Jackson, Joshilyn - Never Have I Ever by Jackson Joshilyn

Author:Jackson, Joshilyn [Jackson, Joshilyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

11

The thing that stayed with him, the one thing he knew for sure, was that moment on the railroad tracks. On the way to the clearing, I’d eased us over them so carefully that he’d teased me. Pussy move, Smiff. On the way back, rocketing down the inexorable path that would intersect with Mrs. Shipley, we had taken the tracks at such high speed that we’d soared.

Jumping the tracks was his move. He always jumped them. So he thought he’d been driving.

He’d never questioned it, though he did not remember his hands on the wheel, his foot on the gas. His last clear memory was kissing me. We’d pounded down more wine and smoked more, after, and we’d already been wrecked. For both of us, the walk to the car was little more than a slide show. The drive itself was a black patch with that single airborne moment in the middle. The next thing he remembered was weeping on his knees beside the wreckage.

“I had the keys,” I argued. We’d been over this already. “I got in behind the wheel.”

“But you don’t remember driving.” He said it like a challenge.

“Neither do you,” I shot back, and he laughed, a raw, sad bark of sound.

“You never would have taken the railroad tracks like that,” he repeated, but then he jammed his hands into his hair. “If you’d been driving, I would know. Wouldn’t I?”

“No,” I said. “A lot of times people don’t remember car accidents. The mind blanks out trauma, plus we were hammered. We have to look at what we do remember. I had the keys. I got in behind the wheel. I kind of do remember jumping us, now that we’re talking about it.”

He spun on the stool, his fingers steepled, thinking. When he came back around, he gave me a wistful, wry smile.

“I believe that you believe it. I still think it was me. I knew it was me even when I told the cops that you were driving. I said it because my lawyer kept telling me I was going to get tried as an adult. My mom was freaking out, saying your rich-ass parents could get you out of anything, but I’d be screwed. So I caved. I did what they wanted, and my lawyer leveraged it to get me a better offer. God, I felt almost as bad about that as—”

“Tig!” I interrupted. “We were both kids. We were scared, and we felt so guilty.”

“We both lied to the cops. We both thought we did it, and we both blamed the other.” He didn’t sound angry, though. If anything, he sounded relieved. “It’s like the asshole version of that O. Henry story. Where she sells her hair to buy him a watch chain and he sells his watch to buy her some combs.”

That made me smile. I came over and leaned on the breakfast bar across from him. Closer, but not too close. I wanted to offer comfort, but I kept the solid cabinets and countertop between us.

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