Trust(28)

“No. Not really.”

“It could have easily been us in the ground tonight.”

“Nearly was,” he said.

“And I don’t know about you,” I said, twisting in the seat, all the better to see his face, “but I’m probably not going to be curing cancer anytime soon. Why do we get to live while they died? It’s all just random.”

“It’s not all random,” he said, his eyes fixed on the road. “It was my idea.”

“What was your idea?”

“That moment, at the Drop Stop, when Chris dragged you to the door.” His eyes flickered over me, his gaze hooded with something that looked a lot like guilt. “I reached out and grabbed the neck of one of the unopened beers. To use as a weapon. Then I looked at Isaac to see if he’d back me up. That poor kid was white as a sheet, but he nodded. Just like that, in that split second, he made the decision to trust me. His drug dealer. Fucking insane, huh?”

“He was a hero,” I said. “You both were.”

“It’s not random,” he repeated. “He trusted the wrong guy, and now he’s dead. Guess that’s how it goes.”

“What about the poor clerk? What did he do to deserve getting murdered?”

“What about Chris?” he countered. “Every step he took since he reached out to take his first hit of meth led him to that Drop Stop. Every choice he made just pushed him farther down that path.”

I frowned in thought, my eyes scouring his face as he watched the road. “Is that why you gave up dealing?”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, gaze shifting from the road to me, filled with guilt. I clamped my mouth shut. He didn’t need me psychoanalyzing him. Both of us had too much of that bullshit in our lives already. And yet . . .

“You’re not what caused that situation, John. You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

He said nothing for a good long time.

Rock music filled the small space, spilling out into the streets as we drove. A female voice sang about the night belonging to lovers.

“What’s this song?” I asked.

“Patti Smith. It’s pretty old. Hell, the car’s probably older than both of us put together.” He glanced at the cassette slot on the stereo, sounding a bit relieved that I’d changed the subject. “But the, ah, the tape’s stuck in there.”

“It’s nice.”

His long fingers tapped against the wheel while the palm of his other hand rested on the stick shift.

“Why do you do that?” he asked, nodding toward the hand I had braced against my forehead. His gaze returned to the road. “Because of the scar, right?”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head. “You don’t need to hide.”

I had nothing.

We drove in silence to the lake. All of the dark and silent little beaches and parks surrounding it were known to be prime make-out places. Of course, it’s not why we were there. In fact, I had no idea why we were there.

“Let’s go,” he said, climbing out of the car and tearing off his T-shirt. What the hell was it with this guy and being half-naked?

Honestly, I just wasn’t sure how much more my heart and hormones could take since the self-love hadn’t worked. One moment I’d been happily picturing John’s hands, John’s mouth. Heat curling down low inside of me. The next, I’d been back at the Drop Stop surrounded by blood, adrenaline crashing through me in terror. Nothing worked anymore; both my body and my mind were against me. I’d wanted to scream, put my fist through a wall. I was disconnected from everything.

“Go where?” I asked, standing beside the car and watching him start in on his shoes.

“Swimming. Come on, there’s no crowd here.”

Oh shit. “But what are we going to wear?”

He just stopped and looked at me.

“Underwear. Right. Forget I asked,” I mumbled.

Half of a moon hung high in the sky. Better than a full one for sure, but still. On my list of things to do, stripping down in front of John did not feature strongly. Or really at all.

“Something wrong?” he asked, stepping out of his jeans. “You’re not scared, are you?”

“No.” Yes.

“You’ve jumped off the rock before, right?”

“The rock?” I looked around, at last taking full note of where exactly along the lake we were. “You want to jump off a cliff into the water in the dark? Are you insane?”

He threw back his head and laughed loud and long. Asshat.

The sound did strange things to me. “You’re serious.”

“Absolutely—hurry up.” His jeans went onto the driver’s-side seat, then he shut the door and leaned back. “I won’t look if it makes you feel better.”

“Shit.”

“It’s okay to be afraid, Edie. You just can’t let it stop you from doing anything.”

I could do this.

No. No, actually I couldn’t.

Oh, God.

Hands shaking, I lowered the zipper and pulled the dress over my head. Wrestled off my boots and socks and stashed it all in the car. Thank God I’d worn a decent black lace bra and plain cotton boy shorts. “Let’s go.”

Grass and dirt beneath my feet and the heavens overhead doing the sparkling, twinkling thing. People jumped off the rock all summer long. It was almost like some rite of passage, to be stupid enough to jump off the cliff in the first place, and then to be a good enough swimmer to get back around to the beach. I’d never felt the need to complete that particular passage.