Collateral Damage

  "There's nothing wrong with being a sheriff."

  And it's like he doesn't hear a word I'm saying—the words I've screamed at him for the last two years. "I didn't say there was! Look, I'm sorry I'm late. I didn't plan on.... Shit! I'm doing the best I can!"

  "Language, Chris," my mom warns.

  I laugh. "Jesus Christ, Mom. I'm twenty-one years old."

  "That's right," Mr. Donovan agrees. "An adult. Perhaps it's time you start acting like one."

  "With all due respect, Sir, I'm sorry I'm late. I'm sorry I haven't been there for Callie with the planning. I'm just trying to do my job."

  "A job you wouldn't have if it weren't for me," Mr. Donovan says.

  A thick, heavy silence descends—a thundercloud settling over my world.

  The muscles in my stomach tighten. The room closes in on me. Sweat prickles against my skin. "You guys are never gonna forgive me, are you?" I ask, glancing from Mr. Donovan to my dad to my mom. "One mistake, and you're never going to let me forget it." I crumple my napkin and toss it on the table.

  Fuck William Donovan. Fuck this table. Fuck this whole goddamn restaurant.

  "You know, I wish you would've stayed out of it," I confess. "I wish I would've taken my chances."

  "Against the state?" Mr. Donovan says, chuckling under his breath. "Do you have any idea what happens to eighteen-year-olds with criminal records? I'll clue you in on a little something. When it's all over, they don't become police officers."

  My chair scrapes the floor as I stand. "Maybe not, but I would've done everything I could to make it right. Even now—I'm trying to make it right. But anything would be better than this—having to defend every choice I make, every action. Anything would be better than owing everything I have to you, and having you remind me every chance you get."

  I push my chair beneath the table and weave my way through the restaurant. I stop at the closet for my bag and jacket.

  I don't have to do this. I don't have to stay here. I don't have to put up with this.

  "Chris!" Callie calls just as I reach my motorcycle.

  I spin around to face her. "What the fuck, Callie? Were you really going to sit there and let him talk to me like that? What do you want from me? I said I'm sorry! I'm sorry tonight didn't work out like you planned. I'm sorry I was late. But I'm not going to sit at that table and put up with that shit. It's not going to happen!"

  Her arms fold tightly across her chest in defense. "Don't act so righteous. You didn't even want to be here tonight."

  "I told you I got here as fast as I could!"

  A couple hurries past, avoiding us, heading for the entrance.

  "I am not stupid, Chris. You don't want this wedding to happen, do you?" Callie asks, voice lower.

  I open my mouth to lie, but it won't come. And now that I have this opportunity—this chance to tell her how I really feel—I don't know what to say. But, in the end, I don't have to say anything. The silence speaks for me. And sometimes it's the silence that speaks the loudest.

  No. I don't want this wedding to happen. It was inevitable. Callie. Her dad. Even without Jaden, this never would've worked. I can't spend the rest of my life with the constant reminder that I'm indebted to my father-in-law—that I owe him everything I am. And Callie? Why didn't she say something? Why didn't she stand up for me?

  Jaden believes in me.

  "That's what I thought," she continues. "I don't understand. What are we doing? What is the point of this?"

  "I love you, Callie," I say, voice lower. "I do...."

  "But?"

  "But...." I trail off.

  "But you don't want this wedding to happen."

  I shake my head. "No. I'm not ready."

  She steps back, laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Good. At least we know where we stand. So, do you think you might be ready next year? Or maybe the year after? We could always wait another four years. Or until we're twenty-eight. Twenty-eight is a great age to get married."

  "Callie, I know. I'm sorry. It doesn't make any sense."

  "No, it makes perfect sense. What's her name?"

  The words—they're like a quick sock to the gut, leaving me without air to breathe. "What are you talking about?"

  "We've been together for four years and we've never had a problem—we've barely ever had a fight. Something—someone—changed your mind. So who is she?"

  "You're accusing me of cheating on you?" I ask.

  "Are you denying it?"

