Even If I Fall

by Abigail Johnson

  She’s not looking at me; I don’t think she wants to chance seeing an expression on my face that contradicts the words we both know I have to say. “Of course I’ll still go.”

  Mom’s relief is palpable. She sets the tray down again and crosses to me to press a kiss against my temple. “Tell your brother I promise I’ll be there next week. And tell him—” she cuts off at the retching sound we hear from upstairs followed by a pitifully weak call for Mom.

  “I’ll tell Jason you love him,” I say, lifting the tray and handing it back to Mom. “Go.”

  * * *

  I’ve never been to see Jason by myself before. I talk to him on the phone for a few minutes each time he calls, but Mom is always hovering nearby, anxious to reclaim the phone, so it doesn’t ever feel private. This will be the first time I get to talk to him one-on-one—excluding the room full of other inmates, visitors and prison guards—since before he was arrested.

  I’m trying not to be nervous as I go through security, but I’m so jumpy and twitchy that I’m amazed no one questions me beyond normal. But they don’t. And it feels faster than ever when Jason is led into the visitor’s room.

  I stand to hug him, and for once he doesn’t act like a trained dog jumping back and checking for approval from the guards. Instead he releases me and takes his seat, his eyes wide with panic.

  “Where’s Mom?”

  Mom never misses visitations. We were in a car accident while driving to the prison one time. She swore she was fine and didn’t need to go to the hospital. Our car was still drivable so we kept going. It was only after visiting Jason that she admitted to feeling some pain in her left side from where the other driver T-boned us. Turned out she had a broken collarbone and a dislocated shoulder. Dad was livid when he learned about it, but Mom would have endured any amount of personal pain to see Jason. It took someone else’s to keep her away.

  I slide back into my own seat across the table. “Laura was up sick all night and still this morning, and Mom didn’t think she could leave her.”

  Jason’s expression alters from wide-eyed to pinched brows in concern for Laura, then back to wide-eyed again when the reality of the empty chair next to me settles in. Mom has always been the buffer when things get uncomfortable, the one who changes the subject when I tread too near topics better left alone. But she’s not here to keep things safe and neutral, and we both know it.

  And after yesterday with Heath, I feel anything but safe and neutral.

  There’ve been times when I didn’t want to come with Mom, but this is the first time I feel partially responsible for that feeling.

  Jason leans back in his seat as far as he can go, his knee bouncing under the table so rapidly that the sound of his heel tapping the concrete floor is almost like a buzzing noise. He’s eyeing me like I’ve got a bomb strapped to my chest and a twitchy trigger finger on the detonator. My strong, brave older brother has never looked so small or so frightened. If I didn’t know better, watching him I’d think I’d suddenly caught whatever bug Laura has. The contents of my stomach are churning around like they don’t intend to stay inside me for long. So I open my mouth while I still can, but all the questions I should be asking—the ones that torment me at night and keep me half-asleep during the day—refuse to come.

  “The car’s going well.”

  Jason’s darting gaze stills on my face.

  “Yeah,” I go on, like his expression is an invitation to say more instead of a wary, painfully hesitant scrutiny. I want that hunted look gone from his face more than I want anything in that moment, even the truth. “I can stop halfway up the hill on Hackman’s Road without stalling. Not bad huh?”

  The whites of his eyes are still visible around his irises, but he looks slightly less like he might vomit before I do. “That’s good. I knew you’d get the hang of it.”

  “The tips you gave me were really helpful,” I say. “And my friend Maggie took me driving to practice. I actually think I prefer driving stick over automatic now.”

  Jason tries to laugh, but the sound is so strangled that I can’t help wincing.

  I find myself filling Mom’s shoes without even trying. I keep making small talk after that, barely aware of half the things I’m saying or the guarded responses Jason gives in return. I just watch him, waiting for his knee to still, for his shoulders to lower and relax instead of looking like he’s trying to push himself through the back of his chair. His eyes take the longest. Even when Mom is there, they never fully lose that tight, overly alert quality, like he has to be aware of everything around him at all times. I see his eyes like that sometimes when I try to sleep at night and it’s all I can do not to cry thinking of him alone in his cell.

  I’ve been glancing at the caged clock on the wall as often as I thought I could without Jason noticing, but his eyes don’t miss much.

  “You don’t have to stay the whole time,” he says quietly after my last check. “Just drive home slow. Mom won’t know.”

  “No.” I lean forward in my chair, barely checking myself so I don’t reach for my brother’s hand in reassurance. There’s no touching of any kind allowed once we sit. “It’s not—I don’t want to leave early.” It wasn’t that at all, not anymore. I’m checking the clock because the time is passing too quickly, not the other way around. Short of Laura getting mono or something, I don’t know when I’ll get another private visit with Jason. I wanted to wait until he was at ease as possible, and the weary yet resolved way he just spoke to me is as close as I’m going to get.

  I let my mask slip, the one that smiles too much and pretends everything is normal and fine so I don’t risk making anyone feel worse, because maybe this one time he needs to.

  “Jase—I really miss you.” My voice breaks and I don’t care. “I miss you so much, all the time.”

