She’s mine. I know she loves me. Why can’t I just turn around and tell her? All I have to do is say ‘don’t go’, and the hard part would be over.
“Jared?” she calls, and I stop, the air in the room almost too thick to breathe.
“You’re my best friend.” She pauses and then continues, “But is there maybe any reason you may not want me to go with Will tonight?”
Her shaky voice is hesitant like she’s scared to speak, and the moment fills the room like a broken promise. It’s the moment when you know that you can have what you want if you’re only brave enough to say so. It’s a split second when everything can change, but you p**sy out because you’re too afraid to risk the rejection.
“Of course not.” I turn around and smile at her. “Go. Have a good time. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
That night I saw Will kiss her, and the next day my dad called and asked if I wanted to come visit him for the summer.
I’d said ‘yes.’
Chapter 5
“Eat.” James pushed a plate of meatloaf and potatoes in my face as soon as I sat down on the barstool.
I’d fallen asleep on Tate’s bed listening to Silverchair and hadn’t woken up until two in the afternoon. Her dad pounded on the door to wake me.
After I’d showered and gotten dressed in fresh clothes, I’d come downstairs to an even better smell than Tate’s shampoo.
I sat at the center island in the kitchen and stuffed the food into my mouth like I hadn’t eaten a home-cooked meal in years. Well, I guess I hadn’t. Before the summer with my father, my alcoholic mother wasn’t very nurturing. And after that summer, I wouldn’t let her be even if she’d tried.
“Don’t you have work?” I asked before taking a drink to wash down the food.
It was Friday, and I was missing school as well. I’d skipped yesterday when Madoc and I went to get tattoos, too.
That seemed like so long ago now.
“I took the day off,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
To deal with me.
“Sorry.” And I honestly was. Mr. Brandt was a good guy, and he didn’t deserve drama.
Leaning against the counter opposite the center island, James crossed his arms over his chest, and I knew a talk was coming. Fixing my gaze on my plate of food, I braced myself, because with Mr. Brandt, it was best just to shut up and take it.
“Jared, your mom will be gone for at least four weeks. You’re going to stay here while she’s away.”
“I’ll be fine at my house.” It was worth a try.
“You’re sixteen years old. That’s illegal.”
“Seventeen,” I corrected.
“What?”
“I’m seventeen today.” It was October second. I hadn’t realized until they’d dated my paperwork this morning at the jail.
That information didn’t give James any pause, though. “I spoke to a judge. One that I know well. I worked out a treatment, of sorts, in order for that mess from last night to stay off your permanent record.”
Mess from last night? That’s a strange way to describe it. “I nearly beat a guy to death,” I spit out sarcastically. How the hell were they going to keep that off my record?
His dark blonde eyebrows pinched together. “If that’s true, then why haven’t you asked how he is?”
I’d nearly beat a guy to death.
Yeah, even saying the words, I still didn’t care. Would I care if he were dead?
James continued. “In case you did care, he’s fine. Not great, but he’ll survive. Some broken ribs, a little internal bleeding that he went into surgery for last night, but he’ll recover.”
He’d be in the hospital for a while, but I was glad I hadn’t hurt him that badly. To be honest, most of last night swirled in my head like water down a drain. The more it moved, the more I lost. I could barely recall most of the attack. I remember hitting him with the lamp and kicking him in the stomach several times. He threw some shit at me, but in the end, he was the one on the ground.
Until that a**hole cop showed up, and he stuck his knee in my back, pulled my hair, and called me every name under the sun while he cuffed me.
Why had I called the cops again? I still wasn’t sure.
“So the judge would like you to attend counseling.” I didn’t need to look up to know James was shooting me a warning look. “In exchange, you won’t have this latest episode on your record.”
“Absolutely not,” I shook my head and laughed at his joke.
Counseling? Most people pissed me off. And people up in my shit really pissed me off.
“That’s what I told him you’d say,” James bowed his head and sighed. “Jared, you’re going to have to start taking responsibility for yourself. You did wrong and the world doesn’t owe you anything. I’m not going to wipe your nose just because you come from a broken home and you think that gives you a license to behave badly. I call it the “Fuck up, own up, and get up” policy. Make a mistake, admit it, and move on. We all screw up, but a man solves his problems. He doesn’t make them worse.”
I should’ve just ate and kept my mouth shut.
“Did you f**k up?” he asked, every slow syllable a challenge.
I nodded.
Would I do it again? Yes. But he didn’t ask me that.
“Good.” He slammed his hand down on the counter top. “Now it’s time to get up. Your attendance and grades are in the garbage. You have no real goals beyond high school—that I can tell, anyway—and you suck at making responsible decisions. There’s a really good place for people who crave discipline and don’t need too much freedom.”
