Bully (Fall Away, #1)(25)

She poured more coffee for herself. “Well, I met someone a few months ago, and I stay with him a lot.

I raised my eyebrows in surprise, and she must’ve seen it. She shook her head and gave me a contrite smile.

“I guess it sounds bad,” she offered. “Me leaving Jared alone so much. Between my job, his school and job, and then all of the things he’s involved in, we just don’t run into each other a lot. I figure he’s happier on his own more and well…”

Her over-explanation and inability to finish her thought said more about her disappointment over her relationship with her son than anything else.

And why was he so busy that her being home was unecessary?

“What do mean ‘all the things he’s involved in’?” I asked.

She knitted her brows. “Well, he works at the garage a few days a week, races, and then has other obligations. He’s hardly ever home, and when he is, it’s just to sleep usually. But, I do keep tabs on him. When I bought us both new phones for Christmas last year, I installed a GPS app on his so I always know where he is.”

Okay, that’s not weird.

“What other obligations did you mean?” I asked.

“Oh,” she said with a nervous smile, “around the time you left last year, things got pretty bad here. Jared was out at all hours. Sometimes, he didn’t even come home. My…drinking…got worse with the stress of Jared’s behavior.” She paused and shrugged her shoulders. “Or maybe his behavior got worse with my drinking. I don’t know. But I entered rehab for about a month and got detoxed.”

Since I’d lived on this street, eight years now, Jared’s mom had had a drinking problem. Most of the time she’d been functional, able to go to work and handle Jared. After he came back from visiting his dad that summer three years ago, he’d changed, and Jared’s mom had sought escape in the bottle more often.

“He got into some trouble, and then he got it together. But steps needed to be taken, for both of us.”

I continued to listen, unfortunately too interested into this rare peek of Jared’s life. She still hadn’t explained the “other obligations”, but I wasn’t going to pry further.

“Anyway, a few months ago I started seeing someone, and I’ve been staying with him on the weekends in Chicago. Jared has a lot going on, and I just don’t feel like he needs me. I stay here most school nights, but he knows to stay out of trouble on the weekends.”

Yeah, instead of taking his debauchery elsewhere, he brought it home with him.

Some people might see her reasoning as logical, since Jared was almost an adult, but I let my judgment form. As much as I liked her, I blamed her for a lot of Jared’s unhappiness growing up.

I didn’t know the whole story, but I’d heard enough to figure out that Jared’s father wasn’t a good man. He had left when Jared was two, before I even lived in the neighborhood. Katherine raised her son almost completely alone, but she had developed a drinking problem during her marriage. When Jared was fourteen, his father called and asked if Jared could come and visit him for the summer. Happily, Jared agreed and left for eight weeks. After the visit, though, he returned cold and cruel. His mother’s problem got worse, and he was utterly alone.

I’d always known, deep down, that Jared’s problem with me was tied to that summer.

The truth was I resented Katherine. And even though I’d never met Jared’s father, I resented him, too. I would take responsibility if I’d hurt Jared, but I had no idea what I could’ve done to deserve his hatred. His parents, on the other hand, had clearly abandoned him.

It was one the tip of my tongue to ask her about his scars, but I knew she wouldn’t tell me.

Instead, I asked, “Does he see his father?”

She glanced at me, and I instantly felt like I’d invaded Top Secret territory. “No,” was all she said.

***

The next day in first period, I sat taking notes about linear approximations when I got a text from K.C. Covertly sliding the screen to bring up the message, I completely lost my attention to Calculus.

Jared texted me last night.

I swallowed hard. Before I had a chance to respond, she’d sent another message.

He wanted to make sure I was o.k. See? He’s not all bad.

What the hell did he want with her? K.C. was pretty. Definitely. She was also my best friend, and that had to factor in somewhere with him.

I texted back: He’s up to something!

Maybe, maybe not. was her response.

That was the last I heard from K.C. until lunch. Physics, P.E. and French passed in a blur as I fought the urge to text her again.

“Hey,” she said as we met in line to grab our lunch.

“Hey, so talk to me.”

“Well, like I said, he texted to see how I was doing, and we exchanged a few more texts after that. I just thought it was nice that he checked up on me.”

She thought he was nice? We exited the line after paying and made our way outside, while I tried to sift through how the hell K.C. went from agreeing with that Jared was a dick to thinking he was “nice.”

“Well?” I was trying hard to seem like I didn’t care. “What could you two have talked about after that?”

“Oh, not much…other than you cut the electricity to his house?!” She laughed it off, but I could tell she wasn’t as amused as I thought she’d be. Maybe she was pissed that I didn’t tell her myself.