I grabbed for Sean’s hand, needing to remove that fear immediately. “No. Sean, no. Nothing like that. That was—” There was no good way to sugarcoat what Daniel had done, especially when I couldn’t justify it to myself. I stuck with the bare-bones facts. “What you overheard, he didn’t mean it like that. It’s my sunburn and…he came home drunk. I helped him get inside and he kissed me. That’s all.”
I looked away, remembering the things I’d relayed to Sean about Daniel before I knew him. The arguing, that he belonged in prison, the way he destroyed the shed in his yard. But nothing about him protecting his mom or the years of abuse he’d suffered as a result. Nothing about the scars left on him inside and out.
And then I sucked in a breath. For Daniel, with the life he’d had, I knew he’d reacted on instinct from Sean’s first hit. He had to fight back, put the other guy down or he’d get put down himself. And then seeing someone have to protect me from him…
“I can’t believe he did this.” I couldn’t look at Sean’s face anymore, not when I felt responsible. “You shouldn’t have hit him. He’s not like you.” Daniel didn’t have the huge loving family Sean had. He didn’t have a father or grandfather to inspire him or show him by example and legacy what a man could be. Daniel had abuse and disdain. He had his proffered love spit on, struck down again and again until he no longer expected anything else.
I pulled my hand free and curled it into my lap. “What you did…” I sat back on my heels and looked at the blood splattered around my porch. “Sean…I cannot believe you did this.” I swallowed the rest of my words because I could believe that. He’d defended me without a second thought, had physically put himself between me and Daniel at the end even after he was beaten.
I stood and dropped down on the porch swing. The air was suddenly too thick and I felt like I was chained to two cars driving in different directions.
“I can’t believe you didn’t. Some drunk guy kisses you, hurts you, and you don’t brain him with a crowbar? What the hell, Jill? I almost lost my mind when I overheard him trying to say he was sorry.”
Daniel had looked so heartbreakingly pitiful. “You don’t understand—he was reacting to you hitting him. I don’t think he even registered what he did.”
“Then he’s a psycho.”
“He’s not.” I lifted my head. “Sean, he came over to apologize to me. You just hit some guy you don’t know, for reasons you didn’t have in the first place. I told him to stop drinking, not…anything else. He stopped the rest as soon as I pushed him off me.”
Even the swollen eye made an appearance then. “Offyou? He was on top of you?”
The heat in my voice died an instant death. The air in my lungs escaped in an audible rush remembering Daniel’s weight and the panicked surge of my heart. “I don’t want to talk about any of that with you. I left, okay? He’s never done anything like that before, and I’m never going to be in a situation again where he could. I don’t want to be put in a position where I have to defend any of that, because I can’t. I’m not going to try.”
“Hey, I hit some guy who forced himself on you then beat the hell out of me. I need you to stop defending him for two seconds.” Sean lifted his forearms and clenched his fists. “Listening to you about this guy, this—” He ground his teeth, looking for a word, and came up blank. “If your dad had been here instead of me, you’d be digging a grave right now and you know it.”
I was staring at the thick bluish veins visible in Sean’s arms, unable to contradict him. If Dad had been the one to overhear Daniel… “You don’t understand.”Iwas still trying to understand.
“You’re right, I don’t.” Sean pushed up from the ground, using the wall behind him for support. He stopped right in front of me, one blue eye pleading with his words. “So help me.”
Help him. Help Daniel. Fix them both, and me, and Dad, and Mom. Fix everything. The impossibility of any one of those tasks hit hard as I stared at the boy I used to think I’d love forever.
I shook my head. “Why did you come over tonight?” My voice was weak under the weight of all my failures. “I didn’t want you here.” And then more quietly, “Idon’twant you here.”
Sean stood in front of me, bleeding. Bleeding for me. Because he thought someone had hurt me. And he couldn’t stand that someone would hurt me.
The irony robbed me of words.
I left him there on my porch.
And as I closed the door, the only person I hated was myself.
CHAPTER 31
On Monday, my world didn’t end. I kind of thought it would.
Mom didn’t show up again.
Neither did Daniel. Neither did Sean.
Mrs. Vanderhoff called to say that Claire wasn’t allowed to resume cross-country training until she could move without crying. Apparently her sunburn was much worse than mine. I didn’t even get to talk to her.
Dad was still gone so the shop was closed.
It was just me.
I cried for a while. Then I sat for a while longer after that. When I couldn’t stand myself anymore, I got up.
The gravel in the front yard crunched as I walked across it before squatting down to uncoil the hose we almost never used, ostensibly for the plants that might have existed at some point. The hose heated in my hands as the sunbaked water expelled first. I aimed it at the porch, washing away the brownish stains that looked nothing like the blood from the night before.
