The Truths We Told

by Blair, E. K.

  “Good morning.”

  Peeking out from around the fridge, I see Laura walking into the kitchen. I close the door and toss the bottles of water into the bag.

  “Hey.”

  “Are you heading out?” she asks before she pulls a mug from the cabinet and begins to pour herself some coffee.

  “Yeah. We’re borrowing some jet skis for the day,” I tell her. “Trent’s out front getting the trailer hooked up to his Jeep.”

  “That sounds fun.”

  Unsure of what else to say, I stand and watch as she takes the carton of creamer out from the fridge and dumps a little into her mug. Although Trent wasn’t obscenely obvious last night and did a decent job holding himself together, she has to know that he’s upset about the news of her engagement.

  She stirs her coffee, sets the spoon down, and turns to face me as she takes a sip.

  I hate the unease because I really like Laura, so I break the silence with, “We kind of rushed out last night, so I didn’t get the chance to thank Jack for dinner.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” she dismisses. “He really enjoyed meeting you all.” She pauses, her eyes slipping down for a moment before she addresses the elephant in the room, “How is Trent this morning?”

  It comes with a hint of relief that she is, at the very least, aware of his feelings, but I don’t want to betray what he confided in me, so I veer left and tell her, “He’s just worried because he doesn’t know Jack.”

  She nods and takes another sip. “I can understand that, but this time is different. Jack isn’t like any of the others.”

  “Let’s go!” Trent hollers from the front door, putting an end to our conversation.

  Laura smiles. “Well, you two have fun.”

  “Thanks,” I tell her as I slip the backpack over my shoulders.

  I head outside to find Trent sitting behind the wheel of his Jeep, wearing nothing but a pair of board shorts, and it’s a reminder of how badly I lusted after him when we first met.

  “Like what you see?”

  I roll my eyes at him. “You have a thing against wearing clothes?”

  “I’d rather go without them just to watch you slobber,” he teases. “Get your ass in, woman.”

  I throw on my sunglasses as we drive toward the bridge that takes us to the beaches. There’s something different about the vibe here in Tampa. It’s completely different from what you’ll ever find in Miami, but it isn’t unwelcome. This place is so chill and laidback, and even though this is only my second time coming here, I can’t deny how much I enjoy it.

  With the morning sun glowing down on us, I inhale deep breaths of salty air as we drive over the water. When Trent turns up the stereo, I look over at him and smile. Without a doubt, I’m beyond happy, but there’s no ignoring the pang of worry that is still in my chest. It’s my wanting to ask questions, to dig deeper, that needles beneath the surface. Suddenly, my smile aches, and I lose the effort it takes to hold it before letting it go.

  “You okay, babe?”

  “Yeah.” It’s kind of a lie, but not a big one. Truth is, I’m conflicted and curious, neither of which sit easily with me.

  He takes my hand and pulls it into his lap as I try to let the loud music filter out the questions that are clouding my head. When we make it over to the launching dock, we get the jet skis into the water, and head off. It doesn’t take long for my smile to return, it’s genuine this time as we speed across the water, which is like glass and nothing like you’d find on the east coast.

  I glance over at Trent, who is racing beside me, unable to ignore the trill in my stomach. When he catches me gawking, he smiles before cutting a sharp turn and sending a spray of water toward me.

  “Ass!” I yell out as he laughs in the distance.

  The two of us cat and mouse it around a few small islands before he leads me over to a larger one that backs up to some mangroves. We drag the skis onto the shore, and he pops his seat open to pull out a couple of drinks. He tosses me a bottle of water before I wander around the perimeter of the island, looking at all the shells that have washed ashore.

  With the sun now at full peak, heat barrels down on me, coating my skin in a sheen of sweat and illuminating my earlier thoughts. The pang returns. Turning over my shoulder, I see Trent sitting in the sand off toward the mangrove trees.

  I go and plop down next to him.

