The First Move Read online

  Renia kept her hands on Sarah’s shoulders as she held her at arm’s length and looked her over. Black eyeliner streaked down the poor girl’s cheeks and her graphic-print, ’70s-inspired halter top was torn under the arm. Her hair was falling out of its ponytail, but she didn’t have any marks on her face and arms that Renia could see in the moonlight. Glitter still covered the bare part of her chest and... Where did she get that bra?

  “Are you hurt?”

  Sarah shook her head and Renia raised an eyebrow. “I’m not,” the girl said, her voice shaky. “I promise.”

  “Do I need to call the cops on anyone?”

  “No. I just want to get out of here.”

  “Come on,” Renia said as she put her arm around Sarah. “I’ll take you home.”

  Sarah didn’t speak again until they’d gotten into the car and buckled up. “Can you take me to your house? I don’t want my mom to see me like this.”

  “I can’t keep this a secret from your parents.”

  “I know,” Sarah said to the passenger window and the trees they passed as they drove away. “Can you wait to call my mom until the morning?”

  Renia glanced over at the young girl shivering in the passenger seat, then reached over and turned on the heat, changing the settings so the hot air blew directly on their feet. “I can wait to call her in the morning,” she said, knowing she would catch hell for the delay and probably deserve it.

  Silence boomed in the car, but when she turned the radio on, Sarah immediately leaned over and turned it off. Renia drove home listening to the sounds of late-night traffic and the occasional chatter of Sarah’s teeth as she shivered, but didn’t cry.

  When they got into Renia’s apartment, Renia asked Sarah again if she was hurt and if they needed to call the cops. At Sarah’s emphatic “No, it didn’t go that far,” Renia gave the girl the biggest, fluffiest robe she had and a towel.

  “The water in this building gets really hot and you can stay in the shower until you don’t need to shiver anymore, but don’t burn yourself. I’ll make you hot chocolate or tea if you want.”

  “Hot chocolate, please,” Sarah said as she hugged the robe and towel tight to her chest. Renia enveloped her in another hug, then turned the girl to the bathroom and gave her a nudge.

  She put the milk in the microwave when she heard the shower turn off and had the drink waiting on the coffee table, along with a blanket and pillow. Sarah came out of the bathroom in a cloud of flower-scented steam, ensconced in an oversized purple terry cloth robe and her hair wrapped in the towel. She sat on the couch, clasping her mug, and Renia draped the blanket over her.

  “I have some flannel pajamas for you, too. Do you want to talk before or after you change into them?”

  “Before,” Sarah said weakly into her hot chocolate mug. She didn’t say anything else, just slurped her beverage.

  “How did you get to the party?” Renia inquired.

  “It was Emily’s idea.”

  Getting Sarah to talk was going to be harder than making a crying baby smile at a big box photo studio. Renia scooted closer to the girl and laid a hand on her knee.

  “The party was being thrown by a friend of her cousin. We’ve been planning this for weeks. His parents are out of town and he was having a back-to-school party. I was going to tell my mom I was sleeping over at Emily’s and she was going to say we were at her cousin’s. We drove down with a senior.”

  When Sarah gave a hard shiver, Renia put her arm around the girl and tucked her into the blanket, leaving her arms free to sip her cocoa.

  “Take as long as you need, zabko.”

  They sat in silence for several minutes until Sarah was ready to talk again. “It was fun, I guess. There was this guy. He was cute and he seemed into me.”

  Renia held her breath and waited for the scary part of the story. Sarah had said she wasn’t hurt and Renia believed her, but that didn’t make this part of the story any easier to hear.

  “We were just talking when I went up to a bedroom with him.” Sarah’s intake of breath shook. “I’m not stupid. I knew we weren’t going to talk. I thought I was okay with it, until he kissed me and it was slobbery and wet.” She finally started to cry, one slow tear after another dripping into her hot chocolate. “He tried to unbutton my pants and I didn’t want that at all. I said, ‘Stop,’ but he didn’t and he got in my underwear. My shirt ripped when he pulled it, because I was trying to get him to stop.” Her sobs started slowly until the backlog of emotion burst and flooded her face. “I punched him...”

  Good girl! I hope you gave him a black eye.

  “...and he called me a slut.” The last sentence was barely audible under Sarah’s halting, snotty breaths.

  “Oh, zabko.” Renia put Sarah’s mug on the table before wrapping her arms fully around the girl, her T-shirt slowly dampening with tears and snot.

  “I got out of the room,” she said into Renia’s shoulder, “but the girl who drove us was drunk and Emily said I was spoiling the mood. I didn’t know who else to call. I couldn’t face my mom.”

  “Zabko, I know the feeling.” For three years after a drunk driver killed three of her family members, she had gotten herself in situations where she wondered if she would be able to look her mom in the eye. She would be pushing down her pants thinking, I wonder what Mom will say, and then she would think about how her mom didn’t say anything anymore that wasn’t about Healthy Food. When the boy was done—it never took long—Renia would reach for a can of whatever was on the floor, shotgunning the beer so the pain would go away faster.

