Chapter Two
Three years ago . . .
“Hey, Jess, are you planning on ever getting into this car or do I have to get out and shove you into the back seat? Please say you want me to put you into the back seat.”
Rogan is such a pervert and I love him for it. He’s leaning over the passenger seat with his left arm casually draped over the steering wheel wiggling his eyebrows up and down trying to tempt me into the back seat, even though he knows I won’t do it. We haven’t exactly gotten to the point in our relationship for back seat rendezvous’.
“I’m trying to find Cass. She was supposed to wait for me until I got out of practice. Mom’s going to be pissed if I leave without her, so unless you want me to get grounded for losing my baby sister and never get the opportunity to get me into the back seat and have your wicked way with me, then you better get your mind out of the gutter and help me find her.”
He pulls ahead and into an empty parking spot, catching up quickly with me on the sidewalk along the front of the high school while I make my way around toward the back of the building where Cass and her boyfriend, Luke, sometimes hang out. Our mother doesn’t approve of their having alone time at their age. I can’t say I blame her; eleven years old is pretty young, but I’m supposed to be the cool older sister so I just make sure to “casually” watch them like a hawk. If I’m not getting any, I’ll be damned if my little sister tries to.
Before I round the corner, Rogan grabs me by the elbow and swings me around so I’m facing him. A gasp leaves my throat. Being this close to him, even after all this time, still makes my heart thump in my chest. We’ve been together for almost one year. It’ll be one year in two weeks, the longest relationship of any of our friends and the envy of most of them.
He bends down—he’s one of the only guys who’s taller than I am—and lightly traces the back of his hand down the side of my face. He grazes his thumb along my lower lip before replacing his thumb with his lips, resulting in a low moan emanating from my throat. This is my favorite kiss of ours. It’s so soft I almost wonder if we ever kissed, but the fluttering in my heart confirms that we did.
“Sorry, I just couldn’t resist doing that. School sucks for so many reasons, but the biggest one is that I can’t be with you more. I miss you so much in the day it drives me crazy, and everyone else who has to hear me talk about how much I miss you,” he says with a grin as he pulls me close to his chest. He rests his chin on top of my head, swaying us from left to right as if we’re leaves in the wind able to fly wherever and whenever we want.
“Why don’t you two get a room?” I turn around quickly and see my sister a few feet ahead with a big grin, heading right toward us, Luke in tow. She looks happy, which makes me happy, but I think a sister-sister talk is in order, just to check on where she and Luke are at, or not at, hopefully. I mean, she’s only eleven so she’d better not be anywhere.
The sun is starting to set, making Cass look angelic surrounded by bright light, which is reflecting off her light brown hair and tanned skin she somehow naturally has, even though no one else in our family has that complexion. She lucked out in the height department. Unlike me, she’s the perfect height for her age and girls in general. I’ve never been the right height, always too tall and feeling awkward, until I found volleyball. Now my height is an asset, finally.
“Where have you been? We’ve been looking all over for you. You were supposed to wait up front for me, not run off doing God knows what.” I watch for a reaction from either her or Luke, but their expressions don’t change. I hope that means nothing was going on and not that they’ve figured out a way to lie to me.
“Sorry, I got bored waiting for you, then Luke found me and we were just walking around while we waited. I guess we lost track of time. It doesn’t look like you two were that upset about it, though.” She arches her brows and cocks her head toward one side, throwing me a look of mock disapproval.
I reach out and grab her arm, pulling her close to me and squeezing my arm around her neck, pushing her head into my chest and roughing up her hair. She tries to tell me to stop, but her giggling is drowning out her protests. I finally relent and release her, but grab her by her hand, keeping her close to me while we walk toward Rogan’s car with Rogan and Luke trailing us. Another reason I love him, he’s talking to my younger sister’s boyfriend as if it’s his job to protect Cass, too. I don’t think Luke is that afraid of me, but I’m fairly certain he wouldn’t dare upset Rogan—like I said, another reason I love him.
When we get to the car, I step aside so Cass and Luke can say their goodbyes while Rogan walks around to the driver’s side and slides behind the wheel. His car only has two doors so I wait by an open passenger door for Cass to get into the back seat. By what feels like the hundredth time of “I love you more,” no, “I love you more” the car stereo breaks the moment. Cass groans and rolls her hazel colored eyes toward Rogan even though she knows he can’t see her, although I imagine he can feel it and is probably laughing at her right now like he always does when he knows he’s driving her crazy.
Cass climbs in the back and I shut the door when I put the seat back in position and climb in myself. We watch Luke head toward a car in the parking lot as we pull out onto the street. “Cass? Who’s giving Luke a ride home?” I turn in my seat so I can see her while Rogan continues driving away from the school.
“It’s his uncle. He watches him when his mom has to work nights. I’ve never met him, though, so I don’t know anything about him except what Luke tells me. I guess he’s a pretty cool guy, though.”
“You’re sure that’s his uncle back there, though?” I press, trying to shake the overprotective big sister role I’m in right now.
