“I told him I should have been there.” She forces my gaze to hers and brings me much too close to the genuine anguish bleeding from her. Her eyes are so wide that I can count the bloodshot veins.
“Told who—Jason? When did you talk to Jason?” But she can’t hear me over the words and tears choking her.
“I should have been there. I could have stopped him, stopped everything. I should have—I should have—”
I have to pry her hands from my arms to get away, staggering back a few steps when I finally break free. She sags against her car, the only thing keeping her from crumbling to the asphalt. “He said someone else was there. It had to be you, it had to,” I say before sucking in a choppy breath. “Please, just tell me what happened. They were fighting but something more must have happened, something to make Jason...”
Her mouth continues to gape open and closed, but only sobs come out.
“He won’t tell me or anyone, but I know he’s trying to protect you. Maybe there was an accident and maybe he didn’t mean to hurt Cal and maybe—”
“No,” she says, and it’s like a million blades slicing up my heart. “He meant to kill him, I know he did. I should have been there. I should—”
“I don’t believe you,” I whisper in a voice just barely louder than her crying. I move farther away from Allison, and her tears seem to increase with every backward step I take. I believe her tears, I even believe her regret, but I don’t believe anything else.
“I loved him,” she whispers, not even to me. “I did. I loved him so much. Tell him—” But she can’t get any more words out, and I wouldn’t ferry them to my brother if she could. She should have been the one telling him she loved him, she should have showed him from the beginning, but she didn’t.
It’s only when I’m back in my own car, trying for the third time to put the key in the ignition, that I realize my own cheeks are streaked with tears.
CHAPTER 35
The drive home seems much longer. I replay the scene with Allison over and over and I feel just as empty when I get back to Telford. It has to have been Allison who was there, it has to. But if she won’t talk to me either... I don’t know what to do, and fortunately—or unfortunately—I don’t have the luxury or torment of time to spend trying to decide.
I’m a few minutes late for my shift—a first in all the time I’ve been working at Polar Ice Rink, but Jeff acts like I’m strolling up after a week of dereliction. I thought I was finally starting to win him over after Maggie got hired, but now that she’s quitting he’s worse than ever. I haven’t been able to do a single thing right all day, and he’s been only too eager to point out my shortcomings.
The sparkling clean toilet bowls aren’t as clean as they usually are.
“I’ll clean them again.”
The spotlessly scrubbed floors aren’t as pristine as when the tiles were laid. Ten years ago.
“I’ll scrub them again.”
I missed a gum wrapper stuck to one of the trash cans I emptied.
“I’ll go back and get it.”
I don’t give him any attitude. I don’t give anyone anything beyond flat, emotionless responses as I trudge to the next task and the next task, all the while listening to Jeff remind me I need to care about my job enough to show up for shifts on time because, in case I’ve forgotten, I’m easily replaced. This last line is delivered as I rub my aching knees after spending a good hour kneeling to scrape crusted nacho cheese product from where it’s been sun-baking on the brick wall outside. Jeff waited until the hottest part of the day to tell me about it.
“Yes, sir,” I say. I should be snarling, at least inwardly, but I feel lost and the kind of bone-deep sorrow for my brother that makes just standing exhausting. Outside, the bricks are still warm from the sun I usually complain about beating down on my skin, the same sun that he gets to feel for only an hour a day in the prison yard. My tears feel closer to the surface than ever. Seeing my too shiny eyes, Jeff finally gives me a moment’s peace and goes back inside.
I gather my trash and the discarded nacho cartons from the ground and throw them all in the Dumpster. I can tell I’m not alone even before I turn back. I’m expecting to see Jeff stalking back having found yet more fault with my work thus far that day.
I’m not expecting Maggie.
She looks half-surprised herself to be standing there. She’s not scheduled to work that day; I know because it was the first thing I checked after Jeff finished initially berating me about being two minutes late. She knows I’m working though, and even if she somehow forgot and was stopping by to grab her paycheck or something, she could have easily come and gone without me knowing.
That’s when I notice the black, padded camera bag slung over her shoulder. She watches me take in the bag and lets confusion ripple over my face before she speaks.
“This isn’t me forgiving you or saying I’m over what you did. I don’t and I’m not. I made a promise,” she says, shifting the bag in front of her and checking one of the compartments. “And so did you.” There’s an unmistakable challenge in the lift of her chin, like she’s daring me to back out.
Like Jeff, she’s close enough to see my eyes, but unlike Jeff, she doesn’t let my barely checked emotions send her scurrying away. If anything, her chin lifts higher.
Mine trembles. I did have that split-second hope that she’s here because she forgives me, or at least because she’s willing to talk. That hope crashes to the ground, barely limping. “You don’t have to film anything. I’m not auditioning.”
“I already promised Jeff we would close so he could leave early, since I’m sure he has a date.”
I almost want to smile at how neatly Maggie backed him into a corner. “I’m still not auditioning.”
