Chapter 33
Jack
The fluorescent light flickers overhead and voices echo against the white-painted walls. Bleach clings to every surface, yet nothing feels clean. Not the air. Not my hands. Not my head.
Jail is filthy, including the visiting area.
“How’s Julie’s place?”
“Good,” Noel answers. “Tommy is happy but misses you.”
I smile. “Tell him I miss him, too. Are you behaving for her?”
He nods and slouches. “I’m trying to pass my classes. It’s hard with all the news cameras and drama. I’m tired of everyone asking me about you and the case.”
“I know. Sorry. It must be a pain in the ass.”
He thumps his fist on the metal table. “It is! All over Morgan.” He shakes his head. “I... I wish I never told you about her.”
I look up from under my brow. This isn’t a conversation I want to have. Morgan possesses my thoughts enough.
I change the subject.
“How’s the center? You helpin’ after school?”
“Yeah,” he grumbles but pivots. “And Morgan didn’t apologize to you, did she? I saw her, Jack. She practically begged us to fry that gremlin. We saved her.”
I groan, because that isn’t true. I see it every night. The way Gabe screamed, the way his body jerked, the smell.
I didn’t just hurt him. I crossed into something I can’t uncross. He deserved it, but I gambled everything I had.
I lost.
That’s why I stare at Noel. Either he is still delusional, or he wants me to feel better for putting my own dumbass in jail.
I sigh and shrug. “Shouldn’t have done it. I wouldn’t be here if I just left.”
“Yeah, and if I had tits, I’d be your sister.” He gives a big impish grin, but it fades when I don’t laugh. “Seriously, this is fucked. Gabe should be in jail. Not you.”
“Do you still like Morgan?” I ask bluntly.
His eyes dart to the floor and he mutters, “Yeah.”
I should be mad that his obsession hasn’t withered, but truthfully, I feel bad for him.
The moment I laid eyes on that diamond on her finger, I stopped breathing. It was a gut-wrenching moment. What a way to kick a guy while he’s down. That’s her, though. If it’s righteous in her mind, fuck everyone else.
I bite down and tell him what I know, even if it hurts.
“She’s marrying that other preacher. Saw her engagement ring.”
“I know. She posted about it.” Noel swallows hard and takes a moment. In a low voice, he strains to add, “I would’ve preferred her with you.”
My eyebrows pop up. “Come again?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’d hate it, but Gabe called us lowlifes. Blake probably thinks the same. I thought preachers were supposed to be accepting.”
I laugh. “They’re not Jesus. They’re human.”
He rolls his eyes, but goes on. “Whatever, I don’t know why that label got to me.” His voice falters. He drums his fingertips on the table, musing. “Blake’s not right for her, ya know?”
Wrong.
“Morgan and him work,” I reply, and as if Noel was the one with an ice pick in his heart, I console him. “Sorry she didn’t pick you.”
“Thanks,” he mumbles. “So, do you talk to her in those lawyer meetings?”
“Not really.”
“You guys were all over each other at the diner, though. If you dated, isn’t that weird seeing her engaged?”
I’m about to choke myself to make this conversation end. Maybe run into a wall head-first. Anything to make it stop.
“Noel, look, I want us to move on from that woman. Brothers shouldn’t fight over a girl. We both got burned. Let’s start over. If I get out of here, I want things to go back to the way they were.”
He hesitates, as if fighting demons he doesn’t want freed.
“I guess.” His head painfully nods in agreement, like he’s maturing before my eyes. “You mean we’re both done with her, huh?”
It’s more of a statement than a question.
I’m about to say, ‘yeah, dummy,’ but I control myself.
“Brothers first. Mom and Dad would want that.”
“They would,” he whispers.
It’s a small victory in this hellhole. It’s the closest I’ve had to ending his toxic obsession with Morgan. Unfortunately, the price was me in jail.
“Maybe you should pray?” Noel says. His expression is cautious. “I pray you’ll win this case.”
“Still believe that shit? Even though I’m in here?”
He sighs and his voice drops, losing some of its flair. “Yeah, it’s dumb.”
I don’t want to be a dick and destroy his faith just because my life sucks.
“Never mind,” I mumble. “Forget it. Pray all you want.”
The guard calls and our time is over.
That night, I lie on a metal slab that passes for a bed, staring at a ceiling that never goes dark enough.
I count sounds. Keys, footsteps, men coughing through walls. I count time in headcounts and nights that bleed together. This place doesn’t care who you were outside. It slowly gnaws you down to the bone.
I think of Noel. Tommy. My parents.
And Morgan.
That’s the part that frustrates me.
Not that I miss her, but that even now, in here, she still has a way of pulling my attention. I can’t afford that anymore.
If I get out of here, I need a life that doesn’t end with handcuffs and visiting hours. I can’t be without my brothers.
Fuck, I’ll never take Tommy for granted again. I’ll never feel sorry for myself for having to care for him.
And Morgan, whether she meant to or not, belongs to the part of me that landed in this cage. The idiot who wanted to be some kind of hero. Save the girl, even though she wasn’t mine.
To this day, I still don’t understand what I was thinking.
I wasn’t.
Oil popping and the carnage of skin blistering flashes in my mind.
Cars. Think of cars.
A diamond ring sparkles.