Nothing Left to Burn (28 page)

“No. No, I will not. You treat him like he’s some pile of crap you stepped in. He’s
your
kid. Doesn’t that matter? Doesn’t it mean something to you that the only son you have left hates you so much he’s thinking of killing himself?”

A fire sparked in John’s tired eyes, and he shoved out of the car, forcing me back a few steps. “Does it—of course it means something! I didn’t want this.”

I folded my arms and glared. “Oh. You didn’t want this. Funny how you can say that after you did everything you could to humiliate him. To hurt him. To punish him for what happened to Matt.”

John dropped the cigarette, crushed it viciously with his heel, and laughed without humor. “What happened to Matt was my fault, Amanda. I know Reece thinks I blame him, but I don’t and I never did. I’m the one to blame.” He thumped his chest. “I should have been there. I should have—” He broke off, shook his head, and covered his face with his hands.

“Been a better dad?”

Another laugh. “I tried. I tried so hard.” He dropped his hands and stared at me like he only just then noticed I was there. “You know what? I got things to do. Find someone else to play with.”

He strode into the station house while I stared at the butt that smoldered on the ground, trying hard not to feel like I was the one stepped on and ground out.

***

By Saturday morning, I wanted to run away.

I still hadn’t heard anything from or about Reece. Bear hadn’t gotten any text messages. Neither had Alex. Gage thought I was evil, and even John Logan hated me. Mrs. Beckett woke me to start the chores for the weekend. Stripping beds, laundry, shopping. When we got home, I wanted to go for a run to clear my head.

How did everything get so screwed up? I just wanted to help him, that’s all. It was supposed to be a cakewalk, because Reece has both of his parents.

I didn’t, so there was no hope for me.

Oh God, maybe it wasn’t him I was trying to help at all.

I moved to my window and stared outside. I liked to think I had no ulterior motives—subconscious or not—but it was time to face the ugly truth. There was some sick and twisted part of me living vicariously through Reece. I covered my face, ran my hands over my hair, and blew out a long, slow breath.

That’s when I saw Larry sneaking around the garage.

The garage was at the rear of the Becketts’ property, a huge separate structure big enough for three cars, but it was never used for that. It was Mr. Beckett’s man cave or workshop or something. I wasn’t entirely sure, since we’d been warned repeatedly to stay out of it. He had the usual stuff in there—lawn mower, snowblower, rakes, and all the other gear you needed to keep up a house—so I didn’t see just what was so private about it.

Mr. Beckett was digging a hole at the rear fence for some shrub he was planting. Larry pushed the wheelbarrow into the garage, poked his head out, and seemed satisfied that Mr. Beckett wasn’t watching him. He grabbed a jug of weed killer, shoved it deep under the crap in the wheelbarrow, and headed for the path that led to the front of the house.

I quickly tiptoed to Larry’s room, which faced the front of the house. Mr. Beckett had a small mountain of mulch delivered that now sat in the driveway. But instead of shoveling mulch into the wheelbarrow, Larry took another careful look around, unearthed the jug, and stuffed it at the bottom of the trash can he would drag out to the curb tomorrow night. I tiptoed back to the window in my room. Mr. Beckett was still digging, and there was Larry, showing no sign of the secret mission he’d just executed.

I sank down to the bed, rubbing my stomach where guilt tried to burn a hole. I had to go retrieve that plastic jug.

Whatever was in it wasn’t weed killer.

Which meant…

Reece was right.

Chapter 29

Reece

He was scared, Dad. I could see the wild terror in his eyes, feel it in the way he clutched my hands. He didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to leave me. Me, Dad. Not you. Me.

I twitched in my bed and glanced at the clock for the thousandth time.

“Reece?”

I shifted my gaze back to Dr. Lewis and tried not to stare at the coffee stain on his tie. “No.”

“No, what?” he prodded.

“No, I don’t plan to do myself harm. No, I don’t think I need hospitalization, intervention, or medication. And no, I don’t believe I’m a worthless human being.”

Dr. Lewis tried not to sigh, but I knew he wanted to. He’d been pressing me all day to confide in him. I didn’t know why the hell Amanda showed that note to the chief or my dad. How was this helping me? The only thing it did was scare the crap out of Mom and convince my dad he was right—and land me in this room.

