He leaned away from me, confused. “What?”
I shook my head and relaxed my posture, dragging a hand down my face. For a second there, I thought maybe Donna had told all her friends, that she was warning everyone to stay away from me again. Except this time, she had a very real reason for it. But that didn’t make sense. Turner wasn’t acting scared and suspicious—he was concerned for a friend. Me. I didn’t deserve him.
“I can’t talk about it. It’s . . .” I pressed my lips together so hard it almost hurt.
Turner rested his hands on his knees. “When I found out about my mom, that she was dead, that my little sister had seen the whole thing happen . . . all I wanted to do was pretend it wasn’t real. I’d spent years dreaming about the day I’d get to hug my mom again, and then suddenly I found out I never would. You know, I don’t even remember the last time I hugged her. It must’ve felt so insignificant, like there was so much certainty there’d be another one, that I didn’t think to commit every detail to memory.” He turned to look me in the eyes. “Anyway, point is, my little sister needed me, Mena needed me, so I couldn’t just curl up into a ball and pretend it wasn’t real. I had to face it. And the only way I could do that was to talk about it. To my therapist, to the police, to my dad, to my girlfriend. Every time I shared a bit of how I felt, it was a little easier to carry all the pain and the heartache.”
He was telling me I needed to talk about my feelings. That cocky asshole part of me I’d worked so hard to eradicate wanted to roll his eyes and call him a pussy with a punch to his arm. But he was also, in a roundabout way, telling me that he had trusted me with his darkness, his pain, and maybe I could trust him with mine.
But there was one key difference between our situations. “What happened to your family, you were in no way to blame for that.” I held his gaze, my jaw tight. “I appreciate you being so honest about all this heavy shit in your life. But my story is the complete opposite. I’m not the victim here. I’m the bad guy.”
“There’s nothing you can tell me that will make me think less of you.”
I sighed and looked up to the ceiling. He was so wrong. I really didn’t want to lose Turner as a friend, but I couldn’t keep lying to him either. That wasn’t friendship. Not to mention, now that Donna knew all the gory details and was more pissed at me than I’d ever seen her, it was only a matter of time before everyone knew. It would be better if he heard it from me anyway.
For the second time in a day, I told someone the full story of the worst thing I’d ever done. I didn’t go into as much detail as I had at the park, and I didn’t break down crying, but I didn’t try to sugarcoat it either. I also told him that I’d told Donna and we’d ended up in another fight, but I didn’t tell him why I’d told her—I was still keeping her secrets.
“I took Austin from his mom, just like Boyd Burrows took your mom from you,” I finished. “All that pain you feel, I’m the cause of that for someone else.”
Turner sat back against the locker, mirroring my pose, and released a big breath. “Did you set out to kill him? Deliberately end his life?”
“No. But—”
“Do you feel bad about what you did?”
“It’s the single worst mistake of my life. I’ll never stop feeling like shit about it.”
“Did you learn from it? Are you trying to be a better person?”
“Every single fucking day. But nothing I do can take back the fact that I killed someone.”
“No, what’s done is done, and you have to live with that. As far as I see it, it was an awful, horrible mistake that ended in a horrific accident. All you can do is keep living your life in a way that honors Austin’s and make sure you don’t willingly put any more hurt out into the world.”
He stood up and faced me. “As for Donna, I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but she’s not a bad person. Everyone calls her a bitch, but that’s only because she’s so unapologetic about standing up for what she believes in. She’s a good person deep down. Just like you. You’ll figure it out.”
I stared up at him, struggling to process the casual way he was still accepting me as a friend despite it all. Tears stung the backs of my eyes as he pulled me to my feet and into a hug. We patted each other’s backs, holding on for a second longer than our usual hellos.
“Thank you, Turner.” All the things I wanted to say to him but couldn’t find the words for, I injected into that thank-you.
He shrugged and smiled. “I gotta get back to work. Go home. Do not get back on that treadmill.” He gave me a pointed look and walked out.
I took a few moments to get my shit together before grabbing my stuff and leaving, waving to him on my way out the door.
The sun was starting to set as I walked around the corner to where I’d parked, my head bent, my mind on what a batshit day it had been.
Apparently, it wasn’t over.
I looked up to find Shady leaning against the side of my car, smoking a cigarette. He was in jeans and high-tops, a tracksuit top zipped up under his open coat. With a grin, he pushed off the car and held his arm out wide. “Hendrix, my man!”
“Shady.” I gave him a fist bump and a half smile. He was a good distraction and cool most of the time, but it was a little odd he was out here, waiting for me. It put me on alert. “What’s up?”
“Listen.” He stepped in closer, took another drag of his smoke, and lowered his voice. “I’d love to shoot the shit, but it’s freezing out here, and I got another matter to attend to.”
“OK.” I unlocked my car and threw my gym bag into the back before turning back to face him.
“I just need to know if you’ve given any more thought to what we talked about.” He dropped the butt of his cigarette onto the ground and put it out with his toe.
“What we talked about?” I frowned, trying to remember the last time I’d seen him. It was the night Donna was roofied. We’d sat at the bar, talking shit, sports, movies, nothing serious. Then I’d spotted Donna, and I couldn’t remember a single word Shady had said after.
“Yeah, man. There’s a fight night this weekend, and the people in charge need an answer.” He bounced on his toes, looking at me expectantly.
Every muscle in my body stiffened; it was a battle to relax my jaw enough not to speak through gritted teeth. “Shady, I don’t remember us talking about any fight night, and I don’t know what this is about, but I want nothing to do with it.”
He licked his lips and flicked a glance over his shoulder, a flash of worry entering his gaze before he covered it up with a sly grin. “I know you used to be into it back in NYC. Don’t you want an opportunity to put some of those arrogant pricks on their asses? Guys like the dickheads you go to school with? They’d stand no chance against you, man.”
He thought he was paying me a compliment, but my blood was boiling. His cousin had been the only one who stood by me in New York after all my so-called friends turned their backs, and Shady had been good to me since I got here, but surely even he must know what he was asking of me.
“Shady, turn around, walk away, and never raise this with me again.”