Through the Mirrorball by Browatzke Rob

Author:Browatzke, Rob [Browatzke, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2015-04-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 32

His blond hair was cropped off. He had packed on muscle since the last time I had seen him, but it was almost too much. He looked swollen underneath that hideous orange jumper. Is this what regular people thought, when they came to visit people in prison? That no one could look good in such a shade of orange? Or was it just me (faggot faggot faggot)?

When he saw us, there was a brief confusion on his face, one that morphed into a sneer, before fading into passiveness. Steven clenched my knee under the table, and I let out the breath that caught in my lungs when I saw Nathan. He sauntered across the room and sat down across from us, sitting on the chair backward, cocky as always.

“Well,” he said. “When they said I had visitors, I sure didn’t expect it to be the two of you.”

“Who else, Nathan?” Steven said. “You made it pretty clear when you were holding me hostage, there’s no one in your life.”

Nathan’s expression shifted. Gone was his arrogance; in its place was a sudden panicked confusion. I smiled at Steven. He had my back. And then I realized how hard this must be for him. Yes, Nathan had been trying to get to me, but Steven had been his pawn. Steven was the one he had kidnapped and tortured. Steven was the one who could have died.

Not everything was about me.

It was a simple realization yet a profound one, and it clicked inside me. Not just regarding Steven, but also with Nathan. Maybe confronting him head-on wasn’t the way to get either cooperation or a confession. Maybe I needed to see what it was like for him, and reach him that way.

“Look, Nathan, we’re not here to fight.”

“Why are you here then?”

“How are you doing?” His shock at my simple question was matched by Steven’s.

“How am I doing? Really? How the fuck do you think?”

“I really want to know.”

“You don’t fucking care.”

“I do. I know that what you did, it wasn’t all your fault. I know—”

“You don’t know! Don’t pretend you know! Don’t pretend like we’re friends.”

“I’m not, and we’re not . . . but we were, once.”

“Until you touched me with your disgusting faggot hands.”

“I didn’t know what he’d done to you, Nathan. I didn’t know what he’d let them do to you.”

“Look, I don’t want to talk about this.” He stood up. “I get enough therapy from the prison shrink, okay?”

“Sit down, Nathan,” Steven said. “Alex, just ask him.”

“Ask me what?” Nathan sat back down.

“I’m sorry for touching you. I’m sorry for shooting you. But this needs to stop, Nathan. You can’t keep harassing me, harassing us, like this.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Alex?”

“The picture. I don’t know how you got it to me, I don’t know who you got to deliver it, but who else could it be from, Nathan? Who else would do that?”

“What are you talking about? I don’t know anything about any picture.”

“Nathan, look.” Steven stood up now.

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