Chapter 8 Guilty Until Proven Innocent #2
I’m straddling a hinge of self-destruction, and I hate to admit that I don’t care who I hurt in the process.
I’ve never felt this…small…before. My mother always used to praise me for my selflessness, but all these stupid, life-changing events have driven my sense of self back into the darkness—back into the abyss where my shriveled heart sways from the cavernous ceiling of my chest like a stalactite.
I throw his question back in his face. “Do you even know why I need the money? Or do you just not care?”
“Of course I care!” Knox growls, standing up from his chair abruptly and causing a minor commotion in the nonfiction section of the library.
When a dozen eyes magnetize to his outburst, he scrambles to take his seat, fearing public scrutiny.
His timbre flattens into a whisper. “I’m not…I’m not some heartless dick, okay? My dad—he’ll disown me if I don’t make it to the NHL.”
Disown him? Only 0.8 percent of college hockey players make it to the NHL. How could his father do something like that? To his own child? A parent’s love should never come with conditions.
For the first time ever, I realize that Knox and I are on the same side of the battle lines.
Lost kids trying to keep their families from falling apart—overextending themselves to carry a responsibility that was never theirs to begin with.
Like low-strength glue plastered between tightly packed earth, holding together two drifting land masses, and slowly disintegrating by the mutinous waters that stand between freedom and captivity.
I, yet again, have let judgment blindly dictate my emotions.
There’s a storm in my stomach that refuses to settle; there’s a bitterness that ripens on an apologetic palate.
Since we’re apparently trauma dumping, I see no reason to pass up a free therapy session.
I’m aware that I’m breaking coveted rule two.
“If I don’t come up with enough money by the end of the semester, I’ll lose my tuition.
I won’t be able to attend MU anymore, and everything my mom sacrificed for me to get here will be in vain.
She works two jobs just to pay rent and cover the cost of utilities,” I blurt out, the pressure blunting my ribs lifting infinitesimally.
Knox’s hackle-raised stiffness deliquesces into something like understanding, the blaze in his eyes dimming in the low light of the library, and his pinched features no longer serve as a receptacle for his rage.
We’ve always been at each other’s throats. I never realized that a different dynamic could exist in this timeline.
“So we’re both dealing with feelings of inadequacy,” he concludes, refocusing his stare on the literature packet that brandishes the power to spare us both from a lifetime of suffering.
I never thought I’d live to see the day that Knox and I need each other. Is this even real? Am I hallucinating right now?
Guilt, my old friend, raps on my door like clockwork, visiting me in the late hours of the star-freckled evening. “I’m sorry for lashing out. I didn’t know that so much was at stake for you.”
“No, I should be the one apologizing,” Knox insists. “You had every right to retaliate. I just…I keep ruining everything. I’m the hypocrite.”
An inglorious smile toys with the corners of my lips. My fingernails are no longer trying to rip the seams in my jeans—a first, seeing as my anxiety always has an overnight bag packed and ready to go. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m not a saint either.”
“Compared to me, you are. And I think a part of me was envious because of that. Because I’m the one constantly messing up.”
If only Knox knew how much I felt the same way.
“You shouldn’t punish yourself for every mistake you make. You can’t be expected to be perfect all the time.”
Says the perfectionist.
Knox chuffs a laugh that’s deep in all the right ways.
“I wish it was that easy. My dad is the poster child for toxic masculinity.” He then lowers his voice in what I’m assuming is some crude imitation of said father.
“If you don’t make the Mulligan name proud, I won’t have a son anymore.
Oh, you want to cry about it? Crying is for weak little losers who have no place in this cutthroat world. ”
I…I don’t even know what to say. Even though humor colors his tone, I could never imagine my mother speaking to me like that. Knox’s vulnerability—a gift amongst cruelty, I now know—wrings my body inside out, hitting me where it hurts the most: the overworked organ chugging beneath my breastbone.
“He really said that to you?” I ask quietly, almost too afraid to hear the answer. A wellspring of tears waits to disgorge behind my eyes, my nasal cavities smoldering with a heat that makes it hard to breathe.
“That’s just the abridged version. There was a lot more cursing.”
