Burn It Up(116)

“Well, yeah.”

“He was only human. We both were. He was weak, and I was curious. I only wanted the attention, and to know what sex was like, and to feel wanted by a father figure, maybe, because my dad was so cold and strict.”

“But he was still the adult,” Casey said. “The one with enough years and sense to say no.”

“You can make that argument, but I wasn’t the innocent one in it, either. I have that energy that does something to certain men—makes them want to save me. And even at that age, I knew it.”

He nodded grudgingly, letting her know he knew what she meant but didn’t like it.

“It attracts both savior types and also some real creepers.”

Casey smiled. “Which am I?”

She eyed him, curious. “I’m not sure. You tell me.”

He replied after a long moment’s consideration. “For me, it was never about that. It was partly about you being as pretty as you are, but I mean, when we met, you weren’t exactly an easy target—you must’ve turned me down two dozen times. I think it was just your smile, or your eyes. Both. And how you laugh. Wanting to make you laugh. It was never about thinking you needed saving or protecting.”

“Or corrupting.”

He shook his head. “Nobody winds up in Fortuity because they’re innocent. Well, almost nobody.” He glanced at the baby. “But anyhow, what happened with you and the preacher?”

“We carried on for six months or more, and I got in real deep with him. I thought I was in love, and maybe I was. It’s hard to know, at that age. I was so caught up in the feelings, I started losing track of my values—and I was a God-fearing girl, let me tell you. But I got this idea in my head that he’d leave his wife and we could run away and escape my stupid hometown and all those awful, small-minded people, but of course he told me that was impossible.”

“So?”

“So I told his wife. In my imagination, I thought that would drive them apart, and he’d have no excuse not to be with me.”

“But what actually happened?”

“She went a little crazy. I think she meant to just sweep it under the rug, but then she lost it in the middle of the Sunday service during a sermon he was giving about temptation. She stood up and screamed to the entire congregation what had been happening. The whole town was there.”

“And you ran away because you were humiliated?”

“Not entirely. I ran away after . . . I ran away because a week later, his wife killed herself.”

Casey’s face fell. “Jesus.”

She nodded, tears welling anew. “I’d felt awful after she told everyone—like everybody was either looking at me as a slut or a child-abuse victim. With pity or contempt. But after she committed suicide, I realized, in this massive, suffocating rush, how selfish I’d been. And reckless.” She paused then, registering what she’d just said. Selfish. Reckless. Those unforgivable crimes she’d been holding against Casey. “I realized how blind I’d been, when all that time it had felt like some big romantic drama. She’d never been a real person to me. A real person trapped in the same oppressive community I’d grown up in, with a real life I was destroying.” Her voice broke, shoulders beginning to shake.

“Hey.” Casey touched her arm, rubbing it softly, up and down. “It’s okay. You were fifteen. We’re all sociopaths at that age.”

She shook her head. “Yes, but my actions killed somebody, Casey.”

“If you want to blame yourself, you have to blame the whole goddamn town, too—the sort of culture you guys all lived in. People don’t just end their lives because their marriages fall apart. She had problems of her own, I promise you.”

“It’s hard to see it that way.”

“You can argue it all you want, but I could just as easily argue that your preacher seduced you. You have to cut yourself some slack. You were a kid, wrapped up with what sounds like some seriously messed-up adults. He was the one who should have known better. He was the authority figure, and three times your age, too.”

She heaved a sigh, the noise catching on sobs.

“Anyhow, we could argue about it all afternoon, but I don’t want to. Just tell me how you got from fifteen to twenty-two, and here.”

“I was sixteen by then,” she corrected, and blew her nose.

“Hey, you want a beer?”

She glanced up with raw eyes, frowning, unsure. Alcohol had never given her trouble like heroin had. She’d always hated the taste of it.

Casey didn’t wait for her answer. He disappeared and she heard the noises in the kitchen, and when he returned, he had the necks of two bottles pinched between his fingers. But he stopped on the threshold, frowning, and promptly turned around like he’d changed his mind. When he next appeared he held two clinking glasses, whiskey on ice to judge by the amber color.

“Cheers,” he said, forcing a tumbler into Abilene’s hand.

“To what?”

“To everybody messing everything up, all the time. Everybody.” He tapped her glass with his. “Now, go on. You’re sixteen.”

“I was sixteen . . . My parents were talking about sending me away to a boarding school or maybe even this Christian place, a religious mental ward basically, because I hadn’t stopped crying in days. I heard them talking about it. I’d just gotten my first car that summer, and I packed a load of clothes in the middle of the night, and I drove away. I had some money I’d saved from babysitting. I got the ID in Fort Worth, and I stayed there for a little while . . . I won’t lie, the next few years weren’t good.”