  His jaw does that thing where it flexes and I know he’s trying not to show emotion, which only stokes mine higher.

  “It’s hard at home, harder than I ever thought it would be.”

  “Mom said you guys are doing okay.”

  Mom did say that. Every time we visit she makes sure to tell Jason just how well we’re all doing. That’s supposed be my job this time, but I can’t do it.

  Jason’s jaw flexes again. “It can’t be all bad. I mean you’re still skating, and you must be getting ready to go out for the ice show pretty soon. When is it?”

  “Next month,” I say softly. “But—”

  “Wow. That’s fast. But you’re ready, right?” He tries to smile. “Of course you’re ready. You’ve been waiting for this your whole life.”

  I cover my mouth to stop the sound that slips through my mouth, the one that sounds perilously close to a sob.

  “Brooke—”

  I shake my head and draw my free hand under the table so he can’t try to reach for me the way he was starting to. The guards are always watching. When I have myself under control I lower my other hand. “I’m not auditioning.”

  “What do you mean you’re not auditioning? Does Mom know?”

  “She knows.” My tone doesn’t leave any room for him to doubt how she feels about it. And it’s like I’ve started speaking a different language, one that he never knew existed.

  I tell him about Laura talking so little and leaving the house even less. I tell him about Dad’s bursts of anger, not so much at Laura, Mom or me, but just these unrestrained displays of rage the drive him into his workshop sometimes for days at a time.

  Telling him about Mom is the hardest, because while I knew Jason didn’t fully accept the cheery picture she always tries to paint of Dad and Laura at home, she’s been much more convincing about herself. Jason doesn’t know about her crying at home, or the tears she takes with her to the shower after his phone calls.

  I’m not telling him all this to make him feel bad, I’m telling him so that he’ll understand that not knowi
ng is destroying all of us. I’m asking him because I have to know.

  “What really happened the night Cal was killed?”

  CHAPTER 29

  I couldn’t have asked my brother anything more horrifying. It’s the question I’m not supposed to ask, the question no one is supposed to ask. When Jason confessed, he explained that he and Cal got into a stupid, drunken fight and he made the worst mistake of his life. Everyone accepted the story, but I know there has to be more. There has to be a reason.

  My eyes are swimming with tears, and I think it’s the first time I’ve let my brother see me cry since this all began.

  “Don’t, Brooke.” Jason’s jaw is clenched tight, but I can see a faint tremor in his chin.

  “I have to know,” I say, as the first tear slips down my cheek. “I know something happened to make you—do what you did.”

  He holds my gaze, hard. “There’s nothing else to tell.”

  Another tear falls. Not because I believe him, but because he’d never have had to try so hard to convince me if it were the truth. “I know you wouldn’t have hurt him because of a stupid fight,” I say again, not blinking under his stare. “I know you. I know you’re capable of getting mad and losing your temper. But you get sick at the sight of blood just like me.” I’m not even trying to wipe my cheeks dry. “So tell me what happened. Tell me why this time was different. Give me something, Jase.”

  Jason’s chin is quivering nonstop at this point. He’s trying so hard to hide it, but he can’t from me. “We fought. I killed him.”

  I’m shaking my head.

  “Yes, damn it!” Jason hisses at me through clenched teeth, making me jump with his vehemence. He presses the advantage. “I had a knife and when he turned around I stabbed him.” He looks sick just saying it. He’s still facing me, but I know he’s not here anymore. He’s back in the woods near the high school. I can see it too, the way it would have looked the summer night Cal died, empty and quiet. Jason keeps talking, slipping into the rehearsed words I remember from his confession.

  “He died.” His blank eyes have shifted to my right. In the visitation room, there is nothing there, but Jason’s face contorts like his very heart is being ripped from his body. I don’t say anything; I try not to even breathe as he goes on, telling me things he never has before. “He was just lying there on the ground and his eyes were open, you know? But he didn’t look dead, he looked like...Cal.” The voice breaking this time is my brother’s. “But he wasn’t. He was gone. He was dead and I ran after h—” Jason sits up straighter, but not before flinching. “I ran.”

  My hands clench the edge of the table so hard I expect pieces to snap off. “You ran after someone. That’s what you were going to say.” I watch awareness trickle back into Jason’s eyes. His chin stops quivering but his jaw stays locked. It’s almost scary, watching the broken version of my brother transform into the hardened prisoner he’s showing me now. “Who did you run after?”

  “No one.” But that’s not what he started to say, and I’m sitting up straighter too. The look in Jason’s eyes puts his previously frightened expression to shame. My heart is beating faster and faster.

  “Jason, was someone else there?”

  He’s trying to remain impassive, but it’s a losing battle. “No.”

  “I don’t believe you.” I whisper it like it’s a prayer. “You never mentioned anyone else. Not to the cops or the judge. You never talked about a third person that night.”

  “There wasn’t anyone else.”

  But I’m only half listening. Fear and hope start entwining together inside me, and he can’t kill it with the retractions that start tumbling from his mouth. It’s too late. “You have to tell me.”

  “I already did.”

