by Paula Stokes
“Look at all this stuff,” I say. The pile makes the haul of gifts and cards from my hospital room seem like a droplet in an ocean. There are tons of handwritten notes, T-shirts, stuffed animals, and flower arrangements in various states of decay. I reach down and pick up what I think is a stuffed Toothless from the movie How to Train Your Dragon. It’s missing one of its plastic eyes and the brutal St. Louis weather has bleached the black coat gray. There’s a handmade bracelet wrapped about its neck, tiny beads spelling out: I LOVE YOU.
“I don’t understand,” Shannon says finally. “Why didn’t you tell me? Did you seriously think I wouldn’t support you?”
“It was just hard,” I say. “I felt bad not telling you Dallas cheated on me. But I was afraid you would respect me less for staying with him. Then after I realized what I had done, I was so ashamed of myself. I didn’t want you to think of me as a liar and a bad person. I didn’t want to lose you too.”
“Gen. If I were the kind of person who would respect you less for making your own choices, or the kind of person who would judge you for struggling with an impossible situation, then I wouldn’t deserve you.”
“I know. I think when my dad left, it hurt me a lot more than I realized. I don’t have very many people in this world that I’m close to, so the thought of losing any of them is terrifying.” I set the stuffed dragon back on the top of the pile of items. “I think I felt like—feel like, maybe—I have to earn the love of people around me. So I hide a lot of my imperfections.”
A tear rolls down Shannon’s cheek. “Well, you earned my love back when we were six, remember?”
I do remember. Mom and I were coming home from dance class and I saw Shannon sitting on the porch. She’d moved in a couple of weeks earlier but I hadn’t officially met her yet because she wasn’t outside much. That day her parents were arguing so loud we could hear it in the yard. “Can I invite her over to play?” I asked my mom.
“I think that would be an excellent idea,” Mom said brightly. “Why don’t you show her your room and I’ll speak to her parents and see if she can have dinner with us.”
Shannon was only too happy to escape to the quiet sanctuary of my bedroom. And from that day forward, anytime she needed to get away from her parents fighting, she knew she had a place with me.
“And you gave me all that love right back when it was my parents’ turn to get a divorce.” I shake my head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve had a lot of uncomfortable revelations about myself lately.”
“You were so weird once you went to Utah. I should’ve known something wasn’t right. I wish I could’ve been there for you.” Shannon plays with the end of her braid again.
“You’ve been there for me almost my whole life. I never would’ve made it through the day I came back to school if it wasn’t for you.”
“As I recall, you only made it through half the day,” Shannon says.
I smile. “Because I had to leave you to go to class.”
Shannon nibbles on one of her pinkie nails. “So, like, are you going to be in trouble with the police?”
“Apparently not. My mom’s lawyer said not coming forward about the accident isn’t a crime because I didn’t directly lie to the police in order to implicate Brad Freeman.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
I rest my head in my hands. “Nothing is a relief to me. I just want everything to be out in the open.”
I tried to object when Mom told me I didn’t even need to speak to the police. “I should set the record straight,” I insisted. I felt like Detectives Blake and Reed were two more people who deserved an apology.
“There is no record,” Mom said. “The case is closed. I can have Vince give them a call just to pass on your message if you like, but the police are busy, honey. You don’t want to take up their time just so you’ll feel better about things.”
“Speaking of everything,” Shannon says teasingly. She pulls out her phone and taps at the screen.
My neck muscles go rigid. I haven’t touched my laptop since two days ago when I saw Brad Freeman’s daughter being bullied. “I’m not sure I want to get online right now.”
Shannon shakes her head. “You don’t have to get online. I was just wondering who this is.”
She holds out the picture of Elliott and me kissing that Tazmyn took on the Fourth of July.
“Oh. His name is Elliott. He works at the park with Rachael. I didn’t mean to keep him a secret either. I wasn’t really sure where it was going.”
“It kinda looks like it’s going to the bedroom.” Shannon grins.
