Page 68 of Things We Left Behind
I was smiling in spite of…everything. That was the effect she had on me. She was good. Everything about her seemed to sparkle. Good people got good things.
Then I remembered Jonah.
“Your dad said you were on a date tonight.” It sounded accusatory, but I couldn’t help it.
“Relax. I went out with Jonah so I could dump him in person.”
I straightened. “You broke up?”
“Mm-hmm,” she said, her gaze glued to my mouth. “He was kind of an ass. You were right.”
“Say that part again,” I insisted.
Her lips quirked as she worked. “No.”
“Come on,” I wheedled.
“No. And shut up. But seriously,” she continued, pressing the wet wad of tissues to the corner of my mouth, “I understand.”
“You understand what?”
“You can’t be seen being friendly to a four-eyed sophomore nerd. It would tear a hole in the space-time continuum of high school society.”
She didn’t know the real reason why I didn’t want anyone to know about us. If my father had an inkling that something mattered to me, he destroyed it or ruined it in whatever way he could. The only thing he “allowed” me to have was football because it meant something to him to have a son who excelled on the field.
But if he ever had a hint that Sloane meant something to me, that I valued her, he would inflict damage. And if he did, if he managed to hurt her in some way, I didn’t think I could live with that…or let him live.
“Nerd,” I said lightly.
“Does it hurt?” she asked me, changing the subject again. Her voice was husky and serious now.
“It’s fine,” I lied.
“Lucian—”
“Don’t,” I said.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“Yes, I do. And it’s none of your business.”
“But—”
“Not everyone has the family you do. Okay?” She had no idea what I dealt with on a daily basis. Not when she’d been raised by Simon and Karen Walton.
“But why can’t we go to the cops?” she pressed.
The idea of picking up the phone and calling the cops on my father was laughable.
Police Chief Wylie Ogden was one of Dad’s best friends. I was ten years old when Wylie had pulled my father over for speeding and swerving between the lines. He was drunk. He’d handed me his open beer can when he pulled over onto the shoulder.
The nerves in my belly had just started to unclench. The police would help. We watched videos about this in school. Don’t drink and drive. But my dad did.
I’d thought the police would stop my dad from making this mistake, from scaring me, from hurting someone.
“Someone started early today,”Wylie had cackled when he walked up to my father’s window.
The chief had let him off without even a warning. They’d shot the shit about a fishing boat and made plans to meet up at the bar later that evening. And then Wylie had waved my father back onto the road as if bestowing some kind of special privilege on him.