  Am I? Am I really going to stand here and tell her that my heart doesn't belong to someone else?

  Darkness encroaches. Streetlights flicker to life. And her name echoes in my head, hovering unsaid between us. Say it out loud, and I kill Callie. Keep it inside, and I'm the liar I've always been. I whisper the name. This confession. "Jaden."

  Her name is Jaden.

  "Jaden," Callie repeats, considering this. The realization dawns. Her face twists in horror. "Oh my God. Your English partner? That Jaden?"

  "Callie, I'm so sorry. I never expected..."

  "She's in fucking high school, Chris!" she shrieks. "You asshole! Are you serious?"

  "No. It's not like that. Nothing—nothing's happened, I swear!"

  "But something would've happened. You just confessed, first!"

  "I'm sorry. I've been trying to figure this out—to find a way to tell you."

  "To tell me? To tell me? Oh, I don't think so, Christopher Whalen. You do not get to come to me with this confession, telling me you're calling off our wedding. You do not get to break up with me. You do not have that luxury. So, thank you for wasting the last four years of my life, but I'm not going to force you to do anything you're not ready for. I deserve better than that. And I deserve a hell of a lot better than you."

  She slides my grandmother's ring off her finger and hurls it at me. I try to catch it, but it falls anyway, pinging against asphalt, light springing off facets as it bounces under a tire.

  And, just like that, it's over.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  It hurts more than I expect, ending things with Callie. My emotions riot, turning a million directions during that long ride home. I'm sad—Callie was my entire world for four years. I'm relieved—the burden lifted. It wasn't the right time. She wasn't the right girl. I'm anxious—worried I've ended a good thing too soon. Callie was a mistake. Breaking up with her, a mistake. I've made nothing but colossal mistakes my whole life. She's right—she deserves better. I deserve better.

  But it didn't really end tonight—it ended a long time ago.

  It ended the day she found that ring.

  It ended that night at the police station—handcuffed to a steel bar, waiting to make that phone call.

  It ended the day Jaden McEntyre brought me a bag of Sun Chips. The day she first smiled at me—really smiled at me.

  Because love is unpredictable. Love has the worst possible timing. Love takes no prisoners. You fall and it's over. And if it doesn't work out...it's still over.

  My apartment is too quiet when I arrive, feels emptier than it should—emptier than it already is, with its vacant bedroom and bare white walls. I change out of my dress clothes and heat a can of vegetable soup on the stove. I eat. I try to focus on homework, but my brain refuses to cooperate, worthless. My thoughts won't stop spinning, my head hurting, a single name repeated over and over and over again.

  Jaden.

  It already feels like a thousand years have passed since she pressed her forehead into my chest, that I felt her body against mine, that I wrapped my arms around her. And suddenly I have to see her. I have to know what happened when I left her this afternoon. I have to know she's okay.

  It's 11:36. If I hurry, she might still be awake.

  In minutes I'm back on my bike, headed for Bedford.

  I park a few blocks from her house and slink through the darkness. It's not nearly as cold as before. Spring is here. Those cloudy winter days are almost forgotten. A memory.

  If Ethan could've
made it to spring, everything would've been different.

  I reach her yard, passing through shadows, and climb that oak tree for the second time. I remove my shoes, but take them with me—grasping them between fingers as I jump to the roof. I suck in an anxious breath and hold it.

  If anyone sees me, I'm finished. Jaden is finished. And I'm fired.

  I tread softly across the warm shingles, moving toward the front of the house—to her room.

  Please be awake.

  I kneel, crouching low, and tap the windowpane.

  What if she can't hear me?

  What if she's not in her room?

  What if this isn't her room at all?

  I knock again, louder this time.

  A moment later, she draws the curtain aside. She smiles at me from behind the glass, and my heart stutters, missing a beat or two, as relief washes over me.

  I point up, signaling the attic, then slip to the other side of the house, climb on top of that dormer, and wait.

  It feels like forever before the window finally lifts, before she grabs my shoes, before she hisses, "What are you doing here?" as I climb inside. But there's a smile in her voice. She's happy I came. She's glad I'm here. She wanted to see me as badly as I wanted to see her.

