Jason

After unloading the back of the truck and covering everything with a tarp, Billy pulls up. He’s got a six-pack of Heineken in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other. “If you’re looking to get laid, you came to the wrong house.”

“Brought your mother some flowers.”

Standing up, I cross my arms over my chest defensively. “Umm, back up there. Why?”

He starts laughing. “I’m not hitting on your mom, dude. She may be pretty, but yeah, not my speed.” He hands me the beer. “Brought your girly beer for you. The flowers are for the last time I was here. I ran over her flowerbed and she was pissed.”

Chuckling, I say, “I remember that now.”

“Figured I’d try to make amends.”

Amends. Can a sinner of my stature make amends, or am I a boot too deep into hell already? I stop thinking about that other stuff and return my thoughts to the here and now. “Come on.”

After he schmoozes my mom with the flowers, we pop the top on two beers and grab a seat where we can. He sits on the back steps, and I sit on the rusting swing where I used to sit with Delilah. Her fingerprints are still on every part of my old life. It’s only a dumb swing from my childhood, but the only memories I seem to recall are the ones where I pushed her on it or sat next to her. She would hold the chains, leaning her cheek against the cold metal and smile at me, the tips of her sneakers dug into the dirt.

She’d been the only one who could get me to open up about my feelings. I shared so much with her—my fears about football, the loss of my father, my worries about my mom. We saw shooting stars sitting on this swing. We laughed and we fell in love. I thought those times mattered to her like they did me, but I guess that’s a part of growing up—having your first love break your heart.

One good thing about Billy is he never needed to fill the quiet. I didn’t either. We talk when we have something worth mentioning. Other than that, it’s just good to have the company. I finally ask, “What are you doing these days?”

“I’m coaching out at the high school. Assistant for the offensive line.”

“No shit.”

He laughs. “Yeah, no shit. Saved my parents’ place.”

“What’s going on with the farm?”

“They were turned down a few years back for an extension on a loan. I was already full-time at the plant in Cedars, so I sold my shit, moved back home, and added coach onto the résumé.”

“Sorry to hear about your folks. How’s everything now?”

“I coach part-time and still work full-time at the plant, but moved to supervisor.”

“That’s good. Congrats.”

“Thanks. I work the farm in my spare time. We’ve changed crops. We used to be straight corn. Now it’s all about the soybean. At least this year.”

“Wow, that is a big change.”

“Corn syrup’s out. Soy milk’s in.”

“We do what we have to do to survive.” I know this better than anyone. Like I do with my thoughts of Delilah, I’m an expert at compartmentalizing the things that fuck with my head . . . and my conscience if I let them.

I’ll never forget finding that sweet girl I met in the mountains and how she lay curled on the gravel, on the paler side of death. Any innocence she’d managed to hold on to was gone as she gasped for life. And then I was confronted with him. He and his partner did that to her. Stole her innocence. Nearly her life. He slept with his arm stretched toward the nightstand. I could put money down that his gun was in the top drawer. Sick. Fuck. Took the shot. No, I’ll never forget, but I refuse to sink into the abyss of guilt or remorse. He deserved neither.

That fucker got what he deserved. I’m starting to think I lost more than him. Now I wonder if surviving was only something I did physically. Is my soul too far gone to find at this point?

He finishes that beer and grabs another. “So what have you been doing?”

For anyone else, this would be an easy question to answer, but for me, it’s one I’m always thinking about how I’ll answer. I give him the rehearsed response, “Odd jobs here and there. Worked on a fishing boat in Alaska and a mini-mart in the Northeast. Hauled lumber in Northern California, and worked on a cattle farm in Oklahoma.”

“Never used your business degree?”

“You know,” I say, thinking about this harder than I should, “I kind of use it all the time. I just don’t get the bragging rights around the office water cooler.”

“Ah.” He drinks more and lies back, resting on his elbows.

I dig my heels in, starting to slowly rock back and forth. “What happened with you and Lou?”

“Too much to remember. It’s just easier to say we were together too young, and I couldn’t give her the life she wanted or deserved.” He doesn’t sound as regretful as I feel over my screwed-up relationship with Delilah.

“Yeah, sometimes I wonder . . . fuck it. It’s not worth the effort to worry about what could’ve been.”

“That’s for sure.” He tosses the first can toward a bin a little ways away from where he’s sitting, but misses. “I still see Cole every now and again.” His humorless laugh leaves me curious, but he adds, “Not by choice.”

I toss my can from across the yard and make it in the bin. “What a fucking asshole.” I laugh. I thought I could hide my disdain better. Guess not.

“Every time I see him I wanna punch his fucking lights out. Hands up.” He tosses me a beer.

“You should, the fucking wife beater. If I’d been around—” Fuck. I crack it open and chug the first half, tamping down the anger growing inside thinking about that fucker.

He lifts his hat and scratches his head. “I hear ya. I paid him a visit two times to make sure the shit would stop.”

“Apparently it didn’t work either time.”

His eyes hit mine. “She was good at hiding behind lies.”

“Can’t hide bruises,” I snap back.

“She wasn’t my wife, and I wasn’t inspecting her body. You got a problem with me, Koster?”

