How to Save a Life(20)

After a short silence, Evan said, “Where is your dad?”

“He died in Afghanistan when I was two.”

“Damn. I’m sorry, Jo.” He shook his head, his expression pained. It wasn’t pity—I can smell pity from a mile away and it smells like dog shit. Evan’s tone sounded like regret. Like he’d arrived at the scene of a disaster but it was too late to help.

“Yeah, well, what can you do?” I leaned my elbows on my knees. “So…What about your family?”

“Not much to say there.” He smiled wryly. “Why? What have you heard?”

I smirked. “Plenty. Rumor-mongers can suck it.”

“Yes, they can,” he agreed, and his smiled turned genuine. The air between us warmed and I sort of wished I’d brought a bathing suit to swim in.

“What about your real parents?” I asked. “Do they know where you are? Do you know who they are?”

He shook his head, and the heaviness in his eyes I’d seen when I first arrived returned. “No. They left me at a fire station in Halston when I was three. I got bounced around to a bunch of foster homes until the Salingers took me in three years ago.”

Another vision bloomed in my mind, and this one hurt—all thorns. A little blond boy, wandering alone into the driveway of a firehouse. Crying and confused and maybe calling for his mama…

I’d like to be a firefighter.

I flinched and pretended to be swiping away a mosquito. “Have the Salingers officially adopted you?”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t seem much different from foster kid limbo. I mean, I have their name now, but I feel like a guest in the house. A guest who’s overstayed his welcome.” He pushed off from the wall again, to the middle of the deep end. “Jesus, that sounds pathetic, doesn’t it?”

I shrugged. “I get the picture.”

“I think they plan to cut me loose at the end of the year, too. Except Harris needs me. He’ll probably kick me out of his house and then offer me a job right after.”

“Can he do that?”

He shrugged. “I turned eighteen last month. He’s got no legal reason to keep me. I don’t think he was onboard with the whole adoption in the first place. Norma’s idea. But Shane is too sick and Merle too stupid to handle the business, so I’m useful to him.”

“But you won’t stay in Iowa,” I said.

“No. I’m leaving no matter what.”

No matter what. My brain unhelpfully offered up some math: twenty-two days left until graduation.

I inwardly scoffed. So what? He’s leaving, good for him. You’re going to have your own problems to deal with in twenty-two days. What do you care what Evan Salinger does or doesn’t do? So what if he leaves and you never see him again?

Yeah, so f*cking what?

I kicked at a dead leaf too close to my lounger and looked up through my hair to see Evan still treading water, still watching me.

“What?” I said.

“The thing I told you earlier, about what I’d lost?”

“Yeah?”

“I was talking about…a remnant. A scrap of paper that was left with me at the fire station. It was pinned to my shirt. A note with my mother’s handwriting, I think.” He nodded to himself. “No, I know it was her writing.”

“What did it say?” I asked, my hard voice broken down to a whisper.

“Take care of him, please. Please. It’s the only thing I had from my real family. It doesn’t sound like much. Just a scrap of paper. But it was everything to me.”

“And it’s lost?”

“Shane burnt it up. This morning.”

I felt like I’d been punched in the gut, and the air around me felt fifteen degrees colder. “He burned it?

“Yeah,” Evan said dully. “He sure f*cking did.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s an evil, bitter little shit,” Evan said, his voice rising. “I let my guard down for one f*cking second…” He shook his head. “But it’s gone and done and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“I’m so sorry, Evan,” I said quietly.

He nodded and moved back to the edge of the pool, resting his forearms on the cement. “She wrote ‘please’ twice. She did. My mother…she cared about me. To write two pleases? It has to mean she cared, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, it does,” I said, blinking hard.

“Two pleases,” he said.

“It means something. It really does.”

He nodded and mustered a smile, pulled himself back together with a few breaths. His pain was miles deep. I could feel it, and instead of making me uncomfortable or embarrassed, I wanted to drop kick it far away. At that moment, I’d have done anything to make it go away. But I couldn’t. I had no words and no time machine to go back and stop his awful brother.

I could only change the subject.

“So what’s with the breath holding?”

He smiled gratefully. “It’s just something I’ve always needed to do. It’s like training.”

“Olympic breath-holding? Is that a thing?”

His smile widened. “I’m not trying for a world record. I just like to do it. I need to do it.”