  "I would've called, except I don't have your number," I whisper. "That complicates things." As she lowers the sash I'm struck by the thin pajama pants slung low on her hips. The stripe of skin visible just above the elastic. The tank top hugging every curve. I rip my eyes away from her, focusing on boxes. Old furniture. Shadows of things crammed into corners. Anything but that bare skin.

  "It wouldn't have mattered, because I'm not allowed to answer the phone ever again," she says.

  She got caught.

  "I figured. How bad was it?" I take the beanbag chair this time, and Jaden sits on the floor beside me, wrapping her comforter around her shoulders even though the attic is still warm from the afternoon sun.

  "Honestly? I've never really been in trouble, so it was bad...but it could've been worse, I guess. I have nothing to base it on."

  "What are the terms?"

  "I'm grounded for the rest of the school year. I can't go anywhere with anyone, or do anything. No fundraisers or walks...no phone calls. Oh, and I'm never supposed to see you ever again," she adds.

  There's irony here, somewhere, in that I just called off my engagement to be with this girl, and she's forbidden to see me. "That bites. Good thing our project is almost due."

  "Are you finished?"

  "No. You?"

  "No."

  I'm not exactly sure where this conversation can go from here.

  Hey. I drove thirty minutes to see you. I broke up with my fiancée—called a whole wedding off—because I think I might be in love with you.

  "So, um, are you grounded or anything?" she asks.

  Grounded.

  There's a safer topic.

  But still, I have to stop myself from saying the first thing that pops into my head: Why would I be grounded?

  Because I remember the lies. It doesn't matter that I'm free to feel whatever I want to feel for this girl. I'm still undercover. I still have a job to do.

  I swallow back a frustrated sigh.

  Relax, Whalen. It's only for a few more weeks….

  "Nah. I got home expecting hell, but the old man wasn't there. He didn't say anything about it tonight, so I figure he doesn't know, or doesn't care. Tomorrow I'll just forge a note saying I was sick or something. My absence won't even be unexcused." I force a smile.

  "You are so lucky."

  I'm lucky, all right. I'm lucky that none of this matters. That I can skip school if I want. That I can fake my own notes. I'm lucky that my job requires lying to people who matter every goddamn day—this job that I owe to my ex-fiancée's father when my own dad was ready to hang me out to dry. "That my dad doesn't know enough to realize I skipped school? Or the fact that he might know but doesn't care?"

  She bites her lower lip.

  "You're lucky, Jade. Lucky to have people around you who give a shit. Don't ever underestimate that." A pervasive silence descends. I can't do this anymore. I can't handle another night in this attic talking about me. I don't want to make things up to keep the conversation flowing. Or try to remember stories I've told (or haven't told) before. "So...what did they say about Harvard?" I ask, changing the subject.

  "Nothing. I couldn't do it."

  "You have to tell them," I insist.

  "I know." She groans, feels her forehead. "I just...I don't know how, or what to say. It's not the right time."

  "If you're waiting for perfect timing, you're gonna be waiting a long time," I say. "There is no such thing, even. You just do what you have to do and hope for the best." It's nothing—this news. It's disappointing, yes, but it's not getting a phone call in the middle of the night to come pick your son up from jail disappointing. It's not having to buy your son a new suit for his court appearance disappointing. "They love you, Jade," I remind her. "They aren't going to be mad at you, or disappointed, despite what you may think."

  "I know." She shifts closer to me, body leaning against the beanbag chair, chin propped up with her free hand. "It's a good thing our project is almost over, I guess," she continues. "No more hanging out in the library. Or ditching school."

  She's right. Our project is due soon. But something in her words—her tone—sends a chill skittering up my spine.

  She doesn't want this to end any more than I do.

  "We can always have a third floor rendezvous," I remind her. "They can't take that away from us."

  But she doesn't seem to hear what I'm saying—she doesn't get it. She doesn't get that I don't want this—us—to end, either. She fidgets with her fingernails, and, watching her—this black cloud hanging between us—I realize it doesn't have to be this way.

