Page 57 of Friend
“How is it?” I still asked even though I really didn’t need her to answer—her enjoyment was obvious. She’d scarfed down half of her burger in less than four bites and was now taking a break to inhale her vanilla milkshake.
Meanwhile, I’d barely been able to stomach a single bite of my own.
“It’s good!” she mumbled around her straw, and her eyes—which had been briefly closed as she drank—opened as she looked at me, sparkling. “Thanks so much!”
Yes, she was already feeling better. Maybe it really had been divine intervention for me to suggest this.
Food usually did have a way of making her forget her problems.
At that moment, our waiter returned. He stood closer to Bianca’s side than mine, and asked, “Is there anything else you two need?”
She hadn’t heard him approach, and it was hard not to notice the way her body tensed as she realized his presence. She leaned away, and her gaze darted down as she pulled back from her drink.
“We’re good,” I answered him. It wasn’t his fault, and technically he wasn’t doing anything inappropriate. “Thanks.”
The blonde surfer-dude, who seemed way out of place in this mountainous area, lingered a second longer before leaving. She relaxed after he was gone, and my mood soured further.
However, she seemed fine as her attention landed back onto her burger, and she grabbed it with gusto.
“Bianca.” I’d try this one last time—she’d eaten, which meant that she was happy now. Maybe she’d be more receptive. “What did Adrian do?”
And, suddenly, she didn’t look so content anymore.
She set her food back on the plate and glanced out the window. “Nothing.”
There was no way she was getting out of it that easily. “Why was your shirt ripped?” When she didn’t answer, I added, just to remind her that I hadn’t not noticed, “Why were your hands tied?”
Bianca looked down and her shoulders drew up, her hands were hidden in her lap, impossible to see from my seat, but I could imagine that she’d bunched the bottom of my shirt in her fists.
She was nervous.
“No reason,” she said, voice wavering.
“Bianca—” My pulse was pounding in my ears, and a low, distant, sound echoed through my consciousness, telling me that I was on the border of pushing too far. “—I know he did something to you. Did he touch you?”
“Touch m-me?” Bianca’s pallor had turned ashen, and her shoulders shook as violently as her voice. She pressed her lips together, and her chest expanded as she breathed in deeply.
The watery expression dropped from her face, and when she replied, her voice was devoid of any emotion.
“No.”
I stared at her, my thoughts screaming in protest.
I knew she was lying, even though everything in me wanted to believe her. I was not stupid, and I could read the signs easily enough.
Yet Damen’s advice echoed in my ears.
I couldn’t force her to talk. It was all anyone asked from her for eight years, and not once did she open up.
“Okay.” One day, maybe. There was nowhere Adrian could hide—so it wasn’t like he was going anywhere without me knowing.
“Do you want ice cream? They have sundaes.”
Bianca looked up at me, that uncomfortable feeling in the air fading, as she said, “But we have milkshakes.”
So? “You don’t want ice cream?”
She started to shake her head ‘no,’ but then paused, glancing toward the bar seating at her left. It was a fifties style café, with red and white décor, and the bright, retro menu was easy to read even from across the room. “Chocolate.”
