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  I knew in my heart that Daniel would forgive me when cooler heads prevailed. When he learned the truth, he’d give me one of his reassuring hugs I treasured so much. He’d wrap his arms around me, protect me, and nothing in the world could hurt me.

  Coz smiled. “Hear that, boy? Jessa’s with me now,” he said, sneering as he thrust his knife at Daniel. “Now get the hell out of here!”

  While I held my bleeding cheek, I fought back tears as I watched Daniel walk away with his head lowered. My heart squeezed in agony as I pulled away from Coz and scurried to the nearest exit. The door alarm blared as I pushed through and headed for my car.

  Nothing worked to stop my flow of tears. I tapped Daniel’s number on my smartphone. Every call attempt went to his voicemail. My God, what did I do?

  Chapter 2

  I COASTED MY car down the alley between rows of identical two-car garages, then pulled into my garage and closed the overhead door. I looked at myself in the rearview mirror to assess the seriousness of the cut. The gash was deep but nothing compared to the guilt that ensnared my heart. Daniel had to have thought I didn’t love him anymore. That terrified me.

  I yanked out Daniel’s book from my backpack then shoved it into the glove box. I’d have to give it to him tomorrow along with the best apology imaginable. With any luck, he’d forgive me.

  While I sat in the car, I pressed another crumpled napkin against my cheek. From the moment I first saw Daniel in sixth grade, I knew he was mine, like a magnet to steel. I even fantasized about being married to him. What sixth-grader thinks of that craziness?

  My dad bought the GTO for us to restore. I was eight years old when he brought the wreck home, and I thought he was crazy for buying it.

  I didn’t know anything about cars nor wanted to know, but since everyone in Englewood Rails loved the old muscle cars, Dad figured we should have one too. Even though I wanted a new Dodge Challenger, the 1969 GTO had a style my dad loved. He loved working at the Pontiac plant at Stamper’s Row but got sick while working there. He loved how Pontiac split the grill on their cars and felt that was a great characteristic that set it apart from other cars. Whatever.

  The side garage door squeaked open. My mom stood there, tired and haggard, her crossed arms barely looked strong enough to hold the cigarette clutched between her thin, bony fingers.

  “Why are you holding your face, Jessagirl? What happened?” Mom asked.

  “What?” I asked, trying to avoid a major scene with her.

  Mom was the only one who called me Jessagirl. She called me that my whole life. She stepped closer while looking at my eyes. Sadness washed over her face as she empathized with my pain. Her sullen face reflected the ongoing devastation that worked over her soul since my father’s death.

  Mom met Ken, my stepdad, a few months after the funeral. I’ll never know the reason, but she thought she needed to marry him.

  “There was a problem at school. It’s no big deal,” I said.

  “Why are you holding your cheek?” Mom asked.

  “I got a small cut when I got too close to a fight.”

  I lowered my head and opened the car door.

  “Jessa?”

  With a surrendered breath, I removed the napkin from my face and showed Mom the cut.

  “Jessa, my God!” she said.

  Before I realized what happened, she dragged my bleeding face to the hospital.

  After the doctor at the hospital tied off the last of a dozen stitches, I dropped Mom off at the house. From there, I sought refuge at the Museum of Science and Industry.

  I parked in the museum’s side parking lot and listened to the sprouted maple leaves rattling in the spring breeze while the sweet aromas of blooming lilac filled my nose. Despite my numbed face feeling like a dangling grapefruit, I walked to the rear of the massive limestone marvel, one of the few surviving structures of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.

  The steps that fronted the Columbia Basin, a wide shallow pool once surrounded by the handsome buildings known as the White City, was where Daniel and I came to escape our problems, at least for a little while.

  The museum was far enough from home where nobody would find us. We held hands and stole kisses without the slightest worry of anyone seeing us. For the past year we came here, I thought we did a good job staying in the shadows.

