Thicker Than Water Page 4

  If he loses it, I’m going to lose it, too.

  I haven’t thought about Stan hurting. Maybe that’s selfish of me, but he didn’t have the history with her that I did, like my time with her bought me more of a right to this kind of grief. But I’ve been reading his silent pain as a kind of judgmental distance. Maybe Stan is hurting as much as I am.

  I used to have this friend back home, Brendan Pembleton. He caught his girlfriend cheating on him the same day his dad got laid off and told them the bank was probably going to foreclose on their house. I knew what it felt like when life grabbed the ground right out from under you, so I paid this guy I knew to get us a case of beer, and Brendan and I stayed out all night getting shitfaced in the woods.

  I don’t think Stan would be up for that.

  But maybe some of this awkwardness is my fault.

  “Thanks,” I say. My voice sounds thick, too.

  He pulls the ring of keys from his pocket and unlocks the door. As I’m stepping past him, he puts a hand on my shoulder, and I freeze. Stan has never touched me beyond a handshake, and that was the first time we met. His touch feels foreign, and I realize no one has touched me with any sort of kindness since she died.

  Except that pretty girl from the church. Charlotte. I remember her gentle fingers sliding the tie against my neck. I like the memory, but it’s wrapped up in guilt, as if I shouldn’t like anything ever again.

  My head is a mess.

  Stan clears his throat. “I shouldn’t have let Danny take you away from the funeral. I’m sorry.”

  He should be, but I don’t say that. “I shouldn’t have let him get to me.”

  “I was pretty angry at you, causing a scene . . .”

  I turn and shrug his hand off. I try to keep the heat from my voice. There’s no way I’ll repeat what Danny whispered into my ear, but the rage is still fresh. “I didn’t cause a scene. He did.”

  “I know.” Stan pauses. “That’s why I’m sorry.”

  I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say. This is such a backward apology, and I don’t know if I deserve it. I don’t even know if Stan is on my side.

  He runs a hand through his hair. His dress uniform is pressed to the nines, but somehow he still looks rumpled. “I’ll take you out to the gravesite, if you want to pay your respects.”

  He’s not looking at me, but I can tell he expects me to refuse.

  That fills me with that same mix of shame and anger, again, and I want to push past him and storm out of here.

  But I don’t. I don’t want to admit it, but I need Stan.

  I swallow my emotion. “Thanks,” I say, my voice rough. “I’d like that.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHARLOTTE

  I thought for sure my mother would send one of my brothers to come fetch me. Casseroles to serve and cookies to arrange and paper plates to clean up. I know my duties. There’s no reason for me to be sitting at the edge of the cemetery, drowning in the late summer heat, waiting for a storm to arrive.

  I didn’t know Marie Bellweather. Visiting her grave should be awkward.

  It’s not. I’ve been out here for an hour, and there’s a nice oak tree just beyond her gravesite, so I can sit in the shade. The air here is peaceful. Quiet and heavy, promising rain, but not quite yet. My grandmother would have a hissy fit about grass stains and unladylike behavior, but I’m alone, and I really don’t care what she’d think. My earbuds are plugged into my phone, music pouring into my skull. I inhale, and my brain is overtaken by honeysuckle, cut grass, and fresh-turned earth.

  I’m hungry, but I ignore it. If I go running back to the church for food now, Mom will scowl and watch me even more closely. I should still have plenty of time, anyway. Besides, there’s a tube of frosting in my purse for sugar emergencies. Suck it, Mom.

  Almost immediately, my phone chimes with a text.

  Mom: Lunch?

  I ignore her. Honestly. I’m almost eighteen years old.

  A hand brushes my shoulder. “Hey.”

  I jump and scramble and scrape my knees. The earbuds pull free and my phone goes skittering across the grass.

  Thomas is standing there, his hands up. He looks as startled as I feel, but in a defeated way, like his body just can’t generate any more emotion. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, his eyes dark and troubled. “I didn’t know you had headphones in.”