  “I’ll call Cathy in the morning. You’ll probably be grounded for lying, but she won’t be mad about what happened at the party. What the boy did was not your fault.”

  Sarah pulled away from Renia and reached for her hot chocolate. The milky liquid bounced in the cup when the girl hiccupped. “How am I going to face Emily?”

  “The more important question is how is Emily going to face you?”

  The chocolate had to be cold by now, but Sarah drank the last of it anyway. When she swallowed and put the mug back, she was breathing evenly, with just a hint of the halt that comes after a cry. “Did you ever have to face your friends after...after something like this?”

  “Oh, zabko—” Renia gave a regretful chuckle “—you have to say no to be in the situation you found yourself in. Until I moved to Cincinnati, I didn’t say no to anything or anyone.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s not anything I’m proud of. I’m ashamed to look back on most everything I did between thirteen and sixteen.”

  “Ashley is nice.”

  Renia’s soul warmed. “Yes, yes, she is.” Then the sadness hit. “But I can’t take credit for her. The Stahls raised her well. My role in her life ended when I gave birth to her.”

  “Are you sorry you gave her up?”

  She looked around the room until she found a vase of flowers to fix her eye on. “I couldn’t have given her half the things the Stahls have given her, but I hope there was never a time when she needed me and I wasn’t there for her.”

  “Thank you for being there for me.”

  “Anytime, zabko. Anytime.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  RENIA WENT ABOUT her morning as quietly as possible to allow Sarah a chance to sleep in. As it turned out, she didn’t have to be quiet. Sarah slept like the dead. Or like a teenager who’d had a rough night and needed her sleep to recover.


  When Sarah finally woke up, Renia handed her a cup of hot chocolate and a phone, leaving her alone to call Cathy. She returned to the living room to find Sarah’s face tear-stained, but the girl herself calmly drinking her cocoa.

  “My mom will be here as soon as she can get dressed and drive over.” She paused and sipped her drink. “She didn’t seem mad.”

  Renia moved a pile of blankets so she had a place on the couch. “She’ll want to hug you and make sure all your parts are there.” She smiled. “Then she’ll be mad. I imagine your dad will act the same.”

  The antique, ornate mantel clock on her bookshelf ticked away the minutes while they waited. Sarah’s face was stark and tense. The trauma of the previous night had faded, leaving the girl with all the optimism of a convict facing the firing squad. Renia envied Sarah’s picking at her cuticles, pulling at the hem of the flannel pajamas and loud slurping at her drink. Anticipation filled Renia’s body until she feared she was going to pop, but Sarah needed her to be calm and sure.

  Did I overstep my bounds? She wasn’t Sarah’s mom or dad. She wasn’t even Sarah’s stepmother, for that matter. She gave in to the urge and wrinkled her nose. “Girlfriend of Dad” just didn’t have the same level of authority.

  But Sarah had called her, not Cathy or Richard. Maybe she would have called Miles, if he hadn’t been out of town, but maybes didn’t change the fact that Sarah had needed her. Replaying the scene in her mind, Renia knew she wouldn’t have changed a thing.

  She suppressed a shrug, standing up from the couch and using the excess energy to get herself another cup of coffee.

  If Cathy was mad and felt Renia had stepped on a parent’s responsibility, well, she was a big girl and didn’t need her boyfriend’s ex-wife’s approval.

  The noise Renia had been expecting was a call from the lobby announcing Cathy’s arrival. Instead, she heard one of her new favorite sounds—the scraping of a key in the lock of her front door.

  Both Sarah and Renia turned their heads to the sound and exclaimed at who walked in the door.

  “Miles!”

  “Dad!”

  “I thought you weren’t coming home from Atlanta until Monday.” Renia’s shoulders relaxed and she put down her coffee cup so she could welcome him back.

  Sarah beat her to it with a leap over the couch into her father’s arms. “I’m so glad it’s you.”

  In the span of time between the clink of her mug on the countertop and the ruffle of Sarah’s hair as Miles wrapped his arms around the girl and rested his head on hers, Renia missed her own father with a sharp spike of pain she hadn’t felt in years. She placed her glasses on top of her head and scrubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palm.

  When Sarah pulled away from Miles, he held her at arm’s length and looked her over, just as Renia had done last night. “You’re not hurt, are you? You told your mom you weren’t hurt.”

  “I’m not, Dad.”

  He pulled her back into his arms and Renia saw his arms tighten around his daughter one more time. When they released each other again, Renia had a cup of coffee for him. They sat around her small table, Miles not taking his eye off his daughter.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” Mile’s voice had lost its tone of overwhelming relief. He’d checked all of Sarah’s parts and it was time for the anger.

  “You were in Atlanta,” Sarah said.

  “I was talking to Rey.”

  “You were in Atlanta.” Was he mad at her? She’d expected anger from Cathy, but not from Miles.

  “You still should have called me.” His voice was cold and razor-sharp.

  “It was one-thirty in the morning.”