“Ugh. I can only imagine what people are saying.”
“People are idiots,” she says. “You’re almost eighteen. You and Dallas weren’t married. You don’t have to stay faithful to his memory, no matter what a bunch of stupid Kadets think.”
“I know. I just hate that I dragged Elliott into this mess too.” I pick at a fraying thread on my jean shorts. “He’s actually the first person I told about all this.”
“Oh, great. Another boy I’m going to be jealous of.”
I reach out for Shannon’s hand and give it a squeeze. “You’re always going to be my first love, you know that?”
“Same. Best friends forever, okay?” she says. “No matter where we end up. No matter what we do.”
“Deal.” I hold out my pinkie finger.
She loops her finger around mine and we shake on it.
Pinkie swear, huh? Dallas says from somewhere inside my brain. Serious business.
CHAPTER 37
Thursday is one long, exhausting series of confessing, over and over. We start with Dallas’s parents. It’s just my dad and me because my mother has three surgeries to perform today. She tried to rearrange her schedule, but one of her patients came all the way from Tulsa, so she couldn’t reschedule.
Nora Kade grows paler and paler as I tell her and Glen the whole story. “Were you really going to let us sue that man?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I knew I had to come forward. I guess I was just working up the nerve.”
Glen Kade shakes his head. “I hate the fact that Nora and I are probably part of the reason Brad Freeman tried to take his own life. Maybe if we hadn’t pursued the lawsuit . . .”
I think of the email from Brad—the one I never found the courage to answer. “This isn’t on you guys,” I say. “You made the best decisions you could with the information you had. You trusted me and I let you down.”
Nora starts crying, big racking sobs that remind me my actions hurt a lot more people besides Dallas and Brad Freeman.
“If there’s ever anything I can do,” I say softly.
Glen nods. “I’m glad you found the courage to finally come forward.”
“Me too,” I say. “I just wish it hadn’t taken me this long.”
According to the morning news, Brad Freeman is at the same hospital where I was cared for after the accident. To protect him from reporters, the staff isn’t giving out his room number, but my mom has one of his attending doctors pass him a message and he agrees to meet with us.
His door is open and as Dad and I approach I can see that his room is empty and he’s sitting up in bed reading a book. He looks just like the picture from Reale News Now, except he’s got a couple of days worth of dark beard stubble. I pause for a moment outside the door and then reach out to knock on the doorframe. He looks up from his book, his smile fading slightly when he doesn’t immediately recognize us.
I swallow hard. “Mr. Freeman? I’m, uh, Genevieve. Genevieve Grace. And this is my dad. Can we come in?”
“Oh. Sure.” He sets his book down on the bed and gestures at a couple of chairs along the side of the room. “Grab a chair. And call me Brad, please.”
Dad and I enter the room, and I start to pull the door closed behind us.
“Actually that has to stay open,” Brad says. “The nurses need to be able to . . . keep an eye on me.”
“Oh, sorry,
” I say awkwardly.
“I’m Dr. Greg Larsen.” Dad slides two chairs closer to the bed. “Sorry to bother you like this.”
“It’s no bother.” Brad’s eyes skim over me. “I’m glad you’re doing so well. I didn’t recognize you because of your hair.”
“Right,” I say, touching my head. “I dyed it.”
I lower myself into the chair that’s farther away from Brad. I try not to stare at his neck, at the white gauze bandages wrapped around it. My eyes drop to the cover of his book. He’s reading the latest James Patterson thriller, the same one I was reading in Utah. “I started that the other day.” I point at the book.
“It’s good so far.” He looks back and forth from me to my father, his brow furrowing. “For some reason I thought you had left St. Louis.”
“I did.” I thread and unthread my fingers together in my lap. “I went to Utah. But I came back . . . to tell the truth. And to apologize to you.” My lower lip trembles. Tears pool in my eyes. I look away for a second and then back toward him. “I—I fell asleep,” I say hoarsely.
