“I’m going to bed.”
“Do you have an extra blanket?” Drew asks.
I sigh, “Yeah. Hang on.”
Bringing it to her, along with an extra pillow, Drew smiles. “Night, Jake.”
“Night.” I glance to Bernie, who offers me a shy, grateful nod. Damn, she’s good.
DREW
“Here, you can wear my pajama shorts,” I tell her as I rummage through my dresser. “And this t-shirt is really comfy to sleep in. Oh wait, you’re tinier than I am.”
“I don’t mind,” she whispers. “Baggier is better for sleep. Can’t rest if you’re in tight clothes.”
“True. It feels like sleepin’ in a python’s belly.”
She smiles and makes a face. “Gross.”
“There’s a draw-string on the shorts. Should be okay.”
“I’m sure it’ll be good.”
For a moment it feels like when we were kids, just being together, comfortable. When I stayed at her place after moving to Atlanta, I hardly ever saw this calm side of her. The cocaine habit had its claws too deep in her. She had guys over every night of the week.
I could never sleep, and I was really upset by the lifestyle my jet-setting hero had fallen into.
I’d always pictured Bernadette as this New York City to Milan to London, goddess. I saw her pictures on Facebook over the years and envied all the places she’d been, the fabulously glamorous friends she had, and the money that seemed to seep from her pores.
It was so very different from my modest, small-town life.
But my naïve adoration and envy of her changed when I saw up close what that kind of exposure can do to a girl who doesn’t have family roots to fall back on. Bernie’s dad was absent and her mom wasn’t the nicest woman I’d ever met. She pushed Bern to be a winner in pageants. Loved to show off her blonde haired, beautiful daughter wherever she went like she was a thing and not a person. “Look at this preciousness right here! Have you ever seen such a perfect child? She’s gonna be a big star one day! You watch!”
“What happened with you and Jake, Bernie?” It’s the second time I’ve asked her. Of course I wanted to pry as soon as I’d first gotten her alone.
“You know those Cocker boys. They’re notorious. I don’t want to talk about it, Drew. Okay?”
“Of course. Did he hurt you?”
She gives me a reproachful look for asking, and walks to my bed. She lays down the clothes I gave her and starts to strip. “I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Sorry.” I pull out something to sleep in. “Just want to make sure he didn’t.”
“Oh, he hurt me alright,” she mutters with such anger I glance over in surprise.
Now I’m sorry I asked. Shit, they dated. It’s so obvious. And here I was thinking I was too old for Jake. Bernie’s a year older than I am. She started school late.
As she yanks down her leather pants my eyes go wide. “Bernie! What happened to your behind?”
She looks over at me and says, simply, “He got a little carried away with the spankings.”
“Who did?!!”
She shrugs, “Just a guy, Drew. Doesn’t matter.”
Flabbergasted, I walk over and toss my clothes on the bed, too, but I’m staring at the purple marks. They are obscenely dark and ominous. As she pulls on my shorts and tightens the string as tight as it’ll go, she won’t look me in the eye.
“That wasn’t carried away, Bernie. That’s abuse. Those bruises are deep, honey.”
“They go deeper than that,” she mutters, meaning emotionally and not just from this time. She’s talking about way, way back to childhood. And she knows I know all about that. Her mother had a string of boyfriends. Pedophiles love to prey on single mothers. She slips into my shirt, her tiny, model-sized breasts disappearing from view. I pull her to me and give her a big hug.
“I’m gonna help you. There are lots of rehabs you can go to.”
Bernie starts to cry. Her arms were loosely around me at first but as the tears really start comin’ she grabs on tightly and buries her face into my shoulder, sobbing. Her whole body is shaking. I don’t let go until her pain subsides. I don’t know how long we’re standing like this, but it’s just long enough to break my heart into a million pieces. This isn’t what I wanted for my friend. I wanted to keep her on the pedestal, a model not just in magazine but of inspiration. But we’re all just human beings doing our best, aren’t we?
While I change clothes, she sits on my bed and wipes her face with a makeup-remover pad. She’s staring off in that numb way we do when we’ve just unloaded a lot of blocked anguish. We’re silent like sisters who don’t need to talk to fill the spaces. I pull a pillow off my bed and hand it to her.