Page 84 of Body Count

“And Tip was his own particular brand of fucked up.I mean, he and his roommate, they had this game.Or contest.Or whatever.Their body count.These photos on their walls.I mean, just a fucking mind-fuck, man.”

I stopped.Or it was like something stopped me.Like something inside me dug in its heels, while another part of me tried to drive it on.

John-Henry’s voice startled me.“I’m only saying this because I know how much you’re going to enjoy another age joke, but we used to call it scoring.Maybe people still call it that.Kind of the same idea, right?”

A laugh worked its way out of me.I hadn’t realized I’d taken out my vape again, and I turned it in my hands.My eyes stung, and with something like shock, I realized I was on the brink of tears.I started talking again, not even knowing what I was saying, everything just pouring out of me.

“I get it, you know.You watch your parents’ fucked-up joke of a relationship, and it’s all about power and fucking and attention and control.You grow up without anybody who really cares about you.Aboutyou.Not about what they want you to be.Not about you like some kind of…accessory, like you fit into their life in this one, specific role, and otherwise, they don’t have any use for you.So, you start to think it’s you that’s the problem.That people don’t love you because you’re unlovable.”That thing inside me tried to balk again, but I heard myself say, “I’m unlovable because there’s something wrong with me.And then, one day, it happens.You realize somebody wants you.And that feels good.So, you roll with it.And maybe after, you don’t feel quite so good.But you don’t feel as bad either.And after a while, you realize that’s enough.Maybe that’s all there is.I mean, those fucking body count boards in their rooms.Like they could fix whatever was wrong with them if they just fucked enough guys.”

John-Henry was quiet when he spoke.“That would be a hard way to grow up.And a hard way to live.”

“Yeah, well.”I had to stop and take a breath, only it didn’t feel like a breath because my throat was so closed up.“I don’t think they really thought about it.I mean, they’re kids.It probably felt like the world finally made sense.Like they’d figured it out.It’s—it’s easier not to think about it too much.Especially when it’s working, when it seems like it’s working.Somebody wants to fuck me, so I must be worth something.It’s proof.Someone else thinks I’m worth something, so it must be true.”I worked my jaw, fighting the tension there.“And then it’s all gone.In, like, this one fucking nanosecond, it’s over.And it doesn’t work anymore.What you thought you knew, about how things worked, about how to make your way through this—through this fucking world, it’s no good.And it’s like, who the fuck am I?”

The words dropped away into that silence.I couldn’t look at his face, so I stared across the room.The late summer sunlight coming through the window was syrupy, golden.Motes of dust drifted.When they fell below the beam, they disappeared.

John-Henry played with the tab on his Pepsi.Then he seemed to realize what he was doing and set the can down.His voice was unexpectedly rough when he said, “I don’t know—” It was only the slightest hitch, like at the last moment, he’d changed what he’d been about to say.“—what these guys you’re investigating have gone through.Or I don’t know all of it.But I know some of it.I know what it’s like to grow up and realize the people who are supposed to love you aren’t who—aren’t who you’d like them to be, I guess.To know that they want something from you, maybe something you can’t give them, but you’re going to try anyway, because that’s the closest it ever comes to love.I know what it’s like to feel like there’s something wrong with you, and you have to hide it, or everyone will hate you.And I know what it’s like to do what you’re talking about—to try to find validation, approval, self-worth, all of that stuff, in other people.It didn’t look exactly the same for me, but I know how it feels.I know how shitty it feels when you start to realize that none of it is real.That when push comes to shove, it’s all—” And his voice tightened in what I realized, with something like shock, was anger.“—it’s all so much fucking smoke.”

I ran my hand along the counter—it was clean, of course.This was Emery’s house.I found it hard to look John-Henry in the eye.I knew what had happened last year, the accusations that had gotten John-Henry placed on leave.And I had an idea, although it was just my own theory, about why he hadn’t gone back after the truth had come out.Even wrapped up in my own shit, I’d been aware that he’d been struggling, hurting.That he’d felt betrayed.I just hadn’t done anything about it because, well, I’d been living in my own personal dumpster fire.

