I yank open the car door and climb in, and he leans down, peering through the open window.
Staring ahead at Madoc’s house, I smell the grill firing up and hear the music.
“I just couldn’t…accept what it became,” I tell him. “What Drew Reeves turned it into. It was a social club, you know? We found this cheap property, and there were no cops around. I thought we were going to bring in other guys who liked to snowboard in the winter and be lake bums in the summer. We’d drink and have block parties.” I meet his eyes. “Maybe network when we all settled into careers. Start businesses in the area and get the town running again. Maybe host a wet T-shirt contest to raise money for the kids or something.”
“As you do.”
I laugh. “Exactly.”
But then my face falls, remembering the fights and the blood and the looks in people’s eyes like they were sorry we ever came.
“The girls, the weapons…” I murmur. “Trafficking drugs is no less than a ten-year sentence, kid. For a first offense.”
“And murder is life.”
Yeah.
“I got in over my head,” I admit, “because I had it in my mind that Madoc had filled in as a father long enough, so I tried to make my own family, and I fucked up.”
“You only see it that way because you had something better,” he retorts.
His words make me pause, guilt creeping in over having all the privileges that others didn’t. I get what he’s saying. What he has in Green Street is worth saving to him, because to him, it is a family in some ways.
But in the end, it’s a downward spiral that leads to nowhere good. Not once. Not ever.
I steady my voice as I plainly state, “Anything else is better for you to the people who love you, Farrow.”
There’s someone who loves him and doesn’t want this for him.
I should’ve stayed. I could’ve put all of my energy into finding a way to make amends. I made the wrong choice.
I start the car. “I liked some of it, though,” I muse. “I liked feeling tall. I liked girls who wanted a college boy. I liked how dark the town got at night. Cruising the hills. Phalen’s Throat. The car graveyard.”
We did have some fun.
I grin a little. “I liked that no one I loved knew about my secret life, as if nothing was real. For a while.” I fix my eyes on him. “But it was just a fantasy.”
Everything ends, and there’s always a price.
He stares at me, and I know he’s not burdened with the same type of conscience. His father, whoever he is, is a very wealthy man who would never deny him. Farrow doesn’t have to be here, but I know why he is. I understand his loyalty.
Still, though, it’s a choice. He’s a guy with options preying on those who don’t have any. Just like Reeves.
I think he’s going to reply, but he doesn’t, and I shift the car into Reverse.
But he calls out, “It wasn’t because you were in college.”
I glance at him, seeing the twinkle in his eye.
“They like blonds,” he says.
Walking away, he stuffs his own blond head into a helmet, but I can feel the gleam in his eyes from here.
I don’t want to like him.
I wish I didn’t.
Much the same way I used to like Drew. Until I didn’t.
