Oh, my God. My grip on his hand tightens involuntarily.
Jay’s dad is a murderer. Who’s been sentenced to die.
It’s fucking surreal.
“His execution is in three weeks,” Jay goes on, giving a small cough, clearing moisture out of his throat. “On July tenth. That’s why my uncle Warren is visiting. He’s stopping in Texas to see my dad, and then he’s coming here to spend the day with me.”
In three weeks?
There’s a sharp, slicing pain in my chest, like my heart is literally breaking for them.
“Is there any chance he’ll get a stay?” I ask softly, knowing my voice will crack if I put more force into it.
“I don’t know,” he says with a shake of his head. “I don’t care.”
A scoff of protest rises in my chest, and it comes out gently but insistent. Because I don’t believe him.
He looks at me with his eyebrows lowered, his nostrils flaring. “I really don’t, all right? This isn’t news to me. I’ve had twelve years to think about it. And he’s just not worth it.”
“But…he’s your dad,” I point out. “You have some good memories of him, don’t you?”
“Sure,” he snaps. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to lose any sleep over him now, though. I refuse to give him that much power over me. He’s fucked me up enough already. I’m not going to allow him to do that to me anymore. I let him go. As far as I’m concerned, he’s already dead.”
I wince, a jolt going through me. He sounds like a stranger right now. This hard, angry, and unforgiving man is not my Jay. Yeah, this stuff is all news to me, but that doesn’t mean he’s a different person than I thought he was. Doesn’t mean that I’ve spent six years not truly knowing my best friend. This isn’t him. I don’t believe it.
And if he really believes what he’s saying, then he’s lying to himself.
I replay his words in my head, frowning when I realize what he said. “How did he fuck you up?”
Jay doesn’t answer right away. His jaw flexing, he stares at me, and underneath the dark cover of his sunglasses his eyes look black and bottomless. My heart beats a little faster with each second as his silence stretches and thickens, growing like a tidal wave. I’m sitting there frozen in the face of it.
When he speaks, he does it in a low and tightly controlled tone. “My mom lied to me and said he was in prison for burglary. I was fifteen when I found out the truth, and…it fucked with my head. It was bad enough that I never got to see him anymore. Finding out that he was a murderer—” Jay grinds out a low, disgusted grunt. “I didn’t know how to deal with it. And my mom didn’t even try to help.”
My tongue feeling like sandpaper, I ask, “And?”
He flattens his lips so much they disappear and lose color. “I started hanging out with the wrong people,” he admits, sounding reluctant and pained. “These two guys who were a year older than me. One of them had a big brother who everyone knew was an Eighty-Eight. A gang member. And there were rumors my friends had been recruited, too, and I knew that. And I didn’t care.”
Holy shit. Gang members? The world he’s describing is entirely foreign to me, and I can’t quite wrap my head around it not being foreign to Jay, too.
“What’d you do?” I say cautiously.
“A lot of stupid shit.” He sighs, the corners of his mouth turned down. “Kept a lookout for cops when my buddy’s older brother was dealing meth. Waited in the car for him a lot while he was off doing God knows what. One time I was even the driver when he came running back to the car, yelling at me to go, go, go. So I guess whatever he did that night…I was the getaway driver.”
My jaw drops. I’ve got enough attorneys in the family to know that the perpetrator and his getaway driver are equally culpable in the eyes of the law. Jay could’ve gotten in some serious trouble for that.
“Then Sean—the big brother—was shot by a member of a rival gang,” Jay supplies. “And then it was all-out war. A lot of retaliation. It was bloody and brutal. My buddies and I mostly stayed out of it, thank God. We were there when he got shot, though. It was a drive-by shooting. I was standing about ten feet away from him.”
I’m shaking my head, my mind going numb. Pulling my hand out of his, I lift it up to slowly rub his upper arm. Because I don’t know what else to do. “Then what happened?”
“We got caught.” He looks at me then, flashing a bitter smile. “Out of everything we did, we got caught while we were breaking into school to vandalize and steal stuff from the lockers of a few members of the other gang. There was a janitor still in the building who called the cops. So I guess, on the whole, we were lucky, because we definitely could’ve gotten caught for something much worse.”
“Getting arrested is not a joke.” Thoughtfully, I echo his words back at him, because now they make sense.
He agrees with a grunt. “My buddies both had priors and ended up serving time. I got probation, community service, and court-ordered counseling.”
“Jay…” I don’t know what else to say, so I just wrap my arms around his chest and lean my head on his shoulder. He feels the same. Smells the same. Sounds the same. But he’s not the same.
He reaches up, touches my arm as he says, “So I guess that was part of the reason I changed my name. And then when I was twenty-one, I was able to get my record sealed.”
I squeeze him more tightly against myself. “I would never have guessed there was anything like this in your past.”
He doesn’t respond, and for a while, it seems like he’s not going to say anything else.
But then he heaves a sigh, and the next words pour out of him. “When I got arrested, my mom called Uncle Warren, which was probably the best and most responsible thing she ever did as a parent. He dropped everything and took a leave of absence so he could come home. He helped straighten me out. Took me with him to Africa the next summer, and I came back knowing what I wanted to do with my life.”
