by Sarina Bowen
There was a strangled noise on her end of the line, the sound that laughter made when there were tears in the mix. Eventually, Scarlet said, “I love you Bridger.”
I gave my head a couple of little smacks against the closet wall. Because sometimes there was just no way to win. “I love you, Scarlet. That’s why I can’t stand how you’re handling this. You’re holding it against me. Cutting me off instead of letting me help.”
“That’s not it. I need a little room to maneuver through this crap.”
“That’s not how love works. You’re supposed to share the crappy things as well as the good ones. You said so yourself.”
There was a defeated silence on her end of the line. “But I can’t do that with this.”
“And you can’t tell me why.” I wasn’t going to let it drop. I could wear her down until she told me. I could blow off music theory one more time, remove all her clothes and then make love to her until she knew how important she was to me.
Just as I began to really appreciate the fantasy, she said something even worse.
“Bridger, we’re going to have to take a break while I sort this out.”
“What? No way.”
“I’m sorry, Bridge. I love you, but I need some time.”
The closet seemed to get smaller then. “That makes no sense, Scarlet. I didn’t push you away when you found out about my shitty life.”
“You’re a bigger person than I am,” she said. “Goodbye for now.” These last three words were squeaked out.
“Scarlet, wait…”
She disconnected the call. And I threw my phone into the pitch black of my crappy little closet.
— Scarlet
The next week was awful. I walked around with red eyes, and The Katies tried to ask me what was wrong. But I couldn’t tell them, because I’d have to lie about our breakup and lie about the reason I couldn’t see Bridger any more.
I was so, so tired of lying.
At first Bridger called frequently, and I didn’t answer. Bridger texted me, and I did not respond. Don’t do this, he wrote. We can figure it all out.
I could picture Azzan sitting at his computer, pulling up a log of my phone’s activity. He was probably sipping a cup of coffee while spying on my life. Maybe our little spat made him chuckle.
That idea cut me right in half.
I didn’t like drama. I wasn’t that kind of girl. And the little voice inside my head was practically shrieking now. Just tell him! Just tell him the problem.
And I considered it. I really did. But if I told Bridger that Azzan was threatening him and asking questions about Lulu, Bridger would want to take my side. That’s the kind of guy he was. Then he’d think it through, and come to the only logical conclusion — he couldn’t. A desperate guy who was hiding an eight-year-old girl could not tangle with a bunch of rich, arrogant defense attorneys who had no moral compass and a whole lot of money on the line.
If I laid it all out, I’d be forcing him to choose Lucy over me. And he’d hate that. And I’d have to listen to him tell me he was sorry.
Thinking about it cost me another entire night’s sleep. While Blond Katie snored off a night of playing quarters at some fraternity, I thought of a way to get Bridger to give up on me.
The next morning, when I got a text from him, my reply was ready. Bridger, I met somebody else. And he has his nights & weekends free.
I sent this little grenade at around ten in the morning. And he neither called or texted after that.
So, I’d won that battle. And lost the war.
If I thought I’d been depressed before, it was ten times worse after that. My heart ached, and my eyes watered, and all because I’d been drained of hope.
My mistake had been to think that I could change my identity the way The Katies changed from ballet flats to stilettos. Now that I knew it wouldn’t work, I no longer felt brave and new. I no longer felt like Scarlet. Instead, it was Shannon who stumbled around campus, trying to focus on my coursework. Friendless Shannon made flash cards for memorizing Italian verbs. She studied in the library while others went to dinner. And she played her guitar on the bed while the others made plans for the Christmas Ball.
There was only one moment during those long, lonely days when Shannon made a welcome appearance. I rarely checked my snail mailbox in Warren Hall, because nobody writes to a girl with a brand new name, not even the J. Crew catalog. But on one of my rare trips to the post office, I pulled out a large envelope with the Harkness College logo on it. The return address said Office of the Dean of Student Services.