I wanted out of this place so badly, I ached.

Dr. Lewis pulled a pen from the pocket of his lab coat and clicked it. He scrawled something on the chart hidden inside one of those metal covers. “Why did you write,
I’ll be at his altar
? You did write this, right?
I’ll be at his altar until there’s nothing left to burn
?”

I resisted the powerful urge to slam the fucking metal cover on his fingers. “Because I wanted him to know, to grasp in his tight-assed, macho head, that he can’t hurt me anymore. I’m not waiting around for him to figure out he’s not winning any Dad of the Year awards from me. I joined the junior squad to impress him and reconnect with him and make him see me. The LVFD was his altar—his and Matt’s. All that mattered. I stayed because it’s mine now.”

And that was pure truth.

“And what about this—
I’d kill to feel only sad right now
. What did you mean?”

Exactly what I wrote. Jesus, dude. How many years of school did this guy have to take for this shit? “I was sad when I was little. The constant rejection. The connection he had with Matt but not me. It was there. But after Matt died, it was more than just sad. Sad is too small a word to cover what hurts.”

“Does it hurt bad enough to end it?”

I laughed. “Still no, Doc. But nice try.”

I was pretty sure I saw a twitch in his lip, but he controlled it.

“Reece, do you understand why your parents were upset by this note?”

Oh yes. Yes, I did. “No,” I said with a shrug.

“Are you a Nirvana fan?”

Shit.
“Who?”

“Nirvana.”

“Never heard of him.”

“It’s a band, actually. Their lead singer was Kurt Cobain. Ever hear of him?”

“Yeah, he was with that Love chick.”

“Courtney Love. That’s right. He wrote that same line in his suicide note.”

I nodded and shrugged. “Huh. Guess I must have heard that somewhere.”

Dr. Lewis wasn’t buying what I was selling. “You guess?”

“I can’t name a single Nirvana song, Dr. Lewis. I don’t think I could pick out a picture of Kurt Cobain. But I know the name, know the story.” A bead of sweat rolled down my back between my shoulder blades. I slouched lower in my bed and shut my eyes, desperate to be rid of the pimple on my ass that was Dr. Lewis.

The metal cover snapped shut. I opened my eyes to see Dr. Lewis put the pen back in his pocket and stand up. “Okay, Reece. I’ll sign the discharge papers. You can go home, but I want to see you three times a week in my office.”

My eyes swept around the room, and if I’d found a single sharp object, I’d have shoved it through this guy’s throat. I almost laughed. If they found out I was homicidal, what would they do to me then?

Finally, the doctor left, and I let out a long sigh.

“Thought he’d never leave.”

I jerked at the sound of that voice, stunned to find my dad at the door. Damn it, there’s got to be something sharp in this room. “What the hell do you want?” I sat up and crossed my arms.

Dad stepped inside and shut the door. “Wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“Oh, just fine. Some of the other patients are starting a chess club and invited me to play.”

Dad sighed. “Smart ass.”

I jerked at that. I was
never
a smart ass. I was never able to talk to him, let alone mouth off to him…until now.

He walked around my bed, dragged the chair closer, and sat. I shot a glance at my IV. Normal saline. Just my luck. They’d given me some excellent drugs earlier.

The silence between us grew uncomfortable. Impatient, I cocked my head and waited for him to tell me what the hell he was doing here, but he just sat, staring at me.

I stared back. We sat there, him staring at me staring at him, for five minutes, maybe ten, until I cracked. I burst out laughing. I laughed so hard, I couldn’t breathe, and when I finally caught a breath, I gasped out, “Jesus, if I’d known a suicide scare would get you to notice me, I might have actually tried it a long time ago.”

Suddenly, two hands fisted around the ridiculous gown I had to wear, and Dad almost lifted me off the bed. “Don’t say that. Don’t you ever say it—don’t even
think
it, you hear me?” He gave me such a shake, I stopped laughing and looked at him.

Really looked at him.

His eyes were wild. There were lines around them, around his mouth too. Those lines were stark white at the moment. There was a black-and-blue mark under his eye—a mark I’d put there. His eyes bulged, and in them, I saw something I would have bet he’d never felt, never even believed in.

I saw horror.

But why? What was he afraid of? Certainly not the thought of my death. Hell, he’d probably wished it had been me instead of Matt a hundred times.

