Page 165 of This is Why We Lied

“Your mother loved you,” Will said. “I saw the two of you together when we checked in. Mercy practically glowed when you were around. She fought your aunt Delilah for custody. She got sober. She turned her life around. All for you.”

“She wanted to win,” Jon said. “That’s what she really cared about. She wanted to beat Delilah. I was the trophy. Once she had me, she put me on a shelf and didn’t think about me again.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true,” he insisted. “Dave broke my arm once. Put me in the hospital. Did you know that?”

Will wished he felt less surprised. “What happened?”

“Mama told me I had to forgive him. She said he felt bad, that he promised he would never touch me again, but it was Bitty who finally protected me,” Jon said. “She told Dave if he ever hurt me again, he wouldn’t be able to come back up here. And she meant it. So he left me alone. That’s what Bitty did for me. She protected me. She still protects me.”

Will didn’t ask him why his grandmother had never used this same threat to protect her own daughter.

“She saved me,” Jon said. “If I didn’t have Bitty, I don’t know what would’ve happened to me. Dave probably would’ve killed me by now.”

“Jon—”

“Can’t you see what Mama drove me to?” Jon’s voice strained on the last words. “I would’ve just disappeared up here. I would’a been nothing. Bitty’s the only woman who ever loved me. Mama didn’t care about shit until she saw that she’d lost me.”

Will had to weigh his desire for a confession against Jon’s mental health. He couldn’t crush this kid into pieces. Jon would probably spend the rest of his life in prison, but at some point, he would have to look back at what he had done. He deserved to know his mother’s last words.

“Jon,” Will said. “Mercy was still alive when I found her. She was able to talk to me.”

His reaction was not what Will had been expecting. Jon’s mouth gaped open. His face went ashen. His body went still. He’d even stopped breathing.

He looked absolutely terrified.

“What—” Panic robbed Jon of words. “What did—did she—”

Will silently played back the last few seconds of the conversation. Jon had been passive when Will had accused him of murder. What had set him off? What was he afraid of?

“What she saw—” Jon had started panting again, almost hyperventilating. “It wasn’t—we didn’t—”

Will slowly sat back in the chair.

Can’t you see what she drove me to?

“I didn’t mean—” Jon gulped. “She had to go away, okay? If she had just left us alone so we could—”

Mama didn’t care about shit until she saw that she’d lost me.

“Please—I didn’t—please—”

Will’s body started to accept the truth before his brain did. His skin felt hot. His ears buzzed with a loud, piercing ring. His mind spun back to the dining hall like a carousel of nightmares. He saw Dave’s rattled expression when Jon ran out the door. The slow change in his demeanor. The nod of understanding. The sudden capitulation. It wasn’t Jon’s departure that had triggered his confession. It was hearing Bitty’s soft whisper—

My precious boy.

Faith had joked that Bitty acted like Dave’s psycho ex-girlfriend. But it wasn’t a joke. Dave had been thirteen when he’d run away from the children’s home. Bitty had aged him down to eleven. She had infantilized him, made him feel angry, frustrated, emasculated and confused. Not all sexually abused kids grow up to be abusers, but sexual abusers are constantly on the prowl for new victims.

“Jon.” Will could barely get the name out of his mouth. “Mercy called Dave because she saw something, didn’t she?”

Jon’s hands covered his face. He wasn’t crying. He was trying to hide. The shame was punching his soul out of his body.

“Jon,” Will said. “What did your mother see?”

Jon wouldn’t answer.

“Tell me,” Will said.