Chapter 7 The Worst Night of My Life
I ached for him. Knowing how he felt for me, witnessing my brother dragging him away.
Every fiber of my being had screamed for me to go to him.
To wrap him up in my arms and tell him he was safe.
But if I did that, if I gave into those urges, Trevor would kill him.
The hate in his eyes when he’d told me what he’d done to Kent—what he would do to him again—I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that much rage in one person.
I tried to reconcile it with God. For the last three days I’d done little more than that.
The door opened, and I didn’t even have to turn around to know it was him. A chill ran down my spine as his footsteps approached from behind me.
You can do this.
It took everything in me not to launch out of my chair and wrap him up in my arms.
You have to do this.
His chair groaned its displeasure when he sat down. I waited to hear the wheels sliding against the floor tiles, but they didn’t. The dividers between our desks were like a shield, warding off the hurt his beautiful face would shoot through me.
The longer we sat silently, his eyes boring into me from behind and invading my senses, the heavier my heart weighed in my chest. I wanted him to turn around.
I needed him to let this go. If Trevor did like he said and showed up to check up on me, he would kill him.
Maybe not right then and there, but soon.
I wanted to look at Kent so badly, tell him I was still there, that I still loved him with everything I had in me, but that wasn’t worth his life.
This would hurt him, but he’d be better off in the long run.
Kent Fox was the love of my life, and if breaking his heart meant that he would still have a heart to break when all of this was said and done, it would be worth it.
His hurt. My hurt. All of our hurt combined. None of it was worth dying over.
I’d die a death of sorts, though. The death of possibility.
The death of a life filled with purpose.
I’d go on to marry a girl I could never truly love, and Kent would go on without me.
He would go on to live a big, beautiful life full of love and sass and passion.
He could be open and honest about his sexuality in a way I never could.
It would be a life he could be proud of.
It just couldn’t be with me.
I could never have that. Trevor had made sure I knew as much when he came back that night.
“Gray,” his voice hitched, cracking and shattering all over as he spoke. “Two-liter, please…”
What was I supposed to say to that? How the heck was I supposed to respond?
I couldn’t tell him he meant nothing to me, because those words…
Those nasty, awful, terrible words would break us both.
My only option was avoidance. The sooner I broke his heart, the sooner he could heal it, and Kent Fox deserved to be whole.
He deserved everything. He was everything.
I couldn’t sit next to him and listen to him hurting, knowing I was the reason for it.
He would hate me for it. He’d probably never forgive me for abandoning him when he needed me the most, but I’d made a promise.
To Trevor and to God. Psalm 51 said the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.
Is this what he meant? A broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
My heart was both. Broken, like the shattered dreams that fell like tears around me.
Contrite, full of remorse; not for sin, but for breaking a man who didn’t deserve to be broken.
To protect his heart, I had to sacrifice my own. I owed him that much.
I grabbed my workbooks and the cup with my pens and pencils. The picture of Kent and me after Momma and I gave him Abe was pinned to the desk. Another relic of the love story that never got the chance to be told. I took it down and shoved it in my pocket.
I love you.
“Gray?”
I’d never questioned God before, but sitting there—with Kent so close I could have reached out and touched him—I didn’t know what type of a God would put someone through that much pain. And for what? Because a book spread hate when it was meant to inspire love?
God and I weren’t on speaking terms at the moment.
“Baby, please. Just look at me.” Kent grabbed my wrist as I walked past, his touch like tiny twinges of electricity shooting through my bloodstream.
I couldn’t. He had to know that. He’d seen Trevor’s rage firsthand.
Don’t hate me.
I shrugged his hand off of me without looking back at him and walked across the room to Sister Thorpe’s desk. I peeked over my shoulder, needing to see him. Needing to bear witness to the damage left in my wake.
Kent was turned around in his seat, facing the front of his cubicle. I watched him longer than I should have—longer than I had any right to.
Don’t forget me.
“Gray? Sugar, did you need something?” Sister Thorpe’s voice was meek; quiet, calm, and full of care. She stared at my face like she was studying scripture, reaching each line and trying to uncover its teachings.
