The Hollow Inside by Brooke Lauren Davis

Author:Brooke Lauren Davis [Davis, Brooke Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781547606122
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2021-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

I WILL NOT CRY. Tears have never saved anyone. I’d choose anger over tears every time.

But I can’t get angry with Mom for leaving me either. She told me to stay away, and I didn’t listen. This isn’t her fault. It’s Ellis I should be angry with, for making all this necessary in the first place. I tighten my grip on the steering wheel and focus on him until my eyes dry up and blood burns in my cheeks.

The street that goes to the Circle is blocked off for the Dawn Festival, so I park the Jeep as close as I can before I get out and walk, head down.

I’ve been picking up as many shifts at the Watering Hole as I could get ever since Jill gave me the job, but I’m not scheduled to work today. Jill said she wanted me to enjoy the festival, and when I come through the glass door, she tries to turn me out. But then she sees my face and says, “What’s wrong, honey?”

I don’t answer her. She frowns, a concerned little line creasing between her eyebrows. But she doesn’t argue when I tie on my apron.

In the restaurant, I find a third option for coping with being deserted—one other than tears or anger. I take orders and get people what they need and clean up spills and carry out heavy trays and pour refills. I work nonstop, always moving, and for a while, I’m entranced by the rhythm of that motion, of fulfilling promises, of receiving tangible rewards in the form of crisp dollar bills stuffed in my apron pockets. This is the only place in Jasper Hollow where I feel absolutely capable. Until I’m jarred right out of that beautiful rhythm with one hushed word.

“Melody.”

Whispered like something dirty. Something that doesn’t belong in polite lunch conversations.

The girl who said it is part of a group in the big corner booth. They all look around my age, and one of them is wearing a Jasper Hollow High School T-shirt. And the way they glace toward the front of the restaurant, to make sure Jill is out of earshot, makes me pretty sure I know exactly which Melody they’re talking about.

I grab a rag and start wiping down the empty table next to them, close enough to hear their lowered voices.

“Somebody should really warn the girl living at their house about her,” one of them says.

Giggles. Are they talking about me?

“They were pretty cozy together this morning at the ceremony. Maybe she doesn’t want to be warned.”

More giggles. My heart rate picks up.

“But . . . how do you know?” another girl asks.

“Didn’t you hear about the party last summer? At David Cochran’s house?”

“That was before I moved here.”

The next girl who speaks does it so quietly I almost don’t catch her words.

“Melody got caught kissing a girl.”

“Janie McCormick’s cousin,” another one pipes up. “She was visiting from Chicago. I hear she works at a gay bar. They have tons of them there.

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