And then the tears fall, hot against my skin. My breath sticks in my throat. Dad presses a tissue into my hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—” I start to apologize for crying. But then I hear Elliott in my head, telling me not to hide my emotions, so I crumple the tissue in my palm and let the tears fall. “I fell asleep and I’m the reason for the accident. I’m the one who killed Dallas Kade, and I’m so sorry for the way you’ve been treated, for the way I’ve treated you.”
Brad blinks hard and then looks toward the far wall. Dad hands him a box of tissues. He blots at his eyes and swallows hard before he speaks. “You came all the way back here to tell me that?”
“I came back here to tell everyone,” I say. “You, the Kades, the media. I want the world to know what really happened.” I swallow back a sob. “I’m so sorry I didn’t answer your email. I started to, but then I got scared.”
“I figured maybe you hadn’t remembered anything, or that your parents had told you not to interact with me,” he says.
I shake my head. “I got my full memory back right about the time the charges against you were dropped. I kept telling myself that it was over, that nothing bad would happen. But bad stuff was happening every day. For a while, I stayed offline so I could avoid seeing it. But when you sent me that message, I couldn’t pretend anymore. I realized I had to tell my dad, but he was out of town.”
“I got back late the night of the fourth,” Dad says soberly.
Brad clears his throat. “Well, I appreciate you coming forward like this. I don’t know—”
“Are you serious?” a high-pitched voice asks from behind me.
I spin around. Megan Freeman and a woman I presume is her mom, Carly, stand in the doorway to the room. Megan looks exactly like her Twitter picture except that her face is contorted in rage.
“I appreciate you coming forward? That’s bullshit, Dad.” She storms into the room and skids to a stop next to my chair. Turning her attention to me she says, “I can’t believe you knew and you’re just now saying something. He could have died because of you.” Her eyes fill with tears “You bitch! How could you run away and keep everything a secret and leave my dad here to be harassed and assaulted?”
“Megan, you need to calm down,” Carly says quietly. “Maybe we should take a walk.”
“Let her stay,” I say. “I’m sorry,” I tell Megan. “I know how badly I messed up.”
Brad clears his throat. “Hey, Megz. Some of the blame is mine, all right? I’m the one who . . . let things get so bad. I should have gotten help.”
Megan is still focused on me. I’m not even sure she heard her dad speak.
“Do you know what it’s like to go to the water park for Fourth of July and watch your dad get arrested? Or what it’s like to watch random strangers beat him up for something he didn’t even do?”
I shake my head.
“Megan.” Brad tries again. “Genevieve is trying to do the right thing and this situation isn’t easy for her.”
“Good.” Megan turns toward her father. “Because it hasn’t been easy for me either. And clearly it wasn’t easy for you.” She turns back to me. “You know what? The whole time my dad gave you the one thing no one gave him—the benefit of the doubt. He was positive that one day you would remember what happened and clear his name.”
“And it seems like that’s what she’s doing.” Carly places her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. I’m not sure if the gesture is meant to be comforting or restraining.
“A little late, Mom,” Megan says bitterly.
Next to me, Dad doesn’t say anything, but he rubs me gently on the back. The tiny gesture is enough to let loose another wave of tears. If the EMTs had been even a few minutes later, Megan wouldn’t have a dad to sit next to her and support her.
I swallow hard. “I know there’s nothing I can do to fix this, but I am going to tell everyone the truth so they’ll know that the accident was my fault. I’m going to speak to Chris Reale this afternoon. He’s a reporter who always gave your dad the benefit of the doubt.”
“Chris Reale seems like a decent man,” Carly says.
“I trust him to report the actual truth. He’ll clear your dad’s name, Megan.” My voice cracks. “I—I hope one day you can forgive me.”
Megan’s eyes narrow. “Are you kidding me? I will never forgive you, for as long as I live. I hate you. I wish you had died in the accident.”
“Megan!” Carly inhales a sharp breath. “You take that back right now.”
