He glanced up at Leah; she was staring at him with equal parts sympathy and dread, like she knew where this story was going. And even though he knew that she didn’t, he grabbed on to the small thread of compassion she’d thrown him and pulled himself through the rest of the story.
“He couldn’t hold his own,” he said hoarsely. “Bryan was wasted, and there were three of them. And I had to get through that goddamn crowd.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I could see everything, but I couldn’t get there fast enough. Bryan got hit and went down, and one of the guys kicked him hard in the side of the head. Right in his temple.”
He saw Leah press her fist to her mouth as she shook her head slightly.
“And I lost it,” he said. “I charged the guy, and we went over a table and through the front window of the bar.” He looked down and flexed his hand, watching his scars expand and contract with the movement. “I don’t remember a lot after that. I remember hitting the ground outside. And the broken glass. And the blood all over my hands. I had no idea where it was coming from.”
He looked up at her; her fist was still pressed against her lips, but her eyes were welled with tears. “And the next thing I knew, I was being thrown over the hood of a cop car and cuffed. They were reading me my rights, telling me to remain silent, and I just kept shouting at them to go help Bryan.”
Danny pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes again as they began to sting, and he took a slow breath before continuing. “They took me to a station and put me in a cell, and no one would tell me what happened. No one would tell me.” He shook his head slowly. “A few hours later, they came in and said I had made bail. I walked out to the vestibule, and Gram was there.”
He dropped his head back against the couch and closed his eyes. “And she just crumpled in my arms and started wailing. And then I knew.”
Danny heard her move beside him, and before he could open his eyes, she was crawling onto his lap, wrapping her arms around him as she buried her face into his neck.
He snaked his arms around her waist and pulled her against his body. Even though he knew the worst was yet to come, she felt so good in his arms that he couldn’t stop himself. He needed this right now. He needed her.
He heard a tiny muffled sob, and Danny closed his eyes as he pressed his lips against her shoulder. He wished the story ended there. He wished he deserved the sympathy she was showing him right now. Danny tightened his arms and held her closer, wanting to soak up every last second of what he was surely about to lose.
“I don’t understand,” she mumbled into the crook of his neck. “So now this guy is pressing charges against you? How can he do that? Why isn’t he in trouble for what he did to Bryan?”
Leah, please don’t hate me.
“He’s not the one pressing charges,” he whispered against her shoulder.
She sat up and looked at him, her brow pulled together and her face streaked with tears. She looked so troubled and so saddened and so beautiful that he would have rather torn his arm off than say his next words.
He reached up and brushed at the tear stains on her face. “When we went through the window, an artery in his neck was severed. They took him to the hospital that night, but they couldn’t stop the bleeding in time.”
Her brow smoothed out, but she shook her head. “What…what do you mean?”
Danny looked up at her, wiping the other cheek with the pad of this thumb.
“Did he…?” She trailed off, and Danny nodded.
Something like panic overtook her expression as she said, “So you’re…?”
“I’m being charged with manslaughter.”
Leah stared down at him, and he watched the rapid rise and fall of her chest as her breathing grew ragged, that same panicked look on her face.
He looked at her dark hair falling over her shoulders, those beautiful, expressive eyes, her delicate nose, the lips that could steal his breath and make him feel alive at the same time. He wanted to memorize everything about her while he still could.
And then, without warning, she threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around him so tightly, he could feel her muscles trembling with the effort.
His heart stopped in his chest before it picked up double time.
Every time he had envisioned this moment, it always ended with some variation of her leaving, some version of her being horrified, afraid, disgusted.
But never once had he imagined this.
“Leah.” He sighed as he cradled her in his arms, and another sob broke from her lips, stifled by the front of his shirt.
“But you didn’t mean to do it,” she said through her tears. “It was an accident. Just tell them it was an accident.”
Danny closed his eyes as he rubbed his hand up and down her back. She was defending him. And in a way, it was almost more painful than it would have been if she told him to go to hell.
“It doesn’t work that way, sweet girl,” he whispered.
She nodded against his chest before she sniffled. “So there’s no way? There’s no way this will be okay?”
Danny slid his hand up under her hair, massaging her neck gently. “The best I can hope for is that the judge will take into consideration what happened with Bryan, that I have no priors…and maybe he’ll be understanding of the situation.”
“The judge? What about the jury?”
“It’s not going to trial,” he said. “I’m copping a plea. It’s better that way.”
“How?” she asked, wiping her nose with her sleeve as she sat up to look at him.
“It should lessen the sentence,” he said softly.
It was quiet for several seconds before she whispered, “How long?”
He ran his fingers through the back of her hair. “A couple of years, probably.”
