m not leaving. I’m not the one who needs help. Dad is having an affair with Hannah’s mom. I can’t believe you’re too naive to see that. But it’s as obvious as this tattoo. And you . . . you’re just like Grandpa used to be. A total drunk.”
Dakota saw it coming. She tried to duck. But some things are inevitable. Like the back of her mother’s left hand—that big, meaningless diamond—against her cheek, harder than she’d ever felt it. So hard, she saw stars.
“What the hell, Mol!”
Her head buzzing, Dakota sprinted up the stairs to her room. Slammed the door. Locked it. She touched her fingers to her cheek. They came back wet and red and shaking.
Numb, she moved through the room on autopilot. If she stopped, if she thought, if she let herself feel anything at all, she’d start to cry. She couldn’t afford to cry. Not now. Not yet.
She flung open her closet, her drawers. Grabbed her Grizzlies sweatshirt. A change of underwear.
She’d never run away before. But she stuffed her backpack with everything she didn’t want her mother to find. Her Shadow Man notebook from under the mattress, Roscoe’s collar from her rain boot.
Downstairs, World War who-knows-what-number had erupted. Dakota listened as the enemy combatants exchanged fire.
“She knows, Cole! Why can’t you just be a man and admit it to her?”
“Because you told me not to tell her, goddammit. Then you haul off and hit her.”
“She needs to learn some respect. Obviously, you’re not teaching her.”
“Like you are? Your dad hit you, right? Do you respect him?”
When the battle traveled up the stairs and into the master bedroom, Dakota slunk out, backpack on her shoulder. She tiptoed into the kitchen, shushing Gus, and stocked up on the essentials. Water and granola bars and a jumbo-sized bag of M&Ms.
“I can’t believe you kissed that woman in front of our daughter. You destroyed her.”
“Please. And you’re perfect? I saw the way you looked at Peter Jacoby at the Fourth of July party. You’re probably already fucking him, aren’t you?”
Dakota cracked the door open and slipped out, barely shutting it behind her.
She never looked back. Not once.
****
Dakota pedaled faster than she ever had.
She’d already zipped down Ridgecrest and taken the dirt shortcut toward downtown, a narrow, bumpy trail that wound through the woods. With her slim street-bike tires, she usually avoided it. But it was the fastest route and the most secluded. She just wanted to be alone.
Huffing, she stopped at the edge of the trail. She laid her bike down and shrugged off her backpack, resting in the shade on a rotted stump. The bleeding had stopped, at least. She couldn’t say the same for her tears, which kept flowing no matter how many times she told herself to stop.
Dakota closed her eyes and tried to think. One thought at a time. But they came in a rush, like demonic butterflies, each one intent on obliterating the other. So she gave up trying. Just sat there listening to the animals scurrying in the underbrush. But then it reminded her of Mol’s. Of that angry rattler staked to the tree. Of her mother. The whack across her face. She couldn’t sit still any longer.
Backpack in tow, she mounted her bike and rode toward the library.
****
At Storybook Corner, she logged on to Shadow Snoops. Three direct messages from Boyd.
I’m sorry.
So sorry.
Sorrier than the Dallas Morning News, circa 1977, when they forgot the second “e” in Wookiee.
A hollow laugh clunked from her throat. It felt raw, and her eyes welled again.
She reread Boyd’s messages—all of them—from the very beginning. Then she deleted them one by one. She felt stupid for wanting to impress him. For thinking she could solve the Shadow Man case.
Well, it was over now.
Dakota logged out and studied her reflection in the screen, a bruise already forming on her cheek. At least her mom would have to look at it for a while. She gathered herself, the broken pieces, and headed for the exit.
When the door parted, a familiar face greeted her.
“Gus! What are you doing here?”
He stood there in the heat, his dripping tongue lolling at her. His tail swished like a windshield wiper against the ground.
“Did you sneak out behind me?”
She couldn’t explain her relief. Only that his licking and tail wagging and dog smiling soothed something aching inside her. She knew what she had to do.
“Let’s go home, buddy.”