Reminders of Him

“Did you have fun at Grandma NoNo’s house?”

“Yeah, we found a turtle, and NoNo let me keep it. It’s in my room in a glass thing.”

“I want to see.” I put her back down, and she grabs my hand, but before we even reach the grass, Patrick and I make eye contact.

My heart immediately sinks.

His face is hard. There’s no hello. It’s the most resigned I’ve ever seen him.

His eyes fall to Diem, and he says, “You can show him your turtle in a minute. I need to talk to Ledger.”

Diem can’t feel the tension radiating from him, which is why she skips into the house while I’m frozen at the edge of the grass Patrick has been mindlessly watering. When the front door closes, he doesn’t say anything. He just continues to water the grass, like he’s waiting for me to admit my fuckup.

I’m worried for more reasons than one. His demeanor is making it obvious something is wrong, but if I say something first, I could be off the mark. Anything could be wrong. Maybe his mother is ill, or they received bad news he doesn’t want Diem to hear.

The way he’s acting could be completely unrelated to Kenna, so I wait for him to say whatever it is that seems so hard for him to say.

He releases the nozzle and drops the water hose. He walks closer to me, and each of his deliberate steps is aligned with the pounding of my heartbeat. He stops walking about three feet from me, but my heartbeats just keep pounding. I don’t like how silent it is between us. I can tell he’s about to confront me, and Patrick is not a confrontational person. The fact that he’s not circling around what he wants to say with a Welp has me more than concerned.

Something is bothering him, and it’s serious. I attempt to alleviate the tension by casually saying, “When did you guys get back?”

“This morning,” he says. “Where were you?” He asks it like he’s my father and he’s pissed I snuck out in the middle of the night.

I don’t even know what to say. I’m searching for whatever lie would fit this moment the best, but none of them seem to fit. I can’t say I was parked in my garage, because my parents’ RV is in the way. I can’t say I was home, because obviously my truck hasn’t been here.

Patrick shakes his head. His face is filled with galaxy-size disappointment.

“He was your best friend, Ledger.”

I try to hide my inhale. I shove my hands in my pockets and look at my feet. Why is he saying this? I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what he knows. I don’t know how he knows.

“We saw your truck at her apartment this morning.” His voice is low, and he’s not looking at me. It’s like he can’t stand the person standing across from him. “I was certain it was a coincidence. That someone who has a truck just like yours lived in the building, but when I pulled up next to it to get a better look, I saw Diem’s car seat.”

“Patrick—”

“Are you sleeping with her?” His voice is monotone and flat in an unnerving way.

I reach an arm over my chest and squeeze my shoulder. My chest is so tight it feels like my lungs are in a vise grip. “I think the three of us need to sit down and talk about this.”

“Are you sleeping with her?” he repeats, much louder this time.

I run a hand down my face, frustrated that this is how it’s coming to a head. I just needed a few hours and I was going to talk to them about it. It would have been so much better that way. “We’ve all been wrong about her.” I say it unconvincingly, because I know nothing I could say right now is going to be absorbed by him. Not when he’s this angry.

He releases a half-hearted laugh, but then his face just falls into the saddest frown, and his eyebrows draw apart. “Have we? We’ve been wrong?” He takes a step closer to me, finally looking me in the eyes. His expression is full of betrayal. “Did she not leave my son to die? Did your best friend not spend his last hours on this earth alone on a deserted road barely breathing because of her?” A tear escapes, and he angrily wipes it away. He’s so angry he has to blow out a steady breath to keep from screaming at me.

“It was an accident, Patrick.” My voice is almost a whisper. “She loved Scotty. She panicked and made the wrong choice, but she paid for that choice. At what point can we stop blaming her?”

He chooses to answer that question with his fist. He punches me hard in the mouth.