Page 164 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

“What do I do, man?” Timms turns to Hugo, almost pleading. “Haven’t I lived the virtues? Wisdom. Courage. Temperance. Justice.”

Justice. I’d laugh if this delusional man hadn’t already killed someone.

“Of course you have.” Hugo shifts his hold to my wrist so he can move closer to Timms, towing me behind him. “I just don’t want to see it end like this for you. Disgraced. Being laughed at by people you used to call brother. They’re going to remember you as the guy who got bitch-slapped by his wife and then by the courts.”

Timms is breathing hard, his chest heaving.

“We can’t stop this from happening,” Hugo says mournfully. “Unless you want to run right now?”

The older man looks at him in disgust. “Of course I don’t.”

“I knew you wouldn’t,” Hugo says in his fawning Joe persona. His gaze moves to the framed art hung next to Timms’s whiteboard with his daily schedule, which hasn’t been updated since we were here on Halloween. Guess Lester’s had other things on his mind.

“If they would just hear me out,” Timms mutters. “Nobody in this clown world is willing to listen to a good man.”

“Too fucking right.” Hugo tilts his head toward The Death of Socrates. “This guy? He knew how it was done. Hounded by a mob. Sentenced to death. And what did he do? He turned it into the most famous argument in history, like a fucking legend. He went out on top.”

That’s it. The mousetrap with the fat wedge of cheese glistening in its jaws.

Now Hugo and I wait.

“Like Socrates,” Timms says slowly. He studies the framed print, unaware he’s looking at a replacement for the one we ruined when we killed his stepbrother. Pell does good work.

“You know, Socrates had a bitch for a wife too,” Timms says distantly.

Hugo snorts. “He didn’t face a fraction of the challenges you did. Mrs. Socrates ain’t got shit on Mrs. Timms.”

I blink at hearing Hugo say “ain’t.” This whole fucked-up night, and that’s what gets me.

Timms goes quiet for a beat, then sags against the wall next to the indent from his fist.

“My buddy’s a bailiff at the courthouse. He said it’ll be any day now. They’re coming for me.” His shoulders drop. “I defended my home and hearth—my queen—from some hustle-bro Chad who thought he could sleep in my bed and fuck my wife. And I’m the one who’s going to lose everything? My life, my legacy?”

His self-pitying whine carries fear along with it, and Hugo lets it hang in the air for a moment.

“Maybe you don’t have to.”

“How?” Timms lifts his head, fixing his desperate eyes on his last remaining friend.

“You can do the apology,” Hugo says. “Do it like Socrates, before they take your freedom. That’s how you get them to listen. That’s how you protect your legacy.”

Timms looks blank, as we feared he might. But Hugo’s prepared to talk him through it.

“They called it an apology, but you and I both know it was a righteous defense,” he says. “It was fire. Socrates laid the truth bare, man, and everybody fucking listened.”

I scoff, playing my part. “Yeah, like apologizing’s going to save him.”

“Like you could ever comprehend the Apology of Socrates.” Hugo sneers down at me before focusing on Timms. “He and I know, though. When Socrates was on trial, he used his speech to offer a defense, and he gave a farewell.”

“Right, yeah.” Timms starts to nod. “I can lay out my truth, and then I’m the one who decides. They can’t take my freedom, not if I go out like Socrates.”

“Fuck, man,” Hugo-as-Joe breathes admiringly. “That’s how you win. Your wife, that lawyer, females like this”—he gestures at me—“they want to castrate you, lock you up. Silence you. But you’re choosing your destiny. You’re choosing to die with your dick.”

Timms straightens, the despair on his face falling away as he glimpses something new: an exit.

“Choose my destiny,” he says almost rapturously. “And die with my motherfucking dick.”

Everything in me recoils at the fire in his eyes, but Hugo’s here, rock solid, holding my wrist. We’re going to walk out of here together.