Page 210 of Hide and Keep

He scoffs. “Like I was guilty.”

“Well… I mean, youweredrunk—”

“I wasn’t though. I hadn’t been drinking at all that night.”

“Why did the news report that you were?”

“Because I said I was.”

“Crue, why the hell would you lie about that?”

“I was covering for Yaz. She was the one drinking. She was the one…” He shakes his head. “Her dad was ex-military, a perfectionist, a real hard-ass. He had so many rules for her, the top one being not to date his wrestlers.”

“She was your coach’s daughter?”

Crue nods.

“And you were dating…”

“Looking back, I don’t know if dating is the right word. We were—”

“I think I get it.” I hold up a hand, stopping him before he can get too detailed.

“No, you don’t. Nobody does because nobody ever asks. It’s always just assumptions and accusations.”

I could be saying those same words about my own life. I could be saying a lot of this about my own life.

I say to him what I wish someone would say to me. “So then tell me the truth.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yes, I do.”

He eyes the tattoo artist’s bowed head. We wait until the tattoo gun turns on, then I scoot closer to Crue.

“Yasmin and I, we…considered ourselves together. I thought of her as my girlfriend, and she called me her boyfriend.”

Each of those words hits me almost visibly, like I’m in one of those comic books with the onomatopoeia in the speech bubbles.Wham!Bam!Pow!But I fight not to show the pain. This is one of those rare instances where I actually did ask for it.

“We wanted to date but couldn’t. Not really. Not like our friends could. We barely even talked outside of the few classes we had together.”

“Because of her father?”

“Yeah. Wrestling was my life. I was on track to get a full ride to any college I chose. I didn’t want to mess that up. She didn’t want to defy him. She was…scared, I think.”

I lose Crue for a few minutes while he mentally travels back in time.

He is a time traveler.

But is that why? So he can visit her?

“Crue?” I say, bringing him back to the present. To me.

“Anyway, yeah, we liked each other. We didn’t even know each other, but we liked each other. You know?”

My eyes flutter closed on a half-nod. I fell for a man I never spoke a single word to.

“For homecoming, we both went with a big group of friends so her dad wouldn’t suspect anything. And he didn’t. It was perfect. We danced, we talked, we laughed, we got to hang out for once. It was the closest thing to a real date we’d ever gotten.”

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