But I hadn’t known about everything before.Or maybe I hadn’t wanted to know.It was easy—when you were with him, listening to him, watching him, when you saw how he moved through this town, and the thousand ways it shaped itself around him, how people couldn’t help wanting his attention and approval and interest because he was Saint fucking Somerset—when you lived with all that, and you were his partner, and you were new, and you were looking at it from the outside, it was easy to assume it had always been that way.Everyone loved him.I thought they’d always loved him.

“What’d you do?”I asked.

He rubbed his forehead.“I’m still working on that.”

“No, I mean—you said when you were a kid.What’d you do?”

John-Henry didn’t answer right away.He flicked the tab on his can, and it made a little thrumming noise.“I don’t know.A lot of stuff.I mean, I’m still working on it, Gray.It’s not like it’s something you do and it’s over.”He stopped, and I thought maybe he was done, but then he said, “Accepting myself for who I am, I guess.That’s been hard.God, understatement of the year.Not just coming out, although that wasn’t easy.Everything.All the stupid stuff I did.Not stupid.That makes it sound like—” He broke off with an unhappy breath.“The selfishness.The pettiness.All the awful, cruel, cowardly shit I’ve done.”Silence came like a wave again, and when it pulled back, he said in a quieter voice, “Ree has helped a lot with that.”

For an instant, the façade cracked.It wasn’t Saint Somerset in front of me.It was a guy with his own demons he was still wrestling with.Seeing it felt like memory or like a dream or like waking up.I’d known that too, at one point.Seen it.A dirty little part of me had, if I were being honest, liked it.The drinking.The grievances.Right then, in the honey-colored light pouring into the kitchen, though, I wanted to say something to make it go away.

The best I could come up with was “Bro.”

John-Henry gave an unhappy smile.“Yeah, well, being kinder to myself has been part of it too.Trying to, anyway.I try to remember everyone makes mistakes, even if they aren’t as epically fucked-up as mine have been.I tell myself that what matters is what we do about our mistakes.How we try to do better.”He looked up, the gaze so sudden and direct that I couldn’t avoid it.Those clear blue eyes pinned me.“Do you know what I wish someone had told me?”

I shook my head.

“I wish someone had told me that I didn’t need anybody to approve of who I was.I didn’t need someone else to give me the okay.Not my friends.Not my family.At the end of the day, the only person I had to be able to face was myself.That was hard for me, for a long time, because I didn’t like who I was.And I wish someone had told me I didn’t have to be someone I didn’t like.I could change.And the changes I made, they mattered.What I did mattered.What I wanted mattered.I could be someone I wanted to be, someone I respected.”His final words had a jangly note that wasn’t quite bitterness.“Someone I could live with.”

After a moment, I cleared my throat, but my voice still had some gravel in it when I said, “Some things you can’t change just by wanting them to be different.”

“Maybe not.But everybody can change something.”The seconds ticked past.Something in the refrigerator clicked off.With one quick yank, he ripped the tab from the can and spun it across the counter toward me.“Of course,” he said drily, “I thought I had it all figured out until December.”

My phone buzzed.I glanced at it and sent the call to voicemail.When I looked up, John-Henry was watching me—too polite to ask, but obviously wondering if it was Darnell.

“Peterson,” I said.

He gave a funny little laugh.“Better you than me.”

“I don’t know about that.He’s going to fire me.I really fucked up.”And then it all started to come out—pushing my way into an investigation that wasn’t mine, fucking around with people involved in the case, the huge mess I’d made.I managed not to tell him about Sunny, but it still sounded pretty bad when I laid it all out for him.“And then today, I was trying to interview this kid, and I ended up beating the shit out of him.It was—” Glass shattering.My heart racing.My vision tunneled and black.“It was like I was someone else.Peterson’s going to have me in front of a review board, and then I’m out.”

John-Henry nodded.“Maybe.But maybe not.”

“Bro, it was bad.”

“I heard you.I also heard you tell me that the boy initiated the altercation by throwing things at you.You were defending yourself.”When I opened my mouth, John-Henry stopped me with a shake of his head.“I’m not saying what you did was right.But things get heated, and you have to make a snap judgement.And if there were extenuating circumstances, like your judgment was compromised, well, the board will take that into consideration as well.”

“I don’t know if they should.I think maybe they should fire me.”

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