Bray

I hadn’t told Elias yet about me overhearing his conversation with Tate on the back porch at Adam’s house. The conversation about Caleb and his rape sentence. The office room Elias and I had stayed in was right next to the back porch. I’d listened to them from the window. I had also heard their conversation about me, Tate telling Elias that he should talk me into turning myself in. Tate was right in all of the advice he gave Elias, but I felt beyond redemption. There was no hope left for me. I hated it that I was dragging the one person in the world I loved more than any other through the mud with me. But he wasn’t going to leave me alone. No matter what I did or said to him, Elias would never leave me to my fate. I both loved and resented him for it. I resented him only because it hurt that much more, knowing that I was ruining him.

I sat down on the faded yellow concrete parking chock in the empty spot next to the Jeep. Caleb was pumping the metal lever on the tire jack, raising the Jeep off the asphalt.

“Mind if I ask you something?”

Caleb glanced over at me briefly.

“If I said no, would you still ask?”

“Probably,” I said.

I caught his eyes rolling as he looked back at the jack.

“What is jail like?”

Caleb stopped pumping the jack for a second, but he didn’t look at me. When he went back to work he answered, “Jail or prison? Jail is pretty manageable. Prison is a whole ’nother nightmare. Why do you ask?” He glanced back at me with a gleam in his eye. “Worried about what they’re going to do to you in there?”

My heart skipped a beat. He enjoyed asking me that. I didn’t let it get to me.

“Yes,” I answered honestly. I still had no plans on going to jail or prison, but I wanted to know what it was like just the same.

Caleb pumped the jack lever one final time and stood upright, wiping light sweat from his forehead with the top of his forearm.

“No idea what it’s like in women’s prison,” he said. “But I imagine it’s not too much different. The short time I spent locked up, it really wasn’t that different from what you see on TV. Not as harsh where I was. No one raped me in the ass or made me their bitch, but if I had shown even a fraction of fear they might’ve tried. Guess I have Tate and Kyle to thank for that.” He laughed lightly. “They beat the shit out of me growing up. I had a lot of practice. But yeah, I did get into fights, and I did get my ass beat once, but I had friends on the inside. They looked after me while I was in there, and I look after them while I’m out here.”

My expression shifted from interest to confusion, but he wouldn’t elaborate. I knew whatever he’d been doing for his “friends” on the inside must’ve been illegal.

“Did you kill that girl?” He looked right into my eyes.

“Not on purpose,” I said.

He nodded and then reached in the back of the Jeep and pulled out a tire iron. Bending over in front of the blown tire he attached one end to a lug nut. “Then you should’ve just went to the police,” he said, spinning the tire iron once. “You really fucked up by running.”

“I know,” I sighed. “But there’s nothing I can do about that now.”

I gazed contemplatively out at the falling darkness, the way the grayish-blue light fell over the parking lot. The horizon was pink and orange as the last of the sun fell behind the clouds. I thought about how blunt Caleb had been just now, how right he was.

“Did Cera ever see you while you were in prison?”

Caleb stood upright, still clasping the tire iron in his dirty, blackened hand. I knew I would strike a nerve bringing up her name, but I didn’t care much.

“You’re overstepping your bounds,” he warned.

“Did she?” I pressed.

He glared at me.

“It’s obvious you still love that girl,” I said, further angering him. “And I don’t think you’re a bad guy. An asshole at times, and a womanizing pig, but you’re clearly not a bad guy. You just happened to end up with the shit end of the stick. I just want to know if she loved you as much as you loved her.”

A deep sigh escaped Caleb’s lungs. His head dropped for a moment as if he were quietly arguing with himself for giving in to me at all.

Then he sat down beside me on the yellow chock. The tire iron clattered softly against the asphalt as he put it down next to his low black Nike shoes. He rested his arms atop his bent knees. Absently, I studied the tattoo of the Asian girl on his left arm. We looked out at the colorful, darkening horizon.

“No,” he said. “Cera never came to visit me. Not even once. I was convicted of raping someone, and she believed everyone else over me. But I didn’t blame her. I still don’t.”

I looked at him, but he didn’t look back. “I guess it would be hard to put your faith in someone who was accused of rape,” I said. “But… I think if she truly loved you then she would’ve known that you were innocent. She would’ve been able to feel it.”

“Cera did love me,” he said with a hint of acid in his voice. “You don’t spend five years of your life with someone, happy every morning when you wake up next to him, a smile in your voice every time you talk to him on the phone, if you didn’t love him.”