  “You seem quiet,” he mentions, and when I look at him, I defend, “We’ve been on the water.”

  One thing about Trent is that he’s learned how to read me well over the years. As much as I don’t want to dampen our day, I figure it would probably be best just to talk head on so I can rid this feeling nestled in me.

  “There’s something that’s kind of been bothering me,” I tell him. “I mean—well, not really bothering me, but—”

  He smirks. “Spit it out, woman.”

  “It’s just . . . I don’t want to make you uncomfortable because I feel like I’m about to be intrusive.”

  His face drops every bit of ease it held a second ago, and I already regret bringing it up.

  “Never mind. It’s not that important,” I recant.

  “If it wasn’t important, you wouldn’t have said anything.” Doubt pulls me away, and I squint my eyes as I look out over the water, the bright sun reflecting off its surface. “Whatever it is you want to say, just say it.”

  Pivoting toward him, I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them as I collect my thoughts. Then I second-guess myself, wondering if I’m making too big of deal out of something that might not even be anything at all.

  “Say it,” he pushes.

  “The last time we came here, your mom said something to me, and I’ve been wanting to ask you but didn’t really know how,” I tell him. “I know you’re private about a lot of things so it always seemed invasive to pry.”

  There’s apprehension in his voice when he asks, “What did she say?”

  “It might not be a big deal, but—”

  “So, what is it?”

  “She mentioned how when you were younger you were never home—like middle school age. It just has me wondering why because it’s awfully young to just be gone.”

  Now it’s him who avoids me as he looks off into the distance. “She shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about it.”

  Bending his knees, he drapes his arms over them. There’s discord all over his face, and I feel like shit for putting it there.

  “I shouldn’t have brought it up,” I admit. “It’s just . . . when we were talking last night, it resurfaced in my head.”

  “It’s okay,” he says before telling me, “My mom . . . she hasn’t always had the best judgment in men. And yeah, there was a time I left home when I was in the eighth grade.”

  “You left completely?”

  He nods.

  “Where did you go?”

  “Anywhere I could,” he says, and it takes him a beat to finally look at me. “I had a few friends who would sneak me in to their homes to crash after their parents went to sleep.” He drifts away from me again when he reveals, “Sometimes I didn’t have anywhere to go at all.”

  “How long were you gone?”

  He shrugs. “A couple of months.”

  I struggle with the question that burns the most, and when he peers into my eyes, I know he sees it, so I go ahead and ask, “Why?”

  “She let this guy move in with us; he was an asshole,” he reveals. “He never hit me or anything, but he didn’t need to because the shit that came out of his mouth did enough damage. It was a fucked-up situation, so I figured the best way to get my mother to choose me over him was to leave. It took her two months to decide I was worth her breaking up with him.”

  “Are you mad at her?”

  He nods. “There’s a lot I’m mad about, but it’s the disappointment that bothers me the most.”

  “She asked about you this morning.
”

  “What did she say?”

  “She just wanted to know how you were. I didn’t tell her anything except that you were concerned that you don’t know anything about Jack.”

  “She isn’t a bad mom.”

  “I never got the impression that she was,” I tell him. I know Laura loves and cares about Trent.

  “Come on,” he says as he climbs to his feet and holds out his hand for me. He then pulls me up, grabs my sandy butt, and kisses me with a tinge of obscenity, making his point loud and clear that he has no interest in talking about this anymore.

  When he starts fiddling with the strings on my bikini, I laugh against his lips and attempt to push him away.

  “You owe me,” he taunts when he goes for one of the strings, only for me to push his hand away.

  “Owe you for what?”

  “Forcing all these fucking deep conversations on me.”

  “I’m not forcing anything.”

  “Right,” he dismisses before quickly snagging the tie from around my neck, pulling it loose.

  He’s too quick for me to stop him, and when my bikini top falls down, leaving me completely exposed, I rush to cover my boobs with my hands. When I try to scurry away from him, I trip over my own two feet and fall into the sand as he laughs.

