Bend (39 page)

That poor family. That poor man, losing his wife and kids to something so ugly and senseless and unbelievably fucked up, and having to live with that for the rest of his life.

But they weren’t the only victims, were they? For six years I’ve had no clue that Jay was carrying something like this around with him.

“That’s so messed up.” My throat closes up again, and I clear it, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry.”

Inching closer to him on the rock so that my arm brushes up against him, I reach down and try to nudge my hand into his. He widens his palm and allows it, wrapping his large and warm hand around mine.

With his face turned toward the vast Pacific, the waves crashing on the beach just a few feet away, Jay says nothing, only tightens his hold on me.

“So he’s serving a life sentence then?” I ask, hesitating because I feel like there’s more. More that I’d rather not know about.

Except, no, that’s not right. It’s stuff I wish weren’t true. There’s a difference.

“Nope. Mendes rolled on him, cut a deal, and got life without parole.” Jay’s voice goes so quiet and hoarse I can barely hear him. “And my dad got the death penalty. He’s been on death row for the past twelve years.”

Oh, my God.
My grip on his hand tightens involuntarily.

Jay’s dad is a murderer. Who’s been sentenced to die.

It’s fucking surreal.

“His execution is in three weeks,” Jay goes on, giving a small cough, clearing moisture out of his throat. “On July tenth. That’s why my uncle Warren is visiting. He’s stopping in Texas to see my dad, and then he’s coming here to spend the day with me.”

In three weeks?

There’s a sharp, slicing pain in my chest, like my heart is literally breaking for them.

“Is there any chance he’ll get a stay?” I ask softly, knowing my voice will crack if I put more force into it.

“I don’t know,” he says with a shake of his head. “I don’t care.”

A scoff of protest rises in my chest, and it comes out gently but insistent. Because I don’t believe him.

He looks at me with his eyebrows lowered, his nostrils flaring. “I really don’t, all right? This isn’t news to me. I’ve had twelve years to think about it. And he’s just not worth it.”

“But…he’s your dad,” I point out. “You have some good memories of him, don’t you?”

“Sure,” he snaps. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to lose any sleep over him now, though. I refuse to give him that much power over me. He’s fucked me up enough already. I’m not going to allow him to do that to me anymore. I let him go. As far as I’m concerned, he’s already dead.”

I wince, a jolt going through me. He sounds like a stranger right now. This hard, angry, and unforgiving man is not my Jay. Yeah, this stuff is all news to me, but that doesn’t mean he’s a different person than I thought he was. Doesn’t mean that I’ve spent six years not truly knowing my best friend. This isn’t him. I don’t believe it.

And if he really believes what he’s saying, then he’s lying to himself.

I replay his words in my head, frowning when I realize what he said. “How did he fuck you up?”

Jay doesn’t answer right away. His jaw flexing, he stares at me, and underneath the dark cover of his sunglasses his eyes look black and bottomless. My heart beats a little faster with each second as his silence stretches and thickens, growing like a tidal wave. I’m sitting there frozen in the face of it.

When he speaks, he does it in a low and tightly controlled tone. “My mom lied to me and said he was in prison for burglary. I was fifteen when I found out the truth, and…it fucked with my head. It was bad enough that I never got to see him anymore. Finding out that he was a murderer—” Jay grinds out a low, disgusted grunt. “I didn’t know how to deal with it. And my mom didn’t even try to help.”

My tongue feeling like sandpaper, I ask, “And?”

He flattens his lips so much they disappear and lose color. “I started hanging out with the wrong people,” he admits, sounding reluctant and pained. “These two guys who were a year older than me. One of them had a big brother who everyone knew was an Eighty-Eight. A gang member. And there were rumors my friends had been recruited, too, and I knew that. And I didn’t care.”

Holy shit. Gang members? The world he’s describing is entirely foreign to me, and I can’t quite wrap my head around it not being foreign to Jay, too.

“What’d you do?” I say cautiously.

“A lot of stupid shit.” He sighs, the corners of his mouth turned down. “Kept a lookout for cops when my buddy’s older brother was dealing meth. Waited in the car for him a lot while he was off doing God knows what. One time I was even the driver when he came running back to the car, yelling at me to go, go, go. So I guess whatever he did that night…I was the getaway driver.”

My jaw drops. I’ve got enough attorneys in the family to know that the perpetrator and his getaway driver are equally culpable in the eyes of the law. Jay could’ve gotten in some serious trouble for that.

“Then Sean—the big brother—was shot by a member of a rival gang,” Jay supplies. “And then it was all-out war. A lot of retaliation. It was bloody and brutal. My buddies and I mostly stayed out of it, thank God. We were there when he got shot, though. It was a drive-by shooting. I was standing about ten feet away from him.”

I’m shaking my head, my mind going numb. Pulling my hand out of his, I lift it up to slowly rub his upper arm. Because I don’t know what else to do. “Then what happened?”

“We got caught.” He looks at me then, flashing a bitter smile. “Out of everything we did, we got caught while we were breaking into school to vandalize and steal stuff from the lockers of a few members of the other gang. There was a janitor still in the building who called the cops. So I guess, on the whole, we were lucky, because we definitely could’ve gotten caught for something much worse.”

“
Getting arrested is not a joke.
” Thoughtfully, I echo his words back at him, because now they make sense.

He agrees with a grunt. “My buddies both had priors and ended up serving time. I got probation, community service, and court-ordered counseling.”

