Page 58 of Big Man on Campus

“I don’t have a drinking problem,” I say the words automatically, but in reality, I know they’re true and I say what’s in my soul, expelling the hidden truth. “Because we both know it’s not the drinking that’s the problem. It’s the problem that makes me drink. The problem that will never go away.”

“Glory—"

“The problem is that I’m alive. And it will only go away when I die.” I feel empty.

But as I watch his face, the quiver of his lips, feel his shaky hand cover mine, hot acid trickles through my chest. His face devastates me. His pain wrenches it out of shape in his struggle to hold onto his control, to keep his emotions under check. And when he loses it, when his face collapses and I see his tears as he bows his head, covering his face with one hand, shoulders shaking as he cries, I feel a fissure run through me.

“No… don’t say that, Glory.” He lifts his head, looks at me with those pleading sea green eyes, “You’re my Glory Sunshine… you can’t…”

His voice breaks and I feel the break like it cracks open my chest, and hot acid sears across my soul and whatever numbness protected me momentarily is gone. I jump from my chair like I’ve been prodded by a jolt with the magnitude of a nuclear bomb. With my limbs and brain and heart all shocked to life at once, I go to him, wrapping my arms around him because whatever bad thing happens to me, the only thing worse is anything that causes this pain to this man who I love more than anything.

More than myself.

Shock slaps me harder than a hand across my face, shakes my self-absorbed world so that I remember it’s not all about me.

“Kace, baby, no, don’t worry. It’ll be alright, we’ll be okay. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make things right, better, to make your life beautiful.” My voice is strong, my conviction desperate and determined, rushing past the uncertainty, bowling over the pain, the numbness and whatever else is in the way.

He clutches my shirt and then my face and makes me look into those eyes of his and see all the pain there, knowing I caused it. And knowing I can fix it.

My heart pounds fast like I’m running, and I have a long way to go, but I don’t care. I’ll keep going.

“I love you more than anything, Kace.” I kiss him, my lips trembling with the enormity of the promise. He accepts my kiss as a seal, at first passive, then he devours me like a man about to starve to death if he didn’t have this kiss, this joining.

Squeezing my arms around him, I beg him to forgive me, tell him I’ll confess so that he won’t have to get suspended from the team, won’t have his career ruined.

“Glory, I can’t let you do that. They’ll throw the book at you.”

“I deserve a book thrown at my head. A lot more. You deserve—”

“Don’t fucking say it. I deserve what I want, and what I want is you.”

The girl I used to be. I don’t say it, but the one last talon of doubt claws at me. Even though I don’t admit it out loud, or utter a word, he knows it, sees it in my face.

“I want the woman I know you will be.”

He’s a strong-minded fucker underneath his nice guy easy-going façade. His toughness makes me smile. In spite of myself, in spite of everything.

“Then don’t stop me from telling the truth.” Bile rises in my stomach at the prospect of the consequences, but it’s what I need to do. I need some consequences. The kind that hurt only me, that make only me pay for my mistakes.

* * *

Majik shows Mr. Hill and the attorney into the kitchen when they arrive. Kace sits next to me, holding my hand while I tell them the whole story, uninterrupted, no gloss, the whole truth, from the beginning. From the day I crashed the car and killed Sky.

Majik hears the whole thing. I see her lurking in the background and I don’t care.

When Tim senior scrapes his chair back, dabbing at the corner of his eye, Majik walks in the room and puts a box of tissue on the table.

The lawyer tells us he’ll talk to the police and the school officials and come up with a proposal. The charge of allowing the children in the car without toddler seats will go against the driver, not Glory.

“But even that’s questionable since an Uber driver might be classified as a Taxi and be exempt from the child car seat laws,” Mr. Hill says.

“The charge of drunk driving and crashing into the tree can’t go against Glory now because there’s not enough evidence. She can be technically charged with leaving the scene of an accident, however that’s only a misdemeanor where the only damage was to her property. The only other charge that’s likely to stick is the one against Kace for lying to police about the accident. Falsifying an accident report is a felony. However once again, because there was no injury or death, the penalty will likely be a fine.”

“I told you,” Kace says to me. I fight tears as I snort out a laugh.

“Unfortunately, son, that leaves you with a felony record. Not an overly serious one, but none-the-less, a black mark.”

“I can handle it. None of it matters compared to Beau being hurt.”