  With prom a month away, staying out of Coz’s sight wouldn’t work anymore. I wanted to be free of his never ending intimidations. I wanted to dance with Daniel to my favorite songs and bask in the warm, secure wraparound embrace of his hugs. That would be the closest to heaven I’d ever experience.

  The early summer sun hung low on the horizon. Daniel still didn’t answer my calls, and I turned a hopeful eye to see if he’d come here considering what happened at school, but he was nowhere in sight. With one more year of high school to go, I hoped that I’d get out of Englewood Rails in one piece.

  I traced the bandage with my manicured finger with a tiny blue-winged foot decal on the nail. My cheek twitched as the Novocain began to wear off and shoots of pain throbbed across the side of my head. Coz, that bastard.

  I looked at the basin when another sickening thought overcame me while I gazed—how my stepfather Ken would react at seeing my injury. It didn’t matter to him what I did as long as it didn’t cost him any money. He treated me more like a nuisance than a stepdaughter.

  Ken liked his booze but never got fall-down drunk as far as I saw. A lifer for the Chicago Water Department, he knew nothing else but being a union cog in the Chicago Machine.

  I drew a deep breath, then headed for my car. God, this was going to suck.

  While I lay on my bed, I tuned in on the ceiling fan motor’s drone while the blades twirled above me. A short chain swung and rhythmically tapped against the dangling glass light fixture. I listened to the quiet of the house, except for the sound of a few plates clanking together in the kitchen where Mom prepared dinner.

  The mouth-watering smells of something delicious wafted up the stairs and met my nose. I laced my fingers over my growling stomach. The last rays of the setting sun still heated my room and light beams streaked through a stringer holding dozens of ribbons and medals I’d won over the years in track and field.

  Our school had a large track team. It was our sisterhood, our Switzerland from the daily drama of everyday school life. I was among the fastest sprinters and the best long jumper Roosevelt High School ever had. Mom dreamed that I might even get scholarship money to jump since my grades were good too. Most of the girls were pretty darned smart, another common trait among girls in track and field.

  The muffled sound of a car door closing from the street caught my ear. I peeked down from my window. From there I watched as Ken threw his button-down shirt over his shoulder. After coming home, he’d plop onto his easy chair, exhausted after a day’s work. He approached the house in his usual blue jeans and white crew neck t-shirt but with an unusual spring in his step.

  I heard the front door creak open then slam against the frame. He called for my mother, declaring he had good news. I stood at the top of the staircase and listened. If the gods smiled upon me, maybe his good news would outweigh my bad news.

  He boasted how he got a promotion and a pay raise to go with it. I thought he might hurt himself if he laughed any harder. On any other day he seemed disgruntled about something.

  Like a cat, I stepped down the stairs and shuffled my way to the kitchen where I could hear him better.

  “Baby, we have to celebrate,” Ken said. “Lets all of us go downtown this weekend to one of those great steak houses like Gibson’s. What do you say?”

  The floor creaked as I stood in the doorway in plain view. My mother glanced at me, then spied Ken, who looked at me. His thick arms folded across his beefy chest, resting on the beginnings of a middle age belly.

  He stroked his stubbly chin, the whiskers rasping as he ran his calloused fingers across them. His face turned red when he noticed the bandage on
my face. He ripped his baseball hat off his head and threw it against the wall where it bounced into the kitchen sink.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Ken demanded.

  “Ken, please, she’s had a rough day,” Mom said.

  “I ain’t talking to you. Well, speak, girl! Who’d you piss off this time?”

  I hated talking to him when he was mad. His booming, wall-shaking voice made me cower. Arguing with him was as pointless as soothing a rabid starving dog with a cracker.

  “There was a fight in school,” I said. “I got sideswiped. It’s no big deal.”

  “By who? Was it one of your moron gang friends?”

  “Yeah, okay? It was one of them.”

  “Big surprise there.”

  Ken shook his head, then paced while running his hands through his salt and pepper hair.

  “It was Coz,” I said. “I was with Daniel at school and Coz came up and pulled a knife on us.”

  “How much was the bill?” Ken asked, lowering his head.