Megan shakes her head. “Sorry, Mom. Some things you just can’t take back.” She spins on her heel and storms out of the hospital room, slamming the door behind her. Carly gives us all an apologetic look and turns to go after her daughter.
A nurse pops her head into the room. “Everything okay in here, Mr. Freeman?” Her mouth puckers up as she takes in all the red-rimmed eyes. “You’re supposed to be taking it easy, remember?”
“We’re fine,” Brad says. “Thank you for checking.”
“We’re getting ready to leave,” my dad adds.
I keep replaying Megan’s words in my head. I will never forgive you, for as long as I live. There’s a knot of pain in my chest. My whole body is trembling.
Brad turns his attention back to me. “She’s an emotional kid. She didn’t mean that.”
“It’s okay,” I say softly. “If she’s going to hate anyone, it should be me.”
Dad rubs my back again.
“Thank you for telling us before the media.” Brad reaches out for a cell phone on his nightstand. I can’t help but notice it’s a model from a few years ago and the screen has a crack in it. “I’ll have Carly make sure Megan doesn’t get on that phone of hers before you can speak to Chris.”
I nod. “I appreciate it.” I fidget in the chair. “That’s all I came to say, unless you have any questions for me.” I want him to tell me he forgives me, but I know that’s expecting an awful lot. I should probably just be glad he didn’t swear at me the way his daughter did.
Brad shakes his head. “I’m a little overwhelmed at the moment.”
“There’s one other thing,” my dad says. “Genevieve’s mother and I would like to offer you some money. I know your truck was totaled in the accident and—”
“Oh, there’s no need for that.” Brad holds up his hand. “Your coming forward means more than finances. I’ll get by.”
“You deserve to do more than get by,” my dad says. “At least let us cover the cost of your medical bills.”
Brad is silent for a few seconds and I can tell he’s wrestling with the idea. Finally he says, “I appreciate the offer, but I should be okay. Carly and Megan actually started one of those online funding sites to help with expenses, and I’ve got other family I can reach out to if needed until I get back on my feet.”
“Okay,” Dad says. “But please let us know if you or Megan ever need anything.” He sets one of
his business cards on Brad’s nightstand.
We turn to leave, but I pause at the doorway. “Mr. Freeman—Brad,” I start. “I really am sorry.”
He nods, his expression unreadable. “I know you are.”
Dad and I head out into the hallway. As we navigate the bright white corridors back to the bank of elevators I say, “Do you think we can find that fundraising site and make an anonymous donation?”
Dad squeezes my shoulder. “I think we can definitely do that.”
It’s not much, but it’s a start.
CHAPTER 38
Our next stop is a meeting with Chris Reale. I don’t know why, but I’m expecting him to be this squinty-eyed judgmental asshole who lectures me about responsibility. Instead he turns out to be a laid-back guy in his thirties who shows up to our meeting in jeans and a T-shirt. Dad and I meet him at a local Italian restaurant because apparently he works out of his home.
We stand in the foyer for a few minutes while the hostess goes to inquire about our seating arrangement. I glance around at the other people, worried about being recognized, worried about them overhearing things.
“Relax,” Chris says. “John said we could use his private banquet room to talk since it’s not booked today. He hooks me up on a regular basis and you can expect total discretion from the staff.”
A server returns and leads us through the dining area to a back room. Even though I’m wearing sunglasses, I keep my eyes trained on the floor. Chris, Dad, and I take a seat at a table set with napkins and silverware. A waiter brings us three menus.
“Order whatever you want,” Chris says. “It’s on me.”
Dad starts to object. “Oh, you don’t need to—”
Chris cuts him off. “Are you kidding me? This is the first interview Genevieve has given to anyone, right? This is a big deal for me. I can afford to spring for some Italian food.”
I look up from my menu just long enough to make eye contact with him. “Thank you.”
“Not that it’s all about me and my career,” Chris adds quickly. “I’m about the same age as Brad Freeman and I’ve empathized with him throughout this ordeal because I could see myself in his position, you know? I’m glad to get a chance to set the record straight about his involvement.”