Page 68 of This Reckless Home

“Kid would've been radicalized,” Nox says quietly, and I know he’s right, but can the ends ever justify the means? “Would've hurt people himself. You turned a future Nazi into the reason they're all in cages. Plus took away their future. You made a shit choice in even shittier circumstances.” He sighs. “Steele is right though, those types of people are fucking barbaric assholes, hurting people who are a different fucking colour just because. What you did wasn’t right.”

Nox’s arms stay around me, holding me, and I take the comfort he’s offering.

“Yeah.” Steele nods once, and my heart skips a beat.

He doesn't say it's okay. Doesn't say he understands.

And I wouldn’t want him to. Wouldn’t ask for his forgiveness because I know what I did was unforgivable. Know that people got hurt because of me. Maybe even died because of the choice I made.

So we drive the rest of the way in silence, and I can’t stop my eyes from drifting to the back of Steele’s head every few minutes. But he doesn’t once turn to look at me, and I’ve never felt further away from him despite sitting three feet behind his seat.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“LET THE WORLD BURN” BY CHRIS GREY, G-EAZY

STEELE

We drive through the dark, the lights of streetlamps passing by in flashes that I barely see.

Truth: the woman I love helped fund Nazi hate.

Truth: she saved a child from being radicalized.

Truth: she helped enable harm and possibly death to many other non-white people

Truth: she knows what she did was wrong.

Truth: she still made a choice.

The truths cut like barbed wire, they fucking hurt and I feel like my insides are bleeding out all over my seat.

Nox holds her in the back, and I'm grateful, because I'm not sure I could right now. Don't know if these hands that have touched her, held her, should be anywhere near her right now.

I glance down at them, seeing the slight tremble as they wrap around the handle of the cash bag.

And then guilt fills my stomach, making it churn, because I loved her this morning. Still do. I think. Maybe.

The bile filling my throat is hard to swallow. Because I just don't know how to match up the version of her I thought I knew, to the version who would willingly hand hundreds of thousands of dollars to a man with Nazi flags on his porch.

The reasons don’t make it right. Nothing does.

Fuck.

I think of what I'd do to protect Justin. And the answer sits in my gut like a stone I can't shift, because I don't like what it tells me. Don't like what it means for how I feel about what she did.

My muscles are wound so tight I can feel the tension thrumming inside me, desperate to spill out. Every time she glances at me I can feel it like a burn, the weight of her eyes on the side of my face.

But I can't look at her. Not yet.

I don't know what I'll see if I do. Don't know what she'll see looking back.

I thought I knew who she was.

Maybe that's what hurts most. Not just what she did. But that she carried this — this — and I never knew. Never even fucking saw it. Thought I was close enough to see everything that mattered. But it turns out I wasn't even close.

The darkness outside the windows doesn't change. The road keeps moving under us. The street lamps keep flashing by.

I have no idea where this leaves us. Don't even know if that's the right question yet.