The Missing Place by Sophie Littlefield Page B

evidence that she hadn’t escaped the fear at all: the proof was in her face’s wornness, its ugliness. Colleen pushed herself up from the counter and tore at her clothes. One of her blouse’s buttons popped off in her clumsy fingers. She yanked her panties off along with her pants. She unsnapped her bra and ripped it off her arms and threw it; it landed behind the toilet. Her socks ended up nearby. There. There! Naked and pale and useless,the mother of no one, nothing. It was hard enough to fight the terror without the noise, that terrible racket echoing around the small room, and Colleen covered her ears to drown it out and it was only when someone started pounding on the door that she realized that the sounds were coming from her. She tried to stop, the wailing turning to gulping breaths, and someone—a man—was saying in a muffled voice, Ma’am, ma’am. Are you all right, ma’am?
    And then there was Shay’s voice, firm and hard. “Colleen. Open the door. Let me in now. ” Colleen stared at the doorknob for only a few seconds before picking up the towel and holding it in front of herself and opening the door a fraction of an inch.
    Shay’s blue eye, the smell of coffee, the din behind her. “Colleen,” Shay repeated calmly. “Let me in now. Okay? Open the door. I’m coming in.”
    And then she did just that, pushing the door open wide enough to squeeze through before Colleen had made up her mind. Once inside, Shay closed the door nearly all the way and put her face to the opening and said, “We’re fine in here, don’t worry.” Then she closed and locked the door.
    Colleen folded her arms over her breasts. The towel was ridiculous, it hung in front of her, concealing part of her stomach and thighs but leaving her hips exposed, the sagging dollops of flesh at her sides.
    Shay didn’t blink. She didn’t reach for Colleen, either, which was good because Colleen wouldn’t have forgiven that, even if she’d been dressed.
    â€œSo this is where you thought you’d fall apart?” Shay demanded, in that same steely voice. “With an audience? Honey, they’re not going to forget that. You just got yourself talked about for the rest of the week.”
    â€œI don’t care ,” Colleen said. Because she didn’t. And wasn’t that odd? Not to care what all those strangers thought? But she had finally admitted to herself that she was only a husk, a shell, a used-up woman, and maybe there was some freedom in that.
    â€œYou let yourself think worst-case,” Shay continued. “That was your mistake. Want to know where I fell apart? Because I did the exact same thing as you’re doing now. Well, I kept my clothes on. It was somewhere in Nevada and it was about three in the morning. I’d stopped because the highway sign said there was an Arby’s, twenty-four hours, and I hadn’t eaten all day. Only it was shut down, the Arby’s. Sign busted and everything. There wasn’t shit at that exit and the next one was forty miles. There was some kind of mom-and-pop diner and a gas station with some old toothless perv staring out the window. And I parked and got out of the car and I picked up a rock from the flowerbed and I was going to throw it through the window, I swear I was, was going to wipe the sneer off his face. And then I just let that rock drop down on the ground, and I started screaming. Worse than you, actually. I screamed and cried until there was snot all over my face and my voice was just about gone. I thought about Taylor and the last time I talked to him, and I went down on my knees and when I couldn’t cry anymore I lay down. Facedown , right on the asphalt, and I took my nails and dragged them over the road. Here. Here , look at this.” She put her hand up in Colleen’s face, and the nails were broken off and the nail beds red and scabbed. How had Colleen not