I’m standing around the bonfire, feeling slightly buzzed and chatting with a couple of Dad and Gan’s other fishing buddies about the season they’ve had, when suddenly—
“Hey.” I hear a gruff voice I’m all too familiar with, grunt behind me.
“Gordy,” I greet tersely, spinning to face him. He must have come straight from work, because he’s still wearing his Portside Pub polo shirt.
“Listen man, I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you…”
“Okay?” I ask, arching an eyebrow up.
“Can we”—he peers over my shoulder, looking oddly concerned—“talk somewhere where your boyfriend isn’t shooting eye daggers at me?”
When I look behind me, I see that Brooks does indeed look like he’s narrowing his eyes at Gordy, all while nodding along to whatever my father is yammering on about to him. I’m guessing he’s recognized theestablishment emblazoned on Gordy’s shirt and has put two-and-two together.
I turn my attention back to Gordy. “Whatever you want to say to me, you can say in front of him. He’s my partner; he’s just looking out for me.”
He looks down at his feet and nods. “I’m assuming he knows what I did to you, back in high school?”
“Yes. He knows,” I tell him.
He peers back up at me, a pained expression on his face. “That’s what I want to talk to you about. Did he tell you—”
Suddenly, I feel an arm snake around my back, and a body press in close to mine. “Everything okay here?” Brooks asks me, cutting Gordy off from whatever else he was about to ask.
“Depends on what he has to talk to me about.” I pop my chin towards Gordy.
The two give each other a look that I can’t put my finger on, like they share a secret between them. It unnerves me, this look they’re sharing. Gordy looks like he can’t believe his own eyes. Brooks looks… confused. Very,veryconfused.
It’s confusing the fuck out of me, too.
Gordy finally sighs. “Well, I guess maybe it’s better he be here for this, too. Waters, man, I want to apologize, alright? I’ve been meaning to for a while now, but every time I try, you give me the cold shoulder.”
I bark out an incredulous laugh. “Well, fuck. I can’t imagine why!”
“Listen, I know what I did was beyond fucked up on so many levels.”
“You think?” I hiss. “Not to mention, illegal.”
“Yeah, I’m well aware.” Gordy rolls his eyes. “Believe me, the shit I did haunts me every fucking day, okay? Respectfully, I don’t need you to remind me. Not that it makes it any better, but the shit Colton hasdone to the bar isalsoillegal, and I’ve let it go, because you did the same for me. You never brought up charges against me after what I did to you, back in the day. You had every right to take legal action. I know that now, and yet you didn’t.”
“Because I was goddamn petrified,” I seethe. “Not because I didn’t think you needed to pay for what you did. For years,decades, what you did to me damaged me. Do you get that, Gordy? Do you even haveanyidea what it’s like to live with that? To live with battle scars from being hurt so badly?”
Brooks presses his palm against my chest, backing me up from where I’ve puffed up and have my fists balled at my sides. “Evan, please don’t hurt him…”
Why the fuck not? Now’s my chance to actually stick up for myself against him, the way I should have back then. Why the fuck shouldn’t I cold clock him right the fuck now?
As I glare at Gordy, I see his expression grow distant. Like he shifted, and he’s no longer present in this argument with me. His jaw hardens as he stares off vacantly, like he’s waiting for the hit.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,” Gordy finally says, his voice laced with gravel, his watery eyes snapping back to mine. “That’s why I needed that fuckin’ scholarship so badly that I stooped to that level. I needed to get the fuck out of that house. I was willing to do literally fuckinganything, Evan. I know I hurt you, because you were an easy target. It’s a shit excuse, but it’s all I have. I live with the guilt every goddamn day.”
“What the fuck isthatsupposed to mean?”
Gordy’s eyes flick up to Brooks, and shame floods his features. His lower lip trembles. “Youknow…”
Brooks’ lips thin into a flat line, as he rolls them between his teeth. My brows furrow. What the hell is going on here?
Suddenly, I have a flashback to the last conversation I had with Gordy at the pub. There was something he said that had struck me as odd at the time, but then I glossed over it, because I was more concerned with finding out what he meant about Colton and the vandalism.
Gordy had said something like,“Kid doesn’t even know half the shit I had to go through as punishment, when I was his age.”
