One Small Thing(83)

“Ouch!” I cry.

“Are you all right?” an urgent voice asks.

At the same time another one roars, “Get away from her.”

I catch a brief glimpse of Chase’s face before it’s replaced by my mom’s.

“My baby. Oh, my baby.”

Mom throws herself onto the sidewalk and gathers me in her arms. She’s crying as she clutches me against her chest. Just beyond her I see my dad looming, one hand on his hip and the other holding a phone to his ear. I try to peer around Mom for Chase. I swear I saw him.

“9-1-1. Yes, this is Dave Jones. I’m reporting an assault by Charlie—”

“No!” I push Mom aside and lunge at my dad, grabbing the phone from his hands. “There’s no need for any emergency services.” I gasp into the phone. “No one is injured.” I disconnect the call and then throw the phone as far away as I can.

“Goddammit, Elizabeth. What are you doing? Give me your phone, Marnie.”

Mom looks at him uncertainly.

“No. No. No.” I shake my head. “You’ve got it all wrong. I wasn’t running from Chase. I was running from Jeff.”

I point toward Jeff’s house, only to see him at the end of the driveway, blinking at us like a deer caught in the headlights.

“You fucker,” Chase growls, appearing from behind my father’s stiff frame.

The threat lights a fire under Jeff’s heels. He turns and starts booking it toward his house. I run after him, but Chase beats me by a mile, tackling Jeff to the ground. Chase straddles Rachel’s ex, grabbing Jeff’s T-shirt and twisting it around his throat.

“What’d you do?” Chase thunders.

“She was asking for it,” Jeff pants out. “She’s been teasing me since I came back to school, telling me how much she wanted me. She was always jealous of Rachel. She always—”

Out of nowhere, my mother flies forward and slaps Jeff across the face. “Don’t talk about my girls like that!” she spits. Breathing hard, she turns toward me and asks, “What happened, baby? What did he do to you?”

“Jeff attacked me. He was going to rape me.” I lift a corner of my shirt so they can see it was torn.

Behind me, my dad moans in dismay.

“He conned Dad into driving me over to the house by saying he had a box of Rachel’s things. But really, he just wanted to get me alone,” I say shakily. “He was mad that I’ve been ignoring him. He said that Rachel was like that, always thinking she knew what was best instead of listening to him. Jeff was going to tell me...”

“I’m going to kill him.” Glaring murderously at Jeff, who’s still lying beneath him, Chase pulls back his arm.

I throw myself on Chase’s back and grab his arm. The last thing I need is for his probation to get revoked. “Don’t. He’s not worth it.”

“I’m going to kill him.” Dad thrusts both of us out of the way. “You little motherfucker. You hurt my girls.” He hauls Jeff upright and dangles him like a worm over the ground.

“Mr. Jones.” Jeff gasps, clawing at Dad’s grip. “I can’t breathe.”

“And my little girl is dead.” Dad punches him, and that’s all it takes for Jeff to pass out. With an anguished noise from the back of his throat, my father shakes the boy’s limp body and then drops him to the ground in disgust.

He walks away, as if he can’t bear to look at any of us, and stares into the dusky sky. The sun has set, but there’s still enough light out for me to make out my father’s grief-stricken profile.

“I think they were fighting that night,” I tell Chase. “The night that you stole your coach’s car. Rachel ran out on the road because Jeff was chasing after her. I think that’s what happened. He said that I was just like her and he was going to teach me the lesson that Rachel never learned. She ran away from him, like I did. It was an accident.” I implore him with my eyes. “An accident,” I repeat.

“Yeah, I know.”

“If you know, then why do you keep saying it’s your fault?” I cry.

“Because I am at fault, Beth.” He rubs his hands up my arms to cup my shoulders. “It doesn’t matter if Rachel was upset or if she was crying or if she was running away. I was the one behind the wheel. I took her life.” He gently sets me aside and approaches my mom. “I’m sorry. You’ll never know how sorry I am.”

Mom takes his hand between hers. “Yes. I know that, Charlie. I know you’re sorry.”

“Dad?” I prompt.

He refuses to turn around. My stomach sinks, because I know in the pit of it that he’ll never forgive Chase.

“It was an accident,” Mom says. Her voice trembles. “Wasn’t it, Dave?”

Dad sighs, clearly loathing speaking the words. “Yes, it was an accident.”

“We almost hit you, Beth.” She’s weak with emotion.

I place an arm around her and she immediately leans into me. I’m surprised at how frail she feels.

“We were arguing about how we were treating you. Your dad wasn’t looking at the road.” She pushes away from me and grabs Chase’s hand again. “Thank you for saving our girl.”

He nods weakly. “It’s a damn good thing I was coming home from work at that exact moment. I saw Beth run out and jumped off my bike to get her.” He gestures to the bicycle lying five feet away.