Crash

In fact, I’d had my fair share of tardies. At my straight-laced, blue blooded private school, I’d been something of a rebel because I wasn’t afraid to wear a mini skirt, or slick on an extra layer of lipstick, or skip class every now and again. However here, at Heathen High, my once rebel ways were going to qualify me for sainthood.

Oh wait, I forgot I’d already been labeled a slut by the student population.

Jude nudged me again, so I tore into it, not easing into the questioning.

“You’ve been to jail before.” It wasn’t a question, I already knew, but I guess I needed him to confirm it.

“Yep,” was his clipped response.

“How many times?”

“Eleven or twelve. I lost count.”

I knew Jude was well known in the police circuit, but I’d underestimated just how well.

“What for?” I asked, working to keep my voice even.

My head lifted as Jude shrugged. “Mostly for getting into fights, and one time for having drugs on me.”

Holy crap. “What kind of drugs?”

He didn’t pause giving his answer. “Meth.”

Holy shit. “Were you using it?” Was it wrong to pray he was giving it to someone else?

“Nah,” he said. “I was trying to sell it. I was a dumb and greedy son of a bitch at thirteen. Didn’t work out well for me, so I quit. I haven’t sold drugs in four years.”

“And you know those three boys because you all live at the same boys’ home?” Other than that first morning after that night of chaos, I hadn’t spoken of them. I’d tried not to even think of them, but I was willing to bust open that locked door to unveil who the real Jude was.

For the first time during our question and answer session, he stiffened. “Yep,” he said, shifting his beanie down lower.

“And Uncle Joe works there?”

Jude laughed one low note. “If you call lounging his fat ass on a couch while a few dozen kids go ape shit, then yeah, he works there.”

“How long have you lived there?” Sitting upright, I looked over at him and he was someplace else. Somewhere dark.

Like a switch had been turned on, he flinched. Giving his head a swift shake, he cleared his throat. “The cops didn’t give you all this information?” he said, working his jaw. “They’re usually chomping at the bit to divulge what a screw up I am.”

This was land mine territory I was tip-toeing through, and I wasn’t sure how much farther I’d get before it’d all blow up. “I kept hoping I’d hear it from you. But someone seemed to have forgotten my telephone number. And my address.” I smiled over at him, and finally, he softened.

“Five years,” he said.

“Do you like it?” I asked.

“It’s all right.” Another clipped, nothing-to-write-home about answer, which meant, I guessed, there were a million dark secrets hiding beneath that rock.

“Why did you wind up there?” For as desperate as I’d been to ask him all these questions if I ever got the chance, each one was making me squirm in my seat.

“My mom left. My dad went to jail.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. God I felt like the worst kind of person for thinking bad things about him. “Is your dad getting out anytime soon?”

“Nope.” I was waiting for the wall across from us to burst into flames from the way he was looking at it.

“What did he go to jail for?”

“For the kind of crime that jails were invented for.”

A cold chill tickled up my spine. “And your mom? Why did she leave?”

“Because she hated being a wife and hated being a mom even worse,” he said, the corners of his eyes creasing. “Because she was selfish and wanted her freedom and didn’t have any sense of loyalty.”

I lifted my hand and weaved my fingers through his. “Do you think she’ll ever come back?”

Jude snorted. “Nope. Mom’s long gone,” he said. “Although I’ve got this lovely parting gift she left for me I carry around in my pocket,” he said, sliding a piece of wrinkled old paper from his back pocket. “Well, this, and the ratty old hat on my head she knit or crocheted or some shit for me.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it, in fact I was sure I didn’t, but I couldn’t say no when Jude handed it to me. I couldn’t say no when a person was handing me the only thing they had left someone they’d loved. I took in a breath and unfolded it. “These are the lyrics to Hey, Jude,” I said, puzzled.

“Right you are,” he said, his voice tight.

“This is what your mom gave you before she left?”

“Well, she didn’t give it to me, she left it on my nightstand before bolting off in the middle of the night, but yeah, she was thoughtful enough to write down the lyrics to some crummy song. Not even, an I love you or a Yours Truly, Mom. Nice, right?”

Folding it back up, I handed it to him. “Why do you carry it around with you?”

The tension in his jaw went up a notch. “To remind myself what can happen when you let yourself love someone.” Stuffing the paper back in his pocket, he slammed the back of his head into the locker behind us.

To date, that was probably the saddest thing I’d ever heard.

“And the hat?” I understood why it was so thread bare and worn—he’d worn it every day for the past five years.