“Can you talk about what happened?”
Kacey looked down, sucking in a breath. She knew this story, knew it well because Jordie still held so much guilt from the whole thing. He had only talked twice about it, but both those times had ended with him wrapped in a ball, her body covering his.
“I was dating a girl that I really thought I was in love with, but Robbie never liked her. He said she was too rich. And since we were poor, he thought it was a little weird. But I was hot and, of course, she’d like me,” he said and Kacey shook her head. He tried so hard to hide his pain with humor, but when she glanced up, Julie wasn’t smiling. She was watching him intensely as he looked back down, sensing that his joke hadn’t gone over well. “Um, well, one night, after we got done having sex, we were talking, and I told her what happened to me from one of my stepdads.”
“Why?”
Kacey looked up then because she had always wondered that. Why did he tell her?
“’Cause I wanted someone to care, to be sad with me.” Kacey’s heart sank as she reached out, lacing her fingers with his. “I just hated myself, thought it was my fault, and I wanted someone to make me feel differently.”
“Did it work?” Julie asked.
“No, she looked freaked out by it all, but I joked it off and that was it,” he said, sitting up again and holding Kacey’s hand. “The next day, she went to school and told everyone that I had sex with one of my stepdads. Left out a lot of what I’d said and turned it into me being gay instead of me being a victim.”
Kacey had never met the girl, didn’t even know her name, but if she ever came across her, she’d kill her. It was that simple. As hard as it was for Jordie, Lord knows he didn’t need what that girl did on top of it. No one deserved that.
“Apparently, I’d taken her boyfriend’s spot on the hockey team and she wanted to get back at me. Well, her boyfriend and some of his buddies were calling me names and fucking with me outside as we stood next to Robbie’s car.” He paused and it was like a wave of pain just washed over him. She could see the light slowly leaving his eyes. “I told the dude to fuck off. If I wasn’t hurt—I had dislocated my shoulder in gym the day before—I would have just kicked his ass. But he kept coming at me, and then Robbie stepped in. They called him names, saying that he was my boyfriend and stupid childish stuff like that. Robbie, being the hothead he was, didn’t hold back. He whaled on the dude, and then it all happened so fast. Someone pulled out a knife, and then they were stabbing him in the back of the neck.”
She hadn’t realized she had started crying until a tear fell on her arm. Wiping it away, she kept her eyes trained on him as he sucked in a deep breath.
“He died right there, and I felt like the world should have stopped, they should have mourned with me, but they didn’t. It was like he was nothing to no one, and when his mom turned on me, blaming me, it only made it worse.”
“And the drinking started?”
He nodded. “Yup, I didn’t have to think of the blood or his lifeless eyes when I was drunk.”
Julie nodded. “You know it’s not your fault, right?” she asked and he shrugged.
“Yeah, I know, but it doesn’t make the pain stop, or make me forget.”
“Because you haven’t fully forgiven yourself,” she said slowly and Kacey’s hand squeezed his. “Same with Kacey. You’ve spoken many times about what you did to her, and I know you still hold so much guilt. Especially with the miscarriage.”
Kacey looked up at him, seeing the tears welling up in his eyes, and she broke. It hurt her because she had gone through it, but they had never really spoken about it. She hadn’t realized that he was hurting because of it as well. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head against his shoulder as he slowly nodded.
“I should have been there. I should have been a man and done right by her.”