Logan now lives on his own in an apartment building his parents own in downtown Allendale—one of many real estate investments they are part of. He commutes to Michigan State University in Grand Rapids, which is to be his Alma mater. He is, of course, still very crushable. He’s chosen to walk in his father’s footsteps and is now in his third year of law school after graduating magna cum laude in his undergraduate studies. He is still top of his class in graduate school as all little Harringtons are, including his younger sister. And he is even interning with the DA’s office in Grand Rapids. He is already receiving a great deal of interest from law firms across the country, but it is Brighton and Brinks in Denver, Colorado where he intends to plant his roots. They extended an early offer and Logan didn’t hesitate to accept. The contract has been signed, sealed, and delivered, and our little burg will have to suffer the loss of our most handsome resident little more than a week after he completes his graduate studies. He has always intended to move to Denver after he graduates, and the offer from Brighton was too good to pass up. They are a well-respected and prestigious firm; Logan will fit right in. He only knows how to succeed. He is driven in a way most people could never imagine. It would be easy for Logan to rely on his good looks and charm to get him through life, but he cares little for anything so trivial and focuses all his energy on his education and, moreover, his career. His focus is singular, and it will be the thing that elevates him quickly in life; of this, I have no doubt.

His girlfriend, on the other hand, is a different story. Amy. She is the anti-Christ and everything self-conscious young girls dread. She is blonde, blue eyed, voluptuous, and curvy in all the right places. I may have the blue eyes, but nothing else about me comes close to her physical perfection. I am boyishly built, undersized in all the wrong places and have the most boring, plain, reddish-brown hair. I keep it perfunctorily long to make it easy to pull back in a bun, but otherwise there is nothing impressive about it. Amy’s personality is the complete opposite of Logan’s. She is good at playing nice with people, but that’s all it is, playing. She's selfish, and if I were guessing, she likes Logan more for the way he looks on her arm than who he is. She sees him as a ticket to the sweet life, somewhere bigger and better than she can achieve on her own. It is impossible to see why he likes her so much; well, actually, from his point of view, it is quite obvious what he sees in her. Sara can’t stand the idea of having her as a sister-in-law one day and loves making snide comments behind her back, which I am always more than happy to second.

Sara is also kept busy with school herself and helping her parents around their lake house at nearby Spring Lake. They are restoring the neglected property and pay Sara top dollar for her help. I occasionally go with her to help out but have a weekend waitressing job that limits the time I can spend there. And it is on an Indian summer weekend two months into our senior year of high school I find what is to be my new sanctuary.

Chapter 2

Working the weekend shift at the Little Tuscan Bistro is how this poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks keeps herself in decent, albeit generic, clothes. That being said, this is no ordinary bistro. There is nothing Tuscan, little, or bistro about this place. But as is the case in small town USA, a title can go a long way in convincing us that we really do have the finer things in life.

On Friday nights, we usually finish up around ten or shortly thereafter, and this night is no exception. At ten fifteen, I duck out the back door and begin the short bicycle ride toward the mobile home park that my father and I live in. Riding a bicycle isn’t my first choice of transportation, but it is the only means I can afford. I try to convince myself I look like every other health-savvy suburbanite by choosing the green alternative over the oil-sucking monster that is the automobile, but quite frankly, I’d take a car any day over my old bent-spoke, sad-looking bicycle with its over-worn seat that threatens to impale my tush should I hit a pothole. But alas, I am a bike dweller. And while I may be well on my way to owning my own car, thanks to good tip money, unfortunately, “well on my way” isn’t the same thing as “there”. On occasion, my father will allow me to take his car when he doesn’t need it, but that is never on a weekend night. His old beat up car is reserved for his recreational drunk driving only on weekend nights. Fortunately, Sara has a car, and I’m not forced to show up for class on a bicycle too often. Though I must admit, I wear my best exercise costume on those days when I must to drive the point home; I’m not poor, people, just healthy, damn it!