His voice subdued, he adds, “I don’t know where I’d be without him. In prison, probably.”
“I’d love to meet him someday,” I say, and I mean it, because clearly without his uncle, I wouldn’t have Jay in my life. I’d like the opportunity to thank the man.
We sit there like that for a while. I can feel his heart beating under my arm while I replay in my mind everything he just told me—weighing it, chewing on it, trying to grasp it all. It’s like I can see Jay so much more clearly all of a sudden, have a better understanding of what makes him tick.
The way he’s such a stickler for following rules, how cautious he is, and how he never does anything before considering the consequences… It’s because he came so close to ruining his life. He got a second chance, and he’s doing whatever it takes not to screw it up.
Jay.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell him, tilting my head back and reaching up to put my hand on his cheek, urging his face toward me. “For all of it. I wish you would’ve told me sooner.”
He bends down so that his forehead touches mine, and I can feel some of the tension leave his body.
It should be a peaceful moment. A short space of time where we’re sitting quietly on a beach together, and he’s finally gotten all of this off his chest, and the world didn’t end.
But there’s something teasing at the back of my mind, something I’ve overlooked, something important. The thought is there, fuzzy and ominous, but I can’t bring it into focus—until suddenly it’s there, sharp and simple.
“Why are you telling me?” I look up at him, letting my hand fall away from his cheek. “Why now?”
He hesitates. Clears his throat. Then he sounds grudging as he replies, “I wanted you to find out from me instead of your parents.”
“They know?” I pull back all the way, letting go of him as I watch him with eyebrows raised.
Hastily, he says that’s what he and my dad talked about yesterday. He explains about my mom considering running for a judgeship—which she’s been talking about for yea
rs, so the only surprising part is that she’s finally doing something about it—and the investigator they hired, who dug up Jay’s past.
Briefly, I’m too stunned to speak. Then I shake my head, disgust coiling through me. “But why did my dad even bring that up with you? It’s none of his business.”
Jay’s shoulders heave in a shrug. “I don’t know. He was just being a dad? Looking out for you? I definitely got the feeling he thought you should know.”
I’m rolling my eyes and pressing my lips together. My dad’s motives are rarely that one-dimensional.
“So…wait,” I say as another thought occurs to me, a logical progression of the previous one. “You’re only telling me now because Mom and Dad found out?”
Jay goes completely still, muscles flexing at his jaw like he’s clenching his teeth.
Pressure builds in my chest, bubbling up into my head. I’m hearing myself like I’m outside of my body as I slowly and tersely ask, “You were never going to say anything to me, were you?”
“Probably not,” is his abrupt answer after a short pause.
I clench my hands into fists. “Why?”
He releases a burst of humorless laughter. “Because I’m ashamed and embarrassed?”
His plain confession sinks into me. The crisp, briny air with its smell of seaweed grows thick and soupy, and I can’t find the words to describe what I’m feeling.
“Why would I want you to know about it?” he goes on testily. “It has nothing to do with me anymore, so how would any good come out of telling you?”
A scoff wrenches itself from my throat. “It has everything to do with you now, Jay. It made you who you are.”
He stares at me then, and it occurs to me that having this conversation with sunglasses on is like driving blind. I want to know what his eyes are revealing right now.
“I couldn’t stand the thought that you might see me differently,” he says—somberly, unhappily. “That you might be disgusted and lose respect for me. Your opinion matters to me.”
I’m gaping at him, my head giving a small jerk.
Is he saying what I think he’s saying right now?
“You actually thought I’d judge you for what your dad did and how you reacted to that when you were still just a kid?” My voice rises higher with each syllable, my breaths coming out fast and shallow. “That’s so fucking insulting. I can’t believe you think I’m capable of that. Is that seriously how you see me?”
“It’s not about you, Mia,” he fires back, scowling. “It’s about me and my…irrational fears.”
“No.” The objection comes out of my mouth like a whiplash. “That’s such bullshit. It’s been six years. If you really wanted to share this with me, then there must have been at least one moment in the past six fucking years when you could’ve overcome that fear.”
For the space of one, two, three breaths, all we do is stare at each other.
“I’m sorry.” Shaking his head, he throws his hands out—a gesture that indicates surrender but actually just means he wants me to shut up now. “All right?”
“It’s not all right,” I say coldly. “None of this is all right.”
I push up and away from the rock, and sand seeps into my flip-flops as I take a small step. In jerky and angry motions, I bend down and snatch the crumpled lunch bags from the ground.
“We should get going again,” I tell him, and I don’t wait for his response before I start stomping across the sand toward the dirt path that’ll take me back up to my car.
Goddamn him and his secrets and his not trusting me with them without being forced to.
Puis-je avoir le menu? Je ne mange pas du fromage.
I try to focus on the words on my phone screen, but my brain feels fried and untethered. Giving up, I close the app and yank out my earbuds. Mia’s eyes are on the road, her fingers tapping on the steering wheel to the beat of the music coming from the stereo, a generic and poppy song that I don’t recognize and would be grateful to never have to listen to again.
