40

Jessica

Everything felt perfect…at least, it did until the next day.

We stayed out late that night, the five of us stopping for dinner at a nearby bar and grill to celebrate Jason’s victory. Vincent bought him a shot, then I did, and we kept going until we’d gotten Jason completely blasted.

I’d been a little tipsy myself by the time we left, but I could remember Jason grabbing me before he got into the Bronco, slurring slightly when he said, “You know, you’re beautiful…so fucking beautiful…most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I’m so glad you came.”

Those words had stayed with me long after they’d dropped me off at home, sitting like a little ball of light within me. Something had changed yesterday, something important. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it made me feel more hopeful than I had in a long time.

Except now, I had to deal with my mother.

“This is unacceptable, Jessica, do you hear me? Unacceptable!”

She had started on me first thing in the morning. I’d managed to fend her off during work, but now that I was done, she’d launched straight back into her tirade. Telling her the boys were “just friends” had done nothing other than make her start lamenting my terrible taste in friends and how my “standards” had fallen so low.

“You have friends,” she insisted. “Friends who aren’t criminals, who aren’t trying to take advantage of a beautiful young woman.”

My sister had already fled the scene, and even my dad had quietly crept away, probably to hide in his office. Cowards. Why was I always expected to be the bigger person here, to deal with this by myself?

“Whatever happened to Danielle?” Mom said, her eyes wide as she looked at me from her big cushy chair in the living room. “Or Candace, or Vanessa?”

“Vanessa moved to Kentucky,” I said, purposefully avoiding discussing the other two women she’d mentioned. “Look, I know you don’t like them, and you don’t have to. But they’re not dangerous. Don’t act like I’m some naïve little girl.”

“Oh, honey, that’s exactly what you’re acting like.” She had her wine glass cupped between her fingers, and she took a large sip before she said, “You know better than this. You used to tell me those boys were creeps, that they were always getting into trouble. Good grief, Jessica, were the assaults they committed not enough for you? What happened to your sense?”

“Mom, they are literally fixing my car,” I said. “I can’t avoid them. I’m not going to try to avoid them.”