  “You have to tell me all of it.”

  “I told you. You won’t listen.”

  “I’m listening now.” My eyes and ears are wide-open. “Why are you lying?”

  “I’m not.”

  He has no reason to lie. If someone else was there then maybe they could explain and I wouldn’t have to wake up screaming into my pillow anymore. “Is that why you pleaded guilty?” There. He winces again. I lean across the table. “Are you protecting someone? Or are you scared of someone?”

  The blood drains from Jason’s face and for a second I think he might pass out, that’s how pale he goes.

  “You weren’t drinking that night.”

  He says nothing.

  “And you can’t handle the sight of blood.”

  He still says nothing.

  “Cal was your best friend. I still don’t understand how you could have hurt him. Why won’t you tell me?”

  “It won’t change anything.” He’s drawing in on himself, shrinking before my eyes. Shutting down. I keep repeating his name, louder and more forcefully, but he doesn’t hear me. All around us people are starting to turn in our direction. Guards are leaving their posts by the door and heading toward us. And Jason keeps repeating the same three words.

  “I killed him.”

  “Who else was there?”

  “I killed him.” Jason rises from his seat.

  “Who else was there?”

  The guards are at his sides, asking questions, but I ignore everything but my brother.

  “Who else was there?”

  “I’m done,” Jason tells the guards.

  I’m on my feet now too. “Why won’t you tell me?”

  “Now?” Jason is half pleading with the guards. “Can I go now?”

  I call out again and again as he’s led away. “Who else was there?”

  My brother doesn’t look back.

  CHAPTER 30

  Only one person can answer all the questions swirling through my head and he’s the one person I’m physically barred from asking. So I sit in the prison parking lot watching all the other visitors trickle out, some crying, some angry, others hurrying to escape a reality they can only confront for a couple hours a week. I feel prone to all three and yet I don’t start Daphne’s engine. I don’t even reach for my keys.

  I’ve always had the same questions. What drove my brother to murder someone? How did he overcome a lifetime abhorrence of blood to stab someone to death? Why did he flee the crime scene and come home covered in blood repeating the same thing over and over: I killed him but I didn’t know, I swear I didn’t know.

  After the first time in a year I’ve been alone with my brother, not only do I not have any answers, I have more questions. Who did he run after? Why hide the fact that he and Cal weren’t alone that night unless he was scared of something worse than spending half his life in prison?

  I glance out the window at the looming gray building with its armed guard towers and coiled barbed wire wrapped around the top of twenty-foot-high chain-link fences. It’s not difficult at all to remember the first time Mom and I came here or the way I clutched her hand hard enough to bruise when we went inside. I gasp, sitting alone in my car thinking about seeing Jason trudging toward us, not wanting him to look up, and then feeling my knees start to buckle when he did.

  His lip had been split and just barely scabbed over. One eyebrow was sliced open, and his left eye was so swollen that he couldn’t see out of it. Mom’s hands flew to her mouth but before she could say anything Jason told her in a low, raspy whisper that if she so much as thought about saying anything to anyone he would refuse to see her again. He’d glanced at me through his remaining good eye to make sure I understood that his threat was meant for me too.

  He’d said it was nothing, a misunderstanding. But it was months before I saw my brother without fresh bruises on his face and longer still not to flinch each visit expecting them.

  As I stare at the prison where Jason is locked inside, the windows start to bead with raindrops, but I can’t see them through the tears in my eyes.

  * * * />
  I make the drive back to Telford faster than Mom and I ever have. For once, I don’t have to pretend not to notice the stares as I walk across the parking lot of Porter’s Grocery and through the automatic doors. I make a beeline for the first person I see with a nametag, a plump woman with fuchsia-painted lips that turn down as I approach.

  “Excuse me, but could you please tell me where Heath Gaines is?”

  “Heath is working right now.”

  I ignore the frown she gives me as she takes in my face and the evidence of the tears I tried to wipe away. “I know he’s working right now.” I’m so flustered I fail to address her as ma’am. “I just need to see him. Please.”

  She purses her lips and rests a hand on her hip, then her voice softens unexpectedly as she looks at me. “I don’t think you’re doing anyone any favors right now. Why don’t you go on home and think about whether or not seeing him—” him seeing me is what she really means “—is the best idea.”

  I know I shouldn’t be here—I shouldn’t be anywhere—but when I finally left the prison this was where I came.

  I glance past her and see the entrance to the back next to the butcher counter at the end of the aisle and I start walking, ignoring her calls to come back. Heath is a stock clerk, so that’s where he’ll be. I brush past the hanging plastic streamers in the doorway, barely glancing at the Employees Only sign as I do.

  Boxes line hulking industrial rows of shelving that extend nearly to the ceiling. There are a few guys who turn in my direction when I enter, but I see only one.

  Heath’s brows draw together as I approach. For the first time since I left the prison, I falter. How many people saw me outside? How many more heard me ask for Heath by name before charging back here? All these people watching us now are his coworkers, the people he has to see day in and day out, the ones who are going to expect him to act a certain way toward me—a way he’s not reacting.