"Whoa," she said, looking back and forth between the two. "What have I interrupted here?"
Hayley opened her mouth to say not a blessed thing, but Jon-Michael was faster. "Have a seat," he invited, flopping down on the couch. "Hayley was just about to share her feelings on the death penalty issue."
"No, I wasn't."
"Oh, yeah. You were." His eyes hardened. "Or maybe you would rather run away."
She glared at him and Kurstin blew out a breath. "Hoo boy. I really did miss something, didn't I?"
"Only an analysis of my character by the resident expert here," Jon-Michael said. "Hayley thinks I don't deal with my problems very well, that I prefer to run away instead of sticking around to face them head on. She, on the other hand, is a much more evolved individual than I am, aren't you, sweetpea?"
"Go to hell, Johnny."
His hand flashed out to grip her wrist and he gave her a yank, causing her to stumble forward and tumble onto the couch. She sprawled half on, half off, his lap. "I have told you more than once not to call me Johnny."
She pushed herself off his lap and onto the cushion at the far end of the couch. Taking a furious swipe at her flyaway hair to shove it off her face, she wrapped her arms around her shins, hugged her knees to her chest, and glowered at him. She didn't say a word.
Her best friend did. "Jon-Michael!" Kurstin remonstrated indignantly and was gearing up to say more when he cut her off.
"Stay out of it, Kurstie," he said without taking his gaze off Hayley. "You and I both know she has a shitload of conflicted feelings when it comes to this issue. If she’s going to be Ninja quick to assassinate my character, she should damn well be prepared to put her money where her mouth is." He drilled Hayley with his narrow-eyed gaze. "How about it, hot shot? Care to expound for a change on something that is difficult for you to talk about?”
"Fine," she spat. "You want to know how I feel about capital punishment? I will tell you exactly how I feel." Then her bravado stalled out like a bad spark plug, because this was an issue she had a tough time acknowledging even to herself. "I-I-I..." She swallowed hard, took in a deep breath, and tried again. "I have mixed feelings about it, okay?"
"You used to be vehemently opposed to it," Kurstin said softly. She sat down on the coffee table, which sent Jon-Michael rolling to his feet to fetch her a chair.
"Yeah. I did," Hayley agreed, watching them move back the table and drag forward a leather sling chair. "It seemed so simple then. Taking a life as reparation for another was wrong. Period. End of discussion." She emitted a little huff of derision. "Well, you know what? It is a whole lot easier to take the moral high ground when you have not had to personally view the result of New Hampshire's rehabilitation program." She lowered her forehead to her knees for a moment. Then she turned her head and looked at Kurstin, ignoring Jon-Michael entirely. She wasn't ready to forgive him for forcing the issue. "Lawrence Wilson is an animal," she said flatly.
"Nobody disagrees with that," Jon-Michael said.
A fine tremor shimmied down her frame. "He deserves to die," she whispered fiercely to Kurstin.
"I agree," her friend said gently. "Jon-Michael agrees. But neither of us shared your convictions when it came to the death penalty in the first place." She reached forward to brush a wayward lock of Hayley's hair behind her ear. "The question is not what we believe. I think the problem stems from the fact that way down deep inside you do not fully agree."
"No," Hayley protested. "Huh-uh, not true. I do agree."
"Do you? Or do you have a conflict between what you know he deserves and some gut-registering basic value you have held your entire life?"
Her tremors escalated into sturdier shakes. "Oh, God," she said. "I get this horrible queasy feeling every time I remember it is my testimony that is going to trip the trap door or depress the plunger on the needle." She gripped her knees tighter and began to rock. "Why do I feel so guilty, Kurst? I didn't commit the atrocity—he did. I only testified to what I saw."
Jon-Michael's hand wrapped around her ankle, staying her and spreading warmth up her leg. "Would you change your testimony if you could?"
For the first time since he had started her down this path, she turned her head to look at him. "I cannot shake the feeling that Wilson’s execution will be nothing more than state sanctioned murder. You don't kill the killers to teach them not to kill."
"But if you had a last minute opportunity to do so, would you change your testimony?"
"No," she said flatly. "I told the truth. Finding him guilty was just." Then she rubbed her temples. "God. Listen to me. First I am on this side of the issue, then I’m on that side of it. I don't know where the hell I stand."
"You did what you had to do. The verdict was up to the jury and sentencing was mandated by the judge. You don't have to love the outcome, darlin'. You told the truth, so you have nothing to feel guilty about."
She glared at him. "Well, thank you for pointing that out, Jon-Michael. Now I can rest easy."
"Hayley, I’m only trying to help."
"Well, do you suppose you could try to be a just little less insulting about it?"
His hand tightened around her ankle. "Jesus. What'd I say?"
"'You told the truth, so you have nothing to feel guilty about'," Kurstin supplied. Seeing her brother's blank look, she said gently, "You think she doesn't know that?"
"I am not completely lacking in intelligence," Hayley agreed. "I have not been sitting around this past year just waiting for some big, strong man to come along and point out the error of my feeble feminine reasoning powers. 'Don't feel guilty, Hayley,'" she mimicked in a voice she deepened to approximate a man's. She made the face of an airhead who finally gets the connection. "Oh! Okay."
"Dammit, I hate it when you two start in on that 'insensitive male boob' routine," he growled. "I do not produce estrogen so I can't possibly understand a woman's anguish, is that it?"
"But you do not seem to understand, Jon-Michael." Hayley realized she had stopped trembling and felt a surge of affection for him. "I appreciate that you would like to solve my problems for me. But I know my guilt is misplaced, and you know what? I feel guilty anyway." Bracing her elbows on her knee caps, she scooped her hair back off her face and stared at him. "Maybe if I had allowed my beliefs to be known from the beginning I’d have an easier time letting myself off the hook now."
It sounded like psycho-babble bullshit to him, but nobody had to hit this kid over the head before he learned his lesson. Jon-Michael kept his mouth shut.
"What?" Hayley demanded.
"What, what? I didn't say a word."
"Yeah, and you look as if you’re ready to explode, too. What thoughts are boiling around in that fertile little brain of yours?"
"Well, if you are so all-fired hot to set the record straight, Hayley, it seems to me you have a golden opportunity right at your fingertips. The town is lousy with journalists."