The Last Time We Were Us (28 page)

He’s silent, his hands gripping the steering wheel, and I don’t ask where we’re going, as long as we’re going.

When the houses are gone, when open, grassy stretches surround us, when the low sun stares at us over a road that definitely needs paving, he pulls over.

“Are we far away enough?” he asks. “Can we talk?”

I nod.

Jason takes a deep, sharp breath. “I shouldn’t have said those things to you,” he says. “I know you didn’t have to tell me, that you only wanted to be honest.”

“I’m not a slut.” Already I can feel myself getting upset. “Sex was a big deal to me. I wanted it not to be, but it was. And even if it wasn’t, I still wouldn’t be a slut. It’s really sexist to think that way.”

“I know,” Jason says. He pauses. “Do you still care about him?”

“No,” I say. “And now I wonder if I ever really did. It never felt like it does with you.”

He turns to me. “It’s all right,” he says. “It was just hard to hear about you guys.”

“It was hard to tell.”

“I know,” he says. “It was my fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Thank you,” I say. “Now can you be honest with me, too?”

His hand cups my chin, and I feel like life is in some way complete, that the feather touch of his fingers is enough to make everything okay. “Don’t leave me,” he says.

“I won’t.”

He looks away, locks his eyes on the empty, open road.

“That year was so stupid,” he says. “I know it, now. I thought I was so cool because Innis Taylor wanted to be friends. I had all this anger I’d never dealt with towards my mother, and I was starting to understand things about my dad that I hadn’t before.”

“Okay.”

“We were in the same homeroom, and he’d tell me about his weekend fishing trips, and I’d complain that my dad never did stuff like that. Then one day they brought me, and his dad let us drink beers on the boat, and I thought, this is what I’ve been waiting for. I’m going to do whatever I want. I’m going to have fun and take risks, and screw anyone who tries to stop me.

“I don’t think you knew how stupid we were then. Skip drove us around drunk. We took shots and raced on the Jet Skis. We smoked pot all the time. I got arrested for having drug paraphernalia on the swing set of the elementary school near their house. Skip and Innis got off scot-free, because I was holding all of it.” He scoffs. “Things might have turned out a lot different if I hadn’t been wearing those god-awful cargo pants.”

“I didn’t even know that happened,” I say.

He shakes his head. “I guess I didn’t talk to you much by that point, did I?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“It’s amazing that the three of us are still alive.” He stops, looks at me.

“It’s okay. Keep going.”

“Innis’s parents were out of town, and Skip was going to throw a party, but your sister wasn’t around for some reason, and so Skip didn’t want to have any other girls over. He loved your sister so much, I’m not sure if you even realize how crazy he was about her.”

My heart pounds faster. I’m scared of what he’s going to say.

“We were drinking and eating pizza. We’d all had a bunch of beers, and Innis and I only drank when Skip was around, so it still hit us pretty hard. We wanted to make a fire in the pit in the backyard.”

He stares out the front window, closes his eyes, opens them again. “Only thing is, we were terrible at it. We had a bunch of wood but no kindling. And it had rained the day before, so none of the wood would catch.”

He pauses, but I nod, urge him on.

“It was my idea, one of my best”—he laughs, but it is dry and empty—“to get the lighter fluid and a bunch of newspapers. When we went to the lake, they brought one of those tiny Weber grills, and there was charcoal and lighter fluid in the garage. We put way too much of it on. Then I stood back and lit a match, and the whole thing caught so good, and we all cheered and then laughed because it must have singed some of my arm hair or something—we could smell burnt hair.

“The rest of the night went by so fast, and I don’t even remember what we were talking about, we were just getting drunk. Every once in a while, the fire would die down, and we’d throw some more lighter fluid and newspaper on it. We thought the burst of flames was hilarious.”

Jason rests his hands on his thighs, defeated.

I nod, and it seems to reassure him.

“If it had been any other night, at any other place, if things had worked out even a little differently, it would have been just another stupid fight. You do stupid shit when you’re fifteen.”

He glances to me, but I just stare at him. I am afraid of what he is about to say, but I am afraid of not knowing even more.

