God-Shaped Hole by Tiffanie DeBartolo

would persevere over tragedy, just like that one-armed guy from Def Leppard.
    After my father walked out the door, my mother ran to the window, her waterproof mascara shellacked to her lashes as tears ran down her cheeks. She shrieked so loud it sounded like she was being stabbed. Now that she has half of his fortune, she’s reconstructed her poise, but back then she was just prideless and pitiful.
    I heard a voice in my head. It said: I would rather be alone than ever be my mother. I will leave before I am left.
    My intuition told me I was out of control but there was nothing I could do.
    Jacob opened the door of the office and leaned against the wall. The smell of melted butter made my mouth water. I wondered if Jacob could smell it—he’d been hungry for hours.
    “Beatrice, can we please talk about this? It’s more complicated than you’re allowing for and—”
    “Shut up, Jacob. I don’t want to hear it.” I dug through my jacket for a set of keys. Jacob looked at me as if he’d never seen me before in his life.
    “Did you just tell me to shut up?” he said.
    Popcorn. That’s what I smelled. Someone on our floor was making popcorn. Maybe it was Greg, I thought. Maybe I should knock on his door and have a handful of popcorn and fuck him. I wondered how Jacob would like that. He could fuck Nina and I could fuck Greg. Just like old times.
    It was kind of ironic, actually. Greg had done infinitely worse things to me when we were together, but nothing he did ever hurt me. Because I didn’t care, that was the core of the issue. I’d never cared before. I didn’t know how to act like a normal person and be in love at the same time. Nor did I know how to process fear.
    I was damaged goods. A cripple.
    Pathetic.
    I couldn’t find my keys. I had to take Jacob’s off the table. He asked me where I was going but I pretended like I couldn’t hear him.
    “Please don’t leave right now, Beatrice. Please. I need to talk to you.” He was that cute little boy from the museum and I was his mother running off without him.
    “What do you care?” I shouted on my way out the door. “Maybe you can invite Nina over while I’m gone!”
    “Hey!” he shouted back. “Maybe I will!”
    It pissed me off that Jacob didn’t follow me down the hall. I wanted him to run after me and grab my sleeve. I wouldn’t have hid my hand like my father. I would have let Jacob take hold of me and he would have refused to let me go.
    Instead, he just stood in the doorway and watched the elevator close.

FIFTEEN
    I had no idea where I was going. I thought about heading to Kat’s, but she would have wanted to look Nina up and threaten her life or something, plus Kat lived in West Hollywood. To get to her apartment, I would have had to either drive down Wilshire, take Sunset, or get on the highway. Wilshire had too many lights; Sunset, too many curves; and California highways depress me the way bad smells do. I avoided the highways at all costs, even if side streets added an extra dozen miles to my trip.
    The first place I stopped was the Third Street Promenade—an outdoor shopping mecca right around the corner from where we lived. It was nothing special, just a long boulevard of mass-produced, trendy clothing emporiums, lots of cheap, tourist-trap restaurants, and a bunch of movie theaters. I went directly to the Cineplex. I didn’t want to see a movie or anything, but I was fixated on popcorn. The Cineplex had the best popcorn. It was the only theater on the Promenade that made it fresh. All the other establishments had it shipped to them in gigantic plastic bags. The girl in the ticket booth thought it was a strange request, only wanting the popcorn. She let me in anyway, and I got a bucketful with butter and salt, then I went back outside.
    I sat on a bench with my popcorn and watched a rickety old man play drums in front of Banana Republic. He’d set up a full set right in the middle of the sidewalk, and he had a small crowd of fans