She closed her eyes as her chin trembled violently, and he used his hand behind her neck to pull her back down to him.
“I’m so sorry, Leah,” he whispered as she buried her face in his shirt.
“Don’t apologize,” she said, her voice breaking before she sniffled and hiccupped against his chest, and he held her, running his hands over her back, her arms, her hair, anywhere he could reach.
After several minutes she spoke again, her voice softly breaking the silence. “How much more time do you have?”
“I don’t know. A lot of stuff got held up in the beginning because of everything with Bryan and his involvement in all this. It’s all paper pushing at this point. The court date for my sentencing hasn’t been set, but my lawyer says it will be sometime this year.”
She nodded against him.
“And I’ll understand, Leah. I swear to you, I’ll understand.”
“Understand what?” she whispered.
“If this changes how you feel about me.”
She sat up, looking down at him, and he stared back up at her. “I’ll understand,” he promised.
And he would. He wouldn’t hate her for walking away. He wouldn’t even hate her if she thought he was a monster, because the truth was, he’d never felt like more of a monster than he did in this moment, watching her hurt for him.
She stared at him until her eyes welled with tears again.
“This is a lot to take in,” she said as they spilled over her lower lashes.
“I know,” he whispered, wiping them away with his thumbs.
“I just…I need to think. There’s so much…” She trailed off and shook her head, and he nodded.
“I know. It’s okay.”
She looked down at him, and he smiled at her, hoping she couldn’t see the sadness behind it.
Leah brought her hand to his cheek, and he leaned into her touch.
“I just…I want you to know that no matter what happens, I know you, Danny,” she said. “I know who you really are.”
He stared up at her, and the vice-like pain in his chest began to soften for the first time since he had entered her apartment. There was nothing she could have said in that moment more perf
ect than the words she’d just spoken.
Because no matter what she decided after this, even if she chose to walk away and never look back, in a way, she had just absolved him.
She had looked straight through all the horror and the ugliness, and she still saw him.
And when she laid her head back down on his chest, he rested his cheek against her hair and closed his eyes, wondering if there would ever be a man on this planet who was worthy of her.
Leah sat at her desk, spinning a paper clip between her fingers.
She just wanted this day to be over.
Every Tuesday she ran the After-School Help program, or ASH, as the students called it. From two to four thirty, students could come to receive extra help in whatever classes they were struggling with, although most often it was overrun with athletes just looking for a quiet place to do their homework before practice began.
By the time the bell rang after Leah’s last class, it had already felt like the longest day she’d ever experienced, so the two and a half hours she still had to endure before she could go home seemed insurmountable.
She thought work would provide her with a much needed distraction, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t focus on anything except what had happened the day before. She could see everything so vividly—the scene he described, his face as he told her—and she’d spent most of the day on the verge of tears because of it.
The images of Bryan trying to defend himself against three guys—the vicious kick to the head—were burnt into her consciousness, and she hadn’t even been there. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like for Danny.
She knew if it were her, she would never get over it—watching something that disturbing happen to her best friend.
But Bryan had been more like Danny’s brother.
For a split second, she imagined what it would feel like to watch Christopher suffer that way, and the thought alone was enough to incapacitate her.
And when it wasn’t those images torturing her, it was the memory of that look on his face as he explained everything to her; even worse than the guilt and sadness in his eyes was the defeat, as if he were waiting for her to condemn him, or dismiss him, or recoil from him.
It was absolutely heartbreaking.
He had told her he’d understand if her feelings for him changed, but the truth was, it only reinforced them. Because when he spoke, all she could hear was how he had tried to defend his brother—how he had attempted to protect someone he loved, and he had failed.
He was a good person who made an impulse decision with disastrous results, and Leah just couldn’t get past the unfairness of it all—that Bryan was gone over something so senseless, that Danny would be paying such a heavy price for something that was clearly an accident.
That she was about to lose another person she cared about.
He was the first person she had allowed past her defenses in years, and he was going away. How many times could that happen to one person? How many times would she be forced to endure it?
She didn’t know if she could survive it again.
It made her want to grab two handfuls of her hair and scream, because all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around him and protect him from what was coming his way. But if she did that, who would protect her?
She already cared about him so much, and it frightened her to think of how much she might feel for him if she continued down this path. Could she withstand that? Letting herself fall for him completely and then losing him? For years?
She couldn’t imagine cutting him out of her life, but at the same time, it would be incredibly foolish and careless to keep going like this. There was no right answer, and thinking of it made her feel disoriented and irritable and completely exhausted.
By the time ASH ended, Leah felt weak, like she might be coming down with the sickness she’d been lying about all day whenever people asked her what was wrong with her. She got in her car, desperate to get home and crawl into bed, but as soon as she started it up, she heard Holly’s ring tone playing from somewhere inside her purse.