“I pushed him, ran at him, probably harder than I’ve charged at anyone before or since. And I punched him two or three times, and then he lost his balance, and he fell, and he”—Jason gasps, as if he’s in an airtight chamber, only so much oxygen left—“he was on his side, right on the flames, and then,” his eyes water, the first tears spilling over, “there was an explosion, this burst of flames, like I was watching a movie, and then I heard screams, and I don’t know how long it took, but then Skip was back up and he was running at us, screaming, and his face. His face. One whole side of his face was on fire.

“Innis tackled him and held him down until the burning stopped, and then Skip was wailing, and it smelled, Christ, it smelled like a barbecue, and Innis looked at me and he said, ‘What the hell were you doing? What have you
done
?’ And that’s when I saw the tipped-over can of lighter fluid. He must have fallen right on it. We’d left it right there like idiots. I freaked out. I ran. I ran all the way home, and I didn’t stop until I was there. They arrested me the next morning.”

“Why did you run?” I ask. “Why didn’t you call 9-1-1?”

More tears come then, his face a wet web. “I don’t know, I was scared. I knew Innis would. I don’t know, I thought—I
didn’t
think.”

“So it was an accident?”

“God,” he says. “I didn’t mean to burn him. I meant to hurt him, yeah, give him a black eye. But I never thought, I mean, I never would have done anything if I’d have known how it would all turn out.”

“But why didn’t Innis say it was?” I ask. “Why blame you? You guys were friends.”

Jason shakes his head. “I’ve thought about that, too, believe me. And I think—I think that—I don’t have a sibling, so I don’t know—but what if something awful happened to Lyla? Wouldn’t you want someone to blame? It was so easy to put it on me. If it’s just a freak thing and it’s the lighter fluid’s fault, then Innis is culpable, too, you know?”

It’s so unfair, because Skip didn’t deserve to be hurt so badly, but Jason didn’t deserve all the blame either. “Why couldn’t you just explain? Why even take the plea?”

Jason sighs. “Because I was guilty, in a way. I did attack him. And I ran. No one ever found the can of lighter fluid. My lawyer tried but the Taylors threatened a restraining order if she kept bugging them. Even if they’d found it, I still would have been guilty of something. Punching someone near a fire with lighter fluid hanging around isn’t model-citizen behavior. We agreed to ‘assault inflicting serious bodily injury’”—he mimes air quotes—“which means, basically, that I meant to do what I did. She was worried that if I didn’t take it, they’d try me as an adult and it would be on my record forever. And what was a jury going to do? I had the prior, Innis was ready to testify, everyone in town loved the Taylors, and Skip’s face—God, it was so
bad
.

“The funny thing is, well, the not funny thing is, the prosecutor agreed to eighteen months, with parole at twelve. But nothing says the judge has to follow it, he can do whatever he wants. He added six months to my sentence, for kicks. He was in the same frat at Duke as Mr. Taylor, not that that had
anything
to do with it.” He pauses, starts to say something else, stops. “And that’s pretty much it.”

The tiniest bit of relief pulses through me. It’s not what they said, at least. It’s not what my mother or my sister or a hundred other people in Bonneville think. It is better, if only through technicalities. It is better than I imagined.

But there’s one thing that still bothers me. “Why did you attack him in the first place?”

“It was stupid,” he says. “It doesn’t matter. Even though it was an accident, I should never have done what I did.”

I take a risk, put my hand lightly on his arm as his tears come harder. He doesn’t pull back. “It does matter.” I know, deep down, that Jason is not a violent person. “It matters to me.”

He says it softly, almost as if, after all this time, he’s still ashamed. “He called my dad a fag.”

“What?” I draw my hand back, stare out the window. It’s so not what I expected. I’d figured it was over a girl, maybe that he’d even had a thing for my sister.

“He said that’s why my mom left.”

I look back at him, thinking of how to say what I need to, but he keeps going.

“That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. Because it wasn’t just my secret. It was his, too.”

“But Jason—”

“Back then, I had only barely figured it out myself, and my dad wasn’t comfortable talking to me about it—he still isn’t—and I couldn’t stand to hear it from Skip . . .”

“Wait,” I say. “Do you really think no one knows?”

He shrugs. “I did then. My dad is still so weird about it. He’s had a boyfriend for like a year, and he still tells me, of all people, that he’s going to a friend’s house. Skip was the first person to ever say it out loud. And I guess I . . . I lost it.”