Without considering my next play-by-play of actions—or more appropriately, the consequences—my hand shoots across the table to enclose his, and the warmth from his palm is the most comforting thing I’ve felt in a long time.
Funny, seeing as the last time we made physical contact I recoiled like he was an epicenter for disease.
It goes without saying that he’s shocked by my white flag of surrender, eyes wide and unblinking like he’s holding an active grenade instead of a tangible peace treaty.
“I’m so sorry, Knox.”
I’m not sure if it’s voluntary, but his fingers squeeze mine. “You don’t have to apologize. It’s not your fault my dad is the spawn of Satan.”
I expect him to retract his arm—you know, elucidate some sense—though he doesn’t, and the Leif-specific butterflies that usually occupy my belly take a turn for the worse.
And by worse, I mean they metamorphosize in Knox’s presence.
That fluttery indigestion feeling is reserved for Leif Kennedy only!
Not the boy I’m tutoring who just so happens to come from an equally broken family.
Apparently, I’m the one who has hit their vulnerability quota for the day because I sever contact just as Knox presses forward.
When my hand falls from his, disappointment flashes across his expression like lightning in stratocumulus clouds—a burst of energy against a backdrop of dark tessellations.
“How much money do you need to cover your tuition?” he inquires.
The library’s mugginess is getting to me, and I feel like I’m sweating out water weight in the thick of an August summer. I’m aware that two thousand dollars probably seems like so little to Knox. I’m also aware that I’m suddenly worried about what Knox thinks of me.
Did he not just prove to you that he’s not the fault-finding asswipe you make him out to be?
My unmeasured words stick to the sides of my esophagus. “Two thousand.”
Knox waits for the punchline. “Two thousand and…?”
“Just two thousand.”
Telltale pity swims in the placid lakes of his irises, inching closer to my shipwrecked shore. God, I forgot how much I hate being the subject of someone’s sympathy.
“That’s it? Staten, I can—”
I know what Knox is going to say, and I’m grateful when Leif’s ill timing finally comes in handy.
“Staten, hey!” he greets, practically appearing out of thin air and speaking at a non-library-sanctioned volume.
Shit. Oh, shit. Crap. Crappity crap fucking shit.
I never wanted Knox and Leif to meet. It was already a close call at the bar.
I’ve only known Knox for a few weeks, but I wouldn’t put it past him to embarrass me in front of my crush.
This isn’t happening. Can I fake a heart attack?
Maybe I can crawl under the table and make a break for the exit?
You just have to be cool, Staten. You’re not doing anything illegal. You’re tutoring your client in a very professional setting. Pfft, it’s not like you guys just shared your deepest, darkest fears with each other.
“Hi, Leif!” I half-shout with a little too much enthusiasm.
Someone huddled in the corner—clutching their deckle-edged book like Gollum—shushes us rather aggressively.
What the hell is Leif doing here? I mean, yeah, this is a library, and yeah, most students utilize the resources here, but he seriously couldn’t ambush me at a better time?
I glance at Knox—who’s glued to this approaching disaster of an interaction—and the only two men in my life are on a collision course that’s ironically going to hit me the hardest.
Leif’s eyes flick to my “study buddy,” a friendly, na?ve smile dimpling his cheeks. Leif, like the majority of the male population, can be clueless at times, and thankfully, this is one of those times. “You didn’t tell me you were studying today. I would’ve joined you.”
I parse through possible responses before the devil on my shoulder proposes a little white lie—one guaranteed to preserve my picture-perfect image.
I purposefully keep my home life a secret.
I don’t need people knowing that I’m struggling, and I don’t want people to treat me any differently if they find out I’m a scholarship kid, Leif included.
Does that make me a bad friend? Maybe, but I’m not ready to lose the only person who’s been by my side this entire time.
“Uh, yeah! Yeah, we’re just studying. I love studying. Studying is so much fun. I could study all day every day,” I blabber uncontrollably, my pulse ticking into tachycardia territory, and my fingers scrunching an innocent piece of binder paper.
Beautiful, oblivious Leif doesn’t clock the fact that my nerves are riding shotgun. And some might say that they’re even more murderous than Knox and his negligent driving.
Leif hikes the strap of his backpack higher on his shoulder. It’s almost endearing how socially unaware he is. “Cool, cool. I’m glad I ran into you because I was meaning to talk to you. You down to go watch the mathematics competition this Friday night? I heard it should be a pretty tight race.”
