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“Hi,” I whisper, rubbing my sweaty palms along my thighs.
I’m wearing my usual off-the-shoulder t-shirt and shorts along with my leather boots. And he’s in his clothes from the night of the party, the white shirt that’s smudged and wrinkled and half-tucked into his black pants, his suit jacket draped over his forearm.
“Hey,” he rasps in a scratchy, barely-there voice.
“You okay?” I ask and he jerks out a nod, the thick stubble on his jaw catching the sun.
His eyes go to my lip. “You?”
I touch the little tender part on the corner. “Yeah. It’s nothing.”
The flare of his nostrils tells me that it’s not nothing.
“Uh, there were witnesses who said that you came to my rescue. Immediately.” I shift on my feet. “So, um, thanks for that.”
He studies me a beat. “I should’ve killed him.”
My eyes go wide and sweep the area for any lingering cops. “Don’t say that. You’re not even home yet.”
“It’s the truth.”
I sigh, shaking my head. “Don’t go around killing people because of me, okay? That’s hardly a reason.”
His messy hair ruffles with a very rare breeze. “That’s the only reason there can be for me: you.”
I shuffle back a step at that, at his roughly spoken declaration, pressing my thighs against the bumper.
There’s a few moments of silence.
Awkward and heavy.
I hear his shoes shuffling on the sidewalk, coming closer to me. “Blue, I –”
“So your dad, he’s not pressing charges?” I speak over him quickly.
I don’t know what he was going to say but I don’t want to hear it.
“He wouldn’t,” he scoffs. “This is scandal enough for him.”
“Did you really beat him up all those years ago?”
A tiny nod. “I did. I got a few punches in before my mom stopped me and kicked me out.”
“And now? Will she press charges?”
A bitter, heartbroken smile. “She won’t do something that he won’t do.”
“Is it still a secret? That she’s sick?”
He shrugs. “It won’t be for long. They had to move her to a medical facility after that night.”
“Yeah. They told me.” Swallowing, I say, “I’m sorry. About your mom. I never… I never got to say that.”
He accepts it with a nod. “My dad. He’s, uh, always had anger issues, I think. Or at least, he had them with me. He wasn’t very patient when I was a kid. Maybe because I reminded him of his own childhood – he’s dyslexic too. I never met my grandfather; he died before I was born. But I can guess that maybe he wasn’t a very nice father to my father. I don’t know. The night he attacked my mom, I think that was the first time he’d hit her.”
Shaking his head, he continues, “When I pulled him away from her and punched him, she said that it was my fault. That I’d always been a fucked up, rebellious kid and it was because of me that my dad was so stressed out. She told me to leave. I always wanted to leave, always wanted to run away but I never thought it would come about like that. Anyway, I left because I was poisoning everything. I was polluting you, tainting you with my hate. I was turning my dad into a violent man, apparently. And I never would’ve come back.”
When he pauses, I add in a choked-up whisper, “But your mom got sick.”
“Yeah. Nora called me and told me about my mom’s cancer.” He lets out a harsh chuckle. “I remember laughing. I remember thinking, good; she deserves it. My mom never came to my rescue when I was a kid. I think that hurt me more than my dad’s behavior. She was always bothered about how stressed my dad got because of me and how that affected her relationship with him. And in the end, she was the one who kicked me out when I came to her rescue. I had no intention of coming back and taking care of her. But something made me jump on my bike and head out.”
Something like love.
I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood to hold myself up and not crumple in front of him.
Zach’s looking at me like he wants me to say something. I don’t know what he wants me to say. All I have is what I wrote him in the letter.
Sighing, I tell him, “I have something to say to you.”
He studies me a beat, his eyes intense.
Then, he swallows and nods. “Okay.”
I reach back and fish out the envelope from my back pocket. “I wrote you a letter.” Licking his lip, he stares at it. “Because I wanted to write down my thoughts before I told them to you. I know you won’t read it. I know that. So, I’m going to read it to you. Is that, uh, okay?”
His hands are fisted at his sides and he clenches his jaw. “Yeah.”
