Thirty-Three
Kyle
“The only thing we have inside this cell is words, Kyle. Don’t hold them back from me.”
That line kept repeating in my head. I couldn’t get it to stop. I heard it while I was in the shower. I heard it again when I climbed into bed. I even heard it when Garin slipped under the covers, his skin still wet from his shower.
We hadn’t spoken much since the beach. He hadn’t touched me again. He hadn’t asked if I wanted him to sleep in my bed. He just walked out of the bathroom, naked, and got in. He lay on his back and folded his arms under his head.
I didn’t want him to leave in the morning. I wanted to tell him that, but I couldn’t. I wanted to be with him, but I couldn’t tell him that either.
There was no future, no us.
Why couldn’t I just accept that?
These were the same thoughts that had haunted me in the cell. They hurt even worse out here because I was lying in a bed that could possibly be ours. One that I could share with him forever.
But there were bars between us.
Bars I had created.
I just had to tell him what I wanted.
And I had to tell him what he needed to hear.
“Billy didn’t OD,” he said.
And then, suddenly, it felt like his hands were back on my throat. But, this time, there was no give; he was squeezing to strangle every bit of air out of me.
I couldn’t breathe.
“What do you mean?” The air shuddered out of my lungs. My heart pounded like it was going to break through my skin.
“He was murdered.”
No…not again. Garin had to be wrong about Billy’s death. Billy was a junkie; he had overdosed on heroin. That was what Anthony had told me. That was what people had said at the funeral.
“I thought they found a needle in him?”
“The needle was in his heart, Kyle. We both know that isn’t where an addict shoots up.”
I’d seen Billy use plenty of needles in the past. I knew how he prepped; I knew where he injected. His heart definitely wasn’t one of those places.
My stomach started to churn.
“So, if Billy didn’t do it then…” I had a feeling I already knew the answer to that question. I may have been silent, but inside my head, I was screaming.
“Billy was looking into Paulie’s death,” he said. “I think he found something out, and I think whoever killed Paulie killed Billy because of that.”
Why would my brother do this? I wanted to ask Anthony, but I feared the truth.
The truth would mean I would have to hold in another secret.
I couldn’t take another.
I couldn’t handle more guilt than I already carried.
Anthony knew that. He knew I had barely kept it together at Paulie’s funeral, and Billy’s would have been even worse had I known he had killed again.
“The bosses are looking into it,” Garin said. “They’ll find the murderer, whoever the fuck he is, and they’ll gut him for this.”
The bosses would find Anthony. They would kill him. And then they would bury him, so he wouldn’t ever be found.
He would finally get what he deserved.
But what about me?
It had only been a few seconds between admitting the truth to Breath and having that needle stuck in my neck, but during that short amount of time, the weight of my guilt had been gone, my conscience cleared.
If I told Garin about Anthony, I would be in that position once more.
I would be facing death, and Garin would more than likely be pulling the trigger.
I sat up and tucked my knees into my chest, hiding my face between them. As I tried to find some air and calm the pounding in my heart, I rocked back and forth.
“Kyle?”
I didn’t answer him. I didn’t look up.
“Kyle, tell me what’s wrong.”
“I…” My voice sounded like a whisper. “I can’t…breathe.”
His hand slipped inside the cave I had made, and it clasped around my chin, slowly lifting, as I made my way out of the darkness. “Did Billy trigger this?”
When I opened my mouth, he pulled me on top of him. I was straddling his lap, his hands gripping high on my throat, but he wasn’t squeezing. He was just holding me there, so I couldn’t move. I felt his stare through my whole body.
“Tell me.”
“Nothing. I—”
“Then, tell me what was on your mind that night in the bar before you disappeared into the restroom.”
I tried to remember when we had been sitting at the table together. The details were cloudy, but they began to surface through the fog.
“Even when I slept, I always wanted to be close to you. And then I left your apartment, and I just couldn’t stay anymore. It hurt too much. I struggled so much with it, and I was only…”
I was only a witness, I had wanted to say. But I didn’t have the courage. And because he had wanted an answer and I couldn’t give him one, I had rushed off to the restroom.
“I don’t remember.”
“I don’t believe you.” When I tried to look down, he stopped me. “There was something you wanted to tell me that night, and there’s something you want to say to me right now. Stop holding back.”
“The only thing we have inside this cell is words, Kyle. Don’t hold them back from me.”
My eyes scanned his. The air hadn’t returned, and I was starting to get light-headed. My limbs were all tingling. I didn’t know if I would have a voice, so I whispered, “I can’t.”
“I won’t hurt you.”
He wouldn’t hurt me…until he found out I had been lying to him, until he found out what I had been lying about. But how much longer could I let this eat at me?
And how many more people would die because of Anthony?