  “Hey. Hi.” My heartbeat chokes me. I’m wavering a little, and I don’t know if it’s the heels, the heat, or the lack of food, but it takes me a second to steady myself.

  Thomas’s tie is gone, but he’s still wearing the suit he had on earlier. It’s rumpled, like the rest of him. His hair is a little mussed, and his eyes shine dark and heavy. His shoulders slump like he’s gone a few rounds with life, and now he’s down for the count.

  My head spins with my brothers’ warnings versus the obviously broken boy in front of me. “I thought—I thought they were keeping you.”

  He shrugs and looks out across the graveyard. His eyes go everywhere except the mound of dirt directly in front of us. “They let me out on good behavior.”

  Is that a joke? I don’t know what to say to that. I feel like I should apologize to him, but I think of how Danny hit the ground. I’m not sure what to offer. I’m sorry you got arrested.

  Not quite appropriate.

  His eyes return to mine. “I missed the whole thing, huh?”

  I can’t exactly say that there wasn’t much of a thing to miss. I nod and tuck a piece of hair behind the arm of my glasses. “The reception is still going on. If you’re hungry.”

  “Yeah.” He gives a bitter laugh. “I heard there’s a party.”

  His tone makes me flinch, and I remember my brothers’ warnings.

  But then he winces. “I’m sorry. That was a shitty thing to say.” He doesn’t sound like he fully means it. Thomas glances in the direction of the church, still avoiding the square of ground in front of us. “Stan went in. He tried to get me to join him, but I don’t want to go in there.”

  I want to tell him that no one would bother him, but that’s probably not true, even if he went with Stan. Not after the little show with Danny. If he walked into the church hall right now, half the cops would put a hand on their sidearm.

  “I’m sorry,” I say softly.

  “You don’t have to be sorry for anything.”

  His voice is sharp, and the words sound more like an accusation than a reprieve. Part of me feels like I deserve it. Another part wants to remind him that I didn’t try to punch Danny, and maybe he can accept some of the blame.

  The smartest part of me remembers that this guy could be a murderer. I clamp my mouth shut, since nothing right has come out of it.

  Thunder rolls in the distance, but Thomas doesn’t move. He squints at me a little. “I don’t want to be insensitive, but . . . what are you doing here?”

  “You and Stan weren’t here.” I frown at him. “I thought someone should be.” My voice is carrying a shred of accusation. I didn’t mean for it to, but it’s hot and I’m tired, and the emotions of the day keep ricocheting around, never settling where I expect.

  Thomas is on edge, so I am, too.

  He takes a long breath and stares out across the graveyard again. His face twists and his breath shakes for a second, but he holds himself together.

  God, I am such a bitch.

  For an instant, he looks like such a little boy, trying not to cry. I want to take his hand. Hug him. Something.

  “I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “You did.”

  “No. I didn’t. You should have been here. Danny shouldn’t have—”

  “Shouldn’t have what? Shouldn’t have dragged someone away from a funeral?” His anger pushes any sorrow off his face. He points at the gravesite. “My mom just died. Your brother is an asshole.”

  Thunder booms, accenting his words. I jump and take a step back. The sky is dark in the south, but
no drops have fallen yet. The humidity is so stifling that I feel a bit woozy.

  “God.” He runs his hands down his face. He’s shaking. “This is so fucked up.”

  I’m so used to knowing what to say and how to act during times of stress—thanks, Mom and Grandma—but he’s all over the map. I’m not sure if anything I say now will come across as sincere. “Do you want me to leave you alone?”

  “No.”

  His voice is so frank, but he doesn’t sound needy. I hesitate. “Okay.”

  He glances at me. “That’s not what I mean. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want her to be here.” He has to clear his throat, and thunder rolls in the sky. Light flashes behind the gathering clouds.

  A storm is coming, but still we stand here.

  “I saw her,” he says. His voice is hollow. “That night. I saw what happened to her.”