I hadn’t realized that we were pulling back into the school parking lot until I see the car Luke was heading toward a few minutes ago with Luke standing outside the driver’s side door. He’s leaning down into an open window talking to whoever is in the driver seat, hopefully his uncle. But if it is, why hasn’t he gotten into the car yet?
Rogan pulls up alongside Luke and rolls his window down, casually hanging his head out. “Hey, Luke, you still heading home?”
I’m trying to get a good look at who the driver is, but between the way Luke is standing and Rogan’s body, I can’t see anything but a vague silhouette of a man. I feel my headrest shift from the pull of Cass’s hands as she tries to get a better view from the back seat. I feel like we’re about to witness a crime and are trying to imprint every detail of this situation on our brains in case we do. I’m just happy Rogan is here and that I’m not alone in this situation. I would be of no use to anyone, I’m sure. I have a tendency to overreact, which is probably what I’m doing right now; but what if I’m not?
Luke turns toward our car and comes face to face with Rogan while looking into the cabin of the car toward Cass and me. “Yeah, I was just thinking about walking home. My uncle just got a call from my mom saying she’s there, so it seems like a waste of a trip for him to drive me home only to turn back around. We were just trying to figure it out, that’s all.”
Before I can say it, the words I was thinking are already out of Rogan’s mouth. “Why don’t we just give you a ride home? Problem solved. Your uncle doesn’t have to waste a trip and, we get the honor of your presence on our way home.”
Rogan always seems so easy going and laid back, which he is for the most part, but there’s a large part of him that no one knows that’s the exact opposite. He comes from a pretty rough home life. Before his mom divorced his dad, his dad used to beat her up pretty badly, but it wasn’t until he turned his aggression toward Rogan that she decided to take action.
I didn’t know him before the divorce but he has confided in me some of what it was like living in constant fear that your dad was going to kill your mom and if that did happen he would abandon you, leaving you alone and parentless. At some point in every child’s life, the fear of losing a parent is a real, terrifying fear, but to have that
be a true fear is unimaginable to me. I thank the Cosmos every day for my mom, and while Cass and I’s father may be out of the picture, it isn’t for any dramatic, life-threatening reason like Rogan’s. Our parents just didn’t love each other anymore.
The way Rogan is acting right now is making me uneasy. The way that he so quickly came back to the school to check on Luke instead of trying to calm me down by reassuring me everything was fine, that I needed to stop worrying so much, as he has done in the past, he came back without any prompting from me. Maybe he was saving trouble for later when I pestered him about whether we should have checked on Luke or whether we should call Luke’s house to make sure he got home safely and instead just checked now; or maybe it’s something else?
It doesn’t take long for Rogan to get out of the car, pull the seat forward, and for Luke to hop into the back seat. Before Rogan gets back in, I watch him bend down and say something into the other car’s window. I try to hear what he’s saying, but the words are so soft it barely sounds like words at all. What could he be saying? Maybe introducing us to his uncle, letting him know we’re safe people to be taking his nephew home? I never did think about the fact that we’re strangers to him and that he may be uneasy letting us just ride off with Luke. Or maybe he knows something I don’t.
I’m sure I’m being dramatic. There’s nothing wrong here. Just an uncle and his nephew working out details about a car ride. So why do I have an uneasy feeling about this situation?
I watch as the other car pulls away and out of the lot, with Rogan still standing there. I count the barely perceptible moments that pass before Rogan gets back in the car. No one else would have noticed, I’m sure, but I do, and it makes my hair prickle and a shiver to course through my blood. I’ll have to talk to him once we’re alone. Something isn’t right and I want to know what it is, but I’m not about to scare Cass by bringing it up. I doubt I would scare Luke; I have a suspicion that he already knows.
“So,” Rogan begins once behind the wheel and belted in. “I think I could use an ice cream and I imagine if you let your mom know that you’re with us she’ll be fine if you stay out a little while, don’t you think?” He doesn’t turn around, but instead talks to Luke in his rearview mirror.
“Yeah, I’ll text her and let her know. I’m sure she’ll be cool with it.”
He seems different now than when we left him earlier, quieter, and somber somehow, and it makes me want to hug him. I have to chuckle to myself. Cass must have had the same urge because I see her out of the corner of my eye throw her arms around his neck and pull him into one of her infamous bear hugs. I trade a sideways glance with Rogan, who has a smile on his face that I know mirrors mine. We’re off to get ice cream and for a few hours be four young kids without a trouble in the world.
It ends up being later than we originally intended when we finally drop Luke off at home, but unless his mom is in bed at seven o’clock, it’s obvious the house is empty. I can’t tell if anyone has been here at all tonight. I don’t want to leave, but Luke seems fine, more like the boy I’ve come to know. He seems perfectly comfortable being here and leaving us. I take that as a good sign, a sign that it’s safe for us to leave.
He’s unlocking his front door, and we’re backing out of his driveway when I grab Rogan’s arm, telling him to stop the car. I jump outside and run to catch Luke before he closes the door. I tell him to give me his phone and I use it to call my phone, then program my number into his contact list. “I know you have Cass’s, but if you can’t get her or you need something and don’t want her to know about it, call me. You can trust me, and no matter what happens between the two of you, you can come to me if you need to. Got it?”