  “What? I don’t know. Would you be happier if he killed me?”

  “No, because the burial would bankrupt us.”

  Ken looked at my mom, who took the hospital bill from the counter. She handed it to Ken, who snatched it from her.

  “Twelve hundred bucks? Your kid cost me twelve hundred bucks?” Ken shouted.

  “Won’t the insurance cover it?” Mom asked.

  “Our deductible is huge. This comes out of my pocket!”

  “Well, then I’ll pay for it,” I said.

  “How?”

  I thought fast.

  “I can get another job and pay you back,” I said with hopeful futility.

  “With your minimum wage job at a beauty salon, it’ll take years. I know a faster way to get it and it’s parked fifty feet away from us,” Ken said, pointing toward our detached garage.

  The car was the last physical connection I had to my dad other than photographs. Although I didn’t want the thing, I suddenly found myself defending it.

  “My car? If I sell the car, how would I get anywhere?” I asked.

  “Bus, cab, Uber, bicycle. Lots of ways,” he said. “You should be able to get five grand for it.”

  “You can’t offer up my car,” I pleaded.

  “Sell that piece of scrap for whatever you can get. You can save any leftover money for the next hospital bill.”

  Ken snatched his hat out of the sink.

  “My dad left me that car. I won’t sell it, and you can’t make me sell it,” I said with a closing stomp of my foot. For a moment, I couldn’t believe I did that, but I was desperate.

  “Ken, be reasonable. She’ll make it right,” Mom said.

  Ken slapped my mom across the cheek. The loud clap startled me and stung my heart. As long as I’ve known him, I never saw him hit her. Sure, he was a first-class loud mouth working sixty hours a week for the city, but seeing him hit her made something snap inside me.

  I charged Ken then shoved him against the refrigerator. I punched him in the belly a couple times, which was like punching a bag of fertilizer; it hurt me more than it hurt him.

  He dropped his forearm across my back, and I collapsed to the floor. My back felt stiff as if it were shocked. I crawled away from him across the kitchen floor to my mom.

  “Don’t you ever hit her again,” I said as I grimaced in pain on the floor.

  “One day you’ll learn how hard it is to get along in this world and keep people safe. Honey, I’m sorry. I was out of line. My day was great until now, and I lost my cool. Leave it to a girl to bring a man down.”

  Ken stomped out of the kitchen and stormed up the foyer steps. Mumbled curses echoed back to the kitchen. Moments later, an upstairs door slammed. The sound of running water in the pipes soon followed.

  I stood and looked at Mom.

  “Are you okay, Mom?” I asked.

  “I’m all right. At least he didn’t punch me this time,” she said with a soft laugh.

  “He’s done this before? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It’s between me and Ken, Jessa. I must’ve deserved it. He takes good care of us.”

  “He has no right to hit you. Look, I can sell the car to pay the doctor bill if necessary. I can get another one someday. It’s not rare or anything.”

  “Your father thought the car was special and wanted you to have it. I don’t think Ken would want you to sell it either. I only wish I could protect you better. Your father always looked after you.”

  I loved my dad. He was always interested in anything I did, like a perfect best friend. We drove on road trips and ate at nice restaurants on many occasions, but I never suspected Dad was on borrowed time.

  The day he came home with the GTO was one I never forgot. After the tow truck lowered the car to the alley, Dad and the tow truck driver pushed it into the garage. The smile on my dad’s face told the story when he said to me, ‘I know it don’t look like much, but this is a special car and it’s ours. Let’s mint this thing and see how much beauty she has under her scars. The old styles are the best styles.’

  Dad died a year later. As time passed, I drifted away from Mom. I never considered that her heart ached for him as well. We grieved apart instead of together as we should have. Many times, I wished there was something I could’ve done to protect both of them but there was no winning.

  “Mom, what’s so great about the car? Dad said it was special, but I never thought much of it,” I said.

