Page 53 of Pocketful of Shame

Those, I could manage.

Dressing in a chunky, oversized, off the shoulder pink sweater from one of the bags, I hobbled back to the toilet to put on clean panties and a pair of plain, black leggings. It involved getting the damn boot off and back on again, but I couldn’t deny that I felt a million times better once I was dressed. My hair was a wet mess, piled on top of my head with a hair-tie, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t trying to win any beauty contests here.

When I finally emerged from the bathroom, Sketch was sitting on the edge of the bed. The moment his blue eyes landed on me, my poor heart jackknifed in my chest, causing my breathing to pick up at an alarming rate. "Hey."

"Hey," I replied, closing the bathroom door behind me and hobbling into the room.

"So, the douchebag left another note," Sketch told me, waving another piece of paper around. "It says we're to meet him at some diner downtown when we're done having a come-to-Jesus moment between each other's legs in the bathroom."

I flushed bright pink. "He heard us?"

"It's Presley," he deadpanned. "He probably had his damn ear pressed to the door." Sketch ran a hand through his dark hair before asking, "How come you never told me he was gay?"

My brows shot up in surprise. "He told you?"

He nodded. "I don’t care or anything. Gay or straight, the guy confuses the hell out of me. I just…" He scratched his chest and shrugged. "I feel dumb for not realizing."

"You're not dumb, Sketch." I made my way over to the bed and sat down beside him. "And I didn’t tell you because you weren't speaking to me when I found out."

"So, he didn’t tell you when –"

"We were a couple?" I offered with a small shake of my head. "No, and if he had told me back then, you would've known. You know I could never keep secrets from you. I told you everything." Grimacing, I added, "Even what tampons I used."

"Yeah." He let out a small, humorless laugh. "And I was your little bitch boy, running around town, stockpiling everything you needed for shark week."

"God, life was so much easier back then," I said wistfully. "I miss back then, Sketch."

There was a long stretch of silence before Sketch spoke. "When I was five and my parents first started taking me to church on Sundays with them and Chris, I remember sitting in the row behind your family. Every Sunday, you sat right in front of me. And when nobody was looking, you would sneak a hand back and poke me in the knee, do you remember that?"

"Yeah." My heart ached. "I remember."

He nodded. "I remember listening to the Pastor drone on and on about God and Jesus, and Chris would take it all in and answer all of Mama's questions afterwards, but I could never concentrate on what I was supposed to be learning at church because I wasconvincedthere was an angel poking me in the knee."

My breath caught in my throat. "Sketch –"

"Don’t –" He held a hand up. "Just let me get this out, okay?"

Swallowing deeply, I nodded. "Yeah."

"I told Chris about it one day after church," he said, arm brushing against mine as he spoke. "About the angel in the row in front of us. He laughed at me and saidthat's not an angel, Sketch, that's just Romi." He smiled sadly. "And then I told him that I knew it was Romi, but that Istillthought I was right. Later that night, when I said my bedtime prayers, I asked God for one thing. I said:Dear God, I'll do everything right, I'll go to church every Sunday, I'll respect my daddy, I'll honor my mama, I'll protect my brother, just never take the angel away from me."

Tears trickled down my cheeks as I listened.

"And it worked. God heard my prayer," he continued. "So, every night for the next eleven years, I said those exact words to God and I kept my promise. I did everything I said I would, even when it was close to impossible. Even on my birthday, you were my one wish, the one thing I wanted in the whole world, because the truth is, you were the only part of my life that ever made sense." He paused before sighing heavily. "And then one day, on a shitty Monday afternoon in October of sophomore year, you were taken away from me." He stiffened. "It didn’t matter how well I treated you. It didn’t matter how much I loved you. How much I adored you. How I never even looked at any other girls. It didn’t matter how much of my pride I had to sacrifice to keep my promise to God. None of it mattered because a man with more power than I could ever have, decided that I wasn't good enough for his daughter."

"I'm so sorry about my father," I said, voice cracking. "I didn’t know he did that to you."

"And then, two months after that shitty day, I walked into school and saw my brother with his arm wrapped around the angelIhad asked God for. The same brother who not only had our father's attention, but our mother's love. The same brother who meant more to me than words can explain." Exhaling a pained breath, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "After that, I never prayed again, and I haven't stepped foot in a church since."

Shaking my head, I clenched my eyes shut before blinking away my tears and reaching for his hand. "I don’t know what to say."

Surprisingly, he didn’t shake me off. Instead, he stared down at my small hand on top of his large one. "It's okay. I've done more than enough wrong to you in the past year. I'm not looking for another apology, and I didn’t tell you any of that to hurt you or make you feel bad."

"Then why did you tell me?"

He turned to look at me, giving me access to the pain in his heart through the windows of his eyes. "Because I need you to know that I'm not over it."

"Over me?"

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