Page 70 of Try Me
“Don’t think I’ve ever done that one. So you’re a hiker, now, huh? I thought you’d take me to get something pierced. Tattooed.”
“I don’t have any tattoos,” I pointed out.
“Yet,” he teased, and then rushed to catch up with me as I started down the path.
“I used to come out here to smoke with friends.” Everyone had at our school. Cigarettes, pot, vapes, whatever. But sometimes we just hung out, too. A Thursday or Friday afternoon you’d spot Hawthorn Prep plaids all over the trails in various states of deshabille, skunky smoke filtering through the tree leaves. “But then after the shit with my dad went down, I’d just come out and run the trails because it was the only time I—” I stopped myself. “Because it was quiet.”
A subdued breeze moved through the forest, and the farther in we got, the more the air changed, became sweeter and damp-smelling from the rainstorm the day before. I liked just walking with Mark, being aware of his presence at my back or alongside me as we roved, and I guess he felt the same, because when I’d glance over at him, he’d give a smile I didn’t know what to make of. It was a fusion of shy and devious, and it made my stomach swoop just as much as the rolling hills we’d climbed and descended earlier.
When he started walking faster, I did, too.
When he started jogging, I did, too.
“Kidding me right now, Farrow?” I huffed out from behind him. Trust him to turn anything into a competition. I was all in, though. He was definitely in better shape than me, but I managed to power forward and overtake him. I’d been a point guard, after all. I shoved him to the side of the path and motored on.
We raced down the packed dirt, jostling each other and laughing like idiots between insults until I veered us onto a smaller, overgrown trail and we burst into a clearing that led to a bluff.
“Fuck,” I panted, bending over, hands to knees as I caught my breath. Mark leaned against a tree and made a show of buffing his nails even though his chest was heaving, too.
I dropped down onto a big rock studding the loamy soil. Silver Ridge sprawled below us. At night, it looked like a reflection of the sky, and I made a mental note to bring him back to see it sometime. He probably had already, but not with me. Fuck, maybe I needed to curb my enthusiasm some before I started writing him terrible poetry. I chuckled at the thought, and as Mark found a spot beside me, he plucked a leaf from my hair, showing it to me before asking, “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” The way we sat with our knees tucked near our chests reminded me of the night at Kacey’s when Mark had found me near the water’s edge. “What were you doing that night at Kacey’s down by the dock?”
“Looking for you.” Mark chuckled. “Wasn’t that obvious?”
I shrugged. “We hadn’t spoken off the court in…how long before that?”
“A long time.” He rolled one shoulder and rested his cheek on top of his folded arms. “I’m sorry about all that. I mean, how I treated you. I should’ve…I don’t know. Should’ve done…something.”
I laughed softly. “You let me in your room a couple months later and jerked me off. That was helpful.” Mark grimaced, but I hadn’t meant it as a dig. I’d felt crazy that night, like I was going out of my head, my thoughts running rampant, my skin too tight. The lights and the noise and the cars outside had shrieked. Focus came in shards and fragments, and my heart wouldn’t stop pounding. I thought if I didn’t get away from all of it, I’d explode.
I wasn’t supposed to leave my house, but I did. I had to. I hadn’t meant to go to Mark’s, though. I hadn’t been aiming for any place in particular, but somehow I’d ended up below his window, chest constricted, eyes burning. Then I’d started climbing, each careful maneuver steadying me and easing the tension inside me. “There was nothing else to do,” I told him. “I wanted to hate you. I did for a while, I think. I don’t know. I couldn’t make it last.”
“Same.” Mark nudged his shoulder against mine with a wry smile. “You really want to be a lawyer, huh?” he asked after a stretch of silence.
I tugged on my shoelace. “It wasn’t some passion choice at first. I just picked the highest-paying, most secure thing I could think of that I also might actually be good at.”
“You do love to argue.”
“I do. And then I thought—” I paused. I’d never said this to anyone before, though it probably wasn’t a stretch to imagine. Still, the idea of admitting it aloud made me feel vulnerable. Everything made me feel vulnerable lately. “I wanted to be able to understand all the stuff my dad would be dealing with in the future. Yeah, he’s got a pro bono lawyer, but the guy is shit. And maybe that’s what my dad deserves. It’sprobablywhat my dad deserves. But he’s still my dad and I don’t want him to get taken advantage of, even though that’s exactly what he did to other people.” I had to look away from the compassion in Mark’s gaze in order to continue. “It’s a total mindfuck to try to wrap my brain around. Some days it feels black and white, and other times he’s still the guy who taught me how to ride a fucking bike. Let me play in all his cars and never told me to be careful or acted like it was a big deal. Took me every year to that hot-air balloon festival because I liked to watch them fly.” Mark’s thigh pressed against mine, and he looped an arm around my bent knee. The casual contact was more reassuring than anything he could’ve said. “Every time I go see him, he looks older.”
Mark made a sympathetic sound. “I’ve always been…I never wanted to ask because it made me feel like a jerk.”
“I usually go visit once a month. It’s weird as fuck. Surreal. Last time I was there, I asked him outright if he did all that shit. I never had before. I mean, I know what the court said and I heard the evidence, but shit, people have been framed before and I guess I thought as long as I didn’t ask him directly, in my head I could keep hoping that he hadn’t done it. That sounds fucked-up, right?”
“Nah. It sounds normal.” Mark peered up at me, and I knew he wasn’t gonna ask even though the curiosity illuminated his eyes.
“He did. He did everything they said he did. In a way, I was glad I asked and he admitted it. In a way, it was a relief.” All my life, hope had been made out to be this aspirational thing. A good quality. Something to grasp onto. But there was a dark underbelly to a hope held too long. At some point instead of lifting you up, it dragged you down.
“I always liked your dad,” Mark mused. “I still can’t believe it sometimes.”
“I’ve been trying to make sense of it forever. I can’t. I don’t think I’m gonna try anymore. He’s not a sociopath. He didn’t beat or abuse me or neglect me. But he was a shitty human being to a multitude of other people. They don’t teach that in ethics class. How a person can be so many fucking polar opposite things. It scares the shit out of me. Makes me wonder if I…” I swallowed back more words I’d never had the courage to say aloud, afraid that somehow by putting them out there, it might be true.
“You’renot.” Mark squeezed my shoulder. “You’re definitely not like him.”
“How do you know? You seemed convinced a couple of months ago.”
Mark closed his eyes and grimaced, rubbing that spot between his brows he favored when he was perturbed. “That was different. That was…confusion. Something else. I dunno. Fuck, I feel like shit about it. Youshouldhate me.”