  “I know,” I whisper.

  He looks at me. “Yeah. I guess you would.”

  I don’t know what to say to that.

  He looks up at the sky, and I wonder if the sheer force of his fury and sorrow are holding off the rain. His intensity is a force to be reckoned with. Just standing beside him, I feel cold and hot all at once, and I’m beginning to feel like we’ve stepped out of reality.

  “I’m such a coward,” he says.

  “Why?”

  He winces, keeping his eyes on the sky. “I don’t want to remember her that way. I don’t want to remember her this way. I didn’t . . . I didn’t want to see the box. I couldn’t sleep all night. I’ve been dreading it. And now it’s in the ground. No one is here.” His breath catches. “It’s like, for everyone else, it never happened. But for me—”

  His voice breaks and he stops. Anguish is thick in the air, battling the humidity. If Ben heard the grief in his voice now, he wouldn’t suspect Thomas for a second.

  Or maybe he’d suspect him more. My dad always says that grief and guilt often go hand in hand.

  “You were close?” I say quietly.

  He shakes his head. “No.”

  It’s not the answer I was expecting, and it must be written all over my face. He takes one look at me and his eyes droop. “We didn’t go on lunch dates or see movies. I didn’t tell her all my secrets. We weren’t close like that. We were . . . us.” He swallows. “Does that make any sense? She was my mother. It was just me and her, for so long.”

  And now it’s just him.

  I think of my own mother, playfully poking me with the salad fork. She’d beat me upside the head with it if she saw me right now.

  I try to imagine her funeral, and my mind doesn’t want to go there. She and I are close. I can’t even picture it. “I wouldn’t want to see it either.”

  “But you’re here.”

  “Like I said, I really thought someone should be.”

  His face closes down, and he begins to turn away. “Thanks.”

  “No!” He thinks I’m still jabbing at him. I grab his hand, and he freezes. “I meant—I came because it was partly my fault that you couldn’t.”

  He glances down at my hand on his, but he doesn’t pull away. “That wasn’t your fault.” His eyes find mine, and his fingers curl around my own. “You’re the first person who hasn’t treated me like they think I did it.” He gives a quick, humorless laugh, before his mouth tightens into a flat line. “They should have kept me locked up.”

  His voice is dark, and a thrill of fear licks up my spine. My father and brothers would lock me up if they knew I was out here alone with him, talking about the murder. His hand is warm, a weight in mine. I should be letting go, pushing him away.

  I don’t want to. I feel connected. Anchored. His hand in mine feels right, not wrong.

  Thunder rolls again. Another flash of light fills the sky. He hasn’t let go of my hand. In fact, he’s clinging to my fingers. His tension is potent. He’s going to rattle himself apart.

  My phone chimes again. I fetch it from where it landed in the grass.

  Mom: I have a plate waiting for you. Answer me, Charlotte, or I’m sending Ben to get you.

  My heart rate triples, and I nearly choke. If my brothers find me here with Thomas, we’ll both be locked up. Him in jail and me in a nunnery.

  I quickly text back.

  CR: I’m fine. Back in 15.

  “Your mom is overprotective?” Thomas says.

  I snort. “That’s the word I use when I’m being kind.”

  “You need to go back?”

  I should say yes. He doesn’t need me to stay here. He knows where the reception is. He could walk up to Stan and ask for a ride home. My head is buzzing, and I’m beginning to think maybe my mother had a point about lunch.

  Thunder rumbles across the sky. It’s probably going to pour any minute.

  I’ve been standing in silence too long. I need to say something.

  I look up at him, ready to tell him that yes, I need to get back.

  Instead, I hear myself saying, “Want to go for a walk?”

  His eyes widen. Thunder cracks overhead. He’d be crazy to agree.

  But Thomas swallows and nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I’d like that.”

  I leave my purse by her grave. I tell Thomas I don’t want to carry it while we walk—but really, I need a break from the onslaught of text messages.