Slitting it open, I found a single sheet of paper and yet another envelope inside. The paper read:
Dear Ms. Scarlet Crowley,
Please accept our apology. The enclosed piece of mail stymied us for several weeks, since your name change was not correctly cross-referenced in our records. We have made the necessary correction, and should any more mail arrive for you, we are confident that a delay such as this one will not happen again.
Sincerely,
A.J. Roberts
College Postmaster
I inspected the envelope, which was addressed to Shannon Ellison, Class of 2017. The return address was Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, with the name Ellison scrawled above the printing.
Uncle Brian?
I slit the envelope with my thumb, and drew out another letter, dated September the twentieth, more than two months ago. It was handwritten on notebook paper, the words slanting hard to the right, as if in a hurry to reach the margin.
Dear Shannon — This will sound like a strange sentiment coming from a relative that you barely know, but I’ve been very worried about you. J.P.’s trial is going to be bloody awful. It is my misfortune to know a thing or two about criminal trials. They are long and dehumanizing, and I hope you are not too caught up in the proceedings.
Last year I tried to visit you to offer my support, but your parents weren’t having it. Now that you’re out of their house, I hope we can reconnect. Unfortunately, I don’t have a phone number for you, so I really hope you’ll give me a call. Please let me know if there’s any way I can help. If you feel like you’re in over your head, or if you just want to talk, don’t hesitate to call or write. Any time. —Uncle Brian.
He left me his email, plus work and cell phone numbers. I wasn’t about to call him from my traitorous phone, or even enter his contact information. Still, I tucked that paper into my pocketbook. It was nice to know it was there.
Chapter Fifteen: A Ginger Streak
— Bridger
“Look at that!” Lulu said, bouncing ahead of me.
I raised my eyes from the pavement to see what she wanted to show me. It was a giant, inflatable Santa Claus in the center of some poor slob’s lawn. And there were animated reindeer mechanically bowing their heads beside it.
It was the tackiest thing I’d ever seen.
Lately Lucy had the big eyes that kids got when Christmas approached. She was old enough to know that Santa was a myth, but young enough to get carried away by somebody’s cheesy lawn ornaments. “Fancy,” I said lightly.
“Isn’t it?” We both came to a stop at the pathway that led to the school. Kids were streaming past us now, because the bell was about to ring.
“You have your lunch in there, right?”
She patted her pack and nodded.
“All right. Then give me a hug.” I bent over to give her a quick squeeze. She hadn’t started blowing off the goodbye hugs yet. Though I knew my days were numbered, because she wouldn’t let me hold her hand anymore when we walked through a crowd.
“Bye Bridge,” she chirped over her shoulder as she ran off in the river of children.
“Bye!” I called after her. A moment later, her red ponytail had disappeared, and so I did a one-eighty and hoofed it back to campus.
We were down to the last week of classes, followed by a week of Reading Period, followed by exams. My classmates were waving in the end of the
semester like flight controllers on the tarmac. But the end of the term only brought me trouble, because Lucy and I had nowhere to go. Her vacation didn’t start until a week after exams were finished. So even if I fell on my sword and confessed to Hartley that we were effectively homeless, Lucy would miss a week of school if we stayed at his place. Because I had no car to get her to school from Hartley’s house.
As usual, all my choices sucked.
Putting one foot in front of the other one, I got to Stats class on time. I sat in the front row and took good notes, even though I really didn’t need to. It was hard to shake the idea that I wouldn’t be helping Scarlet study for this exam. Her rejection had been burning a hole in my gut for days.
It should have made me feel better to see that she looked miserable, too. Whenever I passed her walking into class, she snuck looks at me. She was pale and tired, and those hazel eyes fell to the desktop every time I caught her seeking me out.
To tell the truth, I felt damned uneasy about the whole thing. She’d thrown me over in a way that left very little room for interpretation. But she didn’t look like someone who was happy about having a new guy.