When I arrive at our trailer, it is dark and empty. There is always concern upon arriving home to our old, ugly trailer that my father will be there, spewing venom for words and ready to hate me for being alive. It is early, though, and often on the weekends, he feels the need to congregate with his folk until at least midnight. I’m tired and filthy from playing waitress for the night; after all, it is Friday and spaghetti a la tomato paste was on the menu. After showering and changing, I crawl into bed for what I hope will be a quiet, uneventful night.

I have become very adept at dodging my encounters with my father. He hasn’t landed a blow for years, and while I’m sure many have suspected him of physical abuse, they’ll be hard pressed to prove it by me, and I will be no help to them. I have no relatives, at least none who would claim my father, and I know full well that means a juvenile home for me if his little temper ever surfaces to meet the public eye. Not even Sara understands how truly violent he can be. She knows as much as I tell her, which is little. It’s no secret that he is a less than great man. Fortunately for him, cuts, bruises, and even the occasional concussion can easily be explained away—if he can just remember to pace himself. Social Services has a short memory, and active young girls have accidents all the time. Besides, he is a surprisingly good liar when it comes to talking with Social Services.

But those were the earlier years. Now, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve become the skilled escape artist, and in his drunken state, he forgets very quickly his daughter’s room is empty and her ground floor window ever so slightly cracked. Sara’s family knows I work late and never care when I come over late. It’s the perfect solution … most of the time. But not on this night.

On this night, my normal vigilance is replaced with uncharacteristic exhaustion. Perhaps I’ve become lazy, or perhaps he’s learned to tip toe drunk. In any event, it comes as quite a surprise when my bedroom door is flung open and the meanest man I’ve ever met comes staggering in to pick a fight with a seventeen-year-old. That’s alcoholism at its finest. The first blow strikes the left side of my head—hard. That first blow to the left side of my temple sends my right temple smacking against the wall, and all I can register are the fireworks suddenly flashing in the back of my eyes from the impact. The next back hand lands nicely on the corner of my mouth, and soon blood is dripping down my chin from where I was struck. The instant pain that shoots through my jaw feels as though it is unhinging from the joint.

The nice thing about glancing back handed blows is that they tend to spin a drunk man like a top, and spinning drunk men aren’t all that familiar with balance. Thus I am afforded my moment for escape. The window, my normal route, isn’t an option as he’s blocking my path directly to it. Which leaves the front door as the only alternative. I grab my book bag sitting on the floor by the door as I skirt past him while he staggers to get to his feet. As I run through the house, I can hear him stirring in my bedroom. He sounds like an angry bull whose matador has just done something very rude and unpleasant to him. But I am fast. In a matter of moments, I am out the door and bicycling fast for parts unknown.

Normally, I would have made my cursory call to Sara from the phone in my bedroom before he even had the chance to stumble his way down the hallway to my room, nothing more needed than a quick, “Hey, dad’s drunk and I don’t feel like arguing. Can I come over?” followed by her ever happy to see me, “Of course.” But this night is different.

Because of my slip, my heart is racing, my hands are shaking, I am crying, and my head is exploding. I have no idea what time it is, and judging by how soundly I was sleeping, it could be well into the early morning hours. I will have no choice but to explain the bloody lip, which means lying to my best friend, and worst than that, no way of knowing just how bad it will look in the morning when we join her parents for breakfast.

I consider not calling her and just killing time until morning when I can go home, but I am cold and tired and hurting. After two blocks, I come to the old Amoco station and decide it is either a cold, uncomfortable night on my own or a nice, warm bed and good company. I stand at the pay phone with tears still streaming down my face and notice for the first time my feet are bare and bruised from the metal pedals of my bicycle and the hard chewed up asphalt of the old gas station’s parking lot. I fish a handful of change from the side pocket of my backpack and dial Sara’s cell number. I am not looking forward to this conversation but eager to hear her familiar voice. That’s when things change.

I am so busy trying to decide what to tell her I somehow manage to not hear the overtly masculine voice on the other end of the line. Instead, “Hello” in Logan’s sleep-laden and somewhat annoyed voice is the first thing I register. In my over-adrenalized idiocy, I start to wonder how I’ve managed to dial his number before I realize I wouldn’t know how to dial his number if I wanted to because I don’t even have the number.