Lola sucked in a sharp breath and glanced at him. “What happens at home?” she asked in a small voice.
Jack’s lips pressed together and he shrugged. “Dad likes to knock me around. He works from six at night until six in the morning. If I’m lucky he’s gone by the time I get home.”
Suddenly Lola saw Jack Forrester in a whole new light. He wasn’t a druggie, a troublemaker, or an academic failure. He was an abused boy trying to deal with it the only way he knew how. He was her.
Lola felt sick, like she couldn’t breathe. She backed away from him, staring into knowing eyes.
“What’s your excuse, Goody Two Shoes?”
A breeze picked up Jack’s shaggy hair and blew it across his eyes. The lower part of his face was visible, slivers of his eyes glowed through strands of hair. It was unsettling.
Lola licked dry lips and asked a question of her own. “Do you ever…do you ever fight back?”
Jack stiffened. “Oh yeah, all the time. But then he goes after my sister instead.” He swung around to face her, locking her in place with the intensity of his eyes. “Once. Once I fought back. Bastard hit my sister so hard she couldn’t see out of her left eye for a week. He just needs a punching bag.” He spread his arms wide. “I’m it.”
Lola pressed her arm against her midsection and swallowed with difficulty. “I’m so sorry.”
How could he stand it? Years of it. Bob had been around for a year and that was almost unbearable. Jack had probably been abused his whole life. He had to be eighteen, or close to it. If he wasn’t failing his classes, he would graduate in a little over a month. Jack could leave.
“Don’t be sorry.” He moved away, pulled himself onto the rock, and offered her a hand.
Lola hesitated, and then put her hand within his warm, calloused one. He lifted her easily and released her hand once she was on the rock. For that brief instant their hands touched, she’d felt a connection to another human being.
“I’m an adult. I could leave. I don’t for my sister. You know her?” Lola shook her head. “No. I guess she would be beneath your notice.”
She glared at him and scooted away to put more distance between them. “I don’t know why you act like I’m some kind of snob. I’m not. Never have been.”
“Not this year.”
Lola drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her knees. People and their assumptions. None of them right.
What did you assume about Jack? her conscience chimed in. Lola made a face.
“You don’t even know me,” Lola reminded him.
Jack paused. “Right. Anyway, she’s a sophomore. Pretty little blond with big brown eyes.” Lola scrutinized his face and hair. Jack laughed. “Yeah. She looks nothing like me, lucky kid. She loves to sing and she has the sweetest voice.”
Lola was shocked by the depth of feeling she heard in his voice. She wouldn’t have thought him capable of such feeling. One more assumption she would have gotten wrong. She’d told him he didn’t know her. But she also didn’t know him.
“What’s her name?”
“Isabelle.”
She made a mental note to find out who Isabelle Forrester was.
“What exactly was I like last year, may I ask? According to you, that is.”
“You may.”
“But you won’t answer?”
“I can answer. I just don’t know if you want to hear it.”
Lola pressed her lips together. “Go ahead.”
Jack glanced at her, one side of his mouth lifted. His eyes gleamed in the dark with wicked intent. “Okay. You thought yourself above others.”
“I never—“
“What am I like?” he interrupted.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, come on. Yes, you do. Tell me. I’m waiting,” he added when Lola said nothing.
“I don’t know anything about you.”
“But you thought you did, earlier,” he pressed. “I could tell by the look on your face.”
Lola shifted. “Okay, fine. I thought things and I was wrong. Same as you. But I never thought I was better than anyone.”
“Sure, Goody Two Shoes,” he mocked quietly.
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.” Frustrated, Lola turned her head away, staring into the night. Maybe she had been like that, but she was quickly learning it was wrong to do so. With a few spiteful remarks Roxanne had shown her that.
“So, Lola, what do you like to do?”
It was such an unoriginal, normal question Lola gave a surprised laugh. Twice in one day, both in Jack’s presence. Strange.
“What do I like to do?” What did she like to do anymore? Last year that question would have had lots of answers: shopping, dancing, watching movies, hanging out with her friends. This year she had one answer.