  “Trent!”

  “We’re the only ones out here,” he says, and as I pull my top back up, he kneels in the sand next to me, grabbing at the string to my bottoms.

  I squeal and swat at him, my top falling down again while I shuffle back to get away. Another tie comes apart, and he pretty much has me naked. I yell at him, but as much as I try to feign seriousness, I can’t stop laughing.

  “You should double-knot that shit,” he teases.

  “You should have more manners.”

  At that, he sits up on his knees and pulls out his dick. “Tell that to this guy.”

  There’s no other way around it—his crudeness is such a turn on that we spend the remainder of our time on this little island making love while he eggs me on with his foul-mouthed dirty talk.

  We kill the day, drain the jet skis, and by the time we get back to the house, we’re starved.

  Trent cuts up a pineapple, and we devour the entire thing.

  “Leave any for me?” Garrett asks when he comes downstairs.

  Trent swipes the last piece, tosses it in his mouth, and flips his brother off.

  “Dick,” he mutters under his breath when he goes to snoop through the pantry. “Where the hell have you guys been all day?”

  “Took Brogan’s jet skis out to Clearwater.”

  He rips open a bag of chips. “Way to leave me hanging, bro. You left me here with mom and her mile-long list of shit she needed done around the house.”

  “We should go grab some dinner,” Trent suggests.

  “I think Mom should be home soon. She had to run up to the hospital.”

  “Dude, I could murder some gyros,” he says. “Text her and find out when she’ll be here.”

  Garrett pulls out his phone to shoot her a message and then asks, “Want to take the kayaks out to Caladesi tomorrow?”

  Trent looks over at me. “You up for kayaking?”

  I’m about to tell him that it sounds like fun when my phone rings.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “You need to get home,” she cries in sheer panic.

  “Mom?”

  “You have to come now! Your dad—Oh my god!” I can hardly make out what she’s saying because she’s so hysterical, and it ramps my heart into overdrive as I push away from the island and walk into Trent’s living room.

  “Mom, what’s going on?”

  All I get in response is her wailing, and I freak out.

  “Mom!” I shout to get her attention. “You’re scaring me.”

  “Is everything okay?” Trent asks. I hadn’t realized he followed me, but I can’t even focus on him.

  “Your dad,” she starts before crumbling into more sobs.

  My hands start to tremble as I try to calm her down enough to tell me what the hell about my dad has her freaking out. “Mom, stop crying and tell me what’s going on!”

  Her erratic breathing scares me, but nothing can prepare me for the terror that takes over when she sobs, “Your dad’s been shot.”

  One second. That’s all it takes for my body to turn ice cold and paralyze. The phone slips out of my hand. I’m frozen solid as Trent picks it up off the floor and switches the call to speakerphone.

  “Hello?” he says, but his voice is deep within a black tunnel.

  “Kate?”

  “It’s Trent. What’s going on?”

  She’s frantic, and it only serves to numb me more, sending a wave of shivers through my limbs when I hear her far off words telling him, “Steve’s been shot! She needs to come to the hospital right now. They don’t—they don’t think he’s going to make it.”

  “What the fuck is going on?” Garrett’s voice is a hollow, fading echo as everything blurs into an obscure abstraction of reality.

  Warmth touches my face, but I must be dreaming because no sound is coming out of Trent as he holds me in his hands and moves his mouth. All I can hear is a rush of wind clogging my ears.

  His lips move, and I nod, having no idea why before he rushes me upstairs. Sitting on the edge of his bed, I watch in a daze while he darts around the room and throws all of our belonging into our bags.

  “Kate.”

  I should respond.

  “Kate?”

  His eyes tether to mine as he walks straight over to me. His hand slides along the side of my neck, and it’s now that his voice begins crystalizing, slowly pulling me out of my trance.

