Reason Is You (9781101576151) (28 page)

Grady grabbed him by his neck, but Drew slammed a hand up under Grady’s jaw. Jason was suddenly there, pulling them apart, and I realized I hadn’t moved.

“Come on, Grady. It’s not worth it,” Jason said through his teeth.

But Drew was hell-bent on making it worth it. As Jason pulled Grady backward, Drew blew a kiss to Riley.

“Yeah, I’ll show that cunt what a real man is.”

“Drew!” Micah yelled, this time in anger.

She looked like she wanted to pelt him herself. Grady broke free, however, and beat her to it, coming across Drew’s face with a hard right hook. Jason scrambled to restrain Grady as all hell broke loose. Girls screamed, Carson rushed in to extract his moronic son,
and I yanked Riley by the arm and pulled her out of the way just as Drew spat blood in Grady’s face.

“Jesus, Carson, control your kid!”

It was out of my mouth before I could put any logical thought behind it. Carson had Drew around the chest, straining with the exertion, but he had enough energy to fix me with a sneer.

“Control yours, you bitch. She started this.”

“What?” Riley yelled.

I held on to her and she was trembling. I saw Grady’s eyes glaze over and Jason tighten his grip.

“She can’t help it, Carson.”

It was Matty’s voice. We all wheeled around as Matty and Shelby Sims strode up like king and queen of the prom. Shelby went straight to Micah’s side.

“Coach, he jumped me,” Drew slurred through his bloody mouth.

“It’s okay, son, he’s trash,” Matty said, smiling and patting Drew’s shoulder. “Just like what he hangs with.” He took a swig of his beer.

“Excuse me?” My voice didn’t sound like mine, but all eyes turned to me so apparently it was.

“Exactly,” Shelby chimed in. Micah looked at her with confusion and unmistakable embarrassment.

“Watch your mouth, Sims,” Jason said through his teeth to Matty. “This doesn’t involve you, but if you keep talking about Riley like that, it will.”

Matty laughed. “I’d say it doesn’t involve
you
, but I forgot you’re banging her mother.” He took another swallow of beer and I felt my ears go hot. “Like I said, the little whore can’t help it, it’s in the genes.”

Everything boiled and a lifetime of repressed rage bubbled to the surface. I was around Riley and smashing my hand across
Matty’s face before I even realized it. I heard Riley gasp along with about twenty others, but no one had time for a second one because Jason shoved Grady aside and slammed a fist into Matty’s nose.

“Shit!” I yelped as blood spurted everywhere, jumping back and pulling Riley with me.

“Oh my God, Mom,” I heard her whimper, but I didn’t have the chance to look at her.

Matty’s bottle hit the ground and shattered, he swung back and missed, and Jason hit him again, bringing him down.

“You asshole!” screamed Shelby, running to her husband. “He’s unconscious! And you!” she continued, thrusting a finger at me. “This is all your fault. You and your psycho babbling to people that aren’t there. You’re a fucking lunatic and she is, too.”

“Mom, shut up,” Micah said, tears in her eyes and in her voice.

I felt like I was in the center of hell with Riley, and everyone around us had torches. Carson released his son in the chaos, who then shoved Grady from behind. Grady whirled around and it was about to be on again when a voice boomed across the ruckus.

“Enough!”

It was like God commanded the air, and everyone jumped. But I knew who possessed that voice. And that tone.

“P
OP
,” Riley whispered, and she ran to him, her eyes red with tears and fury. He wrapped her up in his arms and kept moving, pointing at Carson with his free hand as he nodded toward the dysfunctional family scene on the ground.

“Get that idiot up and out of here,” he said, his voice gruff.

Carson grabbed his son by the shirt and half dragged him behind him to help Matty up as he stirred. A whimpering Shelby moved out of the way. Drew tried to help Micah up and she elbowed his hand away.

Matty wobbled to his feet, shoving hands aside. “You son of a bitch,” he growled, heading toward Jason. But my dad moved Riley behind him and stepped in front of Matty, making him stumble back a step. Matty pointed around him at Jason.

“You’re mine, Miller,” he croaked. “You broke my fucking nose. I’ll sue you for that.”

“I don’t think so,” Jiminy said, walking up next to Dad.

Matty gave him a look. “What?”

