Meet Me Here by Bryan Bliss Read Free Book Online Page B

But I want her to know that we can build from here. When I come home, we can try this again. It just can’t be tonight.
    I try to breathe, but every breath is hard and ragged.
    Mallory stares at me waiting. But I’m afraid if I open my mouth, I’m going to have to tell another lie. And I can’t do it. Not anymore. I fall back into my seat exhausted.
    “Is this because of Jake?” she asks. I nod, and she starts to say something but stops herself. Then, quickly, she says, “He’s kind of screwed up, right? I mean, I heard things, people saying he was weird now. But people can be assholes, so—”
    I’ve gotten so good at being quiet, at keeping my emotions in check. But when she reaches over and puts her hand on mine, says my name, it’s like a river coming over the banks. The words slip from my mouth like a secret.
    “He is so messed up,” I say. “All he does is sit at the house and watch videos on the computer and eat frozen pizzas and—”
    This is where I usually shut it down. Once, at school, a teacher asked, and I got this far before I started zippering everything closed. My mouth, all the feelings, the fear. Shutting down works because nobody pays attention, not really. For most people, Jake can be both hero and recluse because in that world nobody has to care except for me.
    “Is it because he got shot?” she asks.
    “Honestly, I don’t know,” I say. “The other night I had to go pick him up because he was halfway to Sherrills Ford. That’s like twenty miles away, and he was walking . For no reason.”
    I drop my head. Even now I can’t say it out loud. The only words anyone ever uses— crazy, sick, off— don’t capture what’s wrong with Jake.
    Mallory leans closer to me. “Hey, he’s going to be fine.”
    “I don’t think he is.”
    As soon as I say it, I’m nervous. If Mallory has a reaction, she doesn’t show it. I can’t tell if she doesn’t know what to say or maybe she can’t believe I’d betray Jake, everybody’s hero, so easily.
    “I’m really sorry,” she says, not looking up.
    I thank her quietly. The awkwardness begins filling up the truck by the bucketful until the unmistakable sound of a shotgun discharging rings across the night, immediately followed by shattering glass and enthusiastic male catcalls.
    All I can think is: thank God for Hickory, North Carolina.
    Voices dart across the empty parking lot, around the buildings. The words are muddled nonsense.
    I start my truck because who knows how many beers these guys finished before the firearms came out. Before I can put the truck in gear, Mallory says, “So I’m guessing that’s what your parents were arguing about.”
    I let the truck idle, hoping for another shotgun blast.But nothing comes, so I nod my head. “Of course. Dad says: ‘Jake is tough. Jake’s a man. He just needs some time to get right.’”
    “What does your mom think?”
    “That cookies and cake will solve all the problems.”
    “I’m sure she sees it.”
    “I see it,” I say. “But what does it matter if nobody does anything about it?”
    It sounds harsher than I intend, weeks and months of frustration coming at her like shards of glass. When her phone goes off, she stares at me for three rings before punching the button and lifting it to her ear. The one-sided conversation is loud and angry.
    “Well, stop calling then . . . Why do you care? . . . Fine, you want to know? I’m with Thomas . . . Yes . . . Yeah, we’re making sweet, mad love, Will—what do you think? . . . Okay, I’m hanging up now.”
    This time it’s Mallory who goes quiet. She stares at the notebook still in her lap. We could’ve been sitting there for a hundred years before she says, “All I’m saying is, maybe your parents have reasons for what they’re doing . . . or not doing.”
    “Ho-ly shit . Sin, will you look at this?”
    Wayne Lewis is standing in front of my truck, holding a shotgun and nodding to Sinclair Williams. I’ve known them both