If she was right, it was already too late. I felt that for Rad, that mysterious pull. I had from the moment my eyes fell into his. I couldn’t stop it any more than she could all those years ago.
“But you can break the spell, Audrey, before it takes you over completely,” she said, as if reading my mind. “I am standing here now, where you will be some day, and I don’t want you to have the same regrets that I do. I don’t want you throwing your potential away on some boy. I made that mistake—I squandered my youth and my talent—but you don’t have to. It’s not too late for you.” Her eyes were so sad, so desperate. I wanted to tell her not to worry, that Rad was different and everything would work out fine.
“I won’t let it happen to me, Mum. I’ll be careful; I promise.”
“Oh, Audrey, it’s already happened. I saw it that night at Ana’s funeral. The way you looked at Rad. I saw myself all over again. I’m not stupid. I know what I’m up against trying to convince you. But I’m on your side, even if it seems that I’m the enemy.” Her voice broke. “I’m your mother, Audrey, and I’m on your side.”
Later that night, Lucy and I were awakened by the sound of screeching tires, followed by a blaring horn. I raced to the front window with Lucy following closely behind. We peeked out from behind the curtains. “Oh shit,” said Lucy. “It’s Duck.” He was standing in the street outside, with a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand.
“Audrey!” he screamed as he began ranting away in a torrent of verbal abuse while shouting my name repeatedly, at the top of his lungs. I could see lights down our street coming on as neighbors woke up to the commotion.
“I have to go out and speak to him,” I said, stepping away from the window.
“No. No way, Audrey, stay in here. I’m calling the police.”
“But Lucy,” I said dumbly, “it’s Duck.”
She grabbed my shoulders and looked me in the eye. “Audrey, I’m not letting you go outside. Stay here.” She disappeared into her bedroom and came back moments later with her phone in her hand. She was about to dial when I stopped her.
“Lucy, someone has already called the cops,” I said, as a police vehicle came down our street, lights flashing. They parked near Duck’s car, and two officers got out. He turned to face them, his stance aggressive. One officer tried to reason quietly with him, but it only made him more hysterical. The other one reacted swiftly, grabbing the bottle from Duck’s hand and pinning his arms behind his back. After a short struggle, he managed to break away and ran toward our window, where Lucy and I stood watching the nightmare unfold. He stood there, eyes wild and animal-like, looking straight into mine. “Oh God, what is he doing?” said Lucy as he lifted up his shirt. To our horror, we saw deep red cuts all across his bare chest.
“This is what you did to me, Audrey! Do you hear me, Audrey? I should have left you at the bottom of that lake, you fucking bitch!” he screamed, his voice coarse and broken. At that moment, the two officers pounced on Duck, and he was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed.
Once he was bundled into the back of the police car, one of the officers knocked on the front door. I opened it. “Do you know that man?” he asked.
“He was my boyfriend. We just broke up.”
“Has he hurt you in any way?”
I shook my head. “No, never.”
Next morning, Lucy and I were sitting at our kitchen table after being up all night. “I don’t think I’m going to any of my classes today,” she said, glancing at the clock.
“I’m going to skip work too,” I said miserably, taking a sip of my tea.
Lucy’s eyes were red from crying, and she had dark rings of fatigue under her eyes. “I still can’t believe that was Duck out there last night.” She shook her head. “How could he do that to you?”
“It’s not his fault—it’s mine.”
She gave me an incredulous look. “Audrey, do you have any idea how crazy that sounds? People get dumped all the time, and it sucks, but you know what you do? You cry; you smash a few plates; you go to a karaoke bar and make a fool of yourself. However you choose to deal with it, it’s your shit to handle. It’s your burden to carry. You don’t drag other people down with you. You don’t turn up on the doorstep in the middle of the night acting like a raving lunatic.”
I began crying again, holding my head in my hands. “I shouldn’t have disappeared like that last week.”
“It was a shitty thing for you to do; I won’t deny it. I would have been livid if Freddy had done the same to me. But it still doesn’t justify Duck’s behavior last night. He had every right to be angry, but not like that.”
“What if he comes back again?”
“I don’t know.”
There was a knock at the door. Lucy and I looked at each other, and we cautiously went to the front door. “It’s Duck’s mum,” said Lucy, peeking through the front curtain. We opened the door.
“Hi, Zoe,” I said.
“Audrey, Lucy, can I come in?”
I nodded and closed the door as we headed to the kitchen.
“Want a coffee?” asked Lucy.
“No, thanks, it looks like you girls have been up all night. Why don’t you have a seat? I’ll make you both coffee.” She busied herself in the kitchen, and Lucy and I sat back down. Zoe set our coffee on the kitchen table, then sat down across from me. She reached out and took my hand. “I’m sorry about last night, Audrey,” she said with a frown. Tears began welling up in my eyes again. She gave my hand a squeeze. “Now, I don’t want you blaming yourself in any way, you hear. Duck knows full well he was in the wrong.”
“Zoe’s right, Audrey.” Lucy handed me a box of tissues. “It’s not your fault.”
I nodded, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“I should have been paying more attention,” said Zoe. “I thought he was fine, but I guess I was way off the mark.”
“He knows how much I still care about him, doesn’t he?”
“Of course he does, Audrey. The two of you go way back. That’s something that never goes away.”
My lips trembled, and fresh tears spilled down. “No,” I whispered. “Never.”
She smiled at me. “I’m sure you’ll be the best of friends again—in time.”
“I hope so,” I said as Lucy put her arm around my shoulder.
“Now, I had a trip planned to see Duck’s grandma in Europe,” said Zoe. “I’m going to take Duck with me too. The change in scenery will do him good.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Next week and we’ll be away for a while, so it will give you both some breathing space.”
“Okay,” I said softly. “Please take care of him.”
“You know I will.” She reached over and squeezed my arm. “Now—I have a million things to do before the trip, so I’d better get going.” She got up, slinging her handbag over her shoulder. “You girls take care.”
Twenty
Although a good amount of time had passed since Duck and I broke up, Rad and I had agreed to take things one day at a time. So this was my first visit to Rad’s apartment, and I was browsing through the books on his shelf. His place was tiny but cozy. It looked exactly how I had pictured it—messy in a way that was inviting—and I could see myself padding around in my pajamas with a cereal bowl in hand. Best of all, it was three floors above a French-style café, and the delicious smell of freshly baked croissants occasionally wafted in from the open window.
“Hey, I remember these,” I said, spying a Choose Your Own Adventure book among a sea of science fiction titles and tattered paperbacks. I picked it up, running my fingers across the cover. “Inside UFO 54-40. Is this one any good?”