I feel this deep, aching pain, because I remember walking into Mom’s bedroom one afternoon and her sitting there, back to me, on the phone with Suzanne, saying in a low voice, “And Danny, with his
lifestyle
, it’s no wonder his wife left.” When she heard me behind her, she turned, startled, but then just plastered on a fake smile like she’d been talking about nothing more exciting than who was making what for the Fourth of July block party. Maybe she didn’t think I’d catch the innuendo. Maybe she didn’t care if I did. It was right at the end of middle school, and it definitely didn’t surprise me, but I didn’t like the way she said it—“lifestyle,” like he’d decided to go vegan.

Jason blew me off right around that time, so I never told him, but I wonder if I had, maybe it wouldn’t have been such a shock to hear it from Skip. Maybe he wouldn’t have reacted the way he did. Maybe Skip would have two perfect sides to his face, maybe Jason never would have gotten locked up, maybe Lyla wouldn’t be marrying Benny, maybe I would never have gone after Innis.

“I kind of knew,” I say.

“About my dad?” he asks.

“People were talking. I should have told you.”

He shakes his head. “This isn’t your fault. It’s mine. It’s always been my fault.”

His body begins to rock, and I scoot closer, the stick shift awkwardly poking at my thighs, but I don’t care. I lift my hand to his shoulder, rub back and forth, let him know that I’m here. Finally, he looks up. “Can you forgive me?”

“Jason,” I say. “It was years ago. It was an accident. It was a stupid moment that got bigger and more horrible than it ever should have. There is nothing for me to forgive.”

When his eyes finally lift back to mine, I lean in and press my lips hard on his.

Because for the first time in years, the only thing keeping me from loving Jason Sullivan is gone.

Chapter 27

M
OM GRILLS ME ABOUT WHY
I’
M NOT BABYSITTING,
but I lie and say that the girls are sick. I’m not ready to tell her yet that I got fired. Even if she took pity and spared me the argument, there’d be that classic Mom
I told you so
all over her face.

Innis called three more times today. I thought about answering, about confronting him on his lies, but I stopped myself. I feel awful about what happened to Skip, but it doesn’t change what Innis did, that he put Jason away based on a lie. And now that I know that, I can’t bear to hear his voice.

Lyla and Benny come over for dinner that night.

All day I’ve been bracing myself for a blowout, but Lyla spends the whole meal shooting questioning glances at me instead. After I ask her to pass the salt and receive an especially angry sigh, Benny wraps his arm around her, gives her shoulder a squeeze. “Everything okay?”

Her eyes catch his, and in the second they do, her scowl fades, and she is the Lyla we all adore again, and I love Benny for that, the way he has of calming her, grounding her. I wonder if she’d ever believe me if I said that Jason had the same effect on me.

After dinner, Dad pours himself and Benny glasses of Scotch, and they head to the living room. I’m weirdly jealous of the bromance they’ve got, even though I never have been before. There is no way my dad will ever smile at Jason the way he does with Benny, will ever pat him on the back and ask what he wants to drink.

Lyla and I share dish duty while my mother wipes down the table. With Benny out of the room, she’s back to being caustic. “Could you go any slower?” Lyla snaps at me. “I’d like to go sit down and relax.”

“So go. I’ll finish these.”

Lyla drops her dish in the sink, and it clatters and splashes. “What, so you can hold it against me later?”

“What are you talking about? I’m trying to help.”

“Girls,” Mom says. “Please.”

“Well, you’re doing
anything
but helping,” Lyla says.

I whip the towel down and shake the water off my hands. “Fine. Dry your own dishes.”

I stomp out of the kitchen, past the front room, where Benny gives me a worried look, and Dad obliviously sips his drink, then up the stairs, where I slam the door—hard.

Lyla opens the door and reslams it in a matter of seconds. “Don’t walk away from me.”

“Geez, Lyla, you’re not Mom.”

“So you’re just going to force me to confront you?” she asks.

I sit down on the bed. “I’m certainly not going to confront myself.”

“You just go out to dinner with him now, like it’s nothing? You know that I know, and you’re not even going to bring it up, you’re not even going to try and apologize to me?”