I cleaned up the floor while Daniel slumped against the wall. I’d been out of the puke zone, but Daniel hadn’t been so lucky. I found him a mostly clean T-shirt in the laundry room and turned away when he changed. I didn’t need to see his scars again. I couldn’t imagine the harsh lights in his kitchen making them look any better. But just the reminder of them was enough to douse my burst of anger.
I stood still and held my breath. Daniel was leaning back on the counter, discarded fast-food bags littered on either side of him. I felt something twist inside me, looking at him. He was worse than alone. The only “friend” he had—that I knew of—had just dumped him in the street. He truly had no one.
He didn’t meet my eye when I took the balled-up dirty shirt from him and rinsed it in the sink. When I turned back, Daniel had a bottle of whiskey pressed to his lips.
“Stop.” I moved slowly, reaching my hand up to take it. “Seriously. You need to stop.”
He didn’t. He eyed me and tipped the bottle back farther, his throat working with each swallow, before setting it down a little too hard. “Had to get the taste out of my mouth.”
I caught a whiff of the liquor and didn’t know which must have tasted worse. I said nothing, but I filled a glass of water and held it out to him.
Daniel drained the water in one long swallow; then, using the wall for balance, he made his way to the couch in the living room.
“Why?” I wasn’t going to ask him outside, but he finally seemed alert enough to answer, and I needed to know how responsible to feel, since I’d been the one who forced him to relive the nightmare he was trying to leave behind. “And that guy?”
Daniel kept staring at the empty glass.
I followed him to the living room and wrapped my hand around the glass. He didn’t let go when I tugged. “Do you want more? You have to let go first.”
“John, his name is John…or Jake.” Daniel relinquished the glass, letting me refill it at the sink. “I met him a couple times playing pool. He was doing me a favor. He could’ve let me drive.”
“Yeah, he’s obviously a great guy.” I offered Daniel the water, but he ignored it, so I set it on the floor. “Hey, maybe next time he can just slow down and push you out of his car. Save him the time of having to fully stop.”
Daniel leaned back into the couch and flung his arm over his face. “Don’t give me a hard time, okay?”
“Hard time? I just spent the whole day defending you to my best friend. I carried you in here and I just cleaned up your puke. What kind of time should I be giving you?”
“I don’t know, Jill. Just leave me alone, okay? I’m sure it’s way past your bedtime.”
I stood for a second nodding at him. The past week had done a number on me. I stopped thinking clearly on multiple levels. I’d been starting to forget all the very legitimate reasons to keep my distance from Daniel. The facts hadn’t changed. He was too old. I was too young. Only very bad things were promised to us. He may have stopped caring for those few moments last night, but I couldn’t, no matter how bad I felt for him.
And maybe that was all I felt for him. Pity. It was certainly the only emotion I could muster up in that moment. Or at least, it was the only useful one.
My skin hurt, my heart hurt, and I could still smell the acidic hint of vomit in the air underneath the cleaner I had used.
I had zero—zero—reason to stay there.
“I’ll see you around, Daniel.”
I hadn’t taken a step when I felt his hand wrap around my arm.
CHAPTER 23
“Jill. Wait.”
Daniel’s grip wasn’t hard. It wasn’t even so much that he grabbed my arm as placed his hand on me. I could have pulled away and left. He couldn’t have followed me in his condition.
“I didn’t mean that.” Daniel’s stare was making me mildly uncomfortable and I got the sense that he wasn’t talking to me when he said, “Why are you only sixteen?”
I drew closer to the couch so that he had to look up at me. He still held my arm and I felt each one of his fingers. “What am I supposed to say to that? This—” I gestured between the two of us “—wasn’t my fault. I wish you’d stop treating me like it was.”
His hand pulled me a step closer. Then two. I could smell cigarette smoke clinging to him, but underneath it was the familiar bite of citrus from whatever he wore. The mix was souring my already uneasy stomach.
“Sometimes I think about what it might be like if you were older. I move here, meet you, and you’re twenty-one. Even eighteen. We could just get in a car and drive.” Then his eyes lost their focus for a moment. “I don’t know how much longer I can stay,” he said. “But if I go, she’ll go back. And she’ll wait, and wait, and wait however long it takes.” Daniel’s breathing was slow and steady and for a moment it was like he wasn’t drunk at all.
“The first time he hit her really hard.” Daniel dragged his hand up to his temple, tracing along smooth skin. “She stopped being able to see the color green. He knocked it right out of her head.” Daniel’s hand lowered. “She can’t see me anymore. I try and talk to her and she screams like the sound of my voice hurts her. How? How did I get here? What did I do that was so much worse than him?” He tried to draw me closer, pulling on my arms.
“Daniel?” I said his name because the lucid moment had passed. And tears for him were already filling my eyes. “It’s not your fault. You know that.” Except he didn’t look like he knew anything. “You protected her. You’re still protecting her and she’s—” my voice cracked but I pushed out the rest of the words that we both needed to hear “—supposed to love you.”
