Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
I suddenly think about my mother. How everything would have been different if she never got sick. How grateful I am she can’t see what I’ve become.
About an hour later, a car pulls up. The driver is rightly skeptical of my appearance and no doubt reaching for the pistol beneath his seat when I stand up from the curb.
“Where to?” he asks, wary of the answer.
“Police station.”
CHAPTER 44
FENN
I’VE LOST ALL SENSE OF TIME IN THIS TINY ROOM. THE PALE BEIGE walls have started creeping in on me, seeming to inch closer every time I blink. My eyes fall shut for a second. A minute. I don’t know anymore. Each time my one good eyelid flies open, another jolt hits the muscles in my face like a taser. My blood buzzes. On a hard metal chair, I sit at a small matching table and listen to the occasional footsteps and muffled conversations on the other side of the door.
When it suddenly swings open, I’m nearly knocked out of my seat by the commotion it brings.
“Fenn, Jesus. Did they do this to you? What happened?”
My father barges in first, carrying two cups of coffee. He places one in front of me, his expression flickering with shock.
I’d nearly forgotten the fight.
“No, it’s fine,” I answer hoarsely, realizing by the dryness in my throat I must’ve dozed off a little longer than I thought. “Just something I had to take care of.”
Dad pulls a chair up to sit beside me, scrutinizing my discolored face. “What does that mean?”
“Unless Fennelly intends to press charges for an assault,” a second voice speaks up, “I’d advise he not say more in this room.”
A man in a crisp, dark suit stands against the door with a briefcase. He nods at a camera in the corner near the ceiling.
“Right,” I say, nodding back.
I don’t need a crystal ball to tell me he’s my lawyer. He looks and sounds like one. Introduces himself as John Richlin, of Richlin, Ellis and Oates. It’s promising that his name is first on the letterhead.
“Tell me what’s going on,” my father urges, more agitated than I can remember seeing him in years. But not mad, strangely enough.
Even stranger is the notion that I just saw him a couple days ago. It feels like a century has passed since I slammed my fist into my father’s jaw.
The memory causes a rush of guilt to bubble to the surface. I don’t know how I’m even able to look him in the eye right now. For the last several years, David’s been a shit father, an absent one. By all measures, he deserves to get clocked in the jaw. And yet I feel sick to my stomach remembering what I’d done.
“Son,” he urges when I spend too long staring at my torn, swollen knuckles. “Whatever it is, I’m here to help. Talk to me.”
When the cops first left me in this interrogation room, I started practicing this conversation, but I never did get to a satisfying version before I fell asleep.
“I turned myself in,” I finally say.
“For what?” he interjects before I can explain.
“Have you given a written confession?” demands Richlin.
Dad raises his hand to quiet the lawyer. “I don’t understand. Tell me what happened. Is someone hurt?”
“Do you remember that accident at prom last year? With the headmaster’s daughter?”
Confused, he searches my face. “The car that drove into the lake.”
Nodding, I proceed to talk them through it. Taking them back to that night, as I’ve relived it hundreds of times since then. I explain how I covered for Gabe. How I suspect he was the one who drugged Casey and left her in her car to die. That instead of telling the truth, I lied for him and hid the evidence.
“I admitted to everything,” I finish. “I gave the police Gabe’s jacket.”
Without a word, Richlin walks out of the room. There’s more muffled conversation in the hallway outside.
“Christ, Fenn.” Dad sighs. “What were you thinking?”
“At the time? I thought I’d talk to Gabe and find out what happened. Get his side of things and help him figure out how to make it right. But then his parents shipped him off to military school and he was gone. I kept telling myself, soon, soon I’d hear from him and we’d get it all sorted out. Only that never happened and suddenly all this time had gone by.”
I look up at him. Embarrassed. Ashamed. Feeling lower than dirt and totally undeserving of anyone’s forgiveness. Still…
“I’m sorry, Dad. I fucked up bad.”
“Hey.” He grips my hands. “Hey, it’s okay. We’re going to figure it out, all right? I’m here. I’m going to take care of this.”
“Why?” I find myself mumbling.
“Why what?”
“Why would you even bother?” I press my lips together, trying to control the wild stinging in my eyes. “I’ve been such an asshole lately. Last time we saw each other, I fucking hit you.”