Page 34 of Into The Light
"Feels like shit." He clears his throat. "Done is done. Can't take it back."
"But you can forgive yourself, Bear."
He frowns at me. "How?"
"Understand that you made a choice. Maybe it was wrong, maybe it wasn't—obviously, I have no clue how things work in that world, but you clearly lived according to your own code. You feel responsible for his death. Maybe you were—it’s not for me to say. But Bear, carrying around that guilt isn’t going to bring your friend back. Nothing will—you know that far better than I do. I’ve never lost anyone I care about—not to death, at least. It's in the past, and it doesn't define you. It doesn't make you a bad person."
He regards me for a long time. "I could've saved him."
"You said he got jumped. Wouldn't they have killed you too?"
A shrug. "No."
“How many were there?"
"Dunno. Five or six."
"Were they armed?"
“Sure. Bats, chains, pipes, shit like that. Nothing I couldn't have handled."
I don't know how to process this. "Sorry, but…You could take on six people armed with bats and chains….by yourself?"
He nods, shrugs one shoulder. "Easy."
“Bear."
"What?"
"I really don't understand."
"Look at me, Noelle. I put on a shit load of muscle on the inside, but I was still a big motherfucker, okay? Stronger than anyone else, even then. My whole life, all I've known is how to take a beating." He spreads his mammoth arms wide, six-some feet from fingertip to fingertip, each bicep at least eighteen inches around, thick and heavy with muscle. "Told you. When I hit people, they break. Takes a whole hell of a lot more than six little clowns to slow me down."
I'm stuck on "all I've ever known is how to take a beating." His whole life has been pain, suffering, betrayal, violence, and hardship.
All I want is to show him the opposite.
I thread my fingers between his. "Well, that's not your life anymore."
He stares at our intertwined fingers. "No, it ain't. But figuring out what my life is, now…it's tricky. Don't know who I am. Where I belong."
With me.
The words stick in the back of my throat. I barely know him. I'm crazy—diving in headfirst with this guy. But I can't seem to stop myself. I don't want to.
I'm drawn to him. Endlessly fascinated by him. Driven to show him…everything. More of life—life beyond prison, beyond gangs, beyond the narrow, limited, scope of what he's known.
I'm attracted to him.
I'll have to take that slow, though. Even holding hands seems like it’s difficult for him.
"Did you have a girlfriend, before?" I ask.
"No. Had a few friends who were girls. But a girlfriend, like going on dates and…and whatever? No." He hesitates, and I sense questions coming.
"You can ask me anything, you know." I finish my coffee as the waitress brings our food, along with a carafe to refill our mugs.
Bear pokes the six-inch-high stack of marbled French toast that's been stuffed to overflowing with creamy ricotta and drizzled with real maple syrup.
