Thirty-Five
Kyle
“I won’t hurt you,” Garin repeated, as though I hadn’t heard him the first time.
I was straddling his lap, his breath hitting my lips, his stare trying to pull the truth out of me. It was impossible not to hear him. I just didn’t believe what he’d said. And I knew that, once he found out the truth, he was most definitely going to hurt me.
But I couldn’t let my fear keep me from doing what was right.
Not anymore.
Billy was the second person Anthony had murdered. I was the only one who knew it was him. I had to put a stop to it.
I climbed off Garin’s lap and let my feet drop to the floor. The moonlight showed his eyes, his lips. I reached the sliding door that led out to the balcony, leaning my shoulder into the glass. This spot had the best view of the water, and if it was going to be my last time seeing it, I wanted to be as close as possible.
There was no breath to be found. No air.
Just words.
And those words needed to describe when Anthony had put up the first bar of my prison.
“I saw Paulie when I walked out of your apartment that night…”
I was suddenly no longer in my room. I was in The Heart. It was night; there was total blackness, and I saw Paulie from the glow of his cell phone. He went to his car, and I heard his footsteps…his breathing.
Every detail was coming back to me.
I just let them pour out.
When I reached the part where Anthony demanded I get in his car, I wrapped my arms around my stomach and slid to the floor. I was in the corner between the mattress and the windows, and Garin was looking down at me from the bed, just like I had sat and waited in his room all those years ago. But as I looked up, it was Anthony peering out from the car, and I was clinging to the side of the tire. My eyes were shifting between Paulie’s blood and Anthony’s blacked-out window.
But there was no blood and no window. It was just Garin, the moonlight, and the intensity of his eyes. He didn’t make a sound.
I hadn’t said Anthony’s name. I’d referred to him as he.
“I want to rewind my life, Garin.” I tucked myself into a small ball. “I want to go back to that moment and not get in his car. I want to run to your apartment and take whatever those consequences were—whether he tried to shoot me or run after me. I just want to do it all over and not hide anything from you this time. And I want to tell you all of it.” I tried to take a breath even though I couldn’t, even though it felt like the room was closing in on me and I wouldn’t be able to push my way out.
“I want to tell my younger self that twelve years’ worth of guilt wasn’t worth it because I was protecting a person who didn’t deserve to be protected.” I wrapped my arms tighter around my legs, and I rocked, my nails pressing so hard into my elbows that I could feel them piercing my skin. “It was Anthony. He killed Paulie, and I’m positive he killed Billy, too.”
“That motherfucker.”
That told me everything I needed to know.
Garin was murderous.
But I wasn’t done. He needed to know the rest.
I picked up the story from the moment I got into Anthony’s car and took Garin through the entire ride until Anthony dropped me off much later that night. I told him about the threats. The rules. The orders. I told him about our trip to Florida later that week when I had gotten into college and when Anthony had bought his first house.
“He wanted me out of Atlantic City,” I said. “I was his only witness, so he dumped me in a place where I knew no one and where no one knew us. If he could have gotten me to drop out of high school, he would have. But graduating was my only stipulation. Everything else he wanted from me, I would do.”
I ended by telling Garin about the financials and how I cleaned Anthony’s money and all the assets he had paid for over the years, including my business, both houses, and the cars. And about the safe that was in my closet, only a few feet from us.
“I don’t know how much is in there,” I said, grinding my toes into the carpet. “I don’t have the code, and I’ve never seen inside. He doesn’t allow me to, and honestly, I don’t want to.”
He hadn’t said a word since I’d mentioned Anthony’s name. He hadn’t moved. The silence should have worried me, and it did, but there was so much relief, too. The anxiety and dread and guilt I had been holding in for twelve years had spilled out of me. Garin now knew it all—the reason I had treated him so badly in that alley, why things had ended between us before they ever really began, why I had left Atlantic City.
“I’m not trying to justify any of this,” I added, squeezing my knees into my chest, tucking my chin between them. “I should have told you; there’s no excuse for that. All I can say is, he’s my brother. I’ll never be able to fully explain the kind of loyalty I felt to him. You know I wasn’t close to my mom, and he was the only other family I had, despite how he treated me. All the threats and the intimidation.”
Still, he said nothing.
“I know what happened to Billy was because of me. My silence is the reason he’s dead. That’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life—however short my life is going to be now. But there are no more secrets. I’ve told you everything.”
Several seconds passed before he said, “You didn’t kill Paulie; Anthony did. And he killed Billy, too.” His tone was deep, but he didn’t snap at me. If anything, he sounded sympathetic.
“But, Garin—”
“Don’t put that on yourself.”
He stood from the bed and walked over to the corner. My eyes followed him the entire way. They didn’t warn me; they didn’t make me fear the closeness between us. When he reached me, he put his hand out for me to grab.
“Come here,” he said.
I clasped my fingers around his and followed him to the bed where I sat next to him. My mind quickly brought me back to that night in his room when he had done almost the same thing. But, here, Garin didn’t say another word.
The desire to touch him was unbearable, so I placed my fingers on his shoulder, and I waited for him to push them off. When he didn’t, I slowly moved up to his face and ran my fingers over his cheek. If this was going to be the last time, I wanted to memorize the feel of his skin—the soft areas and the ones that were rough.
“Garin,” I whispered, my palms now cupping his cheeks, “I’ve loved you my entire life. Leaving you was torture. I wanted to be with you. I wanted to give myself to you. I wanted to move to Vegas with you and never let you go. Getting in Anthony’s car to drive to Florida…”
I remembered the tears I had cried the whole way. I remembered the verbal abuse and the threats Anthony had spewed at me.
“It was just awful.” The pain was coming through in my voice. “I never stopped thinking about you. I looked you up on social media. I followed your life as much as I could from a distance. And then seeing you again at Billy’s funeral, those feelings resurfaced. They never went away. Never. But there was so much guilt. I knew when we were kissing at the bar that I could never be what you wanted while I held in this secret and lied to you. I didn’t deserve you. But that didn’t stop me from wanting more from you.”
I suddenly felt how clammy my hands were. “I know there are consequences to what I did. I’ve known that all along. If I worked for the bosses, they would kill me for lying to them. So, I have a good idea what you’re going to do to me.”
My heartbeat sped up as I waited for him to respond. The sweat on my hands turned to ice. The tightening in my chest made it even harder to breathe.
“I’m not going to kill you.”
The vibration of his words passed through me, but it didn’t bring any relief. There were other consequences besides death…things that would hurt just as much because I’d be alive to feel them.
“But?”
“I fucking hate that you didn’t tell me.”
His hands went to my waist, and he held me tighter than he ever had. His touch would leave a bruise. I didn’t care.
“I hate that you lied and kept it a secret. I don’t ever give second chances, Kyle.”
My body began to shake as I prepared myself for how this was going to end.
“But I understand why you did it. I can’t agree with it, but I get it. And, now, I’d be the liar if I said I didn’t feel something for you.”
“You…do?”
More coldness passed through his eyes. More anger. But then something changed. Something that caught me off guard.
“I do,” he said.
I never expected this. I never expected him to understand any of it. I certainly never expected for him to have feelings for me after I came clean.
“Garin, I don’t even know what to say—”
Suddenly, I found myself in the air.