Broken Wings (A Romantic Suspense)(23)

She sighs. “My uncle’s place.”

I glance over at her. “What? We can’t stay with one of your mom’s relatives—”

“He’s not her brother. He’s my dad’s brother. I haven’t seen him since I was little.”

“Where does he live?”

“Umm, Pennsylvania?”

“Ellie, we’re in Pennsylvania. You’re going to need to narrow it down for me.”

“Right on the border, down in the corner. I’m trying to think of the name of the town. I have him in my phone.”

She fishes the phone out of her pocket and fiddles with it, scanning her contacts.

“How often do you actually call somebody?”

“I can ring Fitzgerald with it.”

“So that’s a ‘never.’”

Ellie gives me a haunted look and rattles off the address.

“You have GPS on there?”

“Yeah. I think? It says maps.”

“You do it, I’m driving.”

She looks at me and we both know why I’m not going to fiddle with something while I’m driving the car. After about ten minutes she gets it to work and start planning our route.

“We can stop if we need to. It’ll remember where we’re going.”

She nods. “I don’t even use half the apps on this thing. Mom just buys me a new one every year.”

“Ellie, you can’t let her run your life.”

“She’s all I’ve got.”

“Really? Think your uncle will be happy to see you?”

“I don’t know. Look at—”

“He’s not going to turn you away at the door because you have scars, Ellie. If he does, he’s a shitty uncle and we’ll go somewhere else. Have you been in hiding this entire time?”

“Hiding?” she says. “Yeah, Jack, I’ve been hiding.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then how did you mean it?”

“There’s no reason to hide from everything, Ellie. If somebody doesn’t like the way you look, f*ck them.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You’re perfect. If your dad throws you out, you can always find work as an underwear model.”

“Are you saying you’d like to see me in my underwear?”

She rolls her eye and folds her arms over her chest again.

“Just drive. We follow this blue line, right? You have to take the next exit on the left.”

It’s going to be a long drive. Her phone says almost eight hours. It’s a detour, too; half the drive will be off the highway, which is probably a good idea anyway.

We started around nine in the morning. By noon we’ve been sitting in the car for three hours, two of them virtually silent.

“What bothers you the most?”

Ellie looks up. I think she was dozing off.

“About what?”

“The scars.”

She sighs. “Really?”

“I want to understand.”

“They itch.”

“That’s it? They itch?”

“It’s not like an itchy nose. It’s under the skin. Trying to scratch it is like running my nails over leather. I can barely feel it. The itch is always there but sometimes it gets so bad I want to roll around and scream, and nothing makes it go away.”

“I’m sorry.”

She sighs. “Yeah. Thanks. I can’t sweat, either. The burned skin has no pores, so I can’t be outside when it’s too hot or I’ll get overheated and pass out.”

“Jesus.”

“It doesn’t matter, I don’t get out much. I tried. When I was in the rehab hospital…”

“You can tell me.”

“I’ve never really talked about this.”

“You don’t have to.”

She sighs, hard. “When I was in the rehab hospital there were people there for some serious stuff. Broken backs, head injuries, bad, debilitating stuff, but they were all disgusted by me. Especially when the bandages came off. It was all raw and red, and the nurses had to rub these ointments on my face. I made them take all the mirrors out of my room and cover anything where I could see my reflection. I hate looking at myself.”

She’s quiet for a while and says, “It’s been ten years. I wasn’t even that good looking before the accident.”

“You were beautiful before the accident.”

“Was.”

“You’re beautiful now.”

She snorts. “Oh please, Jack. That was lame. Next thing you’ll ask is, if you said I had a beautiful body, if I’d hold it against you.”

“You’re too smart for a line like that too work.”

She punches me in the shoulder again. “Nice try.”

“Hey, how long has it been since you’ve had Wendy’s?”

“What? Before the accident, so, ten years?”

“Me too. There’s one.”

Ellie yanks her hood up as I pull into the drive through. It’s dinnertime, so we sit there inching forward for a good ten minutes before I get to the speaker. I order a triple for myself and a single for her, fries, and a large frosty with two spoons. I get confused for a second when they ask if I want chocolate or vanilla. They come in flavors now, apparently.