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He left, and my shoulders slumped as I looked at the screen through the blur of the flickering flame. DaMage had sent me a picture of a cake with a twenty-two candle.
DaMage: Don’t forget to make a wish.
I wish I could change the past.
But that was impossible. The most I could do was confront it.
I studied the bus-stop timetable taped to my bookshelf. If I left now, I could still make it.
To visit him in jail, or not to visit?
DaMage: You gonna slay demons?
I grabbed my jacket.
I was gonna slay demons.
I stared at my demon.
He stared right back across a gray slate table, the white sleeves under his red inmate uniform bunched around thick forearms.
“You used to be the Jill to my Jack. Jack and Jill, we climbed every hill.” Jack, ex-best friend, laughed drolly, while I cringed at my butchered surname and former nickname. “What happened to you, man?”
That should have been my line. Not his.
My grin ached. I gripped the plastic chair with sweaty palms. “I took up roleplaying and Cheetos.”
“In Chief Benedict’s basement?”
I scanned the dozen inmates greeting their visitors, the guards on duty, and lingered on Jack. “One of many ways to spell pathetic.”
Another way? Having crushed on this abusive twenty-two-year-old now jailed for beating up gay guys—for threatening to kill last year’s campus vigilante, the Raven.
Shame tightened its grip around my gut.
Jack stroked his new half-inch beard and cocked his head, gaze narrowed. “Why’d you come here, Jill?”
“Marc,” I croaked, and hurriedly cleared my throat. “I go by Marc now.”
“I only know Jill. Sassy smartass sidekick. One long-gone dad, a dead mother, and overall disappointment.”
My feet jerked against the floor and the chair squealed. Guards turned in our direction. I smiled over gritted teeth, heat prickling my eyes. “Prison’s changed you.”
“No, it’s freed me. No more tempering my thoughts. No more faking who I am.” Jack leaned forward, bracing the table. “I’d tell you to try it, but I worry you’ll try to jump my bones.”
I winced. What did I ever see in him other than a Roman-like chiseled body, lazy confidence, and vast vocabulary?
Jack’s bicep flexed and I flinched. Jack noted my flinch with the wry twist of his lips. “You were once a dad’s worst nightmare. Trouble his daughter loved to indulge in. You wrote your number on their bras in permanent marker. Why’d you have to turn gay?”
I averted my eyes, gritting out a smile. I had always been gay. “I never did those things.”
“You told me—”
“I told you a lot of things.”
Jack’s voice bowled toward me, punchy with disgust. “Why’d you want to visit?”
“You approved me.”
“Sweatpants and an orange-stained T-shirt. Didn’t exactly dress up for the occasion.” His shrewd eyes narrowed. “You thought of skipping.”
“I changed my mind at the last minute.”
“Why?”
I arched a You’re-fucking-with-me brow. “Why did I think of skipping a visit to the guy who beat me up for whispering how much I loved him in his ear?”
My stomach took a dive toward my feet.
“Why did you change your mind?”
Because it was my birthday wish.
My wish. To stand up for my sadly neglected principles. To say the words that drummed an insistent beat in my veins. To prove I still had some moral fiber.
I crossed my trembling arms. Sweat pearled under my bangs. My dry mouth tasted tinny.
Jack waited, eyes dark and lifeless.
Just like they’d been the moment after I’d whispered in his ear, before the first punch. Just like they’d been when I begged him to stop kicking me.
Fear froze my tongue.
I needed to slip on a mask of indifference. A grin would do it. It always did. “I came here because . . . because . . .”
“Because, because, because . . . Come on, get the hell on with it.”
My grin hardened. “You attacked gay men. What you did was wrong.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Come on. We both did shit.”
“I never hurt anyone.”
“Maybe not physically. But you hurt people, Marc. You bullied Liam, you rubbed it into his face he has no friends; you snickered at his Aspergery ways; you hurt his feelings every day, and he wasn’t the only disabled dude you gave shit to. You even flipped off the freak in the wheelchair.”
Shame washed through me, pooled in my ears, hot and painful. “Hunter.”
“Whatever, man.” Jack caught my eye, held it hard. “You. Are. Just. Like. Me.”
“No.” It came out a wheeze smelling of dread.
Jack’s nostril’s flared. “You’re right. You aren’t just like me. You are less. I did everything because I love my brother. You did everything to impress me, a crush.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks and I unlocked my jaw.
“Don’t bother denying it, man. Anything else before your time’s up? Want to confess your feelings again?”
My stomach revolted, flooding me with energy to drown the fear that his words conjured.
“Nah, dude. I am long over you.” I pushed my chair back and scrounged up a wink. “I’ll send you some birthday cake.”