“You heard me,” Jiminy said, his voice flat. For a small man, there was power there.

Dad pointed at Matty. “You and your pathetic wife.” Shelby scoffed and he turned then to include anyone in his line of vision. “All you people. You’re toxic.”

My eyes burned, and I pulled Riley to me. She felt stiff. I looked at her and she looked numb.

“My family has never done a thing to any of you, but you’ve made my daughter’s life a living hell from the time she was old enough to remember.” He spun around. “Now you’re poisoning your kids to do the same thing to Riley. They have a gift. So what.”

I felt Riley suck in a breath and I was already holding mine. We were being outed. Behind an enormous ice cream cone.

“They can see people after they die.”

“Oh shit,” Riley muttered, and I closed my eyes as the murmurs hummed.

When I opened them, Jason and Grady were staring at us, questions and surprise on their faces. Dad turned to us with tears in his eyes, the white of his beard in sharp contrast to his flushed skin. He wasn’t one for the spotlight.

I felt the familiar prickle on my skin, one that I instantly knew wasn’t the redheaded girl. But I was too stunned by my dad’s expression and Jason’s eyes boring into me to look for Alex.

“Who cares?” Dad said softly. “You’ll pay to see movies about things like this, but when it’s real people, you treat them like lepers? Are you that small-minded?”

The whispers stopped. It felt like the very air stopped—heavy and thick. I couldn’t look at the faces. I couldn’t focus on anything but my dad and the shaking that I wasn’t sure came from me or from Riley. Then the droplets began, echoing on the metal roofs around us. It seemed to break the shocking quiet and even diffused the charged heat of the moment.

People started to move again. Quieter, as if sound might bring attention to them instead of us. Micah left her parents and walked away. Matty and Shelby went the other direction, not looking at each other. Everyone else wandered off, trying not to make eye contact with me.

Everyone except Dad, who looked defeated. And Jason and Grady, looking stunned. Jiminy stood with his shoulders spread and his back to us, staring everyone down as they walked away, like a guard.

The raindrops became steadier, drumming out a dance around us, causing steam to rise from the hot pavement. Riley pulled free and pivoted to face me, anger and hurt in her reddened eyes. Her face was wet with rain and tears.

“We have to leave here,” she said, her voice hoarse.

I blinked free tears that had been burning and took a couple of steadying breaths, not trusting my voice.

“It doesn’t stay in Bethany, Riley. It comes with us,” I finally said.

“The people don’t.”

She stormed off, pulling away from my grasp.

“Riley.”

But my voice was lost behind the frogs in my throat, as stuck as my feet were. I could feel eyes on me. Eyes I couldn’t meet yet. I was too afraid of what I’d see. And there were whispers in the raindrops, falling from those heavy clouds. Whispers I couldn’t make out.

“Let her go,” Dad said softly.

I looked at him as his eyes followed her. He looked all wise with rain dripping off his hat, but his shoulders gave him away, stooped and spent.

“I’ll go after her,” Grady said. I touched his arm as he tried to pass me without looking my way.

“Grady, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said gruffly, then he faltered. His eyes met mine only for a second, then all the anger, hurt, and bewilderment were turned back to the pavement. “She could have told me, you know. Why didn’t she tell me?”

He cut off his words and his expression crumpled.

“Baby, she just found out herself. Cut her a little slack.”

He ran a raw-knuckled hand over his blood-spattered face and walked off quickly, away from remaining stragglers, in search of his girl. In that instant, I loved him for that.

“And your excuse?”

I closed my eyes and slowly turned back to the voice. To suck up what I deserved. But when I opened my eyes, Jason was shaking his head as though pushing that thought away. Wishing he hadn’t said it out loud. He ran fingers through his wet hair, and I flashed to the day he’d come out of his bathroom wet and half naked and bared his soul that day and night about his son.

He wiped his hand on his jeans, leaving a bloody smear. With his other hand, he touched my dad’s back.

“Sir, I’m sorry about all this.”

“Nothing to be sorry for, son,” Dad said, looking ten years older. “Thank you.”

Jason tried to walk past me but his feet failed him. He stopped in front of me.

“I didn’t know how to—” I whispered, my words falling away.

He shook his head slowly. “It’s okay, Dani.”

