Letting Go (Thatch 1)

Graham and I were silent for the next twenty minutes as I continued to pack, and he lay there still as stone. When I was done, I sat down on the bed next to him with an exhausted sigh and eyed all my packed things warily. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to moving all of it by myself, and I didn’t think it would be a good idea to ask Jagger to come help me when everyone was still in a mood over the fact that I was leaving.

“There has to be something wrong with him,” Graham mumbled, and I looked over my shoulder to give him a questioning look. “Jagger. There has to be something that isn’t perfect about him.”

I laughed awkwardly. “Uh . . .”

“He took care of you after Ben with no questions asked. He never said anything to you about the way he felt until you accidentally found out. He brought you back here. He’s there in a second when anything bad happens. He just seems too perfect. There has to be something.”

“You left out that he pretty much raised his sister.” Graham shot me a glare and I smiled back. “Jagger’s still Jagger,” I began, and turned so I could see Graham while I talked to him. “He’s not perfect; granted, he’s changed a lot in the last few years because of what happened to Ben, but he’s still the guy who always got us in trouble when we were growing up. He’s the reckless one, and the one who wants to have fun; but Ben changed all of us. And what happened made Jagger push the crazy side of himself back, and the protective side to the forefront. You can’t really use that against him, though.”

“No, I can’t,” Graham agreed. “I still say there has to be something.”

I groaned in annoyance and hit his arm. “If you want something on him, then you already know what it is. The best thing about him is also his biggest flaw. His need to protect everyone from everything is one of the things I love most, but also something that can drive me crazy because there are some things that are out of everyone’s control, and he’ll still try to take it all on himself.”

“Wonderful. Way to confirm his sainthood.”

“Don’t be a dick,” I said in a huff.

My mind instantly went to Jagger’s mom, and the guilt I’d been struggling with ever since I’d seen her came back to twist at my stomach. I’d told Jagger he couldn’t protect me from everything, and I was doing the exact same thing. Well, I was protecting him from one thing . . . one thing that—as the days passed—felt like it was consuming my world and mind.

“Hey, Graham, I have a question.”

His eyes drifted back to me, both eyebrows rising to show he was waiting.

“So, hypothetically—”

“Don’t start anything with that,” he said quickly, cutting me off.

“What?”

“When people start off a question with a hypothetical scenario, that just means it’s actually happening and they’re trying to act like it isn’t.”

“Well, maybe I’m trying to act like it isn’t,” I shot back, and he waved his hand out in front of him.

“Then continue.”

“Hypothetically, if you know that someone close to someone you’re close with is having trouble with some things in life—”

“I’m already confused,” Graham cut in, and I sighed heavily.

“I’m confusing myself too. Okay, let’s try this again. Let’s say that Knox’s older sister came to you because she was struggling. Like she lost her job, and her boyfriend stole absolutely everything from—”

“She’s gay.”

“Really? I didn’t know that. Well, fine, her girlfriend. And stop cutting me off! So her girlfriend stole everything from her and then took off. But you know that Knox hates her girlfriend and is always fighting with her. So his sister comes to you because she needs money, and she’s afraid if Knox finds out he’ll give up everything he has to help her or get himself thrown in prison by going after the ex-girlfriend.”

“Knox would never do anything to a girl, and he doesn’t have much to give up.”

“Graham!”

He sent me a teasing smile. “I’m kidding! I was just trying to piss you off. But he really wouldn’t do anything like that to a girl.”

“Anyway! So if all this happened, would you help her and keep it from Knox because you’d think he’d do exactly what she’s afraid of?”

Graham sat up and looked at me for a while like he was trying to figure out whether he should answer honestly, or go back to trying to find out what was really going on with the “hypothetical” situation. Then he exhaled heavily and shrugged. “I have no idea. If that shit actually happened to his sister, I’d tell him because he deserves to know.”

“What if this was kind of a repetitive thing for her? Like she always finds girlfriends that end up stealing from her and leaving her with nothing.”

“Then she’d deserve it because she’s too stupid to realize she deserves better than those type of girls. I wouldn’t give her money. You can feel sorry for a woman if she happens to get involved with an asshole. If she repeatedly gets involved with them, then it’s her fault.”