  I'm sitting with Jaden McEntyre, for God's sake. She would never tell anyone—my secret would be safe with her.

  I could make her swear not to tell anyone about what she knows. I can be honest with her. For once, I can be truthful with this girl. I can tell her who I really am. How I feel. What she means to me.

  "How did you know I'd be up?" she asks, interrupting my thoughts.

  "I had a hunch you'd have trouble sleeping. I figured I could at least keep you company."

  Her lips twist into a smile. "Admit it," she says, pleased. "You like me."

  I laugh, feeling the heat in my cheeks, thankful for dark shadows and pale moonlight. "I'm not admitting anything."

  I can't admit I like this girl. I more than like her.

  I want her. I want to kiss her. I want to sleep with her. Not have sex with her—though God that would be amazing. I want to sleep with her in the same bed. I want to share the same blanket. I want to wake up with our bodies tangled together in the sheets, my arms wrapped around her, chest to chest, sharing a single heartbeat. I want her eyes gazing back at me forever.

  Those sexy, sinful eyes.

  "You wanted so badly to hate my guts, and you can't do it. I think it's awesome." She leans in further, teasing, flirting.

  "I didn't want to hate you. I just didn't want to like you," I clarify.

  A humming energy radiates from every turn of her body—the Jade I imagined crawling out of my dreams. My eyes drift to her lips, heart kicking to double-time.

  "There's a difference?" she asks, eyebrow lifting as she inches closer.

  I shiver with anticipation, knowing this is what I've been wanting from the moment I met this girl.

  "Like you wouldn't believe," I whisper, just before her lips reach the edge of mine. And as sweet and as gentle as it is—as long as I've waited for this kiss to happen—it's not enough. Not anymore. I slide my fingers through her silky hair, pull her into me, and our lips connect, sending fiery jolts of electricity coursing through my veins.

  The tiniest gasp escapes her mouth, and I'm completely undone.

  My lips travel to her cheek, her jaw line, to
the curve of her ear.

  Her fists tighten around my jacket, and before I can think, breathe, react, she's on the beanbag chair with me, straddling my lap. It rustles beneath us. Shifting. My hands slip beneath her tank top, feeling her smooth skin, the small of her back, as she hovers over me, lips crushing mine. It's like, everything she's held back for the last eighteen years come alive. The kisses deepen, and I melt beneath her.

  Damn. This girl owns me.

  She runs fingers through my hair, down my neck, setting my skin on fire in her wake.

  I sit taller, slide the strap to her tank top aside, and gently kiss her shoulder. She leans into me, neck tilting. My heart flips nervously, accelerating.

  She wants this.

  I want this.

  I want her.

  God. I want her. I want her so freaking bad I can't think. I can't breathe. And I can't think or breathe or.... Because there is no one else. There is nothing else. As long as this girl is in my arms, I have every fucking thing I could ever need.

  She tugs at my leather jacket, so I shrug my arms out of the sleeves and toss it to the floor. I pick her up and her legs tighten around my waist. I lower her to the comforter crumpled beneath us.

  I pause, hovering over her, lips inches apart.

  Are you sure?

  Her eyes find mine in the darkness. She sucks in a quick breath. "I think...I might...." Her voice—the words are like music.

  I think I might love you, too, Jaden McEntyre.

  I lean in slowly, heart beating out of my chest as my face bends toward hers. Her eyes close as I brush her lips with kisses, as I slide the hair away from her face, my fingers dancing across her skin.

  She pulls at my t-shirt, so I grab the collar and yank it over my head.

  And when I do her eyes widen in something that might be horror. "Oh my God," she chokes. She wriggles beneath me, struggling to sit up. "Parker. What happened to you?"

  I glance down at my chest.

  The bruises.

  And I don't know if it's because she called me Parker when I have always been Christopher. I don't know if it's because it finally hits me—what's about to happen. I don't know if it's because of the welts spread across my chest, still healing.