Leah threw the car into reverse before she pulled the phone from her bag.
“What’s up?” she said, holding the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she craned her neck to back out of the space.
“Ughhh! I’m about to lose it. Are you done with that extra-help thing?”
“Yeah, I’m on my way home right now. What’s wrong?”
“I need your help. Can you come to Evan’s apartment?”
“Right now?” Leah asked.
“Right now.”
“Why? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m just under a time crunch and I really need your help. Please? I’ll explain when you get here.”
Leah’s shoulders dropped in defeat as she exhaled softly. This day was never going to end.
“Alright. I’ll be there in like fifteen minutes.”
“Oh thank God,” Holly said as she exhaled. “Okay, see you then.”
Leah ended the call and tossed her phone into her bag. She pulled off the road and made a U-turn, hoping Holly would be a better distraction than work had been.
About twenty minutes later, Leah walked up to Evan’s front door, stopping as she heard a muted thud followed by Holly’s chorus of “goddamn stupid-ass motherfucking piece of shit!”
Leah smiled her first genuine smile of the day before she knocked softly.
“Holly?”
“Come in!” she called, and Leah opened the door and froze.
Holly was sitting in the middle of Evan’s living room, surrounded by pieces of black lacquered wood, a bunch of crumpled papers, several panes of glass, a sea of screws and bolts, and multiple screwdrivers. She looked up, her expression pathetic as she blew her bangs out of her eyes with a huff.
“Hey,” she said weakly.
“What the hell is all this?” Leah asked, and Holly dropped her face into her hands and whimpered.
“Evan’s anniversary present.”
“You got him debris?” she asked, dropping her purse on the dining room table before she tiptoed through the living room, trying not to step on anything.
“Our three-year anniversary is tomorrow, and he’s been wanting this entertainment center forever, but since we’re trying to save up to buy a place, he won’t spend the money on himself, so I wanted to surprise him, and I bought it, but I didn’t realize I’d have to put it together, and he’s gonna be home in like two hours, and I’m so totally fucked,” she ranted, swatting at one of the crumpled pieces of paper and sending it flying across the room.
“Okay, relax,” Leah said with a laugh as she sat down next to her. “We’re two college-educated women; we should be able to put this thing together in a couple of hours. I mean, there are instructions, right? We’ll just follow them. How hard can it be?”
Holly looked at her incredulously as she gestured to the disaster on the floor in front of them, and Leah smiled. “Alright, go in the kitchen. Take a break. Get us something to snack on and let me reorganize everything in here.”
“Okay,” Holly said as she stood, stretching her arms over her head before she hopped over the mess in front of her and made her way to the kitchen.
Leah started by flattening out all the crumpled pieces of paper and figuring out which ones were the instructions, and then she organized all the planks, screws, bolts, and panes of glass in the order in which they’d be needing them. By the time Holly came back with chips and salsa and a beer for each of them, she had worked out a fairly straightforward system. She explained it to Holly, and for the first ten minutes or so, the only words spoken between them were either asking for parts or reading instructions.
Holly was working on securing one of the shelves to the backboard while Leah attached the hinges to the glass doors, when suddenly—without even fully deciding to do it—Leah spoke.
“Danny told me his secret.”
“Really?” Holly said, sifting through the pil
e of screws. “When?”
“Yesterday,” she said, this time with a bit of trepidation as she realized she’d just opened the door to a conversation she wasn’t exactly sure she wanted to have.
“Well, that didn’t take long,” Holly said, awkwardly twisting the screwdriver with both hands. “So…what is it?”
Leah chewed on the inside of her lip as she finished securing the hinge. She had never been as conflicted over something as she was about this—in fact, as the day wore on, the warnings were getting louder while the pull she felt toward him intensified. And as uneasy as she was to discuss this with Holly—or with anyone for that matter—maybe doing so would help her start to make sense of what she was feeling.
“Okay, well, remember how I told you his friend died a year ago?”
“Yeah,” she said, shaking out her hand before she continued twisting the screwdriver.
“Well, turns out he’s been on life support this whole time. Danny says he’s gone. No brain activity or anything. But his family is still hoping for him to turn around.”
Holly grimaced. “Ugh, that’s so sad. Did he finally tell you how it happened?”
“Yeah,” she said, her stomach turning. “He, um…it was a bar fight.”
Holly’s hand stopped twisting as she glanced up. “A bar fight?”
Leah nodded.
“So like, he was killed?”
“Technically, yeah.”
“Oh my God. That’s horrible.”
“I know,” Leah replied softly, looking back down as she started working on the next hinge.
Coming Home Page 19
