With Every Heartbeat(46)

By Friday, I felt more than abnormal. I felt stupid and deluded.

Six months ago, I’d been expecting to live my entire life under the strong thumb of my father. I’d pre-enrolled at the college he wanted me to attend and even set my degree as teaching, when the thought of getting up in front of a class scared the bejesus out of me. But Ernest Blakeland honestly scared me more. I’d always, always done what he’d wanted me to. I’d never broken one of his rules, snuck out of the house when he wasn’t looking, or cheated on the amount of soap he wanted me to use when I washed the dishes. I’d followed each and every one of his rules like the good, obedient girl I had hoped to be.

It wasn’t until Cora had called me with her dilemma that I’d even considered trying to break free from him. Because breaking free meant severing all ties completely. He never would’ve allowed me any kind of freedom. He liked total control. So if I was going to help my friend, I had to do it without his knowledge and without his permission.

The scariest decision of my life, and I’d made it so effortlessly without an ounce of regret. Yet now that I was here, risking the wrath of a man I knew would take pains to hurt me for retribution, I started to reevaluate the source of my reasons for coming.

Cora wasn’t at all as I remembered her. I wasn’t sure if I’d just built her up to be so amazing in my head because she’d been there in my life when I’d needed her the most or what. She’d been the one person who was nice to me when I’d felt alone. Maybe I’d blinded myself to her flaws.

Or maybe she’d just changed that much.

She’d been sitting on a bench outside the office the first day I attended public school as if waiting for me to come out with my class schedule and locker assignment.

“Hey, you’re that new girl. Zoey, right?”

Startled to hear my name, I paused and sent her a nod. “Yeah.”

With a smile, she scooted down and patted the open spot of bench beside her. “I’m Cora.”

When I sat gingerly, she studied me for the longest time. No one had ever paid that kind of attention to me before, except my father when he was upset with something I’d done. It made me blush and duck my face.

Then she asked me a couple questions, to which I think I gave mumbled, one-word answers. After that, she told me about herself. She liked to talk about herself, and I liked having someone talk to me, so it seemed to work for both of us. We never shared any classes, so I didn’t get to see her much during school, only those few minutes every day before the first bell rang on that very bench where we met.

After a couple months, she invited me over to her house for dinner. My father only agreed when he realized who her parents were. Mr. Wilder had apparently founded the country club with him where they were both members. In fact, before I’d been born, back when my mother had still been alive, Mr. Wilder and his wife had been close friends with my parents...which reminded my father of another reason he hated me. After I’d killed my mother in childbirth, my father had fallen out of touch with one of his closest friends.

But he’d reluctantly allowed me to occasionally visit Cora.

Her mother was so charming and nice. It boggled my mind when Cora would get irritated with her for asking too many questions about her day. I would’ve loved to have a mother who wanted to know what was happening in my life.

Mr. Wilder had acted shocked the first time he’d met me. I guess Cora never brought friends home with her, or something. I don’t know. But he quickly got over it and when I told him who my parents were, he remembered them, telling me I looked like my mother. I loved hearing that because my father had gotten rid of most of her pictures.

I envied Cora for her parents, wishing they could’ve been mine, even though they’d been as strict with her as mine had been with me. Many times I’d called over to talk to her, her mom had told me Cora wasn’t home. When Cora told me the next day that she’d really been home but she hadn’t been allowed phone privileges, I’d wondered briefly if her father was just as abusive as mine.

I’d grabbed her hand and clutched it hard. “Do your parents hit you too?”

She’d wrenched back in surprise and blinked at me as if I was insane. “No. Why? Does your dad hit you?” She sounded so intrigued by the idea, I lowered my face in shame and buried my hands into my lap.

“No.”

But she knew I was lying. She made me look her in the eye before she quietly asked, “Zoey. Does your dad hit you?”

“Sometimes,” I whispered. “But only when I’m bad.”

After that, she questioned every little bruise I had, and yes, most of them came from his brutal touch. The abuse became easier to take after Cora found out about it, though. I don’t know why; maybe just sharing it with someone took off some of the stress.