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Something tells me that on any other day, he’d be the one in the office discussing game plans and tactics. It’s not that he wasn’t invited when Reid jerked his head in Mav's direction to demand he follows, but JD’s name wasn’t specifically mentioned.
“You think they’re both still breathing?” he asks, his voice is light enough, but it’s a cover.
“You can go in there if you want. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t actually need a babysitter.”
Irritation flares in his eyes, making me regret my words instantly.
“Dove, I’m not here because I have to be,” I say.
“No, I know. I just—”
“I want to spend time with you,” he says, his eyes dropping from me as he nervously rubs the back of his neck. “And trust me when I say, that isn’t anything I’ve ever said to someone I’m fucking.”
I rear back at his final words, although I’m not sure why. They’re true. We arejustfucking. There is nothing more to this relationship. We’re not even captor and captive anymore. Just like last night, I walked out here freely, and I could have kept going if I wanted to. Yet, I’m still here.
“No, I know. I was just saying. If you want to go catch up on what’s happening, I don’t mind.” I hold up the open notebook resting on my lap. “I have a friend to keep me company.”
He studies me for a moment before his eyes drop to my neat scrawl on the first few lines of the page.
“Have you always written in a diary?” he asks curiously, his brows pulled as if he doesn’t quite understand the concept of why I’m so obsessed with it.
“From as early as I can remember, yeah.”
“Why?”
“It’s… therapeutic.”
“But don’t you just write all your thoughts and shit?”
I can’t help but laugh. “That’s pretty much the long and the short of it way.” Tearing my eyes from his, I stare out over the town beyond while he continues to rock us back and forth on the swing. I’ve no idea what the time is, but it’s late afternoon already, the sun already sinking in the sky, the town we all know and hate ramping up for another night of debauchery and corruption. The dealers, pimps, the hookers… the Hawks. All of those nocturnal creatures that keep Harrow Creek… thriving are getting ready to start their days.
I shake my head. How can somewhere that looks so beautiful be so toxic?
“I’ve had a lot I’ve needed to process over the years. For a long time, the only person I had to talk to was Kristie, but I couldn’t poison her with the truth of what I was dealing with. She was too young, too innocent, too pure. And then.” I sigh, pain coiling around my chest like barbed wire.
“How old was she when she… went?”
Tears immediately burn my eyes as I think of the last day I saw my little sister. “Her thirteenth birthday. I had no, I—”
“Thirteen?” JD spits angrily. “She was a child, she—”
One of the tears I’m fighting so hard to keep in finally drops, rolling down my cheek and landing on my page. I watch with my head bowed as the single drop of liquid spreads. My breath catches as it forms a wonky kind of heart shape.
“I know,” I whisper, my voice cracking with emotion. “I’d made her a whole party. Our lives were pretty shitty despite how easy Dad had it. He spent the money on drugs and pussy from what I can figure. The house was a dump, falling down around us. I always wondered if he had a wife and a family in a decent house somewhere else. I could never figure out why he wanted to live in our shithole, so I figured it was all he deemed us worthy of.”
“Dove,” he whispers, and when I glance over, I find my own pain reflected in his eyes.
It’s no secret that JD grew up in foster care, bouncing around group homes and foster homes all over town. It makes me wonder what kind of similarities lie in our childhoods.
None of us have grown up with loving parents around us, but I suspect that JD and I have more in common than we’d like to confess.
“I’d made her cupcakes—thirteen, obviously—decorated the house with handmade bunting because I had no way of getting her anything better. I did everything I could. I lived for seeing her smile, seeing her happy. It was about the only joy I got in life, so watching her face light up when she found it all made my entire year. If only I knew what was in store for us later that day.”
“Jesus,” he mutters. “And he told you that she was going to live with your mom?”
“Yeah, but I never believed him. Mom wasn’t off somewhere living her best life without us. I knew it was all bullshit. She was gone, probably by his own hand, and so was Kristie. I had no one left to save me, to make me smile. Life from then on was just… hell.”
“So you ran?”