Then it hits me that if I do that thing tonight that I’ve more or less decided I need to do…then there would be a lot less of this kind of music in my life. Somehow that’s not a cheerful thought, though.
Outside the window, lights from strip malls and residential neighborhoods gleam in the darkness that only just descended. We’ve got about twenty minutes to go, and I’m feeling like that’s how much time I have left to make my monumental decision.
You’re not right for her. You know that.
He’s a pretty smart guy, Franklin Waters.
Since lunch, while we drove south along the coast, the car has been more quiet than not. Which has made it difficult to keep my thoughts from straying down dark alleys, paths with hidden dangers and plenty of dead ends.
It’s unusual for Mia to stay silent for so long. From the pensive look on her face, it’s clear she’s also got a lot on her mind, and that most of her thoughts are not happy ones.
She’s still angry. I get why. I do. But it feels like a slap in the face, regardless. I spent all morning knowing I needed to tell her everything before the end of the trip—and being pissed off about being forced into it.
Then sharing everything with her was…gut-wrenching. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
It was a relief to get it all out, though. Until she got mad.
Was it a betrayal of our friendship that I didn’t tell her sooner? She seems to think so, but I don’t know. Part of me feels her reaction is unfair, because why should I feel obliged to tell her? She didn’t really need to know. It wasn’t any of her business.
Another part feels she’s justified, however, because I know—I fucking know—that being afraid of her reaction to it was not a rational, logical emotion. She’s done nothing to deserve that distrust.
I can’t decide which part of the argument should win.
“Is that when you got your tattoo?” she asks out of the blue, taking her eyes off the dense freeway traffic for a split second to throw a dark look at me. “It’s a gang tattoo? Not a drunken mistake?”
Shit. Yeah, I guess this was inevitable. I’m actually surprised it took her this long to realize it.
And now I know for a fact that she’s been dwelling on everything I told her and that it’s bothering her. So that’s definitely a point in favor of it being a shitty idea to let her know about it.
Feeling like there’s a weight crushing my chest, I grimly admit, “Yeah.”
A few seconds go by, and it’s as if her fury and her hurt is radiating off her and burrowing into my bones.
“You lied to me.” It doesn’t come out as an accusation. Just a bleak statement of fact.
“Yeah,” I repeat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do.”
She pins me with a tight-lipped glare. You could’ve told me the truth, that look says.
And I guess that cuts to the core of this, doesn’t it? She thinks I had a choice. But to me, it didn’t feel like a choice. I doubt that’s something she’ll ever understand. Mia’s closet is filled with wholesome and happy memories, not skeletons.
The staccato guitar intro to The Clash’s “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” jumps out from the car stereo, and it’s so apropos to my train of thought that it gives me a jolt.
I tried. I really did. And it was nice, pretending for one weekend that I could make this thing with Mia work. But in the end, nothing has changed—except, in acknowledging to myself how much I love her and how much she means to me, it’s become obvious just how far into my own grave I’ve dug myself.
And now I need to climb out of there, before the hole grows too deep.
I’m still silently searching for the right words and for the strength to say them out loud when she pulls up to the curb outside my house. Stopping a few feet behind my truck, she puts the car in Park and leaves it idling.
When she turns to me, she doesn’t look angry anymore. She just looks…worn down. Her eyes have a dull sheen to t
hem, and her lips are thin and downturned.
“Thank you for coming this weekend,” she says quietly. “I know my grandma really appreciated it.”
But did you appreciate it, Mia?
“No problem,” I hear myself say as if from a distance. There’s a swishing, swooshing noise in my ears, and it feels like my intestines are trying to digest a handful of rocks.
I don’t have to do this. It’ll be fine. Right? Just leave things as they are, maintain the status quo, don’t question it, and don’t think about the future. I do not have to tear us apart. Especially not today, the day after she found out her grandmother is dying.
“I can’t do this, Mia.”
Where did those words come from? It’s like I’ve lost control over my tongue. My voice is echoing in my ears, and I’m clenching my hands at my sides.
“Do what?” she asks with a slight frown.
Swallowing hard, I meet her gaze while I search the recesses of my brain for the best way to respond. I still have time to change my mind, can still figure out something to say to backtrack the conversation.
In the bright red glow of the dashboard lights, her eyes appear large and round and vulnerable. She’s watching me expectantly.
It’s not all right. None of this is all right.
You’re not right for her. You know that.
“This. Us.” My heart is beating so hard I think it might burst from my chest. “I can’t do it. Not anymore.”
Her bottom lip quivers, and her voice goes up an octave. “What are you saying?”
I take a deep breath. “Look, I told you sex was a bad idea—”
“Oh, come on!” she snaps. “How has it been bad? Seriously. Tell me what’s been bad about it.”
She’s missing the point—on purpose, I’m pretty sure. But it works, because now I’m having flashbacks galore. Mia, naked and wet in the shower. Mia, smiling seductively and then laughing at herself. I can hear her sexy little moans, can feel the softness of her lips and skin as I’m tasting her.
Bend Page 26