“And I,” Thomas said as the twilight painted his eyes black, “am a person of interest.”
Andrew stared. “Wh-what? Why?”
Thomas shrugged and tossed his sketchbook onto the wall. He hauled himself up and sat there, drumming his heels. “They tested the blood and confirmed it’s from two people. They said at least one person could not have walked out after losing that much.” His voice sounded flat. “You know how my house is at the end of a cul-de-sac? Well, nosy people can see into the front rooms. Some neighbor heard… screaming. Saw us arguing. And saw me…” He kicked the wall hard then. “Saw me with, and I quote, ‘a knife.’ But there’s no hard proof. It’s my word against his.”
Andrew’s stomach had cramped so tight it took effort to push words out. “Then what really happened?”
“Nothing. Regular family argument. Then I left for… I left for school.”
He couldn’t look at Andrew.
Lying.
He waslying.
Thomas’s shoulders hunched forward and he rocked himself before hitting the wall with an open palm. Once, twice. Vicious.
Andrew thought of the scars Thomas hid, the brutal stories he delivered like jokes, the way it took nothing to convince him to drink, how distrust caged his heart, how once he’d said all parents slap their kids around sometimes. Andrew had said no they didn’t. Thomas had looked genuinely surprised, and it had gutted Andrew.
Thomas’s parents had a lot to answer for.
A strange calm unspooled over Andrew. He let out a breath, long and slow.
“I don’t care, you know,” he said. “If you did.”
Thomas went still.
Time slowed, rusty gears caught and shuddering. Andrew’s words suddenly felt wrong in the air.
Thomas’s voice came so low it shook. “What the fuck did you just say?”
Andrew’s feet had grown into the path, his heart turned to petrified wood in his chest.
Thomas slid slowly off the wall. “You know me the best of anyone. But you think… you think the same as they do? You think I’m amurderer?” The last word came out in a hissed rage so poisonous it could rot bones.
Andrew had no words inside him.
“Do you think I murdered my parents and buried them in the backyard? Because”—Thomas jabbed a finger toward the school—“that’s whattheythink. They’ve got less than nothing to accuse me with and no evidence, but that’s still what they think.”
There had been blood on his shirt that first day of school. And no wound.
“I’m sorry,” Andrew whispered.
“Take it back if you’re sorry.” Thomas snatched his sketchbook and stood there with anger radiating from him. Even in the dark, he flushed red to the tips of his ears. He did that when he was embarrassed. Or furious.
But mostly when he lied.
The air had been empty between them for too long. Andrew hadn’t rushed to fill it because he’d meant what he’d said, and he didn’t think he’d spoken wrong. He’d only meant to reassure.
He reached out a hand, uselessly.
Thomas jerked away. “This is why I can’t talk to you about anything real. It either freaks you out so you turn into a goddamn mess, or you respond in the most screwed-up way possible.”
It hit like a punch. This wasn’t happening. This didn’t happen. They didn’t fight.
Make it stop.
It had to stop.
