Page 42 of Crossing the Line

Up in Smoke

C.C.

I was going nuts in that house. The urge to grab a bottle and forget it all was the only thing I could think about. I didn’t want to go back down that road. Patrick had helped pull me out of the trenches, and I had no interest in going back.

I put up with it half the night, the clock on my wall said it was after ten, but I didn’t care.

I couldn’t stand it anymore.

The thought of her seeing me in that kind of light was too much. And yet, watching her torment play out in the parking lot was ten times worse.

I had to figure out who did it. I had to make things right with her. I’d felt so normal with her and Oakland. I felt like I had a future, a chance maybe at something.

I fired up the bike and tried to practice what I meant to say once I arrived at her house. By the time I pulled up in the driveway, I’d forgotten every word.

She looked so vulnerable up there on the porch by herself.

I half expected her to get up and go inside, but she only pulled her shawl tighter around herself.

“I thought I’d come check on you,” I murmured, clearing my throat a bit before I went on, “I don’t disbelieve you. I know someone in my club threatened and likely hurt you. If you’d only give me the name, I’d never let him forget that mistake. I promise you, Breanna–”

“Promises are cheap, Cole. My family, on the other hand, is priceless.”

“I know, why do you think I want to be a part of it?”

She stared at me, not saying a word for several moments.

“Your club led my son down a path that ended with him in a jail cell.”

I shook my head as apologetically as I could, “No one ever wanted to see Victor in jail. Hell, they wanted him for his muscle. The intimidation factor of a big southern boy like him. He killed someone that broke into his dorm room, Bren… I– The disciples have no dog in campus fights, you gotta believe me. That had nothing to do with us.”

“How hard would it be to imagine ya’ll did?” she meekly asked.

I inhaled, unable to deny that my club likely qualified as part of the one percent.

“Not hard at all. We’d end any threat to our person, or the people we love. There is nothing we wouldn’t do to assure their survival, either.”

She nodded like I had made her point.

“That was one of the things that Patrick said we had in common.”

The anger left her pretty face, and I didn’t interrupt the silence that followed.

“I don’t want to say. I just want to forget it. I want to forget Illinois, I want to forget that stupid diner, and that filthy man.” She sighed, all the frustration pouring out of her, “And yet, if I tell you then everyone knows he got the best of me. That I lost.”

“Give me a chance to give you the best of me and see if that ever happens again.”

“I can’t think right now, Cole. I can’t–”

“You don’t have to answer me right now, just say you believe me, and let me make things right.”

She burrowed into her shawl and stood up. I didn’t try to stop her as she walked past me, I knew she needed space.

The fact that she hadn’t asked me to leave or called the police was reassurance enough. I let out a heavy breath and moved to the swing. She hadn’t asked me to leave, and I wasn’t done with the conversation.

She was worth waiting on.

I closed my eyes and let the lullaby of the crickets carry me to sleep.