“Jay…” I don’t know what else to say, so I just wrap my arms around his chest and lean my head on his shoulder. He feels the same. Smells the same. Sounds the same. But he’s not the same.

He reaches up, touches my arm as he says, “So I guess that was part of the reason I changed my name. And then when I was twenty-one, I was able to get my record sealed.”

I squeeze him more tightly against myself. “I would never have guessed there was anything like this in your past.”

He doesn’t respond, and for a while, it seems like he’s not going to say anything else.

But then he heaves a sigh, and the next words pour out of him. “When I got arrested, my mom called Uncle Warren, which was probably the best and most responsible thing she ever did as a parent. He dropped everything and took a leave of absence so he could come home. He helped straighten me out. Took me with him to Africa the next summer, and I came back knowing what I wanted to do with my life.”

His voice subdued, he adds, “I don’t know where I’d be without him. In prison, probably.”

“I’d love to meet him someday,” I say, and I mean it, because clearly without his uncle, I wouldn’t have Jay in my life. I’d like the opportunity to thank the man.

We sit there like that for a while. I can feel his heart beating under my arm while I replay in my mind everything he just told me—weighing it, chewing on it, trying to grasp it all. It’s like I can see Jay so much more clearly all of a sudden, have a better understanding of what makes him tick.

The way he’s such a stickler for following rules, how cautious he is, and how he never does anything before considering the consequences… It’s because he came so close to ruining his life. He got a second chance, and he’s doing whatever it takes not to screw it up.

Jay.

“I’m so sorry,” I tell him, tilting my head back and reaching up to put my hand on his cheek, urging his face toward me. “For all of it. I wish you would’ve told me sooner.”

He bends down so that his forehead touches mine, and I can feel some of the tension leave his body.

It should be a peaceful moment. A short space of time where we’re sitting quietly on a beach together, and he’s finally gotten all of this off his chest, and the world didn’t end.

But there’s something teasing at the back of my mind, something I’ve overlooked, something important. The thought is there, fuzzy and ominous, but I can’t bring it into focus—until suddenly it’s there, sharp and simple.

“Why
are
you telling me?” I look up at him, letting my hand fall away from his cheek. “Why now?”

He hesitates. Clears his throat. Then he sounds grudging as he replies, “I wanted you to find out from me instead of your parents.”

“They know?” I pull back all the way, letting go of him as I watch him with eyebrows raised.

Hastily, he says that’s what he and my dad talked about yesterday. He explains about my mom considering running for a judgeship—which she’s been talking about for years, so the only surprising part is that she’s finally doing something about it—and the investigator they hired, who dug up Jay’s past.

Briefly, I’m too stunned to speak. Then I shake my head, disgust coiling through me. “But why did my dad even bring that up with you? It’s none of his business.”

Jay’s shoulders heave in a shrug. “I don’t know. He was just being a dad? Looking out for you? I definitely got the feeling he thought you should know.”

I’m rolling my eyes and pressing my lips together. My dad’s motives are rarely that one-dimensional.

“So…wait,” I say as another thought occurs to me, a logical progression of the previous one. “You’re only telling me now because Mom and Dad found out?”

Jay goes completely still, muscles flexing at his jaw like he’s clenching his teeth.

Pressure builds in my chest, bubbling up into my head. I’m hearing myself like I’m outside of my body as I slowly and tersely ask, “You were never going to say anything to me, were you?”

“Probably not,” is his abrupt answer after a short pause.

I clench my hands into fists. “Why?”

He releases a burst of humorless laughter. “Because I’m ashamed and embarrassed?”

His plain confession sinks into me. The crisp, briny air with its smell of seaweed grows thick and soupy, and I can’t find the words to describe what I’m feeling.

“Why would I want you to know about it?” he goes on testily. “It has nothing to do with me anymore, so how would any good come out of telling you?”

A scoff wrenches itself from my throat. “It has everything to do with you now, Jay. It made you who you are.”

He stares at me then, and it occurs to me that having this conversation with sunglasses on is like driving blind. I want to know what his eyes are revealing right now.

“I couldn’t stand the thought that you might see me differently,” he says—somberly, unhappily. “That you might be disgusted and lose respect for me. Your opinion matters to me.”

I’m gaping at him, my head giving a small jerk.

Is he saying what I think he’s saying right now?

“You actually thought I’d judge you for what your dad did and how you reacted to that when you were still just a kid?” My voice rises higher with each syllable, my breaths coming out fast and shallow. “That’s so fucking insulting. I can’t believe you think I’m capable of that. Is that seriously how you see me?”

“It’s not about you, Mia,” he fires back, scowling. “It’s about me and my…irrational fears.”

“No.” The objection comes out of my mouth like a whiplash. “That’s such bullshit. It’s been six years. If you really wanted to share this with me, then there must have been at least one moment in the past
six fucking years
when you could’ve overcome that fear.”

For the space of one, two, three breaths, all we do is stare at each other.

“I’m sorry.” Shaking his head, he throws his hands out—a gesture that indicates surrender but actually just means he wants me to shut up now. “All right?”

“It’s not all right,” I say coldly. “None of this is all right.”

I push up and away from the rock, and sand seeps into my flip-flops as I take a small step. In jerky and angry motions, I bend down and snatch the crumpled lunch bags from the ground.

“We should get going again,” I tell him, and I don’t wait for his response before I start stomping across the sand toward the dirt path that’ll take me back up to my car.

Goddamn him and his secrets and his not trusting me with them without being forced to.