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“Would’ve been smart if you did,” he said simply. “I knew you had it in you, J. I wasn’t underestimating you. I didn’t want you toneedto have it in you. That make sense?”
He’d never put it like that before. I moved a little closer, so we were seated with our arms touching. “That makes sense.” Then, after another long pause, I said, “I love you. Don’t forget that.”
“I love you too, you little shit.”
14 - Lucas
High School — The Summer Before Senior Year
Jason’s hair fell aroundhim in clumps as I moved the clippers over his scalp. His brown hair was so soft, it could have been from a rabbit or some other small, quivering animal. It almost made me regret shaving it off.
Jason had walked into my trailer that morning with Manson and Vincent in tow, looking as if he’d arrived for his own execution. He had, in a way. The Jason Roth who existed before today — the made-up version, the polite, straight, God-fearing boy he’d been for his parents — was dead.
I’d helped kill him. Today was our method of hiding the corpse.
Turning off the clippers, I tossed them onto the kitchen counter. The trailer was hot as balls even with all the windows open, so I was walking around in my boxers and nothing else. Manson was mixing bleach powder and developer in a bowl, while Vincent was preoccupied sniffing the bright blue hair dye Jason brought with him.
“Smells like Jolly Ranchers,” he said, frowning at the bottle before sniffing it again. He was too high to function, as usual, but I loved him for it. That scatter-brained clown could actually make me laugh sometimes, and that was saying something.
“Try not to inhale this,” Manson said. He used his gloved hands to smear the bleach over Jason’s head. Jason sat there silently, although his leg began to bounce impatiently after a couple minutes.
“Is it supposed to burn?” he said.
“Yep. It’s going to itch like hell too, but don’t touch it.”
He didn’t have much hair left, so the bleach didn’t take long to work. He sat there shirtless, his chest freshly covered with the lines of an unfinished tattoo. I’d hooked him up with someone willing to do it, considering he wouldn’t turn eighteen for another few weeks and most reputable shops would turn him away. But he hadn’t wanted to wait, and I didn’t blame him.
He’d already waited long enough.
“Do you have any beer?” he said as Manson finished up and dropped the bowl of bleach into the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. I wasn’t a messy person, but I fucking hated doing dishes. With my Pops dead and gone, I really couldn’t be bothered. Now that I no longer had to worry about fighting someone about it, I’d let the dishes overflow if I goddamn felt like it.
“Fresh out,” I said.
What I didn’t mention was that “fresh out” includedeverything. Beer, food — hell, even toilet paper was pretty much gone. My income from working at the tire shop barely covered bills, even in this shithole trailer park. Paying to cremate my father had been a complete waste of the very little money I had left, but Mom had insisted she wanted the ashes. She was getting so much worse living on her own, with no one to look after her. The little affection I had left for her demanded that I at least give her a proper chance to mourn her shitstain of a husband.
But I wasn’t about to bring all that up and have the boys feeling sorry for me.