“Sweetie, what’s wrong?” She reached for me, taking my hand and squeezing gently.
I shook my head, and then I shook her hand away.
“Are you feeling sick? Your skin’s whiter than snow.
” She stood up and walked around her desk toward me.
Behind me, classmates chuckled at each other’s jokes.
Guys talked about the girls they wanted to ask out.
Girls talked about what they would wear to Sunday service.
Everyone’s life went on like this was a normal day.
Like the very fabric of reality hadn’t been shattered around me two nights before.
Like God wasn’t a monster that got off on bending us until we broke.
“He’s fine,” Tommy said. My entire body tensed. I hadn’t even heard him come in. “He was going to ask if it’s okay if he moves to the desk next to mine. I already talked to Kyle, he said he’d switch seats with Gray if you’d let him.”
I jerked my head toward Tommy and gaped at him. That wasn’t part of the plan. Kent had already suffered enough. He didn’t need his attacker sitting next to him every day. I turned back toward the classroom, searching out for someone. For anyone.
Her eyes met mine, and I could finally breathe again.
Kate stood up and walked toward us, her eyes never leaving mine. When she reached me, she grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door. I didn’t look back at Tommy. I already knew that he was glaring at me with threats and revulsion in his eyes.
“We’ll be back in a second, I just need to talk to Gray really quick, Sister Thorpe.”
Sister Thorpe eyes me curiously, and there was a knowingness in her gaze. I didn’t know how much she’d caught on to, but it must have been enough to know I needed this.
“Take your seat, Tommy. You’ve got two weeks’ worth of work left in your science book. Get started on that, and we’ll talk about the desk situation when they get back.”
Kate didn’t wait long enough for Tommy to respond, she just pulled me out of the classroom, down the hallway, and into the breakroom.
I thought we were going to stop there, but she kept walking until we were out the door and in the backyard.
We walked to the swing set, and she sat in the one on the left before motioning for me to join her.
I obliged, my knees popping as I lowered myself into the chair.
They’d been doing that a lot since Saturday night.
During the madness, someone must have kicked them, because they’ve been aching something awful ever since.
When I’d told Momma I was worried I’d sprained them somehow, she just looked at me like I was stupid.
She’d done that a few times since Sunday morning.
I knew Trevor hadn’t told her anything, but the looks she’d given me through church, up until bedtime, there was a knowingness in her eyes, just like Sister Thorpe.
I worried maybe God had come to each of them.
Told them all the horrible, blasphemous things I’d said to him while I waited for Trevor to come back home.
“Gray?” Kate practically shouted at me.
I startled. “What?”
“I’ve been saying your name for a minute straight.
What the heck is going on? You look like death warmed over.
” I couldn’t look at her. If I would have just let them keep on dating, if I hadn’t made Kent break up with her and come back to my bedroom, I’d be sitting beside him right then, not a single care in the world.
“Something’s going on. Kent’s face is all banged up and you look like someone just killed your dog. ”
I bit my lip to keep myself from crying.
“Listen,” she said, “I know we’ve never been that close, but I can tell something’s wrong. If you want to talk about it, I’m here. Just me and you, no one else has to know.”
“I can’t,” I choked out. I could feel the walls I’d built up around my heart starting to crumble, and I knew one wrong word would send them falling to the ground, leaving a dusty haze of broken-hearted admissions.
Words I could never unsay. She and Kent had been together…
intimately. She must have felt something for him.
Must have liked him enough to jerk him off at the lake.
I didn’t want her going back in and telling everyone.
That would be adding insult to injury to my beautiful Half-pint, and I couldn’t hurt him anymore.
She nodded. “Okay. I won’t pry.” She held her hand out, and I turned and balked at her.
I’d been nothing but nasty to her, and there she was, trying to ease my hurt as much as she could.
I didn’t deserve it. Not after the nasty, horrible things I’d said about her.
Not after forcing Kent to hurt her heart, even if mine had been hurt just as hard.