“Prison?” I blurted out sarcastically.
And to my surprise, he smiled like he’d just trumped me.
Shit.
“West Point,” he answered.
I pinched my eyebrows together. “Yeah, right.” I shook my head. “Senators’ kids and Eagle Scouts? That’s not me.”
What was he thinking? West Point was a military college. The best of the best went there and spent years building up their high school resumes to get accepted. I’d never get into West Point even if I was interested.
“That’s not you?” he questioned. “Really? I didn’t think you worried about fitting in. Everyone else has to fit you, right?”
Motherf…I sucked in a breath and looked away. This guy knew how to shut me up.
“You need a goal and a plan, Jared.” He leaned on the island straight into my space, so I’d have no choice but to pay attention. “If you have no hope for the future or passion for what’s to come, then that’s not something I can instill in you. The best thing I can do for you is push you in a direction and keep you busy. You’re going to clean up your grades, attend every class, get a job, and…” —he hesitated— “go visit your father once a week.”
“What?” Where the hell did that come from?
“Well, I told Judge Keiser that you wouldn’t go for the counseling, so this was your only other option. You’re required to have one visit a week for a solid year—”
“You’ve got to be kidding me?” I interrupted, the tightness in my muscles so tense that I started sweating. There was no f**king way I could do it!
I opened my mouth. “Absolutely—”
“This is the ‘get up’ part, Jared!” he yelled, cutting me off. “You don’t agree to one of your options then it’s off to juvie…or jail. This isn’t the first time you’ve been in trouble. The judge wants to make an impression on you. Go sit in a jail, every Saturday, and see—not what got your father in there—but what being in there has no doubt done to him.” He shook his head at me. “Jail does two things, Jared. It weakens you or kills you, and neither is good.”
My eyes stung. “But—”
“You won’t do your brother any good if you’re sent away.” And he walked out of the kitchen and the front door, having made his point.
What the hell just happened?
I gripped the edge of the gray marble countertop, wanting to rip it out of the wall and tear the whole world up in the process.
Fuck.
I struggled to inhale, my ribs aching with every stretch.
I couldn’t visit that cocksucker every week! There was no way!
Maybe I should just tell Mr. Brandt about everything. Everything.
There had to be another solution.
Pushing off the counter and out of my seat, I ran up to Tate’s room, crawled out of the double doors, and through the tree to my own bedroom.
Fuck him. Fuck them all.
I switched on my iPod to Apocalyptica’s I Don’t Care and crashed onto my own bed, breathing in and out until the hole in my gut stopped burning.
God, I missed her.
The reality disgusted me, but it was true. When I hated Tate, my world got small. I didn’t see all the other shit: my mom, my dad, or my brother in foster care. If I only just had her here again, I wouldn’t be such a jumble of f**king breathing fits and outbursts.
It was stupid as hell, I know. Like she should be around just for me to push whichever way I wanted.
But I needed her. I needed to see her.
I reached out to grab the handle on my bedside drawer where I kept the pictures of us as kids, but I pulled back. No. I wasn’t going to look at them. It was bad enough that I kept them. Throwing them away or destroying them had been impossible. Her hold on me was absolute.
And I was f**king done.
Fine.
Let them think I played their game. My brother was the most important thing, and Mr. Brandt was right. I wasn’t any good to him in jail.
But I wasn’t going to any f**king counselor.
I exhaled and sat up.
Scumbag father it was then.
I slapped on some dark washed jeans, a white T-shirt, and gelled my hair for probably the first time in a week.
Walking down my stairs and out the front door, I found Tate’s dad in his garage removing stuff from his old Chevy Nova. Tate and I used to help him do little jobs on the car years ago, but it was always drivable.
He looked like he was clearing out the trunk and any personal stuff from inside.
“I need to replace the spark plugs on my car,” I told him. “And then I’m going to Fairfax’s Garage for a job. I’ll grab some clothes on my way back and be inside in time for dinner.”
“By six,” he specified, offering me a half smile.
I slipped on my sunglasses and turned to leave but stopped and spun back around.
“You won’t tell Tate about any of this, right?” I checked. “Getting arrested, my family, me staying here?”
He looked at me like I’d just told him that broccoli was purple. “Why would I do that?”
Good enough.
Chapter 6
Not twenty-four hours later I stood in front of another cop, getting patted down, only this time I wasn’t in trouble.
According to Mr. Brandt’s judge friend, I didn’t have to start the visitations for a few weeks. They wanted my mother’s approval first, but I had no interest in waiting. The sooner I started, the sooner I’d be done.