A mathematics competition? What part of reciting pi and watching nerds (nonderogatory) throw playground insults at each other screams romantic? I’m all for supporting my fellow peers, but respectfully, I’d rather cliff dive into shallow waters.
For the first time in forever, Knox and I are seemingly on the same page, and even he looks unimpressed.
“A mathematics competition?” I parrot, needing to hear the absurdity out loud to confirm that it isn’t, in fact, a figment of my imagination.
Oh, what I’d give to fast-forward through this humiliating conversation. Along with my newly accustomed embarrassment, disappointment is a serrated blade that pits itself between the slats of my ribs, just inches from nicking my pericardium.
“Yeah. If you bring a friend, you get a free hot dog with any purchase at the concession stand. I don’t know any better way to spend a Friday night.”
Friend.
God, I’m pathetic. Leif may have been the one to put me in the friend zone, but I’m the only obstacle standing in my way. I’m too self-conscious to pursue things with him. I’d rather suffer from a lovelorn heart than disrupt our dynamic.
I don’t want to spend Friday night eating a lukewarm hot dog in an uncomfortable, plastic chair while algebraic formulas lobotomize my brain.
I don’t want to spend Friday night pretending that I’m not hopelessly in love with my best friend.
I want to go on a date, in a nice dress, with the man of my dreams. I want to share chocolate mousse and laugh at his jokes and have the waiter compliment us on being the cutest couple in the restaurant.
But that’s a reality that just won’t actualize.
I open my mouth to say something—anything—yet I don’t have the heart to decline his invitation. So, as the painful syllables are halfway to egressing from between my clamped teeth, a prayer in the shape of Knox Mulligan saves me from making a gargantuan mistake.
He immediately grabs my hand, interlocks our fingers, and addresses Leif for the first time since he crashed our intimately non-intimate tutoring session.
“Sorry, bud. I’m taking Staten out to dinner that night. At her favorite restaurant. The one…um…the one with the”—Knox scrunches his nose and snaps his fingers—“fancy booth. Yep, and the…fancy lighting.”
What. The. Holy. Hell. Is. He. Doing.
I don’t jerk my arm away in pure revulsion. I’m too shocked. Honestly, this would all be comical if it didn’t feel like my stomach was freefalling out of my ass. My palm grows clammy, but it’s not enough to deter Knox and his savior complex.
Leif blinks. Once, twice. Stares at the evidence of our neatly dressed lie. I can practically see the unoiled gears in his head turning, and when he comprehends Knox’s territorial claim—the equivalent of a wolf scent-marking his mate—his eyes double in size.
“You two are together?” he exclaims.
I pause. Shit. What am I supposed to say? He’s going to see through me like a poorly executed hammer play.
“Um, well…”
Knox’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, and he discreetly crushes my hand hard enough to leash my tongue. “It’s all super new, but I knew from the moment I saw Staten that I wanted to be hers, you know? I mean, how can anyone not be infatuated with her?”
I know Knox is playing things up to make a point, but I’d be lying if I said my heart didn’t pirouette at the sentiment. Why do I feel this way? Is it because someone, for once, is showing interest in me? Even if it is manufactured?
Leif scratches the nape of his neck awkwardly, and the fleet of emotions that slashes over his face are unidentifiable. I can usually read him pretty well, but it’s like I’ve just been locked out of his mind, and I don’t have the code to the keypad.
He shuts down right in front of me. “Right. Um, I…sorry for interrupting, guys,” he mutters under his breath, hightailing it for the stairs without so much as a goodbye—without the promise of another hello.
I watch his head of curly hair merge into the faceless conveyor belt of students, only to be swept away by the afternoon current.
I nearly lurch out of my seat to chase after him, but I think better of it.
Knox releases my hand unceremoniously, leaning back in his chair like he didn’t just fracture the foundation underneath my feet.
A stress crack on a frozen lake, rupturing congealed ice in some kind of centrifugal slaughter.
Numbness consumes me with an unchecked hunger. I don’t know whether to scream, cry, or punch Knox. “What did you just do?”
“I gave your lover boy an incentive.”