His eye twitched. “I fucked up,” he says. “Went to rehab too.”
I was well aware, since my mother drove him there. I took Kelsey and Easton to Amelia Island for those two weeks, and it didn’t do a bit of fucking good. He was drinking again within a month.
He rose and leaned against the porch railing. “I can still be concerned, whether I fucked up or not. So I want to know what your plan is. Your mom is sick, so you ain’t leaving Oak Bluff. I know that much.”
I froze. My mom’s illness was supposed to be an incredibly well-kept secret, but if Bud Walsh knew, someone was talking. Or maybe, as rare as it was for her to leave the house, people had figured it out on their own.Fuck.“You didn’t tell Easton, did you?”
He scowled at me, as if I were the biggest moron if he’d ever met. “Of course I didn’t fucking tell Easton. You think she needs one more reason to come back here?”
I was done. I wasn’t listening to Bud Walsh act as ifIwas the problem and he was Easton’s protector. The asshole hadn’t looked out for her once.
I walked inside, heading toward the kitchen. He could follow if he wanted, or better yet, he could go fuck himself. He followed, unfortunately.
I started the kettle while he slumped at the table, uninvited.
“I have no idea why you’re here, Bud,” I said. He’d be my father-in-law someday. It was the only reason I hadn’t locked him out.
“Because you haven’t thought this through, and there’s some shit you don’t know. You’re thinking you guys will take turns, right? She’ll come see you, you’ll go see her. Except youknowher. She’ll be coming down here all the time because your mom is sick—weekends she won’t have to spare, but she’ll give them up anyhow.”
I sank into the chair across from his, the coffee forgotten. With all the bullshit I’d heard come out of Bud Walsh’s mouth, why did it have to benowthat he was making sense?
“I’ll figure something out,” I said with a sigh. He was probably right, but I couldn’t give her up. I’d waited too fucking long for this.
He shook his head. “Here’s an interesting story for you, Elijah. Remember that house that caught fire when you were akid? He was a classmate of Sean’s, I think, just a few streets over. Tucker. They moved away.”
I frowned at him. “Yeah, what about it?”
“Easton set that fire.”
I froze, and then relaxed. I was young when that had happened. Easton wouldn’t even have known how to light a match. “Bullshit.”
But there was only fatigue in his eyes, as if this story had worn on him, had exhausted him until there was nothing left. “I had no idea, back in the day. I suspected it was Kevin and Sean. Everyone did. Sean told me the truth a few years ago. Thought it was funny. They told Easton to light that fire. She was eight years old. They told her to throw a match when no one was around and they ran like hell.”
I didn’t buy it. Sure, Easton had been a wild little kid, and she’d done dangerous stuff, but I’d never seen her want to hurt anyone. I’d never seen her inflict damage. “Why the fuck would she do that?”
“For the same reason she’s always done stuff for Sean and Kevin. Because they said they’d get in trouble if it didn’t happen. She thought she was protecting them. They’ve sent her to talk to dealers they owe money to. Remember that broken wrist she got in high school? She told everyone she fell off a skateboard when actually Kevin broke it because she wouldn’t make a drop for them.”
My stomach sank. I’d tried to protect her for so many years. I thought I had been, and I’d missed so much. I hated myself, and I hated them more. “Why are you telling me this?” I asked hoarsely.
He sighed and buried his forehead in his hands. “Last night, Sean and a friend of his robbed a convenience store near Sumpter. Kid behind the counter fired, and they fired back. I’ve got no idea if that kid is going to live or die, but Sean took a bulletto the shoulder and Blaze took a bullet to the leg, and Easton sewed them up.” His eyes shut, as if the admission pained him. “They made her an accomplice.”
Jesus Christ. I should have made her stay with me after the party. “She could have told me. That doesn’t change anything.”
Bud shook his head. “You still don’t get it, do you? Easton might not go to jail for it, if she had a good lawyer, but she’d definitely get kicked out of med school. And do you think that’s the last time the boys are gonna drag her into their bullshit? They’ve been dragging her into it since she was small. I wanted her to leave when her mom did, and she wouldn’t. Want to guess why?”
I hung my head. I knew why she stayed. And maybe it wasn’t simply for me. Maybe it was for my mom and Kelsey too, but I was a part of it. Jesus Christ. What else had she done over the last eight years to keep her brothers out of trouble? How close had she come to getting caught, or worse?
“The more she’s here, the more they’re going to ask of her,” he says. “And I might have been a piece of shit father, but I still love her enough to try to make sure she’s not around to ask.”
He was the worst father imaginable, but he loved her enough to be selfless, to send her away, while I hadn’t done the same. Even if I hadn’t known the shit about her brothers, I’d known how it would wind up—with her doing most of the traveling, her squeezing in trips while she was trying to complete her residency, her giving things up.
I used to think that Easton might have been the reason I didn’t go up in that plane with my dad. She’s more likely to change the world than anyone I know, and perhaps I was put here to protect her. Instead, I was doing the opposite.
With my mom needing so much help, the only way we could have a real life together—same house, marriage, kids—was if she came here.
And the only way I could protect her now was to make sure she didn’t.
38