She looked like a wreck.
Unfortunately, being pissed at her didn’t make me love her any less. And it didn’t matter that I actually had more important problems to think about. I kept turning the events of Thanksgiving weekend over in my mind, searching for an explanation that never came.
Thursdays used to be one of my two favorite days of the week. But now the morning was just pure pain. After stats, I walked alone into music theory, careful to take a seat far from Scarlet. Avoiding somebody was hard work. When she was in the room with me, it was like there just wasn’t enough air for the both of us. My chest felt tight, and it was impossible to concentrate.
“Hi, Bridger!”
I looked up to see someone sliding into the seat next to mine. “Hi there,” I replied, careful to keep my reaction polite but uninterested. Her name was Amelia, and she’d sat next to me during Tuesday’s lecture, too. Amelia was in one of the a cappella singing groups. We’d hooked up once last year after a party in Corey Callahan’s room. Actually, we’d hooked up during the party. And after. But it was just the once, and a year ago, too.
“We’re going to review structure today,” the professor said at the head of the class. He wrote some terms on the white board as he talked. Sonata. Minuet. Concerto. “First, let’s go over the various musical notations which instruct the musician to repeat a portion of the piece.” He wrote D.C. al fine, and D.C. al coda.
“Awesome,” Amelia said beside me. “I like repeats.”
Christ. Subtle, much? Ignoring her, I scribbled down everything the professor wrote, since I couldn’t count on Scarlet to help me prepare for this exam. And I sure the hell wouldn’t be asking Amelia.
I was taking a few notes about the format of a sonata when my phone vibrated in my pocket.
— Scarlet
The goalie’s job was to see the whole rink, all the time.
So even if I didn’t want to notice the pretty girl who’d sat down next to Bridger for the second time in a row, I couldn’t help it.
In the newspaper that morning, I’d read that my father’s trial was expected to last “two or three months.” Even if that were true, there would be appeals. And after the criminal case was finally resolved, there would probably be a civil suit, too. By the time it was all over, Bridger wouldn’t even remember my face.
When I sent my awful text to Bridger, I knew it would ache to see him afterward. But watching that attractive upperclasswoman flip her hair for Bridger’s benefit gave me an outright stab of pain. I wanted to kill her with my bare hands.
Now there was a great idea. Another Ellison commits a crime. We could have our own wing in a prison somewhere.
Three cheers for gallows humor.
The professor droned on about concertos, and I didn’t take notes. I’d read this part of the textbook already.
A goalie notices everything, whether she wants to or not. So even though my view of Bridger was obscured by the flirtatious girl beside him, I knew right away when he pressed his phone to his head. And when he trotted out of the lecture hall, panic on his face, I saw it all.
A minute ticked by, then two. But he didn’t reappear. His notebook was still on top of the desk where he’d left it.
Finally, Bridger came shooting back into the room, his face red. I saw him trot over to his stuff, grab it up and turn back around in a flash. As he ran back toward the doors, I got one more look at his face.
Devastation was the only word to describe what I saw there.
As fast as possible, I shoved my things together and left to follow him. But by the time I got outside, Bridger was a ginger streak running down College Street. I jogged after him. Maybe Lucy was sick at school? But the look I’d seen on his face had freaked me out. Bridger didn’t rattle very easily. News of a tummy bug would not have affected him like that.
Still in pursuit, I saw Bridger draw up to Beaumont House. Instead of continuing on towards Lucy’s school, he scanned his card and pushed through the gates.
Weird.
By the time I got there, puffing from the run, the iron gates were shut already. My ID wouldn’t open them, either, because Beaumont was not my House. All I could do was to stand there, doing a little dance of impatience, waiting for a Beaumonter to wander by and let me in.
“Hey there. It’s Scarlet, right?” I turned around to see Bridger’s friend Hartley waving his ID in front of the sensor. “Are you and Bridger going to have lunch in the Beaumont dining hall for once? Or do I have to put both your faces on the back of that milk carton?”
