Page 91 of Even After Sunset

That’s how much I like this girl: exploring with her, laughing with her and kissing her… Man, I love kissing her. And the conversations we have, that I swear, sometimes keep weaving through my thoughts for hours after we’ve moved on to more casual back-and-forth stuff.

Jax deserves so much better than me. And yet every day, she acts like I’m some shining fucking star. Like all the stuff I’ve done and the way I’ve acted is just a side dish, and I’m still the five-star main course. No one has ever been as kind to me as her. Even when we were little kids, she was the kindest kid in the neighborhood, so I mean it straight through to my tainted core, when I tell her she deserves every good thing that’s happened to her since her mother died. And even on days when it gets my back up—the way she wants to know every little thing about my past and gets it in her mind that it’s her job to fix me, I would still give her the world. I can’t give her the tar-soaked truths she begs me to share, but I’ll give her everything else.

And anyway, there’s no need for her to know every detail about the undue punches I’ve thrown over the years, or the trouble I got up to or the lies I’ve told, because it won’t change the fact that they happened. Or that I regret a lot of them. And it’s not that there’s anything I’ve done that’s so horrible it would make her want to walk away or anything. Because, let’s face it, if she stuck around after hearing that I shot her own mother, then I’m pretty sure my sorry ass is safe.

But I don’t want to spew all that other stuff to her because I want Jax to know the better parts of me—the parts from before that cursed afternoon in fifth grade and the parts after the night when she found me passed out in her bed in her camper. All the parts in between, I want to leave in the past. And if Jax really means it when she says she wants me to be happier and to move past the shit from my past, then she needs to be okay with that. Besides, I’ve already told her the darkest truth of all; the one that was the hardest to share, and that was the root of all the others.

Full disclosure: that last sentence is the Doc’s words—not mine. I told Richard the day after I told Jax—the truth about what really happened that horrible afternoon. I figured I had nothing to lose—that it was better if he pulled the plug on me hanging around his daughter now, before I got too attached, than a couple months from now, when he’d likely learn the truth anyway from Jackie, and we’d have even more history to sever.

If I’m being totally honest, I don’t think the Doc was too shocked when I told him how that night went down. He sure didn’t have the reaction I would have expected from him a month ago. But then he’s the one, out of anyone, who sees the actions of a little kid from a whole different perspective than most people could. He’s the one who got Jax to see that she wasn’t responsible for failing to see the mental health issues that led her mother to go off the rails. And so I guess, the way he feels about what I did is just another version of that same philosophy, only blown up tenfold. Because, let’s be honest: a kid shooting someone is still in a whole different league than a kid being oblivious to the seriousness of her mother’s depression.

Anyway, all this to say that I haven’t had any nightmares in a while. Since I told Jackie the truth. And since I’ve talked about it with Richard.

But….

I still dread the night-time.

Like, I literally start to think about sleep as soon as the sun sets, as if it’s this hellish gorge looming in front of me every single fucking evening. And just the thought of getting through it liquor-free puts me on edge. I get the sweats sometimes, for chrissake, just thinking about it—the idea of going without a drink once it’s past eight o’clock. Sometimes earlier. So even though I want to quit cold turkey, it’s just too hard. So I’ve reached a compromise.

I only let myself drink from one of the bottles I always have stashed in my backpack, which I buy off the taco truck guy. And I only drink after Jax is asleep. Just enough that it helps me get to sleep.

I don’t drink before that—in the morning or afternoon. It’s a pact I’ve made with myself. But man, it’s hard to keep. Way harder than I thought.

Some mornings I actually re-route my walk to the stage for set-up just so that I bypass the beer tent. And other times, even if it’s not a day when I’m working, I do the opposite. I wander past it just to be close to all those cases of beer. Like maybe I’ll absorb some of the alcohol just from being near it. Inebriation by osmosis or something. It’s stupid, and it makes no sense at all, to put myself through this insane brand of torture. Especially since every time I do it, it gets harder and harder to resist. And yet still, I keep doing it.

It’s this constant push-and pull… Lure and resistance.

I hate how it consumes me.

So even though I’ve been sleeping better once I finally crash, in some ways, night-time is even harder now than before. Because now I feel like I’m keeping this horrible secret from Jackie. I know she’d hate knowing that I’m drinking every night. She doesn’t get that I need it in order to just get to sleep.

So really, I’ve just traded one secret in for a new one.

But at least I’ve learned over the past seven years that I’m good at keeping secrets.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Jackie

“Come on… You gotta do it.” Silas massages my sunburned shoulders. “We’ll jump together.”

We’re at the Norcross-West Marble Quarry, which was totally not on my itinerary, but Silas insisted we come. The quarry has been abandoned since 1917 and is now a stunning swimming hole, with ridged marble walls that have created a bunch of different platform levels to jump from.

Silas, of course, wants us to jump from the highest.

I’ve been shuffling back and forth along the ledge for long enough that a few of the locals are invested now, and encouraging me right alongside Silas.

“I’m gonna count down from three, okay? Then we’ll jump together,” Silas says. “No wussing out. You got this.”

“Yeah, you got this, girl!” a guy calls from where he’s sitting with a couple of friends on a towel a few feet away.

“It’s a rite of passage! You’ll be joining the ranks of the elite!” A girl about my age hollers, and a few more people cheer.

I can’t back down now. Not with an audience and everything. Not when I know I’ll just kick myself later if I don’t suck it up and jump already.

“Three…” Silas leans in, nodding at me… reassuring me I can do this.

“Two…” he drops his hand from my shoulder, but his pinky is still touching mine. My heartbeat races even faster.

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