My hand starts crushing the can. I’ve learned what I’m capable of. I’ve learned that it’s hard to come back from the darkness once it gets its grip on you. Anger is a surefire way to get me seeing red, to dig deep and let that darkness back in. That red will turn to gray and the whole wide fucking world will fade away, except for one thing—my target.

Cole Cutler.

My former best fucking friend.

He saw his chance to take my place and took it.

I may not have had many years with my dad, but his life always revolved around my mom, me, and his love of sports. From coaching me in T-ball at three to tackle football at five right before he died, he told me to always work hard and to do my best, but if you’re not having fun it’s not worth it.

When he died, I did my best. It helped that playing sports was the only fun I had left. It became my escape, and I became even better. Thinking back on all those sports and every team I played on, Cole had always been right there next to me. Football was an escape for Cole. My house. Our friendship. He’d made for a good partner, a great teammate. He’d been someone I counted on. His father had been an asshole, but we’d been like brothers. Why the fuck he went after Delilah . . . Can’t go there.

We make a beer run just after eight, and keep driving like the days he might recall as the good old days. I’m not feeling nostalgic quite yet, but I can get onboard with a few good times we had. I look over at Billy and suddenly I feel like I’m eighteen again with the world at my feet. “Remember when used to go fishing every Sunday? The sun hadn’t even come up and we’d be heading out.”

“We were still drunk.”

“Were we ever sober?”

“I don’t know,” he replies. “I was too drunk to remember.”

His Dodge slows to a crawl and the headlights are turned off. I don’t have to look out across that field to know where we are. I know this route like the back of my hand. The truck stops, and he turns off the engine. I take a long pull of my beer before I turn my attention to the farmhouse. The living room and kitchen lights are on, the TV casting a blue tint across the corner windows.

I let my gaze wander up a story to the second floor and see her bedroom light on and the bathroom connected to it lit up. She owns that farm now, her parents long passed. Does she still sleep in that room? The one with pink striped wallpaper and a full-sized bed atop a squeaky metal frame? I can’t see the side of the house where I used to climb up the trellis to the roof and run across to sneak into her bedroom. Wonder if that trellis is still there?

He looks at me, his jovial mood wiped from his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“I took her to the emergency room once.”

I’m not ready to dig this deep into the past, but since he’s brought it up . . . “Why?” My stomach tenses, my grip around the can tightening, the aluminum giving in before I toss it out the window because I already know why.

“I should have stopped him.”

“Were you there?”

“No, but my warnings weren’t enough. I knew he had a drinking problem. He’d picked a fight with me earlier that night outside Red River. She’d just gotten back into town, so I guess he decided to take it out on her later.”

Staring out the window, I avoid looking at him. I don’t want to hear his confession. I don’t want to see his guilt. It becomes mine, and I don’t owe anybody anything.

Lies.

Lies.

Lies.

I owe her. I owe her better than she got. I was across the country when I first heard the rumor—Cutler hit his wife—the same girl he claimed to want enough to screw me over.

Cole never struggled to get a girl’s attention if he wanted it. He’d tell everyone how he hooked up with the popular girls and then ventured across county lines for what he called fresh meat. He was the guy who bragged in the locker rooms and teased you relentlessly if you didn’t score with a girl.

Except for me.

There was a silent agreement—the bullshit put on for others didn’t fly between us. I knew beneath that attitude he was a good guy. He’d only slept with two girls, but I kept his secret safe to protect his rep.

On that day I was uneasy with his confidence. I didn’t want him talking to Delilah. He knew better. He was crossing a line and for what? To score with her or to look like a bigshot for the guys?

He knew I liked her, but his arrogance blinded him that day as he ran ahead of us and cut the girls off on their path home. He got down on two knees and with hands like he held in church, he said, “Please, will you go out with me, Miss Noelle? I’m begging you with my hands and on my knees with my three best friends as witnesses and half the cheerleading squad staring at me. Please don’t let this be the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done.”

Now maybe that worked with most girls—on bended knees, pleading to save his pride—but it didn’t with Delilah.

Despite her being a cheerleader, her voice was soft that day. “I’m sorry, Cole. I like our friendship too much to ruin it.” She let him down in a way that wasn’t embarrassing him, but kind.

. . . Delilah was good inside. He knew. Somehow he knew we had fought. He was waiting for that moment. He went after her. Pursued her. But after kicking my heart to the sidelines, why did she want him?

She still owns parts of me that others will never see, and I’m left wondering why. Why him over me? Why didn’t she fight for us? Those are the questions that were packed away with the baggage I carried with me. The details weighing down my rucksack with emotional bullshit I’ve tried to shed across the miles.

Billy says, “The night he hit her, he only spent one night in jail for it.”

“One night,” I repeat. One fucking night for hitting the love of my life.

Why’d she fucking stay?

She had eight hours to get the fuck out of there, but she stayed. I rub my fingers over my forehead in frustration. Why the fuck didn’t Billy get her away from Cutler? “Can’t fucking understand why you didn’t get her out. He hit the woman I love.”

He glances my way but then turns toward the steering wheel. “Love?”

“Huh?”

“You said the woman you love.”

Love. Present tense. Shit. “Loved. Anyway, this is about you. He hit a woman you’ve been friends with for years.”

“Delilah’s forgiven me.”

“I haven’t.”

“Join the club, because I haven’t either.”

The car’s now too quiet and the memories too strong. “We should go.”