Page 137 of Just One Kiss

“I said get out!”

“Go, Josh,” his mom said. “Get outside. Go to the park.”

Dylan’s eyes fluttered open and Josh tugged him closer to the doorway. “Let’s go. We have to go.”

Now, standing in the kitchen—not unlike the one in that house in another small town—Josh heaved a heavy breath.

What happened next?

He spun around, away from his father, away from his mother, memories seeping in like water through cracks in a wall.

“It was you,” he said. His eyes slowly crept from the floor to his father’s angry face. “You said it was me.”

“What are you talking about?” His father growled.

Josh’s eyes darted to his mother, who stood, unmoving—a look of panic on her face.

Josh stumbled backward but stopped himself from falling with a hand on the counter. His eyes searched the air, as if the answers were there, waiting to be captured and clung to.

Images raced through his mind like an old home video, but quickly, the images turned into Josh’s worst nightmare. His father’s arm swung back, hitting Dylan with such force, the boy fell into the corner of the counter and then onto the ground. Their mother lay in a quiet heap, unable to help.

Josh picked Dylan up, helped him to his feet, and together they raced off to the playground. The wound wasn’t gushing blood, so Josh thought his brother was okay—it would heal, like a scab on a skinned knee.

He covered his head with his hands, unable to escape the memories.

“We’ll wait here until dark and then we’ll go back home,” Josh had told Dylan as they sat on the merry-go-round, slowly pushing it in circles with their feet. “We’ll wait ’til he’s asleep.”

“My head hurts.” Dylan touched it gently.

“I know, Dyl,” Josh said. “It’ll get better soon.”

But it didn’t get better. As they spun, Dylan started to fade. His eyelids seemed too heavy to hold open and then, in a flash, he tumbled off the merry-go-round and onto the ground.

There were only two other kids playing at the park at that hour, and one of them was Josh and Dylan’s across-the-street neighbor. He raced off, shouting, “I’ll get your parents!” and Josh remembered the words that flitted into his mind in that moment.

No, don’t! This is their fault!

Words he’d never said aloud. Words he’d pushed aside when his father wrote a whole new script for the day’s events.

“I believed you,” Josh said now, horror building up like bile at the back of his throat. “You said it was me.”

He locked eyes with his father, and he knew no other explanation was needed. They were both back in that old house, in that quiet neighborhood park. They were both reliving the moments leading up to Dylan’s death, and they were standing on opposite sides.

“Don’t try and rewrite history,” his father shouted, closing in on Josh. “You and I both know the truth. You come in here all high and mighty like you’re so much better than the rest of us, but you know what you are.” His father loomed in front of Josh, as if daring him to lash out, as if begging him to engage.

Josh’s hands turned into fists at his sides. He clenched and unclenched them, anger coursing through his veins.

His father gave Josh a once-over, then a heavy push on the shoulder.

Josh shrugged him off, shaking away the angry thoughts building in his mind.

“You wanna hit me—then hit me,” his father antagonized.

Josh wanted to hit him. He wanted to pummel his father until he was so bloody he lay limp and lifeless the same way Dylan had.

He took a step back and for a fleeting moment, it was as if he’d left his own body—and as he floated overhead, he could see a clearer picture of the scenario in which he now found himself.

“You’re a bully,” he said quietly and without thinking. He glanced at his mother, folded into a ball of timidity. He glanced at his father, whose face had reddened in his anger.

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