  “Now that you’ve met Ashley and you’ve been Facebook friends with her for two weeks, you think you know everything a parent needs to hear and when they need to hear it?”

  Renia sucked air in between her teeth as she drew back in shock. “I think you should take Sarah home now.”

  “Sarah, take the blankets into Rey’s room and fold them, so she can put them away. We’ll be leaving in a minute.”

  “No.” Sarah’s young voice had the firmness of a girl who had learned a woman’s lesson.

  “No matter what you and Rey may think, I’m the only one in this room who’s your parent and you will go in that bedroom and shut the door.”

  “I’m not stupid, Dad. You want to yell at Rey and you don’t want me to hear. Yell at me. I’m the one who lied.”

  “It’s okay, zabko.” Renia reached over the table and clasped Sarah’s hand. If Miles dumped her this morning at her dining room table, she would always love the girl for trying to defend her.

  “No!” Both adults looked at Sarah in shock. The girl had tears welling in her eyes. “It’s not okay. He’s mad at me. He should yell at me.”

  “I’ve got plenty of yell in me for both of you, so don’t think you’re getting out of any punishment, young lady.”

  “I’m still staying here.” Sarah slipped her hand out of Renia’s grasp and gripped the seat of her chair. “If you want me to eavesdrop on you from the bedroom, you’ll have to force—”

  Miles winced. Sarah had chosen her words well when only five minutes ago Miles had been afraid his daughter had been raped.

  “—me out of this chair and into that room.”

  “Fine.” He turned to face Renia and a chill settled over the table. Sarah’s presence seemed to disappear from his mind. “I do not care for the manner in which you overstepped your bounds last night. Neither do I care for the impression you seem to have given Sarah that a teenager can party and be wild and not, apparently, learn a lesson. I should’ve known hearing about you and Vince would give Sarah ideas.”

  “I would’ve called Cathy had it been earlier....” Then the full force of what he said slapped her across the face and she recoiled. “What did you say?”

  “Dad, I didn’t go to the party because of Rey....”

  “This conversation is not about you, Sarah.”

  “But, Dad...” Miles opened his mouth but Sarah ignored him. “You said I learned about bad behavior from Rey, and I did. I learned that just because I’m tempted doesn’t mean I’m a bad person.” Tears slipped down her cheeks. “You and Mom talk about sex and drugs like I’m too smart to be tempted, but I’m not. And when that guy handed me a red cup with beer and I took it, I thought if I’d disappointed you already by being tempted, what would it hurt for me to take a sip?”

  Renia’s heart ached for the girl. She knew the slippery slope Sarah had been on, had slid down that slope many times as a girl herself. If I’ve disappointed you already, what does it matter if I disappoint you more?

  The true lesson for Renia came from learning she could disappoint herself.

  Sarah sniffed, but didn’t wipe away her tears. “I stopped him, because I didn’t want his hand there, but also because Rey would be disappointed in me if I didn’t. She doesn’t expect me to be too smart to be tempted, but she knows I’m smart enough to make the right decision when I really need to.”

  Renia got up from her seat and went into the bathroom. She blew her nose and grabbed the box of tissues to bring back to the table. Sarah’s gaze was fixed at some far-off point beyond the windows, refusing to look at her father.

  “Is that what you think?” Miles’s voice was still cold, but the chill no longer came from anger. He couldn’t believe what his daughter was saying. “That I couldn’t understand what it’s like to be tempted?”

&nb
sp; “You talk about being my age like there was nothing but school to worry about.”

  “When I was your age, there was nothing for me but school.” He put a hand on Sarah’s forearm, but she still wouldn’t look at him. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t know about temptation. I just didn’t act on it.”

  “I’m not you. And I’m not Mom. I was tempted and you didn’t prepare me for what to do.” Sarah yanked two tissues out of the box and finally wiped her eyes, before turning to face her father. “If I’d known you were home, I still would’ve called Rey.”

  “She should’ve called me.”

  “I asked her not to.”

  Miles kept hold of Sarah’s arm, but looked at Renia. “That’s no excuse. She’s not your parent.”

  “But I knew she would be there for me when I needed her.”

  Miles’s phone beeped. He glanced at it, keyed in a response and looked back at his daughter. “Your mom wants you to call her.”

  “Why didn’t she come?”

  Renia wanted to know, as well. Miles would’ve still been full of hurtful things to say about her and her past, but he would have said them in private, rather than in front of Sarah.

  “Her car wouldn’t start and Richard was out, so she called me.”

  “I’d like to go to her house.”

  “I came home from Atlanta early because Sunday is our day together. It’s football season.”

  “I want to go home to Mom. If you won’t take me, I’ll ask Rey to drive me over.”

  “Rey’s done enough this weekend. Go get your stuff.” His voice was resigned as he gestured to the pile of clothing folded on the end table. “I’ll drive you to your mom’s.”

  “Sarah,” Renia interrupted, “let me get you some of my clothes to wear home.” Miles would have another fit if he saw her party clothes.