He’s staring as deep into my eyes as I am his big green ones but I think for different reasons. I want him to know I’m serious and he probably wants to know why I’m doing this, especially for someone I don’t know, and I won’t be able to give him an answer if he asks, but it’s something I have to do, and I hope he lets me without trying to uncover a motive.
He doesn’t tell me his answer in words, but with a nod, and with that, he steps inside and closes the door behind him.
That was the last time I saw Luke alive. The next day the story broke that both he and his mom had been found shot to death in their home. It only took a few hours to find the killer, which turned out to be a drug dealer trying to collect money his uncle owed. The dealer came looking for Luke’s uncle—who apparently used to live in the house with Luke and his mother—to collect, but instead found only his mom.
The man confessed easily to everything, which the police believed was because he was the fall guy for someone higher up in the chain, admitting that he had tried to get her to pay off her brother’s debt, but when she refused, he shot her in cold blood.
He never denied killing Luke, and when asked why he did, he admitted, with true sincerity, that he did it for Luke so he wouldn’t have to live without his mom. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
His uncle was never questioned nor charged for any involvement in the crime. He shot himself in the police station’s parking lot before they had time to bring him in. It was obvious that was his way of turning himself in, an attempt at redemption for being the reason behind the crime; or maybe just a coward’s way out.
Most people in town were furious that he had taken the easy way out, but were happy enough that everyone involved had been punished in one way or another. Memorials for both Luke and his mother were erected, vigils were held, but life moved on and sad talk “over the great loss we as a whole had suffered from”, the statement made by everyone in town, dwindled and soon the talk of Luke and his mother was laid to rest right along with their bodies.
Not for me, though.
I think about Luke so often that it feels like he’s still alive. I see him waiting for Cass behind the school. I see him hanging out with the four of us eating ice cream, and I think about him and me on his doorstep living in oblivion from what was on the other side of his front door. His mother was probably already dead and he was next. That’s the memory my mind likes to put on replay.
Rogan won’t tell me what happened between him and Luke’s uncle. I try not to dwell on that day, I really do, but when I think about Luke, my mind always goes there. I think about what more we could have done, then I think about what Rogan might have known and what he might have been able to do that I couldn’t have.
There are some days that I’m so angry at the world for what happened to Luke that I need an outlet to unleash my anger on and, more often than not, that’s Rogan, and he lets me. He lets me yell at him. He lets me blame him, then, when I’m crying so hard I can barely breathe, he lets me hold onto him like the rock I so badly need, catching me before I sink completely. He tells me over and over that he loves me and that he’s sorry, so sorry, but he still won’t tell me what happened, what had been said.
Why won’t he just tell me what he knows? Wouldn’t that make it easier on him to let it out? Maybe I wouldn’t be so angry with him, or at least have a valid reason to be angry. I think Rogan knows what I can and can’t handle; I think that’s why he won’t tell me, and while I still find myself angry with him sometimes, I’ve found peace with only knowing what I know, nothing more, and maybe that’s a gift from Rogan to help me move on. Maybe in my being angry, in my trying to uncover a truth, I’m actually trying to betray an unspoken trust between Luke and him, and that trust consisted of Rogan taking Luke’s secrets to the grave.
Or, I’m being dramatic, frightened, and childish in thinking there’s some great secret I’m being left in the dark on. Either way, I love Rogan for being so loyal to Luke and for being my best friend when I’m such a basket case.
Chapter Three
Present day . . .
“So . . .” Kyle’s staring at me expectantly, rocking on his heels. I guess I should say something, but what? What had we been talking about? I must look crazy, but sometimes no matter how
hard I try, my memories become reality, and I find myself dazing off into the past, which I think is exactly what just happened.
I need to get away and try to salvage some of my dignity. “Well, it was great running into you. I’ll see you in class.” I turn away from him and his gaze only to hear him say,
“You actually didn’t run into me, unlike that poor old lady, but if you ever do feel like running into me, just let me know and I’ll make sure I’m standing in front of you.”
I refuse to turn around, but I can hear the smirk in his voice. He’s such an ass—an attractive, funny, almost taken ass.
Keep walking, Jess. Just keep walking.
I have no idea if he returns to find Rachel, but when I’m in my car and safely on my way home I breathe a sigh of relief at getting away from him before Rachel saw us together. I’ll have to do my best to avoid him, which isn’t going to be easy, but I can do this. I don’t have time for these kinds of thoughts, and I’d like to keep a friend instead of alienating myself as the girl who will stab a friend in the back by going after her love interest.
Okay. No more thoughts of Kyle, especially about the dimples he has when he smiles. Especially not that. What’s wrong with me?
No one is home yet when I get home, so I decide to put my angst driven energy to good use and make dinner. I could be doing what I told everyone I was going to do and study, but I know there’s no way I could focus right now, so dinner it is.
I’m rummaging through the cupboards when I hear my alert that I have a text message, and once I find the jar of spaghetti sauce I’ve been searching for, I take my phone off the counter and see Rachel’s name on my screen, taking a breath, I tap on the message.
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