Page 53 of Hell to Pay

The thought made me feel sick, because once upon a time I’d been a little asshole too. Maybe I hadn’t shouted random insults at people minding their own business, but I‘d been careless with other people’s feelings, had hidden my own insecurities — that I didn’t measure up, that I’d never be a real man unless I was like my dad and Luke — behind a fuck ton of contrived BDE.

Fuck. I didn’t know what was worse: being a little asshole or growing up and having to admit you’d been a little asshole.

I looked at Matt in the rearview mirror, eager to get away from Blackwell High, which was starting to feel like the Ghost of Christmas Past, a place where I really didn’t want to linger. “You ready to hit the water?”

“Yeah,” Matt said. "I packed my shorts in my backpack like you said.”

“Awesome.” He really was a nice kid.

Like Lilah.

They deserved better than what they had — at home and everywhere else.

He typed something into his phone, then looked up. “Where’s Rafe?”

“Getting the gear to the river,” Nolan said as I pulled into traffic. “That way we can get in the water faster, before it gets too cold.”

The sun was setting later now, but it got cold fast when it dipped behind the mountain, and it wasn’t hot enough during the day yet for the nighttime temps to feel like relief.

“Did you text Lilah?” I asked. “Let her know we got you?”

He nodded. “When I got in the car. She’d freak out otherwise.”

There was a hint of frustration in his voice, one I understood, but now I had another view.

Lilah’s view.

“She cares about you, that’s all,” I said. “Wants to make sure you’re cool. You’re lucky actually.”

“Lucky?”

I had my eyes on the road but could tell from the tone of his voice that he thought I was dumb as shit.

“Yeah. You have a good relationship with your sister. She cares about you, worries about you. My older brother probably wouldn’t notice if I dropped off the face of the planet.”

I glanced at the mirror, saw the surprise in his eyes. “You have an older brother?”

“Yep, and he’s a real tool.”

Matt laughed. “I guess you’re not close.”

“Not even remotely,” I said, pulling off Main Street and onto the road leading up to the mountain. “He’s a suit.”

“A… a suit?”

“He works in an office, with my dad actually,” I said. “They’re both business guys, money guys working behind four computer screens each, staring at the stock market ticker all day.”

“You didn’t want to work with them?”

I laughed. “No.”

“And that’s why you’re not close? Because you’re different?”

“That’s not why. It’s because they have no respect for our differences, no respect for me and who I am. And you can’t be close to people who don’t respect you, people who don’t see you.”

He was quiet after that, and I hoped I hadn’t said too much. It wasn’t my job to teach Matt anything, to guide him in any way. On the other hand, I wasn’t going to lie to the kid.

Rafe was waiting by the river, three kayaks lined up on the bank. Normally we’d all take a single, but he’d brought one of the doubles this time so one of us could take Matt, which would be safer since he’d never kayaked before.

---