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“College?” I repeat. “What about it?”
Wes opens the passenger door to his four-door black sedan. “Did you really want to go to the University of Tennessee?” I open my mouth to protest immediately, but the look on Wes’s face tells me to not bullshit him. “Be honest.”
“Not at first, no, I guess, but once Jared and I talked about it, it made sense for us to both go there, seeing as I didn’t have a car. Besides, I wanted to stay close to him.”
“Exactly my point,” Wes chimes in. “You at first wanted to go to art school, not to a traditional four-year school, but Jared made you change your mind to bend to what he wanted. You gave up your dream of being an artist to study early childhood education just to go to the same school he did.”
He’s got me there. “That may be true, but I love working with the kids when I go out and do my actual student teaching. They are simply precious. And, believe it or not, I do get to be creative doing that job. I love evoking the kids’ love of art. The expressions on their faces—how proud they are—when they create something are inspiring. Besides, just because I didn’t officially study art doesn’t mean that I’m not an artist. I can still do it on the side.”
I take a seat in the car, and Wes leans against the open door. “You are an amazing person, London, and I don’t think Jared fully appreciates what he has. Please think about setting your foot down. I know he’s had a hard time lately, but I lost my dad too, and Mom her husband and best friend. You don’t see us acting insane. It makes me worry—this new side of him. The way his anger can come out so quickly when things don’t go his way. I worry about the kind of life you’ll have with him. Especially now that everything he’s ever known has changed.”
Wes has always been the sweet Kraft brother—the polite one everyone thought highly of when we were in high school. His younger brother overshadowed him a lot because he was the baseball star. I guess I myself am guilty of never noticing how sweet he is. His concern for me now is unbelievably heartwarming and opens my eyes to the point Jared was trying to make in his drunken state: maybe Wes is in love with me.
I stare up into his caring eyes, which remind me so much of Jared’s, and nod. “I promise that I’ll speak with him—try to get him to refocus his anger somewhere and convince him to talk with someone. I think that he needs some professional help dealing with everything that’s happened in this short amount of time.”
He seems satisfied with that answer. “Good. I love you both and I want to see you both happy, even if that means the two of you are no longer together.”
My heart crumbles at the mere thought of Jared and me not being together. I’ve loved him since I was in junior high, and being without him isn’t something that even registers on my radar. It’s not a possibility that I will think about entertaining, even in bad times like this when he runs out on me.
Wes offers to take me to his house because he wants to be around to watch over me and make sure that I’m okay. Only when he pulls up in the drive and discovers that my dad is home does he let me go in alone.
He comes around and opens my door, sticking close to my side as we walk up the sidewalk and get to my front door. When I open the door and push myself inside, I freeze when my eyes land on the disaster in my living room. There’s glass everywhere—on the wall where Jared threw the bottle, in the middle of the floor where Jared crashed through the glass coffee table.
Dad comes in from the kitchen with a broom and dustpan in hand. “Do you know what in the hell happened in here? I walked through the door and saw this mess, and my very first thought was that we’d been robbed, but after I checked the house and saw nothing was missing, I came to the conclusion that there must’ve been a raging party in here.”
“Mr. Uphill, sir, it’s partly my fault, and I will clean every bit of this mess up,” Wes says.
Dad scratches the top of his head. “You, Wes? I don’t see this kind of behavior coming from you. It looks like there was some sort of fight in here.”
Wes grimaces. “That’s because there was. Jared and I had a misunderstanding.”
Dad’s eyes flick over in my direction, and I can tell he knows there’s more to the story than that. “A misunderstanding, huh? Care to tell me what had the two of you so worked up that you destroyed my house?”
Wes licks his lips. “Jared had the wrong idea about me being here alone with London. He was drunk and things got completely out of hand.”
Dad rubs his fingers over the scruff on his lower chin. “I see. So where is Jared now?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. He took off after the fight, and I haven’t heard from him since.”
I purposefully leave off the little detail of me getting hit and going to the hospital for now, even though I know I won’t be able to keep that part a secret forever, considering the bills from the hospital will come soon enough.
“He seems to be doing that a lot lately,” Dad says. “He’s lost a lot of my respect for the way he’s treating his mother after all she’s been through. The boy doesn’t seem to have his head on straight. He’s got to pull it together. Getting caught with the drugs . . . it’s just something I can’t overlook as a man of the law, and it’s making me question his integrity and whether or not I want him with my daughter.”
“Dad, that’s not up to you,” I fire back. “I love Jared, and I know he’s going to pull through this. We just can’t give up on him.”
“London.” Dad says my name with a sigh. “Sometimes when tragedy strikes, a person has a hard time coming back from it, and if they do, they’re never the same. I know Jared was close with his dad, but if Henry could see the way he’s screwing up, he wouldn’t be happy either. He would tell the kid to get his shit together, and when I see him again, that’s exactly what I’m going to say.”
I want to beg him not to say that to Jared—to trust in the fact that Jared will redeem himself—but I know Dad’s in the right. Jared does need to get his shit together before he ruins everything and every bit of trust that I have in him.
Dad takes the broom and shoves the glass into a pile and doesn’t ask any more questions about the situation. That’s the one thing about Dad, he doesn’t pry too much, but when there is an issue he always tries to resolve it quickly.
I guess that’s where I get the fixer in me—from Dad.
The night goes on much the same, none of us talking about what happened here. We just work to get it all cleaned up, and after we’re done and have said good-bye to Wes, I head off to bed, completely exhausted from the events of the day.
As soon as my head hits the pillow, I find that I am unable to force my eyes shut. My brain is still wide awake as I ponder where Jared could be and what I’ll say the next time I see him.
The next day comes and goes without a word from Jared. I consider going out and combing the streets looking for him again, but I’ve learned from the last two times I went out to find him that it doesn’t seem to do any good.