“Hi,” I squeaked, grateful to be let in.
“Hey — are you okay?”
Actually, no. I stood there for a long moment, trying to decide what to say. Bridger had specifically kept Hartley out of the loop, and I understood his reasons. But even so, it had just occurred to me that I couldn’t get into Bridger’s entryway without help.
Screw it.
“I think something’s wrong with Bridger,” I said.
Two minutes later, I ran up the steps of Bridger’s entryway with Hartley on my heels. Finding the door to Bridger’s room open, I paused on the threshold. I was just in time to see Bridger kick Lucy’s mattress across the wood floor. Even as I opened my mouth to say something, he leapt over to it again, picked it up and hurled it at his own bed. “FUCK!” he shouted. Then he picked up a pink bunny and whipped it at the window. Making a fist, he punched the back of his metal desk chair, throwing it to the floor.
“Stop it!” I screamed.
Bridger didn’t even look up at me. He put both hands on the surface of his desk, and hung his head in defeat.
“What the fuck?” I heard Hartley whisper behind me.
“Bridger, please tell me what’s happened.” I walked over to the chair and set it up again. “Please.”
His shoulders heaved, and his fists clenched. He was still breathing hard, and his eyes and his face were red. Even though I was a little afraid of him, I walked closer. I put a hand on his chest. “What’s the matter?”
He took a shuddering breath, which I felt beneath my hand. “They took her out of school.”
“Who did?”
His gaze was unfocused. “DCF—the social workers. They took her out. I don’t know where she is.” His eyes had the glaze of someone who was in shock.
“Who called you?” I asked.
“Her teacher,” he said, his voice cracking. “They came to the classroom with the principal and asked for Lucy. When Mrs. Rose asked, ‘what is this regarding,’ they said ‘her mother has passed.’”
“She died?”
“That’s what they said.”
“I’m so sorry.”
His head drooped. “I’m really in the shit now.” As I watched, his eyes welled.
With two hands, I rubbed his back. I was probably the last person on earth he wante
d to touch him. But I couldn’t help myself.
He shuddered. “I told her I wouldn’t let her go.”
“You haven’t.”
“Strangers have her. She must be out of her mind.”
“I know, Bridge. We’ll get this cleared up. You’re going to have to ask for help.”
“Fuck that. Nobody will help me. They’ll tell me to let her go.”
“We’ll find someone who knows what to do. You just need to ask the right people.”
At that, he stood up and shoved my hands away. “Ask for help, like you do, Scarlet? Thanks for the tip.”
“Bridge?” Hartley asked quietly. I’d actually forgotten he was in the room. “Has Lucy been living here with you?”
“Yeah.” His voice was flat.
“Dude, why?”
Bridger chuffed out a bitter laugh. “Why do you think?”
“I mean… why didn’t you say anything? My mom would have…”
“I know,” Bridger snarled. “Teresa, who worked her ass off for twenty two years and got nowhere, would put aside her new life to help us out. I didn’t want that. And I couldn’t have made it legal without risking losing her to the system, which is exactly what just happened anyway…”
Turning his back on us again, Bridger opened his laptop. When the screen blinked to life, he typed “Connecticut department of families and children” into the search line and waited.
“What are you going to do, Bridger?” I asked. “Call them? Go there?”
“What do you care, Scarlet? Shit.” He clicked on Contact Us.
“I care a great deal,” I said quietly.
“Bullshit! I’m out of my fucking mind over you, so I never saw this coming.” His voice rose to a shout. “And now you want to help?” He yanked his phone off the desk and began dialing.
“Bridger,” I whispered.
He pressed the phone to his ear and waited.
“Bridger,” Hartley echoed.
“No,” Bridger bellowed into the phone, as his face reddened with devastation, “I do NOT know my party’s extension.” He closed his eyes.