Chapter 36 Vale #3
He needed a more palatable reason to hate himself.
Unsure what to do with this new morsel of information—a piece to the ever-changing, nonsensical puzzle that is Aston St. James—I turn to fully face forward. Gazing unseeingly out the windshield.
“I suppose it’s…lucky for you then,” Quentin says carefully, maintaining a light tone, “that he’s more than willing to be your punching bag.”
Throat squeezing, fists clenching in my lap, I force out, “Maybe that’s all he’s good for.”
“Or maybe that’s just the lie you tell yourself, to avoid facing the fact you do care about him. Still. Despite everything.”
My shoulders tense, everything in me turning to stone. “I do not care about Aston. I never did.”
“Says the person who not only killed a man for him—”
I whip my head around. “That was then. And I didn’t do it for him.”
Quentin watches me, before continuing as if never interrupted, “Says the person who saved him from being arrested for murder tonight.”
“I told you he didn’t do it.”
He smiles thinly. “And yet you could’ve let him hang. We both know his alibi, the one you backed up, is all that saved him. Innocent or not. The detectives working the case, the entire police force… they were dead set on it being him.”
I know…
“You could’ve been free of him. With no risk to you.”
I know this too.
Teeth snapping shut, I stare hard at Quentin for a long, measured beat. Then—
“Maybe I’m not done playing with him yet.”
Quentin’s brows spike in shock.
“Maybe I want him to suffer a little bit more.” My mouth curves into a cruel, icy smile. “Like you said, he’s more than willing to take it. I’m just giving us what we both want. What we need.”
Quentin’s face hardens, and he lifts his chin a bit. “Vale…” he says warningly.
“I’m done with this conversation,” I say flatly, and open the car door. Slamming it behind me. The mechanism for the garage door kicks on, just as I heard Quentin do the same.
I get three steps toward the door to the mudroom, when his next words halt me in my tracks.
“You can’t rewrite the past.”
Not looking back at him, I say, “You think I don’t fucking know that?”
“For as much as you wanted him to pay back then,” he goes on, his steps slow as they approach me, “be it consciously or unconsciously at the time…I can’t help but think some part of you missed him. Your friend. The boy who was like a brother too.”
The garage door seals shut, but not before letting a breeze slip through. One that washes over me, bringing a prickly chill to the back of my neck. At my side, my fingers curl into tight, white-knuckled fists.
“He was never my fucking brother,” I all but growl.
Quentin tips his head in acknowledgment.
“What I’m saying is, I can’t fault you for trying to get rid of all the good memories, just to make hating him feel more warranted.
” He pauses meaningfully. “But you know as well as I do, that revisiting the scene of a crime never works out for anyone who has something to hide.”
Walking around me, he lifts his hand as if to touch my shoulder—give it a squeeze—but hesitates, letting it hover in the air for a second, before coming to some decision and dropping it.
Smart man.
“You’re playing with fire, Vale. You both are.
And I know you know that, which is why I can’t help but wonder if there are some truths you’ve also been hiding from yourself.
Ones you still might not be ready to face.
” He pauses a beat. “Ones that, I can honestly say I fear might not be worth the risk of ever embracing. For either of you. Because if you continue down this path…”
Pushing open the door to inside, he flips on the overhead light, letting his words trail off, their meaning hanging unspoken.
If I continue down this path, I will have no choice but to confront it all. Not only me, but Aston…
“I’m not…capable of missing him,” I say in a strained, harsh voice to Quentin’s retreating back. “Of what you’re implying.”
Pausing mid-step, just past the threshold, he turns to look over his shoulder, giving me a small smile. It’s one I hate—sad and pitying, accompanied by tightened eyes.
If I hadn’t spent several years meticulously gathering control of the only emotion that I’ve ever been truly able to experience—anger—or blew off a hell of a lot of steam earlier tonight… I have no doubt Quentin would be walking away from this conversation with a broken nose.
Or worse.
And I wouldn’t feel a lick of shame or remorse for it.
“I think you’re not as incapable as you’d like to believe.
Which is why I feel so torn here. Even people like you experience longing.
Joy. Relief. Maybe not in the way most people experience it.
Maybe not always for the right reasons. Maybe not in a way you can articulate it. But you are not empty, Vale.”
And because he can’t just end it there, he leaves me with one final parting jab. One that has me turning around, digging my keys out, and heading for my Audi instead of following him into the house.
“You’ve just been empty of someone like Aston. Someone who has the key to unlock just a little bit of humanity from wherever it’s hid dormant inside you. I just hope you can handle it. For all our sake.”