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Of course. No surprise there. I’m always in some state of mess.
“So, what? You felt so guilty that your old man destroyed my life, that you’ve been pretending to be my friend ever since? What the fuck?”
“I don’t feel guilty, Alex. It was an accident. And I never pretended to be your friend. I am your friend.”
“My friend?” My voice deepens to a growl as my disappointment in him grows. “How the hell can you be my friend when you’ve been lying to me for eighteen fucking years?”
“I didn’t lie to you.”
“Really? What the fuck do you call it?” He reeks of betrayal and omission. This isn’t just a little misunderstanding. This is a massive detail to hide from someone for over a decade.
Kelley has been like a brother to me—the one person I thought I could trust no matter what.
Now he’s totally pulled the rug out from under me.
“I can’t fucking believe this,” I say, pinching the bridge of my nose. “All this time, you never mentioned your father. You never admitted you lost someone, too. Never thought to say, Oh hey, Alex, by the fucking way, my dad was driving the truck that fucking hit you.”
“I should’ve told you. You’re right. But it never felt like the right time. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship.”
“Any time would’ve been the right time. You’ve been deceiving me for fucking years. What the hell kind of friendship is that?”
He puts his face in his hands for a few seconds, then slowly looks up at me, torture shadowing his crystal-blue eyes.
Whatever he’s feeling, maybe he deserves it.
I never read about the accident in the paper or online. I never tried to find information about the driver. Maybe I was afraid I would hunt him down and kill him with my bare hands if I knew his name.
Now that I know, it’s so much worse than I ever could’ve imagined.
“Every second of the accident haunts me every day. When I drove you home from the bar that night, I saw how bad you were doing. I went into a major depression after my dad died. I was in grief therapy for months. I could barely function. But I also had family to help me. They kept picking me up. You had no one. It seriously gutted me. I wanted to help you.” He smiles weakly. “I guess I felt like maybe there was a reason our paths crossed again, like I was supposed to be in your life.”
Me and Kelley have had countless heart-to-heart talks. I bared my soul to him a thousand times. He pulled me out of drunken, near-suicidal depressions more times than I can count. I’d probably be dead without him. But he also knew I blamed myself for the accident. He knew I agonized over what I could’ve done differently that day to somehow change our fate, and yet he still never admitted that he knew the truth.
As much of a friend to me as he’s been, how the hell am I supposed to forgive him for that?
“You knew I blamed myself. You could’ve taken that off me if you’d told me the truth.”
He nods slowly. “You’re right. I fucked up. And I’m really sorry, Alex. You have no idea how much that’s been bothering me.”
“Bothering you? Are you fucking kidding me? How the fuck do you think it felt to me?”
“I kept telling you the accident wasn’t your fault.”
I let out a sick laugh. “Yeah, you did. But you failed to mention that you actually knew whose fault it was, didn’t you? Or that you were there, holding my bloody skull while my wife was dying.”
“I’m sorry. I should’ve told you. I was just a kid, Alex. I was going through my own shit, too.”
“Which I guess if we were friends, you would’ve shared that with me instead of me always being the fucked-up one.”
“I didn’t want to unload my problems on you.”
“I don’t know what the hell to think, Kel. This is all seriously fucked up. I’ve always thought of you as a brother. I’m closer to you than I am to Mikey, and I’ve known him my entire life. But now? I don’t even know if this friendship is real. The fact that you hid this from me for eighteen fucking years is totally fucking unacceptable to me.”
“I get it. But I can’t change the past. You know damn well I care about you. You’ve been like a brother to me, too. I just bought you a three-thousand-dollar puppy to cheer you up. I’m sorry, man. I know it was wrong. But I never meant to hurt you. And ya know what? I needed our friendship just as much as you did. You helped me in ways you don’t even know.”
“Answer me this… if I hadn’t had this flashback over the necklace today, were you ever gonna tell me?”
