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I’ve had several angry phone calls from Nina. She doesn’t even let me speak. She just yells at me until she’s out of things to say and out of names to call me. I could hang up but instead I listen, silently agreeing with everything she’s saying because it’s all true. Sage deserves to be treated better than this. She deserves more than I can give her. So much more. She’s a sweet, kind, good person who’s been through hell the past year and now I just made it worse.
I don’t know what I was thinking. I knew this wouldn’t end well and yet I kept pursuing it. I let Sage think we could be together, knowing the whole time that we couldn’t.
She loved me and trusted me and I let her down. And worst of all, I hurt her. I hurt the only woman I’ve ever loved.
There’s a knock on the back door. Normally, that would spook me and make me race to get my gun. But now? My mind is too focused on Sage to even care who’s at the door. This past week I haven’t even been thinking about them finding me.
But Ihavethought about my brother. I worry about him every day. I need to get back there and get him away from my dad. I’m just not sure how yet. Every time I come up with a plan, I come up with a million reasons why it won’t work.
I hear the back door open. “Kyle? You in here?”
It’s Hank. I forgot it was Friday. He’s here to mow the lawn.
“Yeah, I’m here.” I walk into the kitchen and see him taking a beer from the fridge. I keep it stocked, just like he asked me to when we first met. I tried to pay him for the lawn work but beer is the only payment he’ll accept.
His brows rise as he looks at me. “Guess the rumors were true.”
“What rumors?”
He shuts the fridge door. “People in town said you’ve looked like shit ever since Sage and you broke up.”
“Who told you that? I haven’t even been in town, other than the gas station.”
“Sheila works the register there. You know how she talks.”
Sheila.I wasn’t thinking about her, but he’s right. She loves to spread gossip, and the other day when I went in to pay for my gas, she kept staring at me. I wasn’t even thinking about why, but now it makes sense.
“I don’t look so bad,” I insist, but I know it’s a lie. I haven’t showered in two days and haven’t shaved in over a week.
“You look like death warmed over.” He sits at the kitchen table and takes his pocket knife out. It has a bottle opener attached to it, which he uses to flip the cap off his beer. “What’s it been now? A week?”
“Not quite. Tonight will be a week.” I don’t want to talk about this but I can tell he’s not going to give up until he says whatever it is he wants to say.
He nods, then takes a drink of his beer.
“What?”
He shrugs. “I’m trying to figure out the best way to say this.”
“Just tell me so we can get this over with. I know the whole town thinks I broke her heart but as you can see,” I point to myself, “I’m not doing so well myself. But it had to happen. We couldn’t keep something going we knew was going to end.”
He fiddles with the bottle cap, spinning it around on the table.
“You like stories?” He laughs. “What am I saying? Of course you do. You’re a writer.” He sets the bottle cap aside. “When I was a trial lawyer, I dealt with some bad people. Bastards who’d kill whoever pissed them off, even if that person was someone they claimed to love. I once met a guy who killed his wife because she never had dinner ready when he wanted it. Then there was a guy who killed his own kid because he thought he was stealing from him. Turns out he wasn’t.”
I’m completed focused on him, finding his story a little too coincidental. A guy killing his kid? Does he know something? Does he know about my dad? There’s no way he could but hearing that story makes me even more worried for my brother. I need to get to him, and soon.
“One of these bastards decided I’d pissed him off,” Hank says, “so he came after me.”
“What’d he do?”
“Showed up at my house. He was out on bail. Showed up at my front door and my wife answered. Our youngest was just a toddler then and Lois was holding her. I asked who was at the door but she didn’t answer. I went to the door and saw the bastard holding a gun on her and our daughter.” Hank picks up the bottle cap and taps it lightly on the table, over and over again.
It still bothers him. He’s still haunted by this story and I get the feeling he doesn’t tell it often. So why is he telling it to me?
“I saw him there and lost my damn mind. I tackled the guy to the ground, which was stupid because he still had the gun which could’ve gone off at any time, hitting my wife or our daughter. Or me, but I didn’t care about me. I cared about them, which is why I beat the guy into the ground until he finally passed out.” He takes a breath. “After that day, I started thinking long and hard about the future. My goal was to be a judge and I was on that path, but it’s a job that would put my family at risk. Criminals have friends so even if you lock them up, their buddies may come looking for revenge. I was scared to death another bastard would show up at my door. Try to kill my family. So…” He looks up at me. “I left them.”
“Youwhat? You left your family?”