  Mom erupted in a strong wet cough. Moist tobacco-laced air rushed from her lungs. I cringed but kept my distaste to myself. She pouted her lip, then arched her brow. We sat at the table and sighed in unison.

  “I suppose it was one of his favorites, or he got a good price for it,” she said. “I remember he said his friend’s grandfather had it stashed in a garage somewhere. Your father bought it sight unseen.”

  “How much did it cost?” I asked.

  “About fifteen thousand.”

  “What? For that bucket of crap? I take it he wasn’t too good with money.”

  “No, he was. Before he died, he got his papers in order. I paid off the house with the life insurance money and saved a little for your college expenses, whatever they might be. He was a good man.”

  I sat down as sadness washed over me.

  “Jessa? What’s bothering you?” she asked.

  Despite everything that happened over the last several hours, my mom knew there was something more going on in my world than I led her to believe.

  “I pretended that I loved Coz in front of Daniel. I did it to stop the fight.”

  “Did you tell Daniel that?”

  “I never got the chance. If you only saw his face. I hurt him, Mom.”

  My heart squeezed as I thought of the betrayal I inflicted on Daniel.

  “Give him time. You two have a long history. I’m sure he’ll listen to you explain your side,” she said.

  “He must think I hate him,” I said, dropping my sobbing face onto my hands.

  Mom came to my side and rubbed my trembling shoulders. Her warm voice whispered in my ear that she loved me. I grabbed a napkin from the wooden holder on the kitchen table. With a choppy breath, I blew my nose. The kitchen clock showed that I had little time to get to Double N.

  I got up from the table, grabbed my car keys off the counter and toyed with them while I gathered my thoughts.

  “Where are you going?” Mom asked.

  “Double N, to get a new exhaust. That should help me sell it so I can pay back Ken for the hospital bill.”

  Mom looked over her shoulder.

  “Don’t you dare,” Mom said. “After you get home, we’ll talk with Ken to make things right. He’s more reasonable after he’s settled for a while.”

  “Okay, Mom,” I said and gave her a hug. “Thank you.”

  The starter cranked the engine, and the usual smelly blue smoke flowed from the tail pipe. I backed out the car and headed for Double N Performance.
r />   Everyone took their muscle cars to Double N for classic car work. The quality was stellar and taking my car there felt like a rite of passage. I imagined how the car would appear after they applied their magic, but I couldn’t quite see it.

  The car’s original white paint job wasn’t so great now, but with some chrome touches and a new leather interior, maybe this thing would look decent enough. Until that day, I drove this piece of crap, but it was my piece of crap, and nobody could take it from me.

  Chapter 3

  WITH THE ORANGE-TINGED streetlights shining bright, I was uncertain that I’d get to Double N before they closed.

  I parked on the shop’s broken asphalt driveway behind the building near the main garage entrance. Located in a revitalized industrial area on South Michigan Avenue near the Metra rail yard, Double N Performance occupied a 1920s-era red brick two-story building that, like others on the street, once housed a former car dealership during the 1930s. The roof boasted two rows of triangular transom windows running the length of the building.

  On their sign in faded red paint below the name, was their catchphrase, Precision Work with Divine Speed. A pair of flatbed tow trucks sat in front of a newer storage building where cars stacked three-high rested on heavy steel shelves. Several classic muscle cars in sad shape rested under another makeshift shelter, the rough Chicago weather working over the aging steel bodies.

  I climbed out and caught the earthy-like smell of rusty metal and moldy interiors of cars awaiting renewed lives. Upon reaching the front door, I didn’t notice any lights on. I gave a frustrated tug on the locked door. Crap.

  I searched for any valuables that might still be inside my car. I removed a couple of photographs from the visor for safekeeping along with the garage door opener. My heart stopped when I gazed at the image of my dad and me standing next to the car. His arm hung off my shoulder, and I stood there with a goofy smile. Since the convertible top’s motor didn’t work, I fought the rusty hardware to lift the torn top from behind the rear seat.

  After dropping the keys into an overnight drop box along with a note containing my contact info, I started for home.