Secrets & Lies by Nicky James

Author:Nicky James [James, Nicky]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Creed

THE OVERLY LARGE T-shirt he’d given me to wear smelled like him, and I dipped my chin, inhaling, wishing I could draw the collar up over my nose without it being weird. He sat as far away from me on the couch as he could get. Dark eyes watched my every move as he waited for me to talk.

“Toby’s a good guy. Not all cops are. Most of them were assholes to me. They couldn’t understand why he was so insistent on helping me. At first, we just met for coffee or lunch a few times a week and talked. I told him about Mom and Grandma and Grandpa and gave him the gist of my life at home. He listened. Never judged. I tried to explain about my head being a mess and the bullshit at school because my teachers hated me and thought I was disruptive. I was suspended a lot for fighting or acting out. I don’t know… Toby just seems to understand me. Or he tries to, which is more than anybody has done with me to date. He never gets mad. When I’m feeling agitated or low, he makes me laugh. He tells these stupid jokes. Like really dumb ones no one ever laughs at. But because they’re so dumb, I can’t help it.”

“Like you told me at the bar?”

“Yeah. Those were his. Default, I guess. He taught me a lot about handling myself when things feel unstable. He knows it’s hard for me to get my words out when my head gets all mixed up. He doesn’t push. He waits. He knows how to bring me back down.”

I drew my knees up and wrapped Dad’s T-shirt over the top of them, hugging my legs tight, encasing myself inside its big size. With my chin on my knees, I glanced at Dad. His forehead was creased, and his lips were pulled tight.

“What?” I asked.

“Was he… Did this Toby guy want something else from you? Was that why he was so nice?”

It took me a second to understand his train of thought, then I laughed. “No. God no. He’s not like that. Toby is straight. He has a girlfriend. Fiancée, actually. They’ve been dating a few years. She hates me, but that’s beside the point. He’s just an honest-to-goodness decent person. He encouraged me to take this anger management course. I didn’t want to at first, so he said he’d go with me if I tried. That led to other classes. When I got kicked out of school for good, he helped me register to get my GED online. But it was too hard. I can’t focus well, and I get overwhelmed. We worked together on it. He sat with me many nights, talking me through the exercises, explaining them so I understood.”

“Did you finish?”

“No. I was getting there. It was taking so long I was getting discouraged. Then I told him I was leaving.”

“Did something happen to set you off?”

I shrugged. “Mom and I had it out again.

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