  We walk away from the grave, heading toward thick copses of trees. There’s a creek beyond the cemetery that widens to form a small lake farther out, before narrowing again to a channel that runs all the way to the bay. The creek is at least thirty feet across, and deep enough to swim. I used to come out here to play with my brothers when I was little. I can still remember trying to keep up, wanting to see frogs and sand crabs before they stirred up the water with sticks and rocks and horseplay.

  The heat weighs on me. Sweat pricks the back of my neck.

  “You know this place,” he says quietly.

  “I used to play here.”

  “It’s quiet.” A raindrop finds my wrist.

  He’s right of course, but I don’t remember it being quiet. I remember my brothers roughhousing, throwing each other down in the grass with mock aggression. Now, there’s no breeze to stir the long grass. The earth is waiting for the storm.

  He’s calmer here, away from his mother’s grave. Maybe he doesn’t feel the weight of her death so acutely when he’s not presented with the aftereffects. We’ve reached the edge of the creek, and the water flows so slowly as to seem still. We could walk farther down, to where it really opens up, but Thomas picks up a stone and skims it across the surface. He achieves four skips before the stone disappears.

  He does it so effortlessly, it seems magical. “Do that again.”

  Another rock finds his fingers, and he flings this one more forcefully. Only three skips, but he gets a lot more distance. Another rock, another throw, another few skips.

  After a moment, I realize his movement isn’t full of magic.

  It’s full of anger.

  Maybe he can hear me thinking, because he says, “Until today, I didn’t realize that everyone still thinks I did it.”

  There’s really nothing to say to that. I can’t even deny it.

  “Including you?” He turns to face me head-on.

  I meet his eyes and hold them. Rain drops appear on his cheeks like tears. If he’s a killer, he’s an attractive one.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  He turns and looks back at the water. The next rock to find his hand is larger, the size of a potato. He weighs it in his hand for a second, his fingers clutching it tightly.

  For a flicker of thought, I imagine him slamming it into my skull. The thought comes out of nowhere, and I stop breathing.

  Then he draws his arm back and throws it, hard, like a baseball. It completely bypasses the creek to land on the other side.

  My breathing sounds so loud that I’m sure he can hear it. I’m sweating. I can’t tell if it’s from the heat in the air or the fear in my mind.

  �
�You’re brave, then,” he says.

  Brave? I can count on one hand the number of times someone has called me brave.

  “I’m not sure anyone in the church would call me brave right now.”

  He finds another large rock and throws a glance my way. “What’s your brother’s name again?” he says. “Danny?”

  “Yes.”

  Another rock sails across the creek. This one flies farther and cracks into a tree, echoing like a gunshot. “On the way to the police station, he said I should get ready for them to give me the chair.”

  I wince. “If they really thought you did it, you wouldn’t be walking around free.”

  I’m probably staking my life on that assumption.

  Thomas snorts. “That has more to do with Stan than me.”

  “Stan’s a good guy.” Then again, maybe Thomas doesn’t think he’s a good guy at all.

  But he nods. “He seems all right. I know my mother was crazy about him. He could have turned me out on the street, but he didn’t.”

  Surprised, I turn wide eyes his way. The horizon tips a little, then settles. I have to blink. “He’s going to let you live with him?”

  “Yeah.” He shrugs. “I’ll find a job, get a place of my own. But at first . . . I don’t know where else to go.”

  Find a place of his own. I rake my eyes over him again. He’s young, but not too young. “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen.” He makes a disgusted sound. “Old enough for them to charge me as an adult, too. Make my life hell.” He studies me. “Are you all right?”

  I lift my hair from my neck and nod. “It’s just hot.” The grass is longer here, and it tickles my ankles. I shift my feet and almost stumble. Damn heels.

  His eyes follow my movement, and he frowns a little. “You’re not drunk, are you?”

  “No!” But honestly, I feel a little drunk. I have this bizarre moment where I try to remember if I left him alone with my drink, and then I realize I haven’t had anything to drink.