“That’s not really the point now,isit?”
“Okay, so I take it that youreadthem.”
She nodded, a guilty pout puckeringherlips.
I would have liked to lambast her for snooping into Jake’s personal property, but I was too anxious for an answer to the Glen questiontowait.
“This one notebook was pretty old and worn, like he’d spent a lot of time working in it. The writing was dark and chilling; not the stuff he sings up on stage nowadays. I knew immediately these were his private thoughts about thekidnapping.”
“And you didn’t shut the notebook and put it back? You know damn well he wouldn’t want youreadingit.”
“I couldn’t help myself. I’m not proud of what I did, but now I’ve read things that I can’t unread. This one song was about Jake watching something bad happen to someone else. He didn’t go into specifics. It was more his own feelings about what happened. At first I thought it might have been written about Ray, but then it became clear that Jake seemed to care about whoever this person was. Here’s where you come in… at the end of the song was a note in his handwriting that said, ‘Never should have told EmmaaboutGlen.’”
Yes, heshouldhave.
Suddenly I was burning up, my cheeks hot and flushed. Upon seeing my horrified expression, Casey sat back, looking somewhat stunned herself. “Jesus, Emma, what happened to Glen? Who was hetoJake?”
Everything.
I hadn’t realized tears were rolling down my cheeks until Casey dabbed them with anapkin.
“Oh, god, I didn’t mean toupsetyou.”
My sudden waterworks weren’t about being hurt, they were about getting caught with a secret and feeling as though I’d been the one who’d blabbed it. Rest assured, my loyalty was absolute. I’d held his truths in silence all these years. In fact, up until just now, I wasn’t even sure Jake remembered telling me about Glen, as we’d never discussed it since. He’d been in a terrible state of mind, ready to end it all. That secret needed to come out, and even though it broke my heart, I listened. I like to think I absorbed some of the pain for him… so that he could go onliving.
“Jake’s secrets have never been mine to tell,”Isaid.
“Iknowthat.”
“And” – my voice was suddenly weary with exhaustion – “if you think I’m going to betray his trust, you don’t know meverywell.”
“What I think is that Jake is lucky to have you… totalkto.”
“He doesn’t talk to me, Casey. Not like you think he does. When we were younger, there was an… incident, and I basically blackmailed him into talking. We’ve never discussed the kidnapping since. If you really want to know, bring the notebook to him and ask. But I’m warning you, be prepared for theanswer.”
“I don’t think this is the right time to push him. Something spooked him into quitting therapy, and all I want is to get him back on track. That’s why I asked you to meet me today. I need your help – to help him. But for that to happen, you and I have to be friends… allies. We have to trust each other. So I’ll ask again. Why don’t you date,forreal?”
My eyes narrowed in on my future sister-in-law. At this moment I both hated and admired her. She had me over a barrel because she knew I would do anything for my family, especially Jake, even if it meant revealing why I was determined to go through life a lonelyoldhag.
“Because, Casey…” I said, coldly, “If I meet a man and fall in love, he will want kids, and I refuse to bring a child into this world if I can’t protect it. There! Are youhappynow?”
3
Finn: HeadFirst
Iwas a toilet baby.You know the ones. You read about them in the news ever so often, those innocent little faces looking up at the camera in bewilderment as if to say, “Um, hello people… what the fuck just happened here?” If a picture had existed of me at that fateful moment, I’d like to think I displayed a little more attitude – maybe even flashing the middle finger salute or something equally as badass – but I’m sure I was just as confused as all the other newborn commode divers who’d comebeforeme.
Logic would dictate that since I’d started my life dropping head first into the porcelain throne, there really would be nowhere to go but up… but then, you wouldn’t know my family. My mother, Shelby, who was sixteen years old at the time of my unconventional birth, had kept my existence a guarded secret until I accidentally tumbled out of her vagina on a quick pee break during her shift at Hot Dog on a Stick. The story I’d been told, over and over my whole entire life, was that after scooping me from the murky depths and cutting the cord on the edges of a sanitary napkin bin, my mother had then shoved my naked body into her tall, striped Hotdog on a Stick hat and gone backtowork.
I wish.That would have been the mature thing to do, yet Shelby was anything but mature. Instead, my dear old ma wrapped me in a bunch of paper towels and ‘gently’ laid me in the trashcan. I loved how when she retold the story of disposing of me in the garbage bin she always emphasized the wordgently… as if that were more than enough to make up for THROWING ME THEFUCKAWAY!
Moments after she’d pissed me out of her womb and shoved me into a waste receptacle, Shelby, thinking she was so sly and all, slipped out of the bathroom and resumed her shift in the mall’s food court. It took all of two minutes for someone to find me and another ten for the surveillance cameras to identify the young girl in a clown hat who’d walked into the women’s bathroom pleasantly plump and exited all shifty-eyed and pasty-faced, leaving a trail of blood inherwake.
* * *
Ieasedmy aching body into the ice bath, performing the customary gasping for breath panic attack I always did when the frigid waters licked up my heated skin and encased my timid gooch. A volley of pornographic words tore from my mouth as I settled into my own personal arctic hell. The throbbing in my ribcage intensified for a few short, excruciating moments before mercifully going numb and giving me the first blessed relief oftheday.
It was times like this that I wondered if my neonatal toilet plunge had just been a preview of things to come. Certainly I’d spent a fair share of time picking myself up off the bathroom floor; yet for whatever reason, I was constantly surprised when things didn’t go my way. I guess you could say I was a glass half-full kind of guy, and despite what my environment and upbringing might have dictated for the future, I’d always thought more ofmyself.