But I knew it wasn’t. I watched the old Jason morph back in front of me, doors and walls and locks slamming shut and sealing up tight. I could hear the clanging. My eyes burned with familiar pain. He wanted no part of this. Well hell, who did?

“So, I’m a freak now,” I said under my breath as a statement, not a question.

His expression was a mix of irritation and hurt. Tiny droplets dripped from his hair and eyelashes.

“So, I’m that shallow now,” he shot back.

With that, he walked away. I watched him go, my feet still rooted to the same spot, my mind reeling with uncertainty.

“Sweetheart, I’m sorry.”

I turned to face the only man who’d ever stood by me unconditionally. He hadn’t moved, either. My dad stood soaking up the falling wetness as if he weren’t aware of it. I shook my head and looked from him and Jiminy to the retreating figures of everyone else.

“No more secrets.”

Jiminy nodded, his eyes warm. “No more secrets.”

B
ACK
at home, I made a pot of coffee and kept watching the window. The rain fell soft and steady but didn’t get bad, so I gave Grady the benefit of the doubt and resisted the urge to go all Mommy-crazed and head off on a Riley hunt. Still—my body was on fire, head to toe. This storm—this rain—it was different, somehow.

I poured a hot cup of black and set it in front of my dad, giving his shoulders a hug.

“Quit worrying.”

He slid me a look. “Hypocrite.”

“Yeah, I know.” I pulled out a chair and sat down. Then got back up and sat down again. “She’s not mad at you though, Dad. She’s mad at the situation. At me for
giving
it to her.”

I traced a long, deep groove in the old wooden table with my fingernail. One I’d made with a butter knife when I was eight and had lost Saturday morning cartoons for two weeks over.

“And I made it public.”

“It’s okay, Dad,” I said, poking his hand. “They caused that
cluster today, not you. The same people throwing the same stones. They were ready to crucify Riley. You shut them up.”

He took off his blue fishing hat and scratched his head, causing his thin white hair to poke out in all directions before the hat plopped down and hid it all again.

“But spilling the goods wasn’t necessary. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

I stared into my cup. “Maybe you were thinking that it has to stop.” I looked up and met his tired blue eyes. “This witch hunt needs to end.”

No more secrets,
I’d said. That called me outside, somehow. To the rain. I got up, leaving my coffee untouched, and kissed the top of his hat.

“I’ll be on the porch for a bit.”

Bojangles came with me. He loved a good storm. I didn’t like this one; it had me antsy. It was noisier, but yet there wasn’t much movement in the trees. Nothing to match the wind that was singing steadily louder in my ears. The weather-vane plane propellers turned steadily, but nothing crazy. Something was off. I felt Alex then and pivoted to see him walking across the yard.

Bojangles sniffed the air and ran in his direction, taking on the yard as a mission as he always did when spirits were around.

Alex seemed oblivious to the water, as he stopped short of the steps that would carry him out of the rain. He stared up at me, his eyes boring deep into me as the rain pelted harder. I shook my head to clear the roaring in my ears.

“Had quite an afternoon, didn’t you?” he asked.

“I’ve had better. Riley went off upset—”

“I know.”

“So do you know where she is?”

“Not at the moment.”

He stood in the driving rain, hands in his pockets as though it were a sunny day.

“Alex, what’s going on with you?” I yelled it, feeling like my ears were stopping up. “I’m—I’m sorry you had to see that today. You have to know I never want to hurt you.”

But he was shaking his head. “It’s how it’s supposed to be, Dani. Life with the living, remember? He took care of you today.”

There was a small smile to go with that, but his eyes looked sad. My feet pulled me down the stairs into the giant raindrops that had me soaked to the skin in seconds. I didn’t have a choice; his eyes pulled me there.

“You look beautiful in the rain.”

My head spun and I shut my eyes tight to it as another image swam over the roar in my ears. Alex smiling—but different, somehow. Different clothes. Touching my face and saying,
You look beautiful in the rain.

Wait—
touching
me? I shook my head and blinked him back into focus. The sad Alex in front of me.

“Alex, what the hell?”

“Things are waking up,” he said softly. “Coming full circle.” He closed his eyes. “God, I’m so sorry, Dani.”

“What? Waking
what
up?” I wanted to shake him till his teeth rattled. “Alex, enough!” I grabbed my head as the words echoed back at me. “No more secrets.”

“Sarah died first.”