Goosebumps erupted all over my arms. Jackson blew out a hard breath and downed the liquor in his glass. Between the wine he’d consumed at dinner and what he’d thrown back since we entered the bedroom, I didn’t know how he was still standing.
He set his glass on the table with a crack and leapt to his feet. He began restlessly pacing back and forth, breathing erratically, his hands flexing, looking like he was on the verge of breaking something or having a serious cardiac event.
He said, “Linc used to tell me I was adopted, that I was abandoned by the side of the road by beggars and left to die because I was so ugly and stupid that not even my real parents wanted me. He said Brig and Clemmy were getting tax credits for taking care of a homeless runt. He said I should just kill myself and stop being such a burden.” His voice broke. “Such a useless, stupid burden. But whenever I complained to my parents, they’d look at each other with sad eyes and sigh and talk about adjusting my meds.”
I wanted to run downstairs and smack them both across the face. How could they treat Jackson that way? He was their son!
“On our fifteenth birthday, our parents threw us a party. Linc got all the attention, of course, and by then I was used to staying out of the way, so I went to the pool house and hid. I guess Linc decided I was embarrassing the family by hiding, because he came to look for me. We argued. It got heated. He called me names, I called him names. He took a swing at me but missed. I stepped out of the way too quickly. He stumbled and fell, cracked his head against the cement coping, and rolled into the pool.”
Now Jackson was talking fast, the words pouring out in a cascade. His body movements were jerky, angry, and he was sweating, his hair sticking to his forehead in dark clumps. His eyes were bright and wild.
“I couldn’t swim. I was terrified of the water because the one time I’d tried to learn, Linc held me under when no one was looking and I almost drowned. So I couldn’t help him, I couldn’t get to him, I couldn’t—I didn’t know what to do.”
He broke off with a sob. I stood, helpless and horrified, already knowing where this was going.
“I ran to get my parents, but by the time they got there it was too late. They found him on the bottom of the pool. Later the doctors said he’d been unconscious when he went in, there was the mark on his face where he’d fallen, and they all thought . . . they thought I . . .”
I pressed a hand over my heart to try to stop its frantic pounding. “They thought you hit him and pushed him in the pool,” I whispered.
He propped his hands on his hips and swallowed convulsively, looking at the floor, his face red and pinched. He was trying not to cry.
“No one ever said that directly, of course. But they never looked at me the same. People started avoiding me. Dozens of kids and their parents were at the party, and from that time on I was shunned. The word got out. You can’t be alone with Jackson. Stay away from Jackson. He’s capable of anything. Then my parents sent me away to boarding school. From there I went directly to college. Which is where I met Christian, by the way, the only real friend I’ve ever had. By the time I came home from college, my parents and I were basically strangers.”
“Oh, Jackson,” I said, my voice wavering. “I’m so sorry. That’s terrible.”
He laughed. It was dark and ugly, one of the most disturbing sounds I’d ever heard.
“It gets better,” he said, and poured himself another drink.
THIRTY
BIANCA
A few minutes passed before Jackson spoke again, minutes in which my heart ached and I fought back tears, thinking how it must have been for him all those years growing up, and ever since. How lonely he must’ve been. I thought now I understood why he was the way he was, so surly and standoffish, but I hadn’t heard the rest of his story.
“Her name was Cricket.”
That’s all he got out before he had to take another swallow of booze. He sank onto the sofa and stared blankly at the coffee table, his face white, his hands trembling, like a man suffering from shell shock.
“Cricket Montgomery. The most beautiful girl in Kentucky, by anyone’s standards. We were in grade school together before I went away, so I’d known her for years. Known of her, I should say. Like everyone else, she adored my brother but never paid much attention to me, but a few years after I came back I ran into her at the public library in Louisville. I used to go there all the time to read and escape all the accusing eyes in this house. One day she was browsing for a book in the aisle near the chair I always sat in, and she recognized me and came over and said hello, even though I was trying to hide behind my book. She was really nice to me.”