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Everything. But I’ll start at the beginning. “When did he start hitting you?”
Jace keeps his gaze forward, his entire demeanor stoic, giving away nothing. For minutes that feel like an eternity, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. I should ask him to leave, give him the space he so adamantly needed over the past couple of days. Just when I open my mouth to tell him as much—he says, still looking ahead, “When I was twelve… I think he waited until I was big enough to hit back.”
“So why don’t you?”
He slowly turns to me, his empty eyes meeting mine. “Because I can take it. He can’t.”
“Just because youcantake it, doesn’t mean youhaveto.”
“Harlow…”
“I’m sorry,” I fume, shaking my head. “I just don’t get it, Jace. Youlethim hurt you, and it’s almost as if you want to protect him, which is bullshit. Does everyone around here know?”
“They assume,” he mutters.
“And what? They’re just okay with it?” If Jace can’t be angry about this, then I’ll carry enough rage for the both of us.
“They knew himbefore,” he says, sighing, as if that’s answer enough. It’s not. And now he’s acting as if I’m in the wrong here, and I’m not. I’m sure of it.
“That’s not enough of a reason to?—”
“He wasn’t always like this,” he cuts in. “You don’t know him. You don’t know his life or everything he’s been through.”
“Then explain it to me!”
Jace shakes his head, pushing out a frustrated breath. “He was a kid once too, Harlow. An innocent little kid who had his entire future ahead of him. You think he set out to be a violent drunk? That’s how you see him, right?”
“I…” I don’t know what to say.
“You can’t imagine his level of pain… You can’t know what it’s like to go from an innocent kid who grows up, marries someone he loves, has a baby girl, and then a few years later, loses the love of his life to cancer… You don’t know how hard the decision was to give up his career in the military so he can raise that little girl, all on his own. And you don’t know what it’s like to have the amount of kindness in your heart that he did. To meet a twenty-two-year-old homeless man struggling through life, and his only thought is to protect him. To bring him into his home and put a roof over his head. And that same man falls for the girl he raised, the one he poured all his love into, and they have a son. Hisonlygrandchild. He built a house for them so they’d never have to go without, and he spent his days watching this perfect little family thathehelped create, and then one day… one day…” he trails off, the pain in his words palpable. “You don’t know, Harlow,” he struggles to say. “You can’t imagine what it’s like to wake up each and every day and the first and only thought on your mind is that it’s allyourfault. My grandpa does. He blames himself for what happened, and the drinking is how he copes with it.”
“I’m sorry, Jace.” I’m the first to break. The first to shed tears. The first to fall apart at his words. “I shouldn’t have pushed this…”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” he says, sniffing back his heartache. His arms come around me, holding me close. “But I understand where you’re coming from. If anyone laid a hand on you, I’d set the world ablaze, but you… you can’t judge my grandpa’s character by his actions, Harlow. He’s in pain. Just like your parents, just like you. Like me. And that pain… that pain is the price we pay for love. You and me—we’re just victims of loving the right people through the wrong times, all with the hope that there’s light at the end of the darkness.” He wipes at my tears, then kisses them away. “If I let all of this get to me—the stuff with my grandpa—then I let the darkness in, and I let itwin. And trust me, I’ve come close more times than I can count, but… ever since you came along, it’s been easier to push it away. You’ve been my hope at the end of darkness, Harlow… and if we’re going to survive this, then I need you to belight.”
51
Harlow
I wait until there’s a gap in the conversation before clearing my throat. Opposite me, and almost in sync, Dad and Jace look up from their finished meals, questioning. “Y’all see the elephant in the room?” I ask.
“Elephant?” Jace looks around the kitchen. “Where?”
“It’s a metaphor,” Dad tells him, and bless his cotton socks for being the sweetest, most patient man. “For when there’s something that needs to be discussed, but no one’s willing to do it.”
“I know,” Jace says with a chuckle. “I’m just messing with her.”
“Oh.” Dad laughs too. “Good one.”
I sigh.
Jace had a meeting with Louisiana State University earlier, and he’d asked my dad to go with him, along with his coach. I’d waited all afternoon for them to return with some good news, or at the very least, an iota of information. But they arrived with bags full of groceries, talking about video games, and immediately started on dinner. Neither has mentioned a word about it, and usually, I wouldn’t ask, but my curiosity is getting the better of me.
Besides, it’s January now. Christmas has come and gone, bringing inthe new year, and I’m starting to worry. Most athletes of Jace’s caliber commit to colleges years in advance. The schools with the best basketball programs already have their slots filled, especially ones that come with full-ride scholarships, and Jace—he’s acting as if he has all the time in the world to make the biggest, most crucial decision of his life.
“LSU’s a great school, right?” I edge, because if I don’t say something, I doubt anyone else will. “They have an amazing athletics program. Nine current NBA players came from there…”
I’m met with silence, and so I look between the two men in my life. Jace lowers his gaze while Dad offers a reassuring smile. And I don’t know what any of this means. “Did they not offer a scholarship, or…?”