“Okay. Sorry. Bad joke.”

His hands, still holding me, twitched. “No joke at all, son.”

Son.

That’s twice now. I scanned every memory, looking for a single instance before I joined the squad, but couldn’t find it. The terror he felt lay like an open book in his eyes and in the twitch I could feel through his hands. Maybe I’m cruel, maybe I’m a selfish bastard, maybe I really needed all this therapy that Dr. Lewis wanted to shove down my throat, but it made me happy that I scared him. Not happy in a spiteful way, but happy in a real, down to the bone feeling of joy.

I pushed his hands away but smiled when he looked at his hands like he suddenly wanted to cut them off. “Sorry I scared you. I was just…surprised, I guess.”

His face had turned a sick gray color, so I grabbed the water cup from the table next to my bed and thrust it toward him. He gulped some down, coughed, and managed a grin. “This may be the first time since you were born that you didn’t scream when I touched you.”

What?
My jaw dropped, and it was my turn for the wide eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, Reece.” He laughed once and sipped again. “You were a strange baby. Cute as hell, but afraid of every damn thing. Including me.
Especially
me. You’d scream if anybody except Mom and Matt went near you. Me? You looked at me like I was Freddy fucking Krueger.”

“Come on,” I said and squirmed. Jesus, what kind of kid was afraid of his dad?

“I’m serious.” He dragged a hand over his face. “I couldn’t wait for you to be born. Another boy.” He shook his head with a proud grin. “Matt was great, and I had all these…these plans for camping trips and baseball games for all of us.” He shrugged and lost the grin. “But when we brought you home from the hospital, you screamed every time I held you. Your mom said you’d grow out of it. But you never did. So I stopped holding you. When you were a toddler and fussy with your teeth or if you’d gotten hurt, I made things worse if I tried to soothe you. You screamed yourself unconscious once. Scared the shit out of your mother. Your poor mom was exhausted, trying to take care of you and your brother, and all the screaming and crying you did around me—well, I was your father. My job is to take care of you, to give you what you needed—no matter what it was. And what you needed was for me to keep away.” His voice cracked, and his eyes scrunched up.

I stared at him, feeling like crap. He’d done it
for
me.

“What was wrong with me?” Aunt Sue had always said I was a difficult baby.

He laughed again and dropped his arm. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t let your mom find out. I didn’t want you slapped with some label just so people could treat you differently.” He sat up, stared at the cup for a moment, then turned it around and around. “Except I ended up doing that myself. Exactly that.”

“But I did grow out of it, didn’t I?”

He slid a look toward me, typical smirk in place. “Yeah. You did. That didn’t mean I stopped being afraid. How could I take you fishing or camping without your mom? What if you got hurt? What if you had a nightmare? What if you gave me the Freddy Krueger look again? I couldn’t risk it, couldn’t stand that I did that to you. So…”

“You stayed away.”

He lifted his shoulders, still not looking at me. “When you got older—and weirder,” he added with a laugh that was a slash of a blade, “well, it was hard to connect. You didn’t like sports like Matt.”

“Yes, I did. Still do.”

His head snapped around at that. “Really? What’s your favorite?”

“Baseball.”

“Yanks or Mets?”

“Mets.” Duh.

“Huh,” he said and laughed. It was a real laugh, not one of those sad ones. “I never knew that.”

“That’s because—” I broke off, left the bitter thought unsaid. “Never mind.” He nodded, and I figured he knew what I was gonna say.

“When Matt wanted to join J squad, I thought it would be good for both of you—split you up, let you each do your own things—and it was. You made some friends who were more like you.”

My jaw clenched. “More like me. What the hell does that mean?”
Difficult? Weird? Afraid of every damn thing? What?

He held up his hands. “Smart. I know you won’t believe this, Reece, but when that teacher you had back in, what, third grade, fourth grade? When she told us you were brilliant, I was never so damn proud in my life.”

My face burned, and there was a tug in my chest—a weird clench that took me a minute, a full minute, to recognize as love.

“I scared the hell out of you when you were a baby, and I sure as hell couldn’t teach you anything that would
engage
that busy brain of yours.” He made air quotes to emphasize the word I knew was my teacher’s. “I stayed out of your way. I guess I got good at staying away.”