disclaimers in previous chapters
Lindsey sat in the car, furious with Gil for embarrassing her in front of Barry. Her thirteen-year-old mind pictured him as an annoying wasp in a cartoon, which she promptly squashed with an oversized flyswatter. If she could have seen herself, she would have seen a wide-eyed blonde girl with smoke fuming from both ears.
She watched Gil and Barry through the rear view mirror. Gil was really letting Barry have it. She'd never seen Barry so scared. It was so not cool for him to be afraid of Gil. He was in a band. He smoked. He drank. He skipped class. When he was in class, he told off teachers. So why was he acting like such a loser in front of Gil? Gil, who spent his life playing with nasty bugs.
"Whatever." It was her verbal protest to the world. She continued watching them and her cartoon fantasy returned. The next scene was of Barry morphing into a giant baseball bat with Gil as a screaming baseball hurling towards him at warp speed. Barry pulls back and swings just at the right moment, knocking Gil not just out of the park but out of the country deep into the Pacific Ocean only to be eaten by some dufus whale and never heard from again.
Outside the realm of her imagination, she watched as Barry's shoulders hung low. Why wasn't he taking up for himself? Better still, why wasn't he taking up for her?
Her mind wandered back to the cartoon in her head. She watched as her hottie morphed into a zoot-suited cat and she his cat girl. They were in a swing club, Barry playing his guitar. Gil came running into the club as a weasel cop ready to bust everyone in the joint. Lindsey the cat wasn't afraid. She knew her zoot-suited paramour would rescue her. She turned to look at Barry only to see him quickly box his guitar and exit the building through the Barry-shaped hole in the wall created by his body. She could have followed him but she didn't. Right before he had disappeared through the hole in the wall, he had grabbed Susie the Siamese, wrapping his free arm tightly around her waist and carrying her away with him.
"Jerk." She looked around the club. It was completely empty expect for her and Weasel Gil, only he wasn't a weasel any longer. He was a wise old owl. And he wasn't angry with her. He was angry with that tomcat who had left her there by herself.
"Well that sucks." Lindsey was amazed at her inability to picture herself being rescued by Barry. Why would he do that? He was supposed to love her. She was special, that's what he told her. That's why he was with her instead of some high school girl. He was seventeen so why would he be with her if he didn't love her unless he was just using her? But Barry wasn't like that. He was like her father, Eddie.
Then she recalled all the times she'd seen her mom and dad fighting, the times when Eddie had brought home a new girlfriend. And she remembered the last one, the one who had left her in the car to die. The woman was only interested in her father because he promised her a music career. And how her father only kept her around because she would do anything he asked her to do. And she remembered how much she hated that woman for using her father like that. She never cared about Eddie; she only cared about what Eddie could do for her. And she had never cared about her. That's why she left them both to die in the car.
In that instant, Lindsey understood. She understood. She understood something many women spend a lifetime trying to understand. She understood she deserved someone who would treat her well, who didn't want her just because he could manipulate or control her. She understood she deserved better than being in a one-sided relationship where she was the only one truly interested in the other person. With this understanding came an incredible rush of adrenaline and the desire to let Barry know just what she thought of him. She slammed open her door, morphing into a miniature version of her mother as she jumped out. She ran around the back of the car towards Barry, completely ignoring Gil's order to get back in the car.
She grabbed Barry by the collar, opening her mouth to give him a piece of her mind but the only sound that came out was her sobbing. Even with her new understanding, she was still a thirteen-year-old girl who was hurting. She didn't have the life experience necessary to do anything else. She felt Gil's arms pulling her away from Barry, guiding her to the sidewalk. He sat down beside her, pulling her head to his shoulder in an effort to comfort her broken heart as best he could.
Brass arrived shortly after and Gil explained the situation to him. Brass hauled Barry off to the Police Department. Both men knew there was nothing he could be charged with, but they did have enough to haul him down to the jail and scare him.