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“You’re funny.” He looked over at me as he sang along to some hard rock music that was playing.
“I’m not trying to be,” I said, a slight attitude in my voice.
“Hey, I get it. You’re mad. I’d be mad, too. Antonio is a hard guy to… Well, I don’t know if I should say date or be in a relationship with or—”
“We’re not dating, and we’re not in a relationship. We’re nothing. He used me, which I’m sure you knew about.”
He pressed his lips together. “He likes you, you know.”
I stared at him with glaring eyes. “Are you freaking kidding me? Did he ask you to say that to me?”
“No, but I know he likes you.”
“And how do you know that?” I asked, even though I didn’t really want to.
“Well, he let you go, didn’t he?” He turned to me with a raised eyebrow. There was laughter in his eyes as if what he said was funny.
“What do you mean, he let me go?”
“I mean, he didn’t lock you up and keep you in the house.”
“What?” My stomach turned because a part of me had wondered if he would do something like that. Not that I was going to let Jimmy know that.
“I’m just saying.” He shrugged. “You know a lot. Dead fishes don’t talk.”
“I don’t know anything. I know that he tried to use me because my dad supposedly slept with his mom, but…”
“But you don’t believe it?” he asked as he got onto the highway.
“No way. My dad wouldn’t do that.” I knew my voice didn’t sound confident.
“So your dad’s just an all-around great guy, huh?”
I pressed my lips together. If Jimmy had asked me that question just a few days ago, I would have unequivocally said my father was the best man I knew. He was loving. He was kind. He was caring. I was his world.
But if I questioned his motivations, I knew none of it made sense. How my father had shut down after my mother’s death and never looked at another woman. I’d always thought he felt guilty that he’d lived and she didn’t. I’d always thought he’d been too solitary, too hard on himself after my mom died. She wouldn’t have wanted him to have given up his life because she’d had cancer.
But if he had cheated on my mom and if she’d died on the day that he’d gotten into a car accident and killed Antonio’s mom, well, then it made sense why he hadn’t forgiven himself and why he dedicated his whole life to raising me. He didn’t do anything for himself. Nothing. I was his life, and what if it was because he didn’t feel like he deserved anything more?
My heart lurched. If it was true that he’d driven the car that had crashed and killed Antonio’s mom and left the scene, well, that was unforgivable. A part of me understood why Antonio wanted his revenge. Not that I would ever tell him that, and not that I’d ever forgive him, because what he’d done to me was unforgivable. Sure, he wanted to hurt my dad. I got his motivations. But he’d betrayed me. He’d used me. All I’d wanted was to find true love. I’d been too trusting, too gullible, and now I felt like a fool. A broken-hearted fool.
“So you’re very thoughtful, huh?” Jimmy said.
I looked over at him, not sure I heard what he said. I rubbed my temple. I was starting to get a headache. “Sorry, what?”
“I said you seem to be deep in thought, and that would indicate to me that you’re very thoughtful.”
“I guess so,” I said, not wanting to tell him that the two things weren’t connected, at least not in how he phrased them, but I didn’t want to encourage further conversation with him.
“So you’re in college, huh? That must be cool.”
“It’s okay.”
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” he said. I didn’t respond. “I mean, I know you probably don’t want to talk to me, but we’ve got kind of a long drive, and I figured we can talk and let the drive go quicker or we can sit in silence.”
“Or we could just listen to the radio,” I said. “That’s a third option and a more preferable one.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “We’ll listen to the radio. What would you like to listen to?”