  Urgency coats every syllable of every word when he says, “Kate, come on. We have to go right now.”

  KATE

  I once heard that the world spins at a rate of a thousand miles per hour. It’s a constant force of nature that no one ever questions because it just is—it’s always there, always occurring. My question: What happens when it comes to a stop—halts entirely? Does the atmosphere remain in motion, stirring up everything around us in an upheaval of chaotic destruction?

  Do we die?

  Is that what I’m waiting for as I sit here while Trent speeds through the night along I-95?

  He keeps looking at me; I can see him from my peripheral as I stare out the window, watching blinding headlights pass us by. Billboards and buildings paint the obsidian night in streaks of colors, and I use them to create imaginary pieces of artwork in my head—I do whatever I can to distract myself from the what-ifs plaguing me.

  Trent’s hand has been holding mine for the past hour. I want to pull away because he has it at an awkward angle that caused my fingers to fall asleep shortly after he took it, but I don’t move.

  I can’t.

  I haven’t spoken either.

  “Just hang on,” he says for the umpteenth time. “We’re almost there.”

  Please, hurry, the voice inside my head begs. Go faster.

  His hand squeezes mine, smashing my skin into the million needles prickling beneath the surface. It’s the only sensation I can feel and I hate that it reminds me that this isn’t a bad a dream I’m going to wake up from.

  We veer off the interstate, and it isn’t much longer before he’s parking the car and rushing me inside and up to the ICU.

  “Can I help you?” a woman asks without standing from her seat behind the counter.

  “We’re here to see Steve Murphy,” Trent tells her.

  She punches something into her computer. “Are you family?”

  “She’s his daughter.”

  “And you?”

  “No, I’m her boyfriend.”

  “I’m sorry, only family is allowed. You’ll have to stay out here,” she says. “There’s a waiting area right over there.”

  Glancing over my shoulder to where she points, the grim reality sets in even deeper when I see the room is filled with officers—his f
riends.

  Trent turns to me, and I can see he’s worried. “Are you okay going by yourself?” he asks. “Your mother texted me not too long ago and said she was back there with him.”

  I nod, and the lady hits the button that opens the doors. Leaving Trent behind, I walk down the white, sterile corridor that leads me to another desk, but before I’m forced to speak, I see my mother stepping out of one of the rooms.

  “Kate, thank god you’re here.” Her face is splotchy, and her eyes are puffy, and the moment she falls into my arms, she breaks down in a heap of tears. I’m still so numb as she falls apart. I hold her; although, I doubt she can find any comfort within my vacancy.

  I let my eyes track to the room she just came out of, and even though the wall is nothing but windows, I don’t spot my dad. All I see are a million wires, tubes, and machines. My heart free falls into the depths of my gut.

  “Where is he?” It’s the first thing I’ve said in what feels like hours, and it comes out dry and brittle. “Mom?”

  She doesn’t say anything right away, and the silence scares me.

  Oh god. Is he gone?

  “Mom, where’s Dad?”

  Drawing back, she wipes her face and walks into the room as I trail behind. A multitude of sounds from the machines fill my head. My eyes follow her as she goes over to the bed, and that’s when I see him. He’s buried under a spider web of wires—too many—each one mazing to a different machine.

  Somehow, I manage to put one jittery foot in front of the other as I near his bedside. There is a tube down his throat that’s breathing for him. His neck is bandaged, and his face is so badly bruised and swollen that he’s unrecognizable. The severity hits like a sledgehammer, knocking the wind right out of my lungs and causing me to wince and turn away. It’s a brutally disturbing image I can’t shake out of my head.

  “Oh, honey,” my mother says as she steps next to me and lays her hand on my back.

  “What happened?”

  Before she can answer, a doctor walks into the room to update her on the surgery. While the two of them talk, I take a deep breath and prepare to turn back around and go over to my dad. There’s a chair next to his bed, and I collapse into it.