I nodded. I couldn’t argue with that.

Then he said, “Elias loves you. A little pussy-whipped, I think, but it’s still love.”

I was surprised by the sincerity in his face.

He grabbed the tire iron and stood back up. “Yes, I think Elias will visit you when you go to prison,” he said, and it sobered me in the darkest of ways. “That is what you want to know, isn’t it?”

I didn’t answer, but I didn’t really have to.

He started loosening another lug nut.

“And if he doesn’t,” he went on, “it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you, just like Cera. It just means he’s confused and a little scared. That’s all it is.”

Caleb was lying to himself, and he knew it. He turned the tire iron harder, the muscles in his arms hardening with each push. I saw the side of his temple where a vein was beginning to bulge, and the way his jaw clenched tightly as he ground his teeth. He knew deep down that Cera may not have loved him as much as he thought she did, but he struggled with not allowing himself to believe it every single day of his life.

“Don’t you have something better to do?” he asked as he dismounted the bad tire and dropped it on its side. “Go shower with your fiancé. Watch TV, hell, I don’t care much, just anything but hanging around out here with me.” He looked at me from a bent-over position in front of where the tire used to be and then grinned. “Unless you want to be Grace’s replacement? I have no fucking problem putting your little ass up on that hood and licking your pussy until the sun comes up.”

My eyes popped wide open. I swallowed hard. I stood up and dusted off the back of my shorts.

Normally, I would be offended by that, but Caleb was harmless, and I knew that sex and his extreme personality was his way of coping with the way his life turned out. I mean, sure, it wasn’t that Caleb wouldn’t do something like that even with Elias just feet away, but he was still harmless. I just shook my head and rolled my eyes at him.

He smiled and nodded toward the room where Elias was and said, “Get outta here.”

I smiled back and walked away.

Elias was still in the shower when I walked into the room, glad he thought to leave the outside door cracked so it wouldn’t lock me out.

I sat down on the bed and looked at the cigarette-stained phone on the nightstand.

I picked it up, placed the receiver to my ear and punched in my parents’ number.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mom.”

“Where the hell are you, Brayelle?” she said harshly into my ear. “I’ve been calling you! Where’s your phone? The police are everywhere looking for you! You need to come home. Now. Where are you? We’ll come get you. Tell me where you are.” I wondered if she’d stop talking long enough to catch her breath.

“It doesn’t matter where I am.”

My mom pulled her mouth away from the phone and said to my dad, “It’s Brayelle. No, no, I’m talking to her. Just wait.” And then her voice was loud again. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter? What have you done? Did you or that guy have a hand in that girl’s death? Tell me the truth. You killed her, didn’t you? It’s just like that girl and that boy, Mitchell, said. You were fighting with her that night. You shoved her off that cliff because of Elias Kline. Didn’t you?” She was all but screaming into the phone.

“You believe that, don’t you?” I asked calmly, but my heart was slowly breaking every second that went by that my mother was treating me like a criminal, having no faith in me whatsoever.

My dad grabbed the phone from her. I heard her voice fade quickly and then her arguing with him.

“Brayelle, it’s Dad. Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you.”

“Why?”

“Because you need to come home and you need to face what you did.”

“Face what I did?” I mocked and bit my bottom lip. “I-I guess I should’ve known that both of you would accuse me.”

“We’re not accusing you,” my dad said sternly. “We just—”

“—not accusing me?” I snapped cutting him off. “That’s exactly what you’re doing. Neither one of you have asked how I am. Neither of you have asked me if it was an accident.”

“Well, if it was an accident, then why did you run?” my dad asked.

“Because I was stupid and I was scared.”

“Brayelle, only the guilty run.”

My heart broke completely when he said that. I felt like I wanted to cry, but I had already cried so much that I had no tears left. I sucked in a sharp breath, rounded my chin, and said, “Dad, I just want you and Mom to know that I love you very much. And I love Rian and please tell her that for me. I know I wasn’t the best kid growing up, and I gave you both a lot of hell and for that I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more like Rian.”

“Honey, why are you saying these things?” My dad’s tone began to change, and maybe he really was starting to worry about where this was heading, but I wasn’t going to fall for it.

“Just tell Mom and Rian that I love them.”

“Brayelle?” He sounded genuinely worried. But it was too late for that.

I hung up.