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That interests her enough that she peeks at me through the shield of her short purple hair.
“You’re right,” I continue. “Going to the cemetery, it was messed up, but the truth is I was twisted and broken before I met James Cohen.”
I stayed silent when I witnessed things that I knew were wrong and each time I didn’t find the courage to speak out, a piece of who I should have been, the man I should have tried to become, died.
Stella places a hand on my knee. “What happened that night?”
My pulse thrashes in my veins and pounds at my temples, but if I expect Stella to open up to me, I have to offer her the same in return. “A tractor trailer crossed over the median.”
“Go on,” she whispers.
My eyes dart in front of me and I see the headlights of the truck, hear the shattering of glass. “My car spun when I hit the brakes and I turned the wheel to avoid a collision and I did it. I cleared the wreck, but when I got out of my car, he was there...on the ground...and there was blood.”
“James Cohen?”
I nod. “Several other people came up and some of them had blankets and a lot of them were on the phone, but no one went close. I did because I kept thinking that was almost me.”
Almost me.
“I tried to stop the bleeding, but it soaked through everything and it wasn’t like it was an arm or a leg that I could tie off....” The blood poured from him, from too many cuts and gashes. “He was dying.”
He had put his hand in the air and it had surprised me how much strength there was in his grip.
“Don’t leave me,” he begged.
“I won’t,” I replied, but I wanted to.
“What happened?” Stella asks, because somehow she senses that the story doesn’t end there.
“He didn’t want to die.”
“None of us do,” she says in a soothing way, but she’s pushing me. She knows that there’s more.
“He told me...” My mouth runs dry. “He told me he did it wrong. His last words, to me and on this earth, were that he lived his life wrong.”
And it forced me to question mine. Every decision I had made. Every knee-jerk reaction. Would I end up on the side of the road telling someone I did it all wrong?
As I stare at Stella I see her strength, her beauty, her faith and forgiveness in me, even when I didn’t deserve it—no, I’m not going to do this wrong. “Regardless of what happens between us tonight, tomorrow or twenty years from now, I’m never going to be the guy that says nothing again.”
“I know you won’t. You’re going to be a great man, Jonah.”
“And you’ll be there to see it.”
A slight smile tilts her mouth, but it’s not enough to drain the sadness from her face. “I wish I had your resolve.”
Resolve? “Stella, you run circles around my sorry butt.”
She lets out a rush of air that moves her hair. “I’m dropping out of American Lit.”
I sit up so quickly the headboard of the bed bounces against the wall. “What? Why?”
“I don’t know what I was thinking signing up for the college prep track. I thought...I thought that I had a shot of breaking out, but I don’t. Once Joss figures out Dad’s not coming back, she’ll throw me out like everyone else has. I need a good job and I have a shot at one. I have to be able to support myself.”
Whoa. “Stella...” But there are no words.
“College speeches only sound pretty if they’re true. They’re not true for me. I don’t have someone to catch me if I fall. You’re blessed. You have people who can offer you second chances. I don’t. I get one shot at everything I do so it’s best not to walk the high wire. It’s best I stay on the ground.”
I glance around my room. There are a ton of things that were not only bought for me, but picked out for me. Without a doubt I know my parents are going to pay for college. What words of advice do I have for Stella?
