Page 82 of False Start

Everyone in our little suburbs knew about that party. Everyone knew something had happened, though the parents were tight-lipped aboutwhatexactly. All I knew was that come the following weekend, Kyle and his parents were gone. They’d moved.

Or had they been run out of town?

“That’s an old story that I don’t think we need to dredge up,” she said.

“Please.”

Mom looked away from me, tucking her hair behind her ear. “No one even wanted to go to that party, if I’m being frank,” she started. “The Robbins liked to think they ran that town, and because of the money they had, I guess they did in a way. They helped a lot with the church and the PTA. They were the first to step up and donate whenever we had a cause. But…Lord,they were a pain to be around. Lynette had the backbone of a salamander, and Michael…”

She looked at me in the way that said she didn’t need to finish that sentence — and she really didn’t. I knewexactlythe kind of man Michael was. He was well respected in the community, a leader at the law firm he was a partner at — the one my father worked at with him — and a seemingly stand-up guy.

But he was also a hot-tempered man with a short fuse and a bad drinking habit.

He was like Marshall.

I shivered a bit, nodding for Mom to go on.

“The first bit of the party was fine. The food was great, drinks were flowing. But we were all kind of biding our time until it felt like we’d stayed long enough to make an excuse to leave. The kids left around eleven — some of them going to a sleepover while others headed home or out to meet up with their friends. Kyle was the only one who stayed.”

I swallowed.

He’d asked me to be there, but I hadn’t been ready to face him. I hadn’t been ready to tell him I was pregnant.

And I couldn’t be around him and pretend I was fine.

I’d tried to be normal around him that week at school, but he knew something was off. He kept begging me to talk to him, but I needed time to process. I needed to figure out whatIwanted, what I would say when the time came.

“About an hour later, your father and I decided to leave. We went to say goodnight to Michael and Lynette.” Her eyes lost focus. “Michael was drunk — which was par for the course. We tried to laugh it off when he said we were losers for leaving so early. But then he got mouthy with your father, something about work.” She went a bit green then. “He seemed to be insinuating that your father was having an affair with someone at the office.”

“He would never!”

“I know,” she said, holding up a hand. “I knew then, too. But Michael thought it was hilarious. Your father shoved him a bit, which made Michael laugh, and then he grabbed my ass and said a crude comment about how if I werehiswife, he’d be too busy to stray.”

I gaped at the screen.

“He…what?”

Mom nodded, letting out a long sigh. “It all happened so fast after that. Kyle stepped in, trying to get his dad to calm down and go upstairs.” She paled. “Michael wound up and hit him right in the jaw with all of us watching. I can still hear it.”

She covered her lips with her fingertips, and I mirrored her, shaking my head.

When he came to school on Monday, he had a split lip that was crusted over and healing. I remembered it now, that detail that I had catalogued before being overrun with heartbreak when he’d turned away from me.

“Everyone was up in arms. We threatened to call the cops if Michael didn’t go upstairs and sleep it off.”

“Did you? Call the cops, I mean?”

“We weren’t going to originally, but later, we just couldn’t stand it. We got home and couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened. But when your dad called, I guessed someone else had beat us to it. The cops were already on their way, showed up about an hour after the party ended, according to the Moores.”

The Moores had lived across the street from Kyle.

I blinked, wetting my lips and trying to process it all. “What happened when they came?”

“No one knows. Clearly, Michael wasn’t arrested. No one pressed charges, or anything. But we were all pissed — obviously. We had plans to talk to Michael and Lynette about stepping down from their positions in the church and with the PTA. But then…”

“They left.